N. A.

BERDYAEV

Concerning the Will of the People

What is the will of the people? Where is one to seek its true expression and
embodiment? Here is a question, which assumes at present an extraordinary acuteness.
Having suffered, lacerated by a will foreign and strange, our people thirsts to live by its
own will, through the self-accomplished expression of its will, by its self-accomplished
embodiment in forms of a political existence. Here already for a long time has
everywhere been heard, from the various ends of the land, the outraged will of the people
letting loose with an outcry, resolute, constant: we demand the universal, equal, direct
and secret suffrage right to vote, we demand a constituent assembly. This outcry
signifies, that the people has aspired to an accomplished embodiment of its will, that it
admits of only its own authority. Western Europe has worked out for this instance
slogans and abstract formulas, by which we also express our needs. Woe to whoever
admits even one part of a formula, in declaring a complete expression of the will of the
people. And in the tumult of our days, in the furies of these days but few ponder over the
problem, of what is the people, and in what is its will and power of authority.

We live in a very intense, a very responsible moment of our historical existence.

The avid and searching glances of all the land had been fixed upon the Duma, and
everyone felt, that this was the vessel, in which should be decanted a portion though of
the people's will, that here finally it would be gathered, that here finally, would be heard
the will of the people.

And yet amidst this from all sides they have chipped away at the Duma, from the
left and from the right, they refused on principle that it should be a true representative of
the will of the people. For both the one and the other of them they have no idea, in what
is the true will of the people, for some of them -- it is the Red Hundreds, and for others --
the Black Hundreds. The only content of will that they acknowledge as of the people is
what they wish for themselves, and this points already to a profound antinomy of the
perception itself of the will of the people, to the possibility here of a contradiction
between form and content.

The left have said, that since the Duma is not a true popular representation, it
therefore does not express the will of the people, because it is gathered not on the bass of
an universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage of having a voice. By this is established a
purely formal, an as yet bereft of content, indicator for the defining as to what the will of
the people is, and in what is its true representation. Political democracy, in declaring
formal signs for the expression of the will of the people within representative institutions,
assents the truth purely in the negative. The four-part democratic formula of the suffrage
right to vote is better than any limiting in the right to vote, with the predominance of any
portion of the will of the people, whether of class or condition, with any coercive
obstacles to the expression of the will of all the people in the selection of their
representatives. But there is yet nothing positive in political democracy, and it futilely
attempts to set out a fortuitous, mechanical, arithmetic result for delimiting the will of the
people. In political democracy the will of the people is the product of a quantitative
combination, the adding up and deducing out of individual wills; in these quantitative
combinations vanishes the qualitative aspect of the individual will and thus does not
obtain the qualitative aspect of the will of all the people. The parliamentary form is a
characteristic product from a critical period of history, when everything becomes
disjunctive and fragmented, when a people ceases to live an organic life and ceases to
possess its own organic will. Our epoch is gravitating in its own abstract political
existence towards a full and total rule by the people, -- this is an utmost, endpoint idea of
societal radicalism. They set off from the total will of the people (universal, equal etc
voting right), and they arrive at a total ruling power of the people (a democratic republic).
Let us analyse the concept of "people's-sovereignty" ["narodovlastie"] and then will be
exposed the falsity of the very path to people's-sovereignty, since neither an arbitrary
human will nor a godless human rule of power ought to hold dominion over the earth.

And first of all I shall point to the ineradicable opposition between people's-
sovereignty and the rights of the person. People's-sovereignty, as an utmost sovereign
principle, cannot guarantee the person his inalienable, unconditional rights, since it puts
the fate of the person into dependence upon the arbitrary, subjectively-mutable will of
people. If the human will is made a god of and neither admits of nor loves anything
higher than itself, then also there cannot be talk concerning any absolute values, such as
might establish the unconditional significance of the person, nothing inalienable is
demonstrated concerning it, and its rights are apprised according to expediency. Freedom
of conscience possesses an absolute significance and not in the name of anything can it
be taken away from a man, if it be bestown by a will supra-human, Divine and not
dependent upon human caprice. Posit freedom of conscience as dependent upon human
caprice, on the will of people, and its sanctity will be completely violated. J. J. Rousseau,
from whom comes the teaching about a total and consistent people's-sovereignty, did not
admit of freedom of conscience. The French Revolution, having attempted to establish a
cult of the goddess of reason, tended to deny freedom of conscience at every step.
Freedom of conscience has been violated by almost all revolutions, comparable in this to
reactions, and its sanctity cannot be grasped by people with a pathos for people's-
sovereignty, just as slaves under a single-power have not known it. The Social Democrats
not merely once have declared, that freedom of conscience, and freedom of the word, and
every right based upon freedom will be taken from the person, if this be needful for the
interests of the proletariat, if the proletariat should want this so.

The human person discovers his freedom and its rights obtain an absolute sanction,
they are endowed with an inalienable worthiness, if there be repudiated making a god of
the human will and there be respected the supra-human will, the will of God. The highest
will has willed freedom for man, has established the absolute inalienability of his
freedom of conscience and his other rights, and no human sort of will is empowered to
take away this freedom, to infringe upon the Divine within man. When however the
person and his freedom are made dependent upon the will of people, when sovereignty be
naught else than human-power, then the person loses its absolute character, and its rights
to freedom fall in becoming subject to capricious human passions. And thereby the
subjective will of the proletariat, or of the tsar, or of some other human ruling-power can
deprive the person of the freedom of conscience, and the right to life, and indeed of every
right. There is nothing absolute, nothing precious, nothing untouchable in its inner
significance, if the world be surrendered to a ruling-power which is subjective,
capricious, mutable, before which there be nothing higher for the human will to bow.
Pure people's-sovereignty is the making of the human will into a god, it surrenders the
history of the world over into the grip of human desires, whatever they might be, it gives
recognition to this human ruling-power in all its formal emptiness of content, it splits
apart the will of the people (the form) from the righteous-truth of the people (the content).
In this people's-sovereignty is a continuation of the matter of human self-power, begun
with an acknowledging of he sovereignty of the state, -- a self-willed human invention,
with making a god of the tsar, i.e. involving yet again human wills. People's-sovereignty,
-- a total autocratic democracy is the selfsame bowing to an earthly governance, a state
positivism, as is the deifying of an unlimited single-rule power, an absolute Caesarism, so
hateful an autocracy for us. Both in an unlimited single-rule power and in an unlimited
people's-sovereignty the will is only human, arbitrary, capricious, and there is made a god
of, in the first instance, -- the will of one, and in the second -- the will of all. And to
Universal Reason needs to be limited, to be subordinated, not only the will of one or of
several, but also the will of all people, since he human will, limited by nothing,
subordinated to nothing, cannot arrive at freedom and world harmony. The fate of the
world has to b subordinated to objective ideas, to a material, and not merely formal
righteous-truth, issuing from a will supra-human, and not from subjective desires, empty
of content in their self-sufficiency and self-smugness, issuing but from the human will, be
it the will of one, of many or of all. Only in the universal, the Divine character of the will,
such as governs the world, can there be the guarantee, that the significance of the person
should be absolute, independent of anything temporal, that its rights be inalienable, that
its freedom be posited higher than upon human usefulness and arbitrary human desires.

The idea of the rights of man, of the freedoms of man, is the expression of an
universal, supra-human, reason-endowed will, and not by chance has the declaration of
rights arisen in England upon religious a grounding. Liberalism in a pure, in an ideal
form, contains within it an indubitable truth, but one yet still formal, bereft of real content
and real footings, and therefore in its strivings to assert an absolute formalism, --
lawfulness, it leads to falseness, in which decays the spark of God's rightful-truth of
governance.

The realm of formal governance, the realm of law, as utmost in the world, not only
leaves everything hanging up in the air, dissociated from the living bosoms of the earth,
but also in its "abstract" form it becomes transformed into something evil, inhuman and
godless. The rule of law, possessed of a wellspring supra-human, proceeding upon the
path of an abstract, formal "legality" in fatal a manner becomes subordinated to the state,
in having a wellspring human, the changeable will of people, and the loud bustle of
human interests which drown out the supreme voice, declaring the freedom of man. The
formal truth of governance (objective idea) only in union with the real truth of love can
offer resistance to the unbridled power of the state, to the unlimited human will, declaring
itself sovereign.

Social Democracy has introduced great improvements into the formula of people's-
sovereignty, it has detailed and made concrete the concept of "the people". For Social
Democracy the true people is the proletariat, and perfected people's-sovereignty is
proletarian-sovereignty. But the full triumph of the proletariat abolishes classes, and the
victorious proletariat is transformed into the sole mankind. The deifying of the
proletariat, so characteristic for "the idea of the fourth estate", is the deifying of a future
mankind yet to come, acknowledging the sovereignty of is human will and denying all
supra-human values, denying the will of Universal Reason. Through the consummated
people's-sovereignty -- proletarian-sovereignty, the fate of the world will be entrusted
ultimately to the human will, to the human subjectivity, to human desires, from which by
way of arithmetic combinations will be deduced the will of the sovereign people-
mankind. Will there be a triumphing of freedom, will there be fortified the unconditional
significance of the person, will there be the acknowledging of its inalienable rights? Will
there be attained a perfected expression of the will of the people? In an unlimited, and
subordinated to nothing higher, people's-sovereignty is extinguished both the person, and
so also the people, and there is attained neither the rightful-truth of the person, nor the
rightful-truth of Sobornost'-communality. Everything precious will be dependent upon
the subjective desires of people and everything will have to be subordinated to their
mechanical sum. And in this mechanical sum, -- a new Leviathan, is revealed neither the
image of the person, nor the image of the people.

Social Democracy involves one contradiction, very dangerous for the developement
of democracy and very instructive for us. It proclaims the principle of the will of the
people, it reveres universal the equal etc suffrage right to vote, in people's-sovereignty it
sees its political ideal, but not every, even though formally perfect, aspect of the will of
the people does it tend to subordinate itself to. Social Democracy would boycott the most
complete representation of the will of the people, if such were not to be endowed with the
proletarian-socialist quality, if it did not make the object of its strivings the triumph of the
"idea of the fourth estate". Thus bespeaks the Social Democratic thirst to surmount
formalism, to transition over to the content of the will of the people, to its objects. But the
frightful thing is in this, that the content of the Social Democratic religion shows itself to
be a forever entrenched formalism -- the deifying of the will of a future mankind yet to
come, loving nothing higher, and the objective "idea" of this religion -- is empty of
content. Social Democrats have to be subordinate to the will of the people, since they
know of nothing greater, nothing higher, than people's-sovereignty.

There mustneeds be surmounted the emptiness of content of the will of the people,
the formalism of people's-sovereignty. It is time to admit, that the essence of the matter is
not the will of the people, but in rather the objects of this will, in the objectives, to which
it is directed, in the ends of this will. Only a sobered will is striving to an end, directed to
that, what is higher and greater than it, whereas a will, directed upon itself, locked up
within its own human limitedness, asserting only itself -- is lacking in content and empty,
and leads to non-being. A mankind making a god of itself, worshipping its own human
welfare, is a nothing, non-being. The human will only then becomes infinitely of content
and full, if it has as its own objective end a worldwide All-Unity, the plenitude and
harmony of universal life, when it catches sight of God in itself and over it and has the
desire for Him. In the history of the world the human will came into being, when it was
imbued with ideas and values, when it aspired to supra-human objectives, to a meaning
worldwide, and otherwise came to non-being, when it made a god of itself, nowise
aspiring to anything greater, than the human, nowise thirsting for All-Unity, having
turned away from the One. And in the name of the person, of its content and freedom, it
is necessary to disavow the self-involved deifying of the human will of the person, of a
sovereign human power and instead devote oneself to the Divine-Power, in forever
asserting the idea of the person itself, with the absolute grounding of the value of its
freedom of conscience, its freedom of the word, its free self-determination.

But what indeed is the people? Avidly they seek to find the true representation of its
will and they do not know, wherein is this reality, which they term the people. The people
is not a class, nor an estate. The people is not and cannot be in an arithmetic combination
of people's individual wills, in mechanical a combination. The people, as a reality, is a
certain mystical organism, is a communal-assemblage unity with a single object of the
organic will, with a single love. The mystical organism of the people is difficult to find in
the critical and fragmented epochs of history, and in them the organic will of the people,
the organic love of the people gets replaced by an arithmetic, a mechanical quantity. The
people's-sovereignty with all its representative institutions is also a substitute for the
organic will of the people, wrought through a fatal necessity in an irreligious, critical
epoch. The genuine will of the people, the will of the mystical organism always possesses
a content, always has valuable objectives and only because it is a communal-assemblage,
what it expresses is not the quantity of human wills, but rather a new supra-human quality
of will, what it wanted is the All-Unity, a free worldwide harmony, that in it be given the
triumph of subjective wishes with objective ideas, objective righteous-truth. In this sense
the genuine will of the people is the will of God, is a will not arbitrarily-human, but
rather supra-human and of reason. Before the will of the people ought to fall down every
human power. Where however is to be sought the embodiment of this will of the people
-- this will of God?

Its perfect and objective embodiment is possible only in religious Sobornost',

religious communality, in the uniting of people in the name of God, in the Church. only
in the Church, and not in the state, does the will of the people find itself an adequate
expression and conjoin with Divine-Power, whereby mankind comes to be of God-
manhood. Concerning the Church, concerning true religious Sobornost'-communality we
do not dare to speak self-assuredly and self-confidently, we yet know too little, we only
seek and have presentiments. Bt we know already, that we have to choose this path. We
know, that it is necessary to subjoin the human will to objective values and ideas, to
conjoin subjective desires with worldwide righteous-truth, to delimit people's-sovereignty
by rather the unconditional significance of the human person and its freedom. The human
will has to become enkindled with love and reverence for sacred things, the centre of
gravity has to shift from a will humanly-arbitrary, empty of content and self-sufficiency,
to a will absolute, infinitely of content and universally liberative, and the formalism has
to be overcome by realism. The declaration of the rights of man and citizen was already
an expression not of the human will, but of the Divine, and therefore only therein do the
rights of man obtain with absolute a significance. In this -- is the non-arbitrary truth of
the teaching about natural truth. It is necessary to go further the path of explicating in the
world the supra-human will, to strengthen and to sanctify these aspects of the world
liberation movement.

In our -- alas -- tranquil State Duma, certainly, it would be impossible to seek for a
perfect will of the people and not only because, that it was convened not on the basis of
universal etc voting rights. It is not a true representation of the will of the people, since
that it is not Sobornost'-communality, the unity of the supra-human, since the people
itself as it were is not seen. The people is not a combination of social groups, is not a sum
of individuals, the people -- is an objective spirit, a supra-human organism, reflected also
in Russian literature and in national creativity.

The people -- is an insoluble mystery and we thirst to be in communion with it. Yet
only bits, only fragments of the will of the people, though also not communal, but merely
gathered, and splintered, have spoken in our Duma, have bespoken within it the people's
indignation against a government, tearing apart the people, constituting a people's
tribunal over the old regime, and brought about a sense of the people's thirst for earthly
freedom and righteous-truth. At the Duma via subterranean coursings wound its way the
people's will -- the will of God, and in the weak voices of the people's representatives
there began resonating the disunited parts of this will, though still mechanically
consolidated not by love for a new good, but by hatred for an old evil. The Duma, as with
any parliament, mirrored the will of the people during an era of fragmentation and
disunity and therefore it was a least of evils, since for a greatest good there would have
had to occur a turnabout of character religious, and not political.

The path of Russia is twofold, having apparent the struggle of two principles:
human-power and Divine-power, man-worship or God-worship. We can only serve that
path, upon which Russia, having become free of an human single-power, does not fall
into a new slavery to an unlimited human-power, even though it be termed people's-
sovereignty, a path upon which the mystical organism of the people, -- an unity supra-
human, should determine our historical existence, and with objective ideas and values
there should win out over the limitedness of all human passions, and empty desires. In
categories purely political we by this deny the sovereignty of a state, such as is the
expression of arbitrary human will, and we affirm sovereignty based upon law, and
expressing supra-human will. Only in the person of the people, as a religious Sobornost'-
communality, can be revealed a glint of the Divinity, and not in the mechanical aspect of
a state, even though it be based upon people's-sovereignty or proletarian-power. We deny
a merely formal politics, which but speaks about the means of life, in the name instead of
a politics material, mystically-real, which addresses the ends of life, concerns itself with
the meaning of life.

The truth of the liberation movement tends to set free the will of the person, denies
oppressive dependence and the power of other, alien human wills, and sunders the
coercive and unjust connecting bonding of the atomised bits of the world. But let us not
stumble down the path of a new whatever enslavement of the person by the human will,
of a new coercive and mechanical binding together. The objective, universal right-truth
has to issue forth through a mystical act of its free choice by the person, and this act of
freedom has to have its own political reflection. A liberative personal will should desire,
should love worldwide an All-unity, Divine harmony, as its own absolute freedom and
plenitude.

N. A. Berdyaev

1906

O NARODNOI VOLE. First published in weekly social-political newspaper "Moskovskii

Ezhenedel'nik", 1906, No. 20, p. 31-39. Later incorporated by Berdyaev into his 1907
book, "Sub Specie Aeternitatis", Chapter 23 (p. 468-477) in year 2002 Moscow Kanon
reprint edition.

NIHILISM ON A RELIGIOUS SOIL

(1907 - #135(4))

K. P. Pobedonostsev is dead. With him there is so much connected, together with

him there grew up a whole epoch of Russian history, moreso even than an epoch: in his
person and in his deeds was clearly embodied the connection of Orthodoxy with state
absolutism. Pobedonostsev -- was a remarkable type: a sincere ideologue of our historical
nihilism, of the nihilistic attitude of the official Russian Church and of the state towards
life. Pobedonostsev -- was a thinker neither profound nor individual, his ideas were rather
superficial, too typical, and he shares them with those historical forces, which he served,
and which he ideologically supported. Pobedonostsev evoked towards himself a burning
hatred, he was the hope of the dark powers, and the prolonged suchlike years were a
nightmare of Russian life. But when one reads him, the hatred weakens: there resound
within him such sincere notes, a sincere humility before that above, love for the nation, a
romantic attachment to the old way of life. In Russia there were few intelligent and
sincere defenders of theocratic autocracy, especially amongst those, who stood in power
and directed the state mechanism. Pobedonostsev was amongst the number of those few.

Of what sort was the basic feature of Pobedonostsev, his “character trait that strikes
the mind”? Unbelief in the power of good, the non-belief of the monstrously divided
official Russian Church 1 and the Russian state. The power of Pobedonostsev, the
unimaginable authority of this man over Russian life was rooted also in this, that he was a
reflection from above of the historical Russian nihilism. A nihilistic attitude towards man
and the world on the soil of the religious attitude towards God -- here is the pathos of
Pobedonostsev, in common with the Russian state-governance, set within an historical
Orthodoxy. Pobedonostsev was a religious man, he prayed to his God, he saved his soul,
but towards life, towards mankind, towards the world process he had an unreligious, an
atheistic attitude, he did not see anything of the Divine in life, nor any sort of reflection
of Divinity in man; only a terrible, a gaping abyss of emptiness was revealed for him in
the world, the world was not for him the creation by God, he never had a sense of the
Divineness of the world soul. This spectral, this ghastly old man lived under the hypnotic
power of evil, he believed infinitely in the might of evil, he believed in evil, but in the
Good he did not believe. The Good he considered impotent, pitiable in its lack of might.
He -- was among the number of those hypnotised by the fall into sin, shutting off the
genesis, cut off from the mystery of God’s creation. The devil rules the world, defines the
course of universal life, penetrates into human nature right down to its roots; the good,
the Divine do not possess any objective power, upon the good it is impossible to build
life, with the power of good it is impossible to tie together any sort of historical
perspectives. Just like Marx, Pobedonostsev looks upon human society as upon a
mechanism of forces. The fatal process of the fall and decay of mankind, the increasing
powers of evil can be halted only by force, only however by evil, only by the despotic
state authority, which the Church sends forth into the world to freeze the growth of life,
to constrain the liberation of life. Pobedonostsev bore within himself a grudge against the
world life and against mankind, he was suspicious and mistrustful to the point of
psychosis. But this nihilism of Pobedonostsev, this atheistic attitude of his towards the
world is not something by chance individual, connected with personal events in his life,
this is a worldwide fact, a fact, lodged within the religious consciousness of historical
Orthodoxy.

Historical Orthodoxy has not manifest within itself the religious truth about man and
the world, in it religiously is only an attitude towards death, not towards life. Orthodox
Christianity is a teaching about individual salvation in Heaven, about the departure from
the world, which is all infected by evil. In the ascetic consciousness there is no teaching
about the meaning of universal world history, about the triumph of religious truth upon
the earth. Orthodoxy does not believe in the Kingdom of God upon earth, only in Heaven
does it expect it, and the earth it leaves to the devil. One only good deed can and ought to
be done upon the earth -- to hold back the course of evil, to halt it, to curb it by force, to
freeze it down. And in Orthodoxy there is the teaching about the religious significance of
the state, which the Church empowers, not to build the Kingdom of God upon the earth,
but rather to restrain the kingdom of the devil, by force to stop the world from the
ultimate catastrophe. The uniting of Orthodoxy with state absolutism came about on the
soil of a non-belief in the Divineness of the earth, in the earthly future of mankind;
Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief
in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world. Orthodoxy does
not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, and it compensates for
its own hopeless pessimism by a call for the forceful ordering of it by state authority. 2
 State absolutism is the teaching of Orthodoxy about this, how to arrange the earth,
how to hold back the victorious course of evil in the world. Russian absolutism they call
theocratic, but this is not very precise; the blessing of absolutism by Orthodoxy is the
result of the non-belief of the Orthodox Church in the possibility of theocracy upon the
earth, nor the Kingdom of God, nor the Truth of God upon the earth. Since God’s Truth is
not for the earth, but for Heaven, then upon the earth let it be to the state might by force
to hold back mankind from evil, -- this is the gist of the Orthodox teaching about absolute
monarchy.

Non-belief in the objective power of good upon the earth, non-belief in the meaning
of world history, in the non-mediated might of God Himself within the earthly
community, -- this non-belief is also the basis of state positivism, the apotheosis of state
authority. Catholicism likewise did not believe in the Divineness of mankind, in the
might Divine within earthly human history, and it created a teaching about the
arrangement of the earth under the assist of Papism. Papocaesarism and Caesaropapism,
the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, and the Byzantine emperor, the Vicar of Christ, -- alike
they grew out of an unreligious, atheistic attitude towards earthly mankind, which cleaves
to non-belief in God-manhood and in the God-manness of historical fates, in a non-belief
in this, that Christ Himself wilt reign upon the earth (Chiliasm).

These -- are the two pseudotheocratic currents in world history, alike opposed to true
theocracy, hostile to faith in the reign of God Himself upon the earth. In the coming true
theocracy Christ will tend not to have a vicar-substitute, He Himself will rule the world,
His truth will reign sovereign; Godless mankind, recognising as worthwhile only forceful
restraint, will become a free God-manhood.

The nihilistic side of official Christianity was clearly bespoken in Pobedonostsev.

Both in theory and in practise, he was perhaps a most typical representative of the idea of
pseudo-theocratic absolutism, of an Orthodox Christian non-belief in the possibility of
good upon the earth. In Pobedonostsev there is, as it were, a finishing-off of the historico-
fatal process in Christianity, of the extinguishing of faith in the Providence of God, in
God’s guidance of the destinies of mankind. The suspicion and mistrust of
Pobedonostsev regarding the world and man is not something merely personal, he has it
here in common with the whole historical Orthodox life-sense, in common the seeing
only of evil in everything. For Pobedonostsev, as also for the official teaching of the
Orthodox Church, everything in a fatal manner comes to ruin, to the triumph of evil; for
Pobedonostsev, as in general also for Orthodoxy and official Christianity, eschatology is
something foreign, there are no great historical tasks, there remains no place for historical
perspectives, there is no meaning in the process of history, there is no awaited religious
triumph in the end time, the victory of Christ upon the earth. Pobedonostsev has an hatred
for life, he does not see the Divine in the world, he does not sense the image of God in
man, and terrible to say, he learned this from Orthodoxy, it was from the official
Christianity that he garnered his nihilism. This is something to ponder. I do not think, that
with Pobedonostsev there was a vivid feel for Christ, he was infinitely remote from
Christ, in his heart he did not know Christ; but the feel of Christianity, a closeness to the
Church, a sincere attachment to its spirit was tremendous in him. Pobedonostsev -- was of
a tragic type, for this was one of those, in which Christianity has killed Christ, one for
whom the Church has shut off God. Christ rendered God infinitely close to man, He
filiated mankind into being sons of the Heavenly Father; the spirit of Pobedonostsev
makes God infinitely remote for man, it recasts the son into a slave. An emissary from the
state to watch out for the Church, for long years guiding the Russian state in the name of
the Church, a bureaucrat in Church and a theocrat in state matters, a man of might,
dreaming about Heaven and along the way having gained utmost power upon the earth, --
he was a living corpse. In his veins flowed not blood, but some other deadly fluid, and he
did not believe that in other people there did flow blood, human blood he did not value.
The body of Pobedonostsev was terrifying in its morbidity, its being like parchment, and
one could barely believe that it might resurrect, since resurrection was foreign to this
man.

Pobedonostsev -- was the enemy of everything taken to wing, of everything taken to

flight, of everything fully alive, instead he shoves man down to the hated earth. He is a
worshipper of simplicity, he fears complexity, he preaches humble satisfaction through
small deeds. Pobedonostsev is for order first of all and always and in everything, he fears
the irrational and the problematic, he is in his manner a positivist and utilitarian, he
believes only in impersonal institutions. Servility and groveling are characteristic of the
official Christianity, they are sanctioned by our local Church, while at the same time
condemning boldness and bravery, the impulses afar and ascent higher.

Why does Pobedonostsev, a sceptic in everything, so believe in the state, in its

goodly nature? Only the state power seemed to Pobedonostsev fine and good, the sole
bright spot on the earth, and here his scepticism halts short. This is understandable.
Pobedonostsev saw the whole task on earth to consist only in this, to halt, to interrupt, to
freeze down everything (in the expression of the reactionary genius K. Leont’ev), and of
creative tasks there are none. Everything decays and decomposes on earth, but the state at
its best and by its might is not subject to this process, it halts the decline and decay. For
everything else -- non-belief, for the state -- faith. This faith in the benefit of state might,
saving the world from evil, the fanatics for the state have accepted this irrationally, in
vivid contradiction to the light of reason and conscience. We know only too well, that the
state also is subject to decline and decay, and that power often renders itself evil and
godless.

Pobedonostsev and the Church, in its historical finiteness, and in its blessing of
absolutism as though they did not want truth and joy upon the earth, and instead they see
the good in this, -- that the evil, contrary to Christianity, they wish as though to torment
man with, so as to his soul. All this, however, is that theory and practice of the Grand
Inquisitor, not believing in mankind, saving it mistrustfully and by force. The atheistic
spirit of the Inquisitor moves within Pobedonostsev, and he, just like that terrible old
man, he repudiates freedom of conscience, he fights temptation for the small things, he
defends a religious utilitarianism. Not only is Christ clouded over by the Church, but the
Church itself is imperceptibly transformed for Pobedonostsev into a means for state
control; by a strange, but appropriate irony of fate, the bureaucrat and statesman within
the Church is rendered in Pobedonostsev all the stronger a theocrat and heavenly dreamer
in the state. I repeat, and I do not doubt, that Pobedonostsev was a religious man
personally, that his spirit was nourished by the cult and the sacraments of the Orthodox
Church, but for the world and for mankind there was nothing religious in him, only a
desolation, filled with the spectre of state might. Pobedonostsev was far remote from the
Slavophils, since unlike them he did not possess the wide historical perspectives, he
shared not their earthly religious utopia, and foreign to him was any sense of a mission.
Pobedonostsev is more Orthodox than the Slavophils, he understands better, that
regarding questions about the earth, about mankind, about the world -- in Orthodoxy
there is the desert place, and that from this Orthodoxy one does not derive a just
community, an holy corporeality. The ideal of Orthodox sanctity -- is in the withdrawal
from the world, monasticism, the hermit-anchorite, but since the delimited ideal of
sanctity as given is attainable but by few, there then remains the compromise with the
world, the expression of its sinfulness and depravity -- the state, limited in nothing,
coercive, as though demonstrating the impossibility of a religious sociality.

For Pobedonostsev there is no God-manhood, just as for him there is no historical

Orthodoxy, for him there is only the inhuman God and the godless man, and for him
Christ did not unite man with God. In God there is nothing of the human, in man -- there
is nothing of the Divine, of the Divine-human body, containing all the fulness of life, it is
not and will not be upon the earth -- all these negations are very characteristic for the
historical Church, for the old religious consciousness. The truth of humanism is
discovered in the secular culture, outside of religion and as it were contrary to
Christianity, but ultimately this is the truth of Christ, the truth of the God-Man. The
Kingdom of God upon earth is dreamy nonsense for people on the outside of a religious
consciousness, and only a new religious revelation can bring to light both the truth of the
dream, and its ruinous falsehood. To transform the revealed truth about the God-Man into
the as yet unrevealed truth about a God-Mankind -- here is the universal religious task,
before which stands the contemporary world at the door aknocking.

That, for which Pobedonostsev lived, what he loved, what he supported in idea, now
has come undone, the whole system has collapsed, and not a stone upon a stone remains.
And to some it would seem, that the quite totally outdated Orthodox Church is dying and
decaying, that Orthodox Christianity has ceased to be a power in this world, since it was
against this world. The monstrous hysterics of priest Iliodor and others, certainly, is a
symptom of decay, and in it there is nothing organic. But the gates of Hell will not
prevail against the Church in its holiness. The death of Pobedonostsev is significant only
in that it coincides with the death of nihilism on religious soil, with the death of the spirit
of death. This nihilism has not vanished completely. There remain the “Iliodors”, and
periodically there will arrange pogroms of culture, but the strong, the predominative
sacramental nihilism defining the course of history this will no longer be, and already is
not.

The new religious consciousness rises up against the nihilistic attitude towards the
world and mankind. If a religious rebirth be possible, only then on this soil will there be
the revealing of the religious meaning of secular culture and earthly liberation, the
revealing of the truth about mankind. For the new religious consciousness the declaration
of the will of God is together with this a declaration of the rights of man, a revealing of
the Divine within mankind. We believe in the objective, the cosmic might of the truth of
God, in the possibility according to God to guide the earthly destiny of mankind. This
will be the victory of the true theocracy, whether over a false democratism, -- the
apotheosis of the quantitative collectivity of human wills, or so also over the false
theocraticism, -- all that apotheosis of the human will within Caesaropapism or
Papocaesarism. Christ cannot have human vicarage in the person of the tsar or high-
priest. He -- is Himself the Tsar and High-Priest, and He will reign in the world. “Thy
Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven”.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1907

© 2000 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1907 - 135(4) - en)

NIGILIZM NA RELIGIOZNOI POCHVE. Vek. 6 Mai 1907.

Included thereafter in 1910 book “Dukhovnyi krizis intelligentsii”, Spb, sect. II-1.

Reprinted by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection: “Tipy religioznoi

mysli v Rossii”, (Tom III), ctr. 197-204.

1
I speak here all the time here not about the Universal Church, not about Orthodoxy as
the preserver of Divine sanctity, but about our national Church in its historical and
empirical, its human side.
2
Here my in itself basically accurate thought is not altogether accurate and is too
exaggeratedly expressed. The image alone of St. Seraphim of Sarov introduces the
corrective to my formulation.

Decadentism and Mystical Realism

 Decadents readily pass themselves off as mystics, and frequently they express
mystical pretensions. Russian decadentism especially gravitates towards mysticism, it
speaks about the mystical. The approach is to jumble together decadentism and
mysticism in certain of the literary circles, but the academism and mystifications get
entangled along the way and hinder the decadentism from passing over into an authentic,
a real mysticism. In the select, the cultured, the refined literary circles they speak much
on mystical themes, they employ mystical terminology, but they speak in too literary a
fashion, they display too historico-philological an attitude. The experts can speak about
Medieval mysticism or the mysticism of antiquity, they employ in line with the character
of their specialty a mystical terminology, which was learned via an historico-philological
faculty, but does this indeed mean, that these people have a real attitude towards
mysticism, does it mean that they are full of mystical hopes and expectations, a mystical
faith and love?

Certainly, no. They are positivists perhaps, they do not believe in the real-mystical,
yet they can academically examine the interesting theme of the past, the mystical outlook
of the old days. But lift away the literary historico-philological veil, speak the language
of your soul, of your experience, your real hopes and beliefs, speak about the modern,
about our mysticism, then we shall see, of what sort is your authentic and vital attitude
towards mysticism. For indeed, the mystical in history can only be taken up in a non-dead
and real manner only in connection with the contemporary mystical, with the mystical
stirrings and hope of our own day. It is necessary to grasp not at the outward historical
thread, but rather at the inner, the truly real mystical thread, connecting us both with the
Middle Ages and with antiquity, in their mystical activity, in their eternity, and not in
their temporality. The academic, the archeological attitude is as though towards a corpse,
with it there is so little to be learned, everything remains superficial and a matter of mere
words. The danger of an academic, a literary attitude towards mysticism -- is in its full
the absence of realism. I would the more give credence to the realism of the mystical
words of whatever the physicist or economist, rather then the literateur coming from the
historico-philological school, since in accord with their specialty the physicist or
economist would find it quite perplexing dealing with the academic and exclusively
literary approach towards mysticism; there would be no correspondence of terminology
at their disposal, often they would not know the words, denoting things mystical in the
past, and for them the mystical proper would not be a matter of words only. And it
becomes strange, when one ceases really to differentiate mystical words from mystical
activity, when one fails to distinguish literature from being, the refined positivists from
the genuine mystics, when everything is veiled over by a cloud, when the foggy mist of
clever positivism is passed off as mysticism. It is important instead to establish the
genuine distinctions, since then only can there be established any affinity and correlation.
The distinctions however can be sharpened only upon the basis of a realism on
mysticism, a real relationship to mysticism. Every mysticism, and ours modernly also,
strives towards a new way of being, and not towards a new literature only, and the
distinctions connected with it -- are of a way of life itself, and not of mere literary words.

I shall speak not about decadentist art, but rather about the decadentist condition of
the human soul, about the decadentist world-perception and world-concept. My theme is
not literary aesthetic, but religio-philosophic. I have to caution beforehand, that the
"decadentist" literature and art I deal with here is only as a symptom of an illness of spirit
and it is only under this one point of perspective that I shall investigate this illness. I say
"illness of spirit", although I set a very high store on the so-called decadentist art, and I
regard it the sole genuine art in our era.

The decadentism has been criticised from various points of view, and accused of
many a transgression: some have seen in it foolishness and an outrage against healthy
thought, others have decried its immorality, a third group -- its non-societal aspect, and a
fourth group have found in it an infraction of aesthetic norms. It is impossible to say,
whether all this customary criticism of decadentism has demonstrated any especial effect
or proven any danger for decadentism. In the majority of instances the criticism has
tended to miss the mark. But the decadentist world-view and the decadentist state of spirit
can be criticised from an altogether unique point of view, quite rarely put forth. The
terrible aspect presented by decadentism, its authentic tragedy -- is in its loss of the sense
and awareness of realities, in its extreme anti-realism. Decadentism is the reflection of
the illusory aspect of being. Therefore it is not without basis that they should term
decadentism as a neo-romanticism: in it there is anguish over being, but not the reality of
being.

Analysing the relationship of decadentism to the real, to the mystical-real, we first of

all have to take note of its extreme anti-individualism, its hostility to person. It would be
very superficial and erroneous to see an individualism in decadentism, to suggest its
pathos as serving to the affirmation of person. In the decadentist experiences, the person
is disintegrated into momentary instants, impressions, fragmented conditions, with the
loss of the centre for the person and its own organic connections to life. Decadentism has
no right to speak about individuality, since it denies to deny the objective reality of such.
For an affirmation of individuality there mustneeds be a pulling oneself together, a
concentration around the centre, and not a disintegration into momentary fragments. The
idea of person -- is normative, person is not some aggregate of whatever the favorable
condition, without any sort of bearings to some objective centre. In order to sense the
limits of person, in order to set it apart from all the world, in order for the person not to
be disintegrated and blasted to bits across the dimensions of the universe nor narrowed
down within the dimensions of the lower forms of being, there has to be an objectivity
and realism, there mustneeds be an objectivity of distinction, the sensing and awareness
of the realities of the world in their inter-relationships. The decadentist attitude towards
the person is illusory; decadentism senses individuality as a disintegration of being and it
snatches at the morsels, the fragments, in the experience of the moment it seeks after all
fullness, and in having despaired of any real fullness of person, it does not believe in the
attainability of being.

Having lost its own sense and self-awareness of person, decadentism herein by this
loses the sense and awareness of all the realities of the world, of all the objective
distinctions of being. The decadentist world-perception jumbles together the "I" with the
"not-I", it mixes together that, which is, with that, which is not. The decadentists are as it
were afraid of real encounters, they want to reserve for themselves the possibility to say,
what is not reality, what is nothing, they have an aversion towards a connectedness with
anything real. The decadentist experiencings too much reckon upon the possibility of
enlarging the extent of the person, by an acknowledging of illusory being, having
abolished all the boundaries of the fictitious but not of the real, surmounting these limits
in a transient mindset and word, but not in an eternal actuality. The decadentists have
hopelessly confused mysticism with a psychological subtlety of refinement, with the
discovering of new empirical states, and upon this jumbled confusion they have based
their mystical pretensions. The decadentists have ceased to be able to differentiate the
light of the moon from the light of the streetlamps. The London and the Peterburg fogs
have provided many a new experience, they have enriched experimental psychology, but
in them was hidden and dissolved a mystical sort of being, a mystical realism was misted
over. Upon decadentism, like a curse, lies the seal of its derivation from naturalism: the
naturalism has become refined, has decomposed imperceptibly and passed over into its
opposite. Both in the coarse lineage of naturalism and in the most refined lines of
decadentism there is alike a triumph of illusionism and not the reflection of absolute
mystical being. The positivist naturalism is also at the root of all an illusionism and anti
realism. From this taproot it is difficult for the decadentists to tear themselves away, and
they all confuse as mysticism the refinements and pretty flowers, sprouted from this
selfsame root.

It is impossible to confuse the mystically real with a mere experience, with a testing
of factual conditions, with a subjective given. The most vivid, the most powerful, the
most irrational experience is still not reality and is still not mysticism. The experiences in
a certain sense are all in general undifferentiated; the experience is set in opposition to
nothing, is not distinct from it. And in the experiences, in the subjective states there can
reign a total illusiveness of sight, it can be that there is not a single drop of reality to it.
Realism enters in only then, when the experience, the subjective testing is applied
towards objective centres, towards existing monads, when there are established
distinctions in objective being. The most intensive experience -- is illusory, if it is
directed at an object, not endowed with reality. An objectless experiencing, a sundering
of experience from objects makes them illusory, non-real: the experience of love cannot
be without object, the experiencing of freedom cannot not have an object of striving.
Each experience, in order to become a genuine actuality, ought to have a bearer, ought to
be connected with an existing centre. Mysticism, real mysticism, enters in only then,
when the experience is applied towards absolute being.

Decadentism in the darkness grasps at being and strikes up against the illusory,
upon the torn off fragments of reality, upon mere splinters of being, -- in the darkness it is
difficult to distinguish that, which is, from that, which is not. They seize hold the first
thing they stumble upon in the darkness, they clutch at it convulsively, they want to get a
feel of its depth, but too often they embrace only emptiness. The decadentists are not
hospitable to empirical reality, they sense its insipidness and they thirst for a mystical
reality. But the decadentist attitude towards mysticism is so frightened by this, that it thus
readily substitutes for it a mysticism of mystifications. Decadentist mysticism is replete
full of mystifications. It is tempting indeed in the absence of a real mysticism to console
oneself with a mysticism not real, illusory, contrived. The mystification only is thus also
reprehensible, in that within it there is not attained the reality of being. The non-real, the
as it were "idealistic" mysticism is also mystification, since that it is too real a
mystification to become mysticism. With the decadentist world-outlook the boundary
line, separating mysticism from mystification, almost without notice too much tends to
fade away: the decadentist mysticism to a remarkable degree is a mystification, it is non-
real, in it there is not quite yet the sense, that it is but a bad joke, but then the decadentist
mystification sometimes comes close to mysticism, it would seem a mystical reality,
unaware of the danger of playing with fire. Within the bounds of decadentist experience
there can never be an awareness of all the infinitude of difference between mysticism and
mystification, between reality and illusion. Decadentism remains in a fatal manner within
the closed-in circle of subjectivity, it is tempted by solipcism, it refines and gets
entangled in the human, but it does not unite with the Divine. Mysticism is always a
rupturing of the boundaries of subjectivism, a surmounting of the human, an uniting with
a supra-human reality. Decadentism has taken upon itself the torment of longing for
mystical reality, for supra-human being, it has reflected within itself the loss of taste for
the everyday world, but it suffers the illness of impotence to attain to the reality of being.
The frightful aspect of decadentism is in this, that nothing is attained, that there are no
joyful encounters. This new romanticism is situated at far greater a remoteness from
being, than was the old romanticism.

Decadentism denies truth as an objective reality or else it accepts a multitude of

truths, all which are equivalent with their negation. Truth however is something binding,
it empowers and compels, it does not permit for itself an attitude of mystification. Only
an objective acceptance of truth -- is real. To know the truth -- means to have a real
object, to be merged with a real object. The decadentist world-attitude has wanted as
though to preserve an illusory freedom from truth. i.e. from reality. Decadentism has
wanted as though to reserve for itself the possibility to spurn every reality, to step back
upon some happy remoteness from real being, to call an halt before the truth, i.e. before
the having of reality, before a merging with reality. The decadentist sense of feeling is
directed upon itself, and not upon the world, and therefore it fails to unite with it; the
mystical sense of feeling unites with other existents, it penetrates into the intimate being
of the world, it is as it were -- conjugal.

Mystical realism is connected with an acknowledging of the distinctions within

objective being. Real mystical experiences presuppose a certain light, a gnosis, they
cannot transpire within total darkness and blindness. In order to mystically experience the
real, it is necessary to know truth, i.e. to have mystically-real objects of being, to be
merged as it were conjugally with that, which is authentic. The sensing and awareness of
mystical realities is a sensing and awareness of real existents, of a real being with its own
proper name. Mystical realism enters in only then, when we call all and everything by its
own name, when we recognise the existents, from which the world is comprised, when
we can say: this here is such and so, and there -- is that such and so. The dogmatism, this
unacceptable, repulsive wicked dogmatism is also, perhaps, the recognition, the
sharpening of mystical insight, a calling by their own names the real objects of the world.
In this sense mystical realism always is dogmatic, it wants to know the realties, to name
them, to be involved not with the experiences only, but also with existents. The indeed
real is not the experiencings, the only real are the existents, -- the conveyors of
experience. Mystical realism presupposes an intuitive comprehension of being, the grace
of an absolute reality, entering into the human being and as it were ravaging him. In
decadentism there is not yet this dawning light, since the decadentists are caught up only
with themself, and are not yet given to involvement with universal being.

In the decadentist world-approach there is no intuition, no entering of an universal

reality, this world-approach is closed in within its own human subjectivity. Mysticism
always involves a graced element, always includes within itself intuitive knowledge, in it
the Divinity is immanent to the human soul. A refined positivism can with great ease pass
itself off as mysticism, since it is all -- the same colour, all jumbled together, if there is no
objective criterion, if there is no objective norm for the establishing of realities, for the
distinguishing of being from non-being. Positivism at present has gotten quite refined and
has become so liberalised, that it is ready to recognise even the sphere of mystical
experiences. It never alone avows any sort of positivism, or any sort of subjective
psychologism -- the mystical reality it never avows, whereas the mystical illusions it
already avows. Within the sphere of mystical literature there can circulate the cultural and
refined positivist, and here there can be the academic and archeological interest, but
ultimately still the positivist is unable to enter into the sphere of mystical being.
Decadentism furthers the jumbling together of a refined positivism with mysticism, it
obscures the differences, and does not sharpen them in focus. And if mysticism for us is
the striving towards new being, then we ought to avow an absolute norm, distinguishing
being from non-being, a norm not logical and not moral, but rather an ontological norm, a
norm of being. Only in accord with this norm will the decadentist world-approach
become mystically real. Mysticism is first of all a discipline of will.

Decadentism lives now through a crisis, it wants to transcend itself, to pass over to
mystical realism, but it cannot, it is lacking in powers to sense reality, it is afraid to get
bound up with being. This powerlessness, this inability to pass over to real mysticism
finds expression in the "mystical anarchism", -- begotten of the crisis of decadentism.
Mystical anarchism -- is not mystical realism, it is too fearful of truth, it does not want to
accept the binding realism of truth. Mystical anarchism keeps itself at a remarkable
distance from the realities, at a distance, amidst it is impossible to call any one reality by
its own name, and it is impossible to sense the existents, which comprise being. The
mystical anarchist reserves for himself the possibility to deny every reality, he desires
that being should only depend upon his arbitrary will, and he thus guards the darkness, in
which so little can be discerned. In this -- is the anti-realism and anti-mysticism of
mystical anarchism. In the mindset of the mystical anarchist freedom is set in opposition
to all the entirety of being and therefore it is an empty freedom, bereft of real content, and
in its wont for illusion it is hostile to the perception of mystical realities. Mystical
anarchism does not overcome, but only intensifies the decadentist feeling of freedom, as
a desire for that which is without object and without content, as non-being set in
opposition to being, frightened at its connectedness.

Decadentism opens up the sphere of the subconscious, it expands the circle of

possibilities and provides an experimental tool in the struggle against rationalism, it lifts
from life the fetters of rationality. But the subconscious is only an element, in which there
ought to begin movement towards realities, towards new, different, non-disgusting
realties. The subconscious element can be dawned upon by light, issuing forth from real
being, wherein it proceeds as a revelation of absolute activity, and thereupon the
subconscious becomes supra-conscious, supra-rational. Rationalism is conquered not by
blindness and darkness, but by the ultimate and absolute light, the phantasmic and
loathesome aspects of empirical being are conquered by absolute real being.

Decadentism is faced by the threat of degeneration and vulgarisation, should it not

find the strength to conquer subjectivism, illusionism and irrationalism. Decadentism
remains totally in a negative opposition to the acceptance of the values of this world, to
the staleness of empirical being, but it is time already to turn round to the values of the
other world, to the depths of mystical being. At the summits of its consciousness, our
epoch stands beneathe the standard of a passing over to objectivism, realism, universal
meaning.

Decadentism confuses mysticism with aestheticism, it mistakes aesthetic experiences

for the mystical, in the aesthetic perception it seeks a mystical activity. A religion of
aestheticism, -- here is what decadentism comes to approximate, here is by what it
comforts itself. In this transformation of aesthetics into a religion, in this confusion of
aesthetic illusion with mystical reality it expresses most of all the anti-realism and
illusionism of the decadentist world-approach. Between the aesthetic experience and the
mystical experience there is an enormous difference, there lies between an impassable
chasm, and it is not so difficult to determine, in what consists this difference. Mystical
experience is distinct in this from the aesthetic, in that it real, i.e. it is accompanied by the
sense and awareness of the reality of the object, of the object of its striving; the aesthetic
experience, abstractly taken, -- is illusory, since that it does not yet relate to any particular
reality. The object of aspiration of every aesthetic experience is beauty, but it remains
uncertain, whether there actually is beauty, whether it is being, whether it is reality.
Mystical experience likewise can strive towards beauty, can perceive beauty, but here the
beauty -- is reality, beauty -- is being, beauty --- is absolute an activity. The decadentist
religion of aestheticism was disillusioned in the seemingly stale "realities" of positivism,
it was stung by the monstrously empirical, but it can only oppose to this world a
phantasmic non-real world of beauty, since it cannot accept mystical beauty as an
existent. The religion of aestheticism arrives only to a new literature, and not to new
being; this is a bad, pitiful, unreal religion and it predisposes its followers to live, to be in
ugliness. We want to accept the absolute active beauty of the world, we want being as
beauty, and beauty as being, and not merely an illusional experience of beauty. Beauty is
not only in art, not only in our experiences, phantasmic and foggy, -- there is beauty, but
in being itself, in the very existence of the world. The revelation of the Cosmos, of God's
creation, is a revelation of beauty. Beauty is a supreme and authentic reality, an actuality,
but the approach to it can only be mystical, and not abstract aesthetic.1 Aestheticism
remains in the sphere of the seemingly apparent, mysticism leads across to the sphere of
the real. The inward punishment of every experience of an aesthetique transformed into a
religion lies in this, that being is not attained, that the thing most desired, most loved --
beauty, -- is not sensed as a reality, that having been saved from the ugliness of being,
they remain in a beauty of non-being, wherein life is transformed into literature. It is not
necessary to abolish the aesthetic, but rather to overcome its self-satisfied and smugly
abstract character, to subordinate the aesthetic to the mystical organism, to pass over to a
mystical aesthetics, in which beauty is not only accepted and experienced, but also is
endowed with reality, beauty -- is of a vital existence, and not only of literature. Beauty
will save the world.

"Decadentism" -- is the sole thing now in our literature and our art. Only in the
camp, signified by this indefinable word, can there be found both talent, and a genuine
love for art, and creative impulses. There is apparently already the time, when disputes
over literary trends will be decided by this fact, that there will be no sort of art for us
besides the decadentist, and therefore there will no longer be even a "decadentist" art.
There will be a new art, long wished for, but meanwhile yet situated in a condition of
potential being. Inside the decadentist camp there will result a crisis, a decomposition, a
self-determination. Decadentist art of an inner dialectical necessity will dissociate into an
academic, Parnassian, classical form, and into a mystical, religious, theurgic form.2
Classical art is a very venerable and fine art, possessing its own mission in the world, it
rests upon the abstract ideal of artistic beauty and lacks for any mystical pretensions. Not
to have mystical pretensions, when one cannot fulfill them, -- is a fine quality and from
this perspective the trend of decadentist art towards academism and classicism (Valery
Briusov) can be hailed.

Mystical art has theurgy as the goal of its striving. Theurgic art posits as its aim the
creation of new being, of a new mankind. This -- is the practising of a mystical realism.
In the final end there are only two directions in art -- the classical and the theurgic,
everything else is but a transitory state. The so-called realism in art has merely been
pseudo-theurgic. Classicism is the ideal of a self-sufficing art, of art as an abstract
principle, an ideal of literature, but not vitally of life. I repeat, that by this I do not want to
condemn it, I highly value classical art. Theurgy however is the ideal of religious art,
transfigurative of being, creating the new man, an ideal vitally of life, and not only
literary. Theurgic art is already a religious activity, and it existed always in the organic
periods of the life of the people. Art is born of an insufficiency, a failed reach of being, in
it there is filled up the emptiness of this world with the riches of the other world. And
within the scope of mystery the creation of beauty by art coincides with God's creation of
the cosmos.

Decadentist art, insofar as it is a genuine art, stands higher than a decadentist

religion, in it there have been authentic insights and there is the potential of a theurgic art.
Still, in Russian great literature there have been genuine mystical realists, filled with
expectation, -- Tiutchev and Dostoevsky. In modern Russian poetry (of the "decadentist"
camp) there is many a talent, but no one still can compare with Tiutchev in his power of
mystical realism. There is the strangest desire, that a new Russian literature might find
expression: let it be sought, just like in its great past, not only in life, but also its meaning,
i.e. that it be religious, theurgic. Then only will the crisis of decadentism result in an
happy end. But God preserve us from a false understanding of the tasks of religious art:
not upon assigned religious themes and not from a religious tendency ought the artist to
create. Most of all it mustneeds be understood, that it is not a matter of religious themes,
since all themes, all themes without exception -- are religious. With the artist there ought
not to be religious tendencies only, but rather a religious world-feeling, and then in his art
will be manifest the religiousness of everything in the world, the religious depths of
everything being disclosed in this. The decadentist world-sense hinders the artist from
immersion into the depths of the religious mystery of the world and only great artistic
talent can catch sight of the religious realities, despite the decadentist rendering asunder
from being. Authentic genuine art is as it were a photo-imaging of absolute activity, a
reflection of eternal ideas. It is necessary most of all to be rid of that prejudice, that
religion is of something else, some sort of special sphere. Religion -- is everything,
religion -- is in everything, or it -- is nothing. The religious world-feeling reveals the
depths of being in everything, it as it were is an opening to the mystery of creation.

Mystical realism inevitably bears a religious character, it becomes religion, does not
remain mysticism. Once it becomes clearly apparent, the connections namely of the
mystical realities, then only but a religious attitude can be established towards them. The
mysticism is an as yet imperfect and transitional form of religion, this is a religion blind
and as yet insufficiently real. Religious mysticism is not something connected only with
fictitious experiences, but with the facts of world life. The religious stirring is bound up
only with universal realities, with that, which -- is being within history. With the
traditions of being, of being and not of lifestyle, mystical realism cannot and ought not to
split, for it continues the universal line of authentic being.

Anti-realist decadentism dwells with the fluctuating tastes over decades, over years
and months, and not eternity, it yields to the enticements of fads and the interests of the
season. In this is an inward punishment of decadentism and the danger of its
vulgarisation. Decadentism is a transition of flesh into word, of being into literature;
mystical realism is a transformation of word into flesh, the creation of new being. One
might say: every literature is a transformation of flesh into word, and therefore one would
want to abolish literature in revolting against this. What I want to say is not this: let flesh
be transformed into word in literature, since a fine literature is born of this and great is
the significance of this literature, but let it not be transformed into life, into being itself,
flesh into the word. Decadentism has an inclination towards the transformation of flesh
into word within life itself, and not only in literature, and in this is its anti-realism.3 And
the eternal criterion of distinction, the light determinative of this distinction, is neither
literary nor academic, but rather of existence and of life, it remains an attitude towards
the historical accomplishing of the Incarnation of the Word. Those, for whom the
Incarnation of the Word occurred not symbolically only, but mystically-real, and who
believe in the real Resurrection of the Word, such only can be mystical realists, striving
towards new being, and for the anguish regarding Heaven is transformed into a thirst for
the new real flesh of life. Mystical illusionism either passes over into mystical realism or
it degenerates and becomes vulgar, extinguishing being.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1907
Article was included and republished thereafter within the 1910 Berdyaev book,
“Dukhovnyi krisis intelligentsii” (“Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia”) (Klep.#4, Sect. I,
Ch. 1).

1
Schelling in his "Philosophie der Kunst" ["Philosophy of Art"] says: "Schoenheit ist das
real angeschaute Absolute" ["Beauty is the real contemplatible Absolute"]. Vide
Schellings Werke. Dritter Band [Vol. III], 1907, p. 46. This is a very profound definition,
from which is evident, that the contemplative extent of absolute being is beauty.
2
Its most imposing representative for us is Vyacheslav Ivanov.
3
The transformation of flesh into word was characteristic of the Alexandrian epoch.

CULTURE AND POLITICS

(Towards a Philosophy of Modern Russian History)

More than once already have they pointed to this, that Russia is the most strange, the
most fantastic and wondrous land in the world. In it co-dwell the deepest contradictions:
both an utmost and religious lifestyle, and a cultural lack of lifestyle, barbarity. This
indeed is the land of Dostoevsky, and in him was mirrored our most intimate, primal
elements. Only in Russia could there be interwoven: a profound and extreme religiosity
together with an as yet unprecedented religious indifferentism and negativity, the greatest
literature in the world together with a barbaric contempt for all literary creativity, a
wildly fanatical conservatism together with revolutionism, brought in the thither that
swept Europe.

I want to speak about the strange and tragic fate of Russian culture. Long ago already
there occurred a sort of fatal rift between the creativity of culture, between the religious
searchings, based upon philosophy, art, literature, even science, and our vanguard
intelligentsia. The creators of culture and the strugglers for liberation, the creators of
good and of values and the negators of evil and of injustices do not know each other,
often they suffer from a mutual indifference, and sometimes from a mutual contempt and
hostility. And there is yet still one other tragic rift: our so-called democratic intelligentsia
long since already has fallen in love with the people and made heroic attempts to become
one with them, but it has become sundered from the roots of national life, from the
element of the people. The going of the intelligentsia out to the people was to a
remarkable degree something mechanical, it quelled the conscience, but it proved
fruitless in a national-cultural regard. In such manner, the vanguard intelligentsia,
considering itself the salt of the earth, became cut off both from cultural creativity, the
spiritual life of the land, and from the national element of the people. The intelligentsia
bears upon it the weighty burden of an elementary sort of liberation, and history will raise
it a memorial, but its lack of culture and barbarity ought to take aback the man, who loves
culture, who esteems creative thought and beauty.

The rift between the creativity of culture and the political current of the vanguard
intelligentsia became clearly expressed particularly in the decade of the 60's, the era of
the militant rationalistic and enlightenment nihilism. Therein clearly evident are the roots
of this barbaric attitude towards culture. Cultural values of value in themself, spiritual
goods were subordinated to values utilitarian-political. Pushkin, that first creator of a
Russian culture, was spurned as superfluous. And up through the present the creativity of
beauty, and selfless knowledge for its own sake, and the searchings for religious truth, are
devalued in accord with utilitarian criteria. Philosophic and artistic currents get critiqued
politically, and not philosophically nor artistically, and a profound lack of culture is
expressed in this inability to differentiate betwixt the various spheres of life and
creativity.

Within human activity there is arithmetic and there is the higher mathematics, and
there are two types of attitude towards life: the one, is directed towards a dealing with the
old, already elementary ideas, the other -- towards the creativity of the new, the higher
ideas, towards the search for the as yet untrod paths. Across the extent of the whole
historical process are interwoven these two forms of human activity, the leveling, the
arithmetical, and the creative, the uplifting, demanding of an higher mathematics. And
there exists the old hostility between those discovering and creating, striving upwards
and in depth, in contrast with those dealing on the surface, the levelers, the popularisers.
The first -- are revolutionaries as regards their spirit and they cannot live off anything
whatever merely preserved, but the second are wont to be regarded as more just and
through a fatal misperception as more progressive, though the spirit of conservatism and
ossification often deadens their souls and renders the admitted friends of freedom into the
foes of a free searching and a free creativity. The strugglers for justice, for dealing with
the arithmetical sort of truths and elementary type goods tend to regard with a sick
disdain the right to embody in life the truths of the higher mathematics, to create beauty
always uplifting and revealing of other worlds. Those ardent over the lower schools and
mid-level education tend to fight the transition to the higher education, wherein the
arithmetical begins to accuse the higher mathematics of being insufficiently enlightening
in character, almost indeed reactionary. People, having assimilated arithmetical ideas and
having situated their life dealing with them along the human level, fanatically revolt
against the integral and differential calculus, which they do not understand, since they
have not yet made the transition from middle school to the higher.

The whole enlightenment and democratic rationalism, amidst all the radicalism of its
social-political perspectives, is naught else, than arithmetic, than a dealing with a most
elementary sort of ideas, and it fails to include a creative ascent within it. This limited
faith of our era never will grasp the integral and differential calculus of the new mystical
searchings, of the eternal creativity of beauty, the creativity of culture, developing amidst
the unbounded.
 The Russian progressive intelligentsia in its arithmetically disposed phantasm has
ignored the Russian great literature, it did not acknowledge Dostoevsky as its own,
because that he was not given to the mere repeating of multiplication tables, to addition
and subtraction, and hence it assumed a posture of armed neutrality in regards to the
creativity of culture, to the creation of the spiritual life of the land. It looked backwards,
to the extirpation of "evil", and not forwards, to the creativity of the "good". The whole of
our psychology for a long time has defined itself as purely negative, with our hatred for
oppression and gloom, and to our disgrace also our pathos has been chiefly negative. And
creative outlooks, the glimpses of the remote seemed to us inopportune and even
dangerous.

Genuine creativity, higher mathematics, the searchings and creation of the lofty
values of culture we see in Pushkin, in Lermontov, in Gogol and most of all and foremost
of all in Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy. There was something creative and of a revealing
discovery with certain of the Westernizers and Slavophiles in the generation of the 40's,
with Hertsen, with Khomyakov. It was there in Vl. Solov'ev, it is there in V. V. Rozanov,
in D. S. Merezhkovsky. With the so-called "decadents" there is also the thirst for
creativity, and the agitated searchings and love for culture.

Chernyshevsky, Pisarev, Mikhailovsky were talented and remarkable people, and it is

possible to discern in them glimpses of something greater, than an assigned arithmetic. In
them was reflected the twofold nature of the Russian intelligentsia soul. We cannot but
love these people, cannot but be eternally grateful to them. But their descendants, the
children of their spirit, ultimately reduced everything to the arithmetical, ultimately
renounced all creativity, they spurned the values of higher culture, and wallowed in quite
hopeless an utilitarianism. In Russian Marxism, when it was young, it tended to excite, it
was more cultural, it added complexity to mental inquiries, it accustomed one moreso to
think and to read and to become weaned from the old nihilistic pitches, but in its utmost
growth it again fell into our intelligentsia barbarity and lack of culture.

Let us look more closely, as regards the 60's generation of the Russian vanguard
society and its teachers for culture, to all the creative efforts, in what spirit the finest part
of our youth was raised. With the mother's milk we sucked in a scorn for culture, for
literature, for art, philosophy, religion, for beauty in life, for refinement and complexity
of existence. Those, who wanted to free us from the thousand-year oppression and
slavery, not only did not implant in us a love and respect for creative freedom, for the
fullness of life, but frequently themselves quenched the spirit, they demanded a
deadening of cultural creativity, abstaining from a whole series of inquiries, and they
practiced a peculiar positivistic asceticism. And the souls of too many of us were
rendered emasculated, vulgarly simplified, restricted to the elementally necessary and
useful. Herein is a curious contrast.

The nihilism of the 60's was a young, an healthy protest, a "Sturm und Drang" with
all the extremities and awkward aspects of suchlike eras. It was strong and noteworthy by
its negativity towards our historical, predominant, demonically-dark "nihilism", of our
old, oppressive "non-being". But then too it itself, this positive, progressive, this non-
reactionary nihilism contained within it an ascetic attitude towards culture, towards
creativity, towards the fullness of life and therefore it bore with it likewise the spirit of
non-being. And our decandentist movement was a young protest, likewise a "Sturm und
Drang", but with a sickly vigor it has struggled for culture, for freedom of creativity, for
refinement of existence, for the fullness of being. It was a revolt likewise indeed against
our old, historical, deadening life of nihilism, but the revolutionary character of the
decandentist movement has escaped the notice of our progressive nihilists. In the
relationship between nihilism and the decandentist movement we see a vivid mirroring
and as it were symbolization of the oldly existing for us relationship between politics and
culture. With the "nihilists" and their children and grandchildren we see a spirit of being,
its affirmation in politics and an asceticism, the spirit of non-being in the creativity of
culture; with the "decadentist movement" and those akin to them in spirit, just the
opposite, -- an asceticism, the spirit of non-being and its affirmation in politics, and the
spirit of being in the creativity of culture. And this is remarkable.

Many an example can be offered of the nihilistic and ascetic attitude of the teachers
of the intelligentsia and of our intelligentsia society towards culture, towards the
creativity of values. And this is first of all expressed in the traditional attitude towards
Russian literature. The self-sufficing significance of beauty and of the creative word was
irrelentlessly spurned and there was adopted a purely utilitarian outlook upon literature.
Pisarev, the most brusque and most sympathetic of the teachers of our youth, spurned
Pushkin, excluded him from the history of Russian culture. Later on more moderate
continuators of Pisarev's work tended to find, that this was extreme and going overboard,
and they mercifully admitted for Pushkin the right to existence. But all the same Pushkin
remained spurned, he was unneedfully splendid, they did not read him, did not
understand him. And this more or less likewise was repeated with all the greatest Russian
writers, their fate immeasurably sorrowful. The religious torments of Gogol remained
under suspicion and he was valued only as a societal satirist. L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
were acknowledged as world geniuses and teachers in Western Europe, our vanguard
criticism castigated them for whatever the petty faults, it gave them reprimands for
insufficient knowledge on arithmetical ideas and anathematised all their significance for
Russian and world culture, everything, that in them was cataclysmic, religious and
prophetic. For the vanguard Russian criticism, utilitarian and emasculate, Russian
literature has remained an unknown land, some sort of wondrous world, and herein is
expressed that sickly alienation of the vanguard intelligentsia from the national roots of
cultural creativity. The true appreciation of Russian literature has begun already in a
completely different pole of thought, with people of a different outlook, it can be met
with in Vl. Solov'ev, Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, Volynsky etc.

Quite the same barbaric attitude has always been there amongst us towards
philosophy. In the 40's they esteemed philosophic thought, but in the 60's there began the
positivist obscurantism. The ascetic abstemption from philosophic searchings, from
thoughts over the ultimate problems of being is regarded as hardly more than a sign of
societal decency. The right of a philosophic creativity was spurned in the high tribunal of
a societal utilitarianism. We had an outstanding and original, an altogether unique
philosopher -- Vladimir Solov'ev. Are there many that have read him, that know him,
that have appreciated his philosophy? On one's fingers can such be counted. For a long
time this extraordinary man regarding himself did not evoke anything, save for a dull
sneering, and he was hopelessly alone. Russian vanguard society is unable to appreciate
the most national heroes of its cultural creativity, and there is herein something strange
and pathetic. With us there were also other efforts in the sphere of philosophic thought, as
e.g. Kozlov, Lopatin and moreover certain others, no worse than the [Alois] Riehl's, the
Windelbands, the Cohens, but who indeed has read them, who even has heard of them?
Are there many of us who have read "Voprosy philosophii i psikhologii" ["Questions of
Philosophy and Psychology"], an original philosophic journal, more alive spiritually, than
the greater part of our fat journals, bereft of all creativity? In recent years the so-called
"idealists" have generated an interest in philosophy, have brought attention to it, though
also not very favourably, but as regards purely utilitarian considerations, only because
that they earlier were Marxists and now have attempted to connect philosophy with
politics.

But with us nothing is so scorned and so ignored, as is art. In this area of novelty, the
lack of culture and coarseness of tastes of the Russian vanguard intelligentsia tends to
exceed that of all others. With us how so very mechanically they go to the opera, to a
drama, to an exhibition of pictures, they seek amusements or distractions, but no one
almost relates seriously, reverently towards artistic creativity, as towards something of
value absolute, liberating and salvific. For many years there has existed for us the first-
class artistic journal, the "Mir Iskusstva" {"The World of Art"], which would be accorded
honour and love by an European land, but the better part of our intelligentsia have never
read it, have not even known about its existence, or at best were indifferent to such an
unneeded luxury. And the "Mir Iskusstva" was not only an excellent artistic journal, with
great boldness reproducing and defending the finest productions of modern art, but it was
also the most literary of all the journals, which we have had up til now, the first
European-cultural journal. In it were published very outstanding and remarkable works of
Merezhkovsky, of Shestov, Minsky, very remarkable, with genius in places, the articles
of Rozanov, verses of the most talented of our poets, brilliant, refreshing articles as
regards the artistic critiquing of A[leksandr] Benua and others. In the journal has been
nothing tactless or unslovenly in a political regard and as regards its spirit it, certainly,
was revolutionary, but it pursued creative, cultural tasks, and for this there was no
forgiveness for it from the intelligentsia old-believers, the bearers of the assigned
arithmetical truths. They nihilistically and ascetically ignored it. Particularly telling was
the castrate-like, nihilistic-ascetic spirit of our intelligentsia in this contempt and
indifference, with which it regarded the creativity of beauty in its own life, such as would
be an outward beauty of form and an inward beauty of outlook. All the efforts to
embellish life, to struggle against ugliness and tastelessness are considered bourgeois, but
they fail to take note of that vile philistinism, that slovenliness and vulgarity of taste, with
which the life of our intelligentsia society is filled.

Shocking by its lack of culture and flippancy is the attitude, which among us exists
towards the modern poetry, towards the so-called "decadents". The "decadents" indeed
are the solely talented poets in contemporary Russian literature and together with this the
most literate literarily, the most cultured of people. Despite their tendency towards
innovation, the search for new forms and new outlooks, it is only they among us who
esteem the history of literature, of the great writers of the past, Russian and worldwide,
which is already proven by their elegant translations of many a classical writer. It is time
already to finally and decisively admit, that we have a whole series of talented poets, who
have produced a turnabout in the history of Russian poetry, who have created a
completely new form, and have expressed completely new ideas and approaches.
Suchlike first of all is Valery Briusov, a first-class, original, growing talent, who certainly
ought to occupy a visible place in the history of Russian literature, and suchlike are K.
Bal'mont, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub, V. Ivanov. It is necessary to actually read, and not
merely beforehand to smirk, and it is time already to be done with the vile habit to term
rubbish that, what one does not as yet understand, what one is not yet mature enough for.
Our intelligentsia society and many of its literary representatives overstrain their lives
with laughter, when there is something they do not understand, and there is still quite
much they do not understand, they often do not understand the need itself to create
culture.

But nothing already besides sneering and loathing is expressed in the finest part of
our intelligentsia society towards mysticism, to any appeal for religious creativity. And
this in the land of Dostoevsky, the prophet of the mystical future of Russia, in the land, in
which Gogol' fell victim to his own religious thirstings, in which the healthy, the earthy,
the mighty Leo Tolstoy nearly went out of his mind with religious doubts, the land in
which the finest Slavophils envisioned the religious vocation of their native-land. With us
there has begun a profound religious tumult and in a certain, altogether unique part of our
intelligentsia, and in the people, and in the awakened parts of the Church, but the officio-
vanguard intelligentsia remains deaf and dumb, it does not want to and cannot see or
hear. With us there was the journal, "Novyi Put'", which modernly posited a whole series
of religious problems, and in which were published the very interesting, the politically
even interesting protocol-minutes of the "religio-philosophic" gatherings. Some of our
perhaps most talented writers have written there. Few men have essentially an interest in
this current, the rest however either have ignored it altogether, or have attempted to
research something reactionary, so as yet again to yield an utilitarian judgment upon
mysticism. Many were the insufficiencies and failings in "Novyi Put'", but in it was
something truly revolutionary, a thirsting for religious creativity and a new,
transfigurative culture. We stand too close to this tumult, too akin to it in spirit, if not in
word, to speak about it merely from the sidelines. In any case, the hour has begun, when
facts and actions compel finally the turning the attention of our radical, more accurately
conservative, intelligentsia upon that which is now and eternal, what is to be created
within the contemporary consciousness.

What however explains this engrained lack of culture within the Russian
intelligentsia, having devoted its life to the struggle for freedom, the welfare of the
people, its hopeless conservatism, its incapacity to love, to appreciate and understand the
creative strivings of others, its emasculation as it were? The reader, surely, has a ready
explanation and is indignant with me, how that I, knowing this explanation, have instead
decided to write what I write. I have not for a minute forgotten the grievous, often
martyr-like conditions, in which happened to live and struggle that select part of the
Russian intelligentsia. The prevailing nihilism for a long time involved an organised
mindset against the creative process of life and produced monstrous renunciations within
intelligentsia souls, it tended to cripple and maim life. They are wont to say: for us it is
not to grow fat, it should be to live. These people have saved their own soul, in having
perished it, in having given it for their brother. Herein especially we come also to the
very root, to the as such very deep religious cause of that strange phenomenon, which we
have made the theme of this article. External political causes, certainly, play a great role
and stand out before the eyes, but for us there is hid something immeasurably more
important and noteworthy, a sort of primal-principle metaphysics, by which history tends
to move.

Of what sort however is the subconscious metaphysics of the Russian intelligentsia?

This metaphysics is purely ascetic, akin to the old, churchly Christian spirit. In it is alive
furthermore, in the depths of its element, a sense of the sinfulness of the affirmation of
the fullness of existence, the sinfulness of the flesh, the sinfulness of the creativity of
culture. But with the intelligentsia, atheistic and materialistic at the surface of its
consciousness, this asceticism is ordinarily expressed thus: the sin against the people, the
sin against the working class, the sin against the progressive tasks of the times, the sin
against progress, this ultimate idol. Art, literature, philosophy, the beauty of the flesh,
love, the joyous feast of life, exuberance to the extreme, are likewise little revered by the
Russian radical and atheistic intelligentsia, just also as by historical Christianity. This
asceticism is one of the poles of the religious consciousness, the pull towards non-being,
Buddhism, a penultimate nihilism. Our ascetic intelligentsia -- are fanatical lovers of
mankind and morals, a vapid morals, suspended and hanging up in the air, desolate. The
polar opposite to this pole of religious consciousness instead affirms the fullness of
existence, has reverence for culture, and leads to a new, transfigured world, but the
revealing of this opposite pole demands religious creativity.

Whilst abstemious and denying in the creativity of culture, the radical, the actually
finest part of our intelligentsia affirms a truth within politics, and in this is its great
mission. But in this politics always there has been more so a self-renunciation, rather than
self-affirmation, and therefore but little of a vital realism. Greater was the love for
equality, for justice, for a sacred self-restriction, than for freedom, for rights, for
expansion of its existence. As regards the more moderate strata of the intelligentsia and
society, about them this is what was said: "I know thine works, thou art neither cold nor
hot; O, if but that thou wert cold, or hot! But as thou art lukewarm, then shalt I spew thee
from out of My mouth" [Ot./Rev. 3: 15-16]. They likewise deal with useful and necessary
matters, but in them the opposite poles of the religious consciousness has led to staleness.
In recent times there has appeared already the altogether non-ascetic based upon
wordings of the Marxist model, which exalt life and hint as its own the tendency towards
earthly orgies, but these motifs sound operatic against the tone of that drama, which is
playing out in Russian life, and is indeed too powerful in their bits of the old nihilism.

Two types of "positivism" can be posited: a positivism ascetic, practicing

abstemption in the name of its truth, subconsciously religious, though also only upon the
one pole of religiosity, and another positivism self-sufficing and limited, hedonistic,
bourgeois in the profound sense of this word, already totally irreligious and stale. And too
often in recent times the self-sufficing and stale positivism tends to appear under the
pretty mask of man-godhood. But all the views of positivism are fixed upon an ultimate
non-being, and it leads to an unconquerable death.

The tragic rift between the political and the cultural, between the dealing with
elementary matters of welfare and the creating of new values rests not only upon our
grievous societal conditions, but also upon the ascetic positivism of one part of our
intelligentsia, and the self-sufficing and limited positivism of its other part. And therefore
the fate of the impending Russian rebirth will depend not only upon a liberation political
and social, but also the still more radical liberation from beneath the oppression of both
forms of positivism.

But as yet the condition of our culture presents a pitiful spectacle. In our journals, the
most popular, instructive, there is almost nothing of literature, to it is devoted all less and
less space, and most of all what they call literateurs are mere social activists, writing
articles on matters of the evil of the day questions. About the creativity of new ideas they
are not given to ponder, and even with the old ideas they are interested all less and less.
Literature, ideology have ultimately blended together and become identical with societal
activism, at times very shallow, and having lost all unique significance. The greater part
of our journals are published not for mature cultured people, in them can be found only
an elementary level of teaching and in a majority of instances is very much a matter of
routine, reflecting in spirit a new sort of bureaucratism, apprehensive in regards to the
new. These journals serve a noble, useful, necessary purpose, but let them not be called
literature, let them straight out say, that they do not have a part in the creativity of culture.
It is indeed impossible to meet with a single considered words in our journalism on new
currents, about the creative efforts of people of a different spirit, and there is not the
slightest attempt to investigate, to analyze, what is involved, in order to critique in an
authentic manner. Our liberals know how to dispute with conservatives, the Marxists with
the liberals and the populists, the populists with the liberals and Marxists, but none of
them know how to dispute with the mystics, the idealists, the decadents, with the cultural
and religious revolutionaries. Here however the planes of view are totally different, here
the language is not in common, the experience is different, and therefore transpires the
restriction whether by belittling, or by sneering, or just our customary manners of
derision.

Soon indeed already will ensue the desired moment, when our elementary task will be
decided, the historical duty of the moment fulfilled. What then will be? Connected to
what will be our glance forward, and not backwards, the concern about building for the
future, and not only the destruction of the past? The joyful minute of liberation may
prove fateful for many, since it will uncover all their piteous poverty, their total absence
of creative ideas, and barbaric lack of culture. Up to the present much has been veiled
over and obscured by that external oppression, which created an agitated and intense
political effort. The values of people, their inner wealth has been determined by
conditional and temporal criteria. Our radical intelligentsia has made for the heights, and
the spirit of non-being stirring it has begotten with the times lofty images of existence.
Their creative impotence and lack of culture of our journalistic literature has had this hint
of justification, in that it has been dealing with the most necessary and urgent matters of
the times. But soon, I believe, that soon already it will be different. There will occur a
cultural differentiation, politics will be relegated to the practical life and to newspapers,
and it will become impossible still to pass off the societal arithmetic as literature, as the
creativity of culture. What then will happen with our journals? By what sort of uplifting
trends will live our vanguard intelligentsia, if the external, almost mechanical oppression
not still face them? There would show forth a field for the creativity of a self-smug,
delimited bourgeois positivism, for indeed the bourgeois aspect is there also already
within socialism and it is hopelessly bourgeois, insofar as socialism is rendered into a
religion, ultimately.

But there is still hope, that the at present subconscious religiosity of the finest part of
the Russian intelligentsia, and for us unknowable, the elementally enormous religiosity of
the Russian people, that it not permit of this transformation into a philistine domain, of
the average mean, in its dullness, in which endlessly the human anthill would rearrange
and enhance its prosperity. For this, one must needs first of all appreciate the creativity of
culture, to know and to read one's national heroes and creators, just as all the cultured
lands of the world have done, to discover one's historical flesh and blood, to perceive of
one's own fore-ordained destiny. Then only will Russian culture not only be, but also will
receive, an universal meaning and significance. Otherwise a terrible bankruptcy threatens
us, since we lack the wherewithal to be all the equal of the fine bourgeois, positivist,
American land, for not of such a material are we wrought. Perhaps it is not too late to turn
our attention to the prophetic significance of Dostoevsky and render it a land, worthy of
his very most great genius. We are speaking not about arithmetical errors, which he often
made in his "Diary of a Writer", but about his utmost mathematics which even Europe
knows not of.

But here what would result is something for us to deeply consider. Russia is
experiencing an era of historical cataclysm, the dormant powers of a great land have been
roused, a completely new era is perhaps opening, and we stand bereft of all pathos, all
fervor. Both the moderate and the radical intelligentsia have lost heart to fulfill their
historical duty and they do not realize, evidently, the immeasurable and direct
metaphysical significance of these moments. The pathos of a liberal and liberating pathos
of the year 89 [i.e. 1789 French Revolution] or the years 48 [i.e. 1848 European revolts]
we can no longer have, we are too belated, have gone along too far in awareness, this
matter presents itself as too elementary, and indeed the experience of European liberalism
weighs upon us like a nightmare. But we also cannot still have the classical socialistic
pathos. Socialism for us is not a real historical task of the times, but rather like an
idealistic outlook, like a religion, it is too primitive, it cannot yet prove satisfactory to the
modern complex and elaborate consciousness, given to fatal doubtings.1 The illusions of
a revolutionary romanticism have long since already floundered in Western Europe, and
in Russia they are only stealthily sustained by the oppression and lawlessness. It involves
certain elements of a paradise upon earth, which would be constructed in place of the
paradise heavenly, in a sometime when they have become religiously enraptured, but at
present it still rings false, seems stale, comes nigh to the hedonistic. It is not the
bourgeois, moderate, middle-course critique that has demolished the romantic aspect of
revolutionary socialism, the legend about a socialistic golden age, but the rather moreso
military factors, before which become fruitless and powerless all the noble, the pure-
hearted, the all quite too simplistic old-believers. Indeed in Europe there was Nietzsche,
in Russia -- Dostoevsky, and we indeed have experienced a profound decadence, which
always betokens a renaissance. It is not a political renaissance only being spoken of, but
about a cultural, about a new culture, set upon mystical, religious principles.

And we await a great cultural renaissance for Russia, have wanted to be at work for it.
But everyone says to us: later, not today, tomorrow, not yet the time for it. But eternal
matters have not a special time, and it is impossible to postpone, if the awareness is there
manifest. Many a tomorrowed day has already passed within Europe and nothing has
appeared, it has all gone the path of a stale, self-smug hedonistic positivism, gone down
the path of non-being in a most profound and true sense of the word, if the tendencies of
American civilization hold sway. We love the cultural and liberating Europe, we are
patriots of Western Europe, as was Dostoevsky in speaking of this, we are Westernisers,
and not Easternisers, but for all this we ought to ponder upon two paths, which open
afront a liberated Russia.

Usually they think, that Russia either will perish, will die, if there continues to hold
sway our historical, our devilishly-dark reactionary nihilism, if it for long holds still its
grip over the course of life, or otherwise there will win out the liberating forces and there
will ensue a new life, bright, refreshing, and many, many a fine thing there will be.
Certainly, the perspectives on the future differ whether it be amongst the moderate
liberals, the radical democrats or the social democrats, and not for all does it stand as an
outright dilemma: death or life. In actuality however our times are quite more complex,
more dreadsome and in need of responsibility. For us, undoubtedly, death threatens, if the
old nihilism should continue to prevail and extinguish souls, its dominion ought to have
limits set to it, and there finally ought to be proclaimed freedom and the dignity of the
human person. This concerns our looking at the past, but as regards looking at the future
there appears a new dilemma, and we neither want nor have the right to refuse efforts to
resolve it. Will Russia go along the oft-trodden path of a positivistic, philistine,
irreligious culture, without any final affirmation of being, with an unvanquishable death?
We desire not this path, to us it represents a new form of non-being and not in the name
of it would we demolish the nightmarish phantom of our old non-being. Our hope is
bound up with a new religious, tragic yet joyful culture, with an ultimate victory over
death and an ultimate affirmation of the plenitude of being. We desire this path, and we
are acutely aware, that the hour of a turnabout has begun, not only the turnabout of an
outward, societal organisation of life, but also of an inner, metaphysical turnabout.

A great land cannot live without pathos, without creative inspiration, but a
pathos purely political, a pathos of an earthly human saeity cannot yet however be
for people of a new consciousness, and we can only trust upon a pathos religious.
The realization of our century-long political dream, ought to be bound up with a
great cultural and religious renaissance of Russia. Then only would we know, in the
name of what to act and to create. We set as our aim not only an elementary
liberation, but also a renaissance cultural, the constructing of a culture upon the
groundwork of a renewed religious consciousness. Then not only the fanciful, but
rather the concrete, endowed with flesh and blood aspect of our historical being will
possess universal a significance, bound up with the meaning of worldwide history.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1905

KUL'TURA I POLITIKA. K philosophii novoi russkoi istorii. First published in

monthly journal "Voprosyi zhizni", 1905, No. 4/5, p. 320-334. Later incorporated by
Berdyaev into his 1907 book, "Sub Specie Aeternitatis", Chapter 13 (p. 310-325) in year
2002 Moscow Kanon reprint edition.

1
I entreat the roused and irate reader to remember, that from my side this is not an
argument against socialism, the quality of which, as the boundary-limit in thought in
social-economic organization in our era, is for me indubitable

CHRIST AND THE WORLD

[Reply to V. V. Rozanov]

(V. Rozanov is one of the greatest Russian prose writers, a genuine magician with
the word.)1 V. V. Rozanov frightens Christians, both the old, and the new. They are
embarrassed to have to ward off his blows, they consider him a very dangerous opponent
of Christ, as though Christ could have dangerous opponents, as though the deed of Christ
could be struck undeflectable blows. And Rozanov is an enemy not of Christianity only,
not of “historical” Christianity, but first of all of Christ Himself. Christianity is not so
repulsive for him, the whole of Christianity was a compromise with the “world”, within
Christianity has become pervasive a principle of household management, within the
elements of Christianity has coalesced a familial way of life, and Christianity has created
the strangely-felt way of life of the white clergy, for Christianity has decided to eat its
“jam-preserves”, to be fruitful with children, and it accepted within itself almost the
whole “world”. Christ for Rozanov was worse than Christianity: Christ was pitiless
towards the world, Christ was frightening with His world-denial. The whole of
Christianity however has been humanly complaisant, condescending towards the weak,
and Christianity within history did not pose so sharply the dilemma: “Christ” or “the
world”; it adopted some from Christ and some from the world. And Rozanov is not so
altogether hostile to the Christian way of life. To much of this way of life he is attached,
his unctuous love for family grew out of this lifestyle. Rozanov is an enemy of Christ,
and only the absence of genuine bravery compels him to mask this hostility and lead into
error good people, who continue to think, that Rozanov demands merely the readjustment
of Christianity, that his aims are reformational, that he is prepared to accept Christianity,
but with reservations, with theatrics and jam-jelly, with the pleasures of the world. The
times are so gone to ruin, that Rozanov appears as a reformer of Christianity, when in fact
he is a terrible and implacable foe of the faith of Christ, more terrible indeed than was
Nietzsche. A brilliant and charming literary talent, with boldness and a perceived
concreteness in the positing of questions, a strong mystical sense -- all this is impressive
in Rozanov, and he almost hypnotises amidst the reading of his articles. But he is not so
terrible a devil, as they point him out to be. A philosophic and religiously bright
consciousness without especial effect might find a tangle in the very setting forth of
Rozanov’s theme, and this tangle is not by chance, not from some pervasive mental
weakness of Rozanov, but rather a fatal tangle, ultimately in intent dispatched for ends
such as Rozanov’s.

The theme of Rozanov, and to a remarkable degree also of “Novyi Put’” (“The New
Pathway”), and both the former and the current “Religio-Philosophic Gatherings”2 -- was
of Christ and the world, the relationship between Christ and the world. Rozanov with
extraordinary talent and brilliance developed in his article, “Ob Iisuse Sladchaishem i o
gor’kikh plodakh mira” (“On Jesus MostSweet and the Bitter Fruits of the World”), and it
is this article chiefly that I shall address in the present (article) [reply]. From God there is
the child-Christ and the child-world. Rozanov sees an irreconcilable hostility between
these two children of God. For whomever Jesus is the sweeter, for that one the world is
rendered bitter. In Christ the world is embittered. Those, who have come to love Jesus,
have lost their taste for the world, all the fruits of the world have become bitter out of the
sweetness of Jesus. All this was written with an amazing vividness, glaringly, boldly and
at first impression dangerously. One mustneeds choose between Jesus and the world,
between the two children of God. It is impossible to unite Jesus with the world, it is
impossible to love them both at the same time, it is impossible to sense both the
sweetness of Jesus and the sweetness of the world. The family, science, art, the joy of
earthly life -- all these are bitter or tasteless for the one who has tasted of the heavenly
sweetness of Jesus. In the marvelous expression of Rozanov, Christ -- is an one of a kind
flower, and this means all the flowers of the world set in comparison with Him. In the
“Imitation of Christ” is praised this sweetness of Jesus and the bitterness of all the fruits
of the world. And in the “Confessions” of Blessed Augustine it is filled with a fondness
for Christ and a dislike for the world. Rozanov himself does not like to dot the i, he is
given to equivocation, and he never makes the decisive deductions, leaving it to the
conjecture of the reader. But the dilemma is suchlike: if Christ is Divine, then the world
is demonic, or if the world is divine, then Jesus is demonic. Rozanov is attached to the
world with all his being, he loves in the world everything worldly, he feels the divineness
of the world and the sweetness of its fruits. Jesus MostSweet became for him demonic,
and the face of Christ -- darkened.

Rozanov’s settings of the question produce a very strong impression, whereas all the
expressions of the apologetes of Christianity are but insipid and weak. Rozanov speaks
concretely and at first glance clearly, he provides a feeling for the question in all its
acuteness, he stuns and hypnotises. He is crude, when he drags a monk into the “theater”,
but the monk actually is presented as hapless. The chatter of the official defenders of the
Church is not convincing, and the impression remains with everyone, that Rozanov has
proven, has graphically demonstrated the absolute opposition between Christ and the
world, the absolute incongruity of the sweetness of Christ with the sweetness of the
world. Christ for Rozanov is the spirit of non-being, the spirit of the diminishing of
everything in the world, and Christianity -- is a religion of death, an apology for the
sweetness of death. The religion of birth and life ought to declare irreconcilable war
against Jesus MostSweet, as a poisoner of life, a spirit of non-being, the founder of the
religion of death. Christ has hypnotised mankind, has inspired a dislike for being, a love
for non-being. His religion has acknowledged as but solely beautiful -- dying and death,
sorrow and suffering. Rozanov writes quite talentedly, he speaks very vividly, he says
much that is accurate, but his very point of departure -- is false, and his very settings of
the question -- are illusory and confused. Rozanov -- is an ingenious philistine, and his
question ultimately is a philistine, bourgeois, everyday ordinary question, but formulated
with brilliant talent. Rozanov also tends to strike hold with this, in that he bespeaks
something close to the philistine heart, that the question about the sweet and the bitter
fruits of the world grabs hold the attention with the bourgeois of this world, it throws into
confusion the official Christianity, further still transported into philistinism. Rozanov’s
family, jelly-jam, theatres, pleasures and joy of the felicitous life are acceptable and close
to every philistine realm, which sees in this also the essence of this “world” and it is “this
world” which would as it were be saved from the hypnosis of Jesus MostSweet. For
Rozanov, being is what is, and the “world” is the sweetness of the lived life. This is very
deep, in this -- is power.

Rozanov suggests, that every philistine-fellow knows, that the “world” is suchlike, he
sense it as the bearer of the joys of being, with the family, the sweets, the adornments of
life, etc. The philistine-fellow knows, but the philosopher does not know. The question
about the world is very unclear and undefined, and in this passing off of the unclear and
undefined in place of the clear and defined, the passing off of the sought for in place of
the found -- lies all the slyness of Rozanov and the empowerment of all his whole secret.
What is the suchlike world, and about what sort of world is it being spoken? What sort of
content does Rozanov invest in the word “world”, and is this world the aggregate of
empirical appearances or of the positive fullness of being? Is the world everything of the
given, a medley of the authentic with the illusionary, the good with the evil, or only the
authentic, the good? If the question about the world be taken as applying to the aggregate
of everything empirically given, in which the sweetness of jelly-jam occupies the same
spot as would also the sweetness of the greatest of artistic works, then this question for us
is almost not worth the interest. The eternal in the world and the perishable in the world
cannot be taken in the same regard, and the very settings of the question about the world
without any differentiation of values is impermissible. Such a world is a “world” in
parentheses. Our factually given and investigated world is a medley of being and non-
being, of actuality with the illusory, of eternity with the perishable. What sort of world is
Rozanov fond of, what is it from the world he would affirm, in what sort would live? I
am afraid, that Rozanov demands from religion a factual mishmash of the genuine and
valuable, all mixed up with the false and worthless. But the religious is not a question
about the world, rather it is the question about the authentic, the real world, about the
fullness of being, about the values of the world, about the extra-temporal, the
imperishable content of the world. Simply to affirm “this world” -- means to affirm the
law of decay, of servile inevitability, of necessity and sickness, deformity and
falsification. The world lies in evil, but the positive fullness of being is a supreme value
and good, and the valued and joyful in the world is an actual being. Rozanov can only
succeed in standing afront the evil of this world, to deny this evil he cannot, to confront
the results of this evil is beyond his powers. From whence is death, at the same time
hateful to Rozanov and to all of us, from whence hath death come into the world and
wherefore been taken hold by it? Does Rozanov consent to acknowledge death as an
essential part of this world, which he so loves and which he defends against Christ? Not
from Christ hath death come into the world: Christ came to save from death, and not to
bear death to the world.

Christ came to separate the genuine and the valuable in the world from the false and
the worthless, the Divine from the diabolic. Christ -- is the Saviour of the genuine world,
that which is authentic and of the fullness of being, the Divine cosmos, wounded by sin,
and not the inauthentic world, not the chaos, not the kingdom of the prince of this world,
not the non-being. Christ hath judged the perishable, the illusory and chaotic world: the
Kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and Christ taught not to love this world, nor that
which is of this world. But worldly factuality is neither of this world, nor of that world,
but a medley, an admixture of that other world with this, the wounded and sickened
creation, both being and non-being, both the valuable and the worthless. Christ had to
have come, since that the old world, the sinful world fallen away from God, had rotted,
rust undercut all the foundations of the world, and anguish encompassed the world. The
old immanent feeling for life, so captivating for Rozanov in paganism and Judaism, was
conjoined together with a transcendent feeling. A tragic experience thus transpired
always at the threshold of every religious turnabout. The old world, left on its own, could
not save from the perishing, within this world it had not the power to save from the power
of the all-encompassing death. Self-deification is ruination, the theosis or making-Divine
by the Son of God is salvation. Rozanov desires an immanent salvation through the world
and he repudiates the transcendent salvation as non-being and death, he sense the divine
within creation, but he is deaf and blind to the tragedy, bound up in the rift betwixt the
creation and the Creator.

Rozanov’s feeling for the world can be termed an immanent pantheism, in it is

lodged a powerful primal-feeling of the divinity of worldly life, a non-mediated
immediate joy of life, but very weak in it is the sense of the transcendent, quite foreign to
him is a transcendent anguish and expectation of a transcendent exodus. Rozanovism is a
peculiar mystical naturalism, the deifying of the natural mysteries of life. In the XX
Century, during the sunset years of human history, Rozanov is living out the naturalistic
phase of religious revelation, he thirsts for a world-wide historical childhood and naivete,
and he fails to notice the senility and decrepitude of this restoration of the first days of
mankind. Rozanov’s naturalistic pantheism is the senile lapsing into childhood with
mankind. Only in deep old age can be remembered the days of childhood and youth, the
relishing of past delights. And Rozanov, the mystic Rozanov, in whom there are
ingenious insights, deifies the good and the joys of this life, he worships familial felicity,
looking forward with a childlike enthusiasm to the sweetness of jelly-jam, and then
imperceptibly taking a tumble over into an apology for his everyday ordinary aspect and
philistinism. He identifies the world with the felicitous life of the natural familial sort. He
wants as though ultimately to deify the life of the natural familial sort. But we have seen
already, that this “world” so dear to Rozanov is all still subject to the law of decay, and
Rozanov lacks the ability to repose such, as in death did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
blessing their posterity, in him there is not such a strength of the impersonal, fine indeed
only for that world epoch; even he does not consent to live but in his posterity, and he is
deeply caught up in the final phases of the worldwide religious revelation, and his blood
is infected with Jesus MostSweet. A restoration never transpires as it was intended to be
restored.

And as fine as the religion of Babylon was in its time (but for its time it was a poor
one, since then already there were higher forms of religion), after Christ and the whole
experience of modern history the restoration of the Babylonian religion is folly or child’s
play. Historical science has sufficiently dissuaded us of the existence of a Golden Age,
and the religious consciousness can see in the sweet remembrance of a Golden Age not
some sort of earthly epoch in the past history of mankind, but rather a sense of its own
extra-temporal and extra-worldly closeness to God, transgressed by sin. We have lost
paradise, but this paradise was not Babylon, nor Judaism, nor paganism, nor overall any
earthly past of mankind, as Rozanov is inclined to think, but rather the heavenly origin of
mankind. Yet as we see, Rozanov is oriented not only backwards, he looks forward also
and he conjoins with this the expectations of an earthly paradise in the future.
Unexpectedly for him, he is prepared to give a mystical hue to the array of the
Babylonian turret-tower, and he would justify the deification of the old natural world
upon the social arrangements of the future. He imperceptibly approaches the pathos of
positivism and greenly naive radicalism, and with rapid strides he gets almost to
Pisarevism, but he remains an artist, not having been wrought an artisan.

Rozanov is a man immersed in being, in him there is an intense sense of a man

immersed in life and with a very weak sense of person. Personal self-consciousness for
Rozanov is almost entirely lacking, just as it tends to be lacking in modern man. Rozanov
also therefore lacks the awareness of the tragedy of death, the tragedy of personal fate,
the terror at the individual perishing. Rozanov has something in common with L. Tolstoy,
in the feel for life, in them there is mutual aspect, in that they sense worldly life akin to
the Old Testament manner. Just like Tolstoy, Rozanov facing the world unwraps “the
child’s diaper with its green and yellow” and with this diaper he wants to conquer death
and personal tragedy. The “Kreutzer Sonata” was only a revenge side of this diaper. Both
L. Tolstoy and Rozanov arrive at a reinforcing of the everydayness, at a philistinism
inconsistent with their religious searchings. Rozanov decides thus the problem of death:
there were two men, and between them were born eight children, two die, but in the eight
there is a triumph and life is increased. Salvation then from death -- is in the shattering of
each being into a multiplicity of pieces, in a bad infinity, and consolation for the person --
lies in the disintegration of the person. Rozanov opposes to death not eternal life, not
resurrection, but rather birth, the arising of new and other lives, and so on without end,
without exit. But this method of salvation from the tragedy of death is possible only for a
being, which senses the reality of the race and does not sense the reality of the person.
This consolation tends to delimit human reproduction on a par with cattle breeding.
 In the Old Testament and aboriginally-pagan racial mindset, the person was
obscured, hardly awake from the sleep, into which its sin had cast it. The whole of world
history was a gradual awakening of the person, and in our much troubled and much
complicated epoch the person has awakened with a shriek of terror and helplessness, torn
away from its racial aspect and only now able to attach itself to something new. Rozanov
pulls the person backwards towards the racial element and he wants to convince the
world, that to return is possible, that it is necessary but to renounce Christ, to forget
Christ, that Christ is the culprit behind the hypertrophy by the personal by means of
sensing, that if Christ were not, there would not be the tragedy of death, it would not be
felt so sickeningly and the terror of death and destruction come but from a glance at the
diaper, soiled in green and yellow. The world for Rozanov is the race and a living for the
race, whereas the person is somewhere on that other side of the world, with Christ. The
feeling of the person and a consciousness of its tragic fate -- is transcendent, it goes
beyond the borders of that which Rozanov terms the “world”, and therefore so tragic and
tormentive is its fate in this world.

But everything that has been of value, genuine within the history of the world, was
transcendent, it was a thirst to go beyond the boundaries of this world, to break out from
the restraining circle of immanence, it was an exit to another world, and the penetrating
of another world into our world. The transcendent becomes immanent to the world -- here
is in what lies the meaning of world culture. The whole of human creativity has been a
troubling over the transcendent, over another world, and never has creativity been a
reinforcing of the joys of the natural racial lifestyle, it was never an expression of the
sufficiency of this life. Creativity has always been an expression of insufficiency, a
mirroring of the torment of dissatisfaction with this life. It is not only art, philosophy,
culture and all the creativity of culture which per se indicate the transcendent distress of
mankind, but also love, sexual love, so very close and dear for Rozanov, standing at the
centre of everything, -- this too has been a thirst for a transcendent egress, an unsettling
desire to break free from the bounds of this world. Sexual love is already more, than this
“world”, it is already a dissatisfaction with this “world”. And Rozanov himself
acknowledges the transcendent character of sex.

To justify love, art, philosophy, all the creative impulses -- means also to reveal their
transcendent character, to see in them the potential for an egress from this world. Family
is still this world, it has delimited horizons, but love is already another world, it is an
expanding of the horizons to infinity. Positivism is of this world, forever with delimited
horizons, but metaphysics is of another world, it is remoteness. The immanent pantheism,
towards which Rozanov gravitates, is likewise a poetised sort of pantheism, a peculiar
perspective of a mystical positivism. The societal order of the human realm is of this
world, and all this is a delimited horizon, but the vision of the unification of people
within a Kingdom of God on earth is already of another world, the surmounting of every
restriction. People love to talk about Greek culture and the affirmation of the world
within it in contrast to a world negation within Christianity. But the greatest things in
Greek culture -- were an egress from this world, a consciousness of the immediately
obtaining world, it was already a path towards Christianity. The whole Medieval culture,
rich with creativity, and full of beauty, was built upon a transcendent feeling. In this
culture there was also love, with the cult of the Fair Lady, and art, and philosophy, and
chivalry, and public festivity. Was all this, in light of Rozanov, an affirmation or a
negation of the world? I include all these examples to effectively show all the shakiness
of the settings about the “world”. That “world”, which Rozanov so frets about, does not
at all exist.

To religiously justify history, culture, the flesh of the world -- does not mean to
justify family, the racial lifestyle and “jelly-jam”. It means rather to justify the
transcendent thirst as regards an other world, embodied within world culture, to affirm in
this world a thirst for an universal exodus forth from the natural order of nature, of evil
and decay.3 I am emboldened even to think, that between the world and the family, in the
name of which first of all Rozanov rose up in revolt against Christ, there exists [a deeply
irremedial] opposition. The family itself makes pretense to be the world and to live
according to its own law, [the family] (it often) cuts man off from the world, not
infrequently it deadens man for the world and for everything, that is created in the world.
[Between the world and the family there exists quite greater an antagonism, than between
the world and Christ. It has already been sufficiently demonstrated and shown, that
nothing so gives hindrance to an universal sense of world life and the worldly ends of
history, as the fortress of the racial family. And not only between the family and the
world does there exist an opposition, the opposition exists also between the family and
love, in the family love all too often becomes buried away.]

Every reinforced and delimited way of life is opposed to creativity, to the age-old
antagonism with the universal and the worldwide. But Rozanov wants us to put the
familial lifestyle before the universal, before the great world of God. The hostility of the
racial lifestyle and the racial family to universal creative impulses does not require any
especial proofs, the fact is all but evident. Here is why Rozanov’s “world” presents itself
to me as a fiction, which seems clearly discernable for the common everyday
consciousness. This “world” is an hodgepodge of being with non-being, and the
religiously important thing is not the question about the “world”, but rather the question
about worldwide historical creativity in this “world”, that of being. And the immanent
religion of this world is but an apotheosis of philistinism, one aspect of which Rozanov
comes nigh to. This “world”, taken in itself, is but only worthy of the fire, but in its
history there is affirmed an other, a genuine world, in it there is a Divine-human
connection, in it there are creative impulses towards the Divine cosmos, in it there is the
universal path towards a new heaven and a new earth, in it there is deliverance from evil,
and with these matters is connected the religious question about the affirmation of the
world.

All more and more a degenerated monasticism denies not the world, -- this world via
the smuggler’s pathway penetrates into the monastic lifestyle, there is much of the jelly-
jam in the monasteries and little of the Gospel “mourning with ashes”, -- monasticism
denies creativity, the penetration into this world of an other world, it denies the history of
the deliverance from evil of this world. Monasticism has gotten mired down in this
“world”, it has sundered its connection with the ascetic Christian mysticism; furthermore,
the official Christianity has already become transformed into the lifestyle, of which there
is much that is dear to Rozanov’s heart. But monasticism continues to deny the values of
the world, it contemns creative impulses, it is hostile to deliverance from the powers of
this world, it esteems the evil of the world and the justification of its existence. Monks,
bishops, the princes of the Church, the historical masters over religion -- these (usually)
are people of quite worldly a lifestyle, the established rulers of this world. We cannot
believe, that these people are not of this world, and their seeming denial of the world is
but one of the ruses of this “world”. And we [rise up] (are prepared to rise up) against the
hierarchs of the Church, against the official Christianity, not in the name of the world, but
in the name of an other world, in the name of creativity and freedom, in the name of the
thirst to break forth from the bounds of this world, rather than to reinforce them. The
worldwide historical significance of ascetic Christian mysticism -- is in a challenge to the
whole natural order, a struggle against natural necessity, in the theosis-deification of
human nature in union with Christ, in the victory over death. This asceticism of the
Christian saints was not unintelligible or evil, it had a positive mission, it had cosmic
consequences in the deed of the salvation of the world. But where now are the saints? Is it
possible still in our time to speak about the existence of an ascetic mysticism? For us, the
act of surmounting in Christian asceticism is not a denial of its great mission, it is not an
acceptance of this world. The new religious consciousness affirms not this chaotic and
servile world, but rather the cosmos, the sacred flesh of the world. The flesh of the world,
that which ought to be sanctified, liberated and saved -- is transcendent, as much
transcendent as also is spirit. This flesh is not material matter of this world, this flesh is
manifest as a result of the victory over the burden and fetters of the material world.
Chiliastic hopes towards the completion of history by a Kingdom of God upon earth, a
sense-perceptible realm of Christ, is not the expectation of a kingdom of this world:
chiliasm is not a kingdom of this world, but rather in this world. And with chiliasm is
connected the world-historical resurrection of the flesh, a religious affirmation of the
flesh of the world. What sort of flesh however is it that Rozanov loves, what sort of
religion of the flesh does he preach?

The question about the origin and essence of evil for Rozanov is unresolved, and it is
not even posited. Pantheism is always one-sided, it does not sense the tragedy of the
world, enclosed in it is only part of the truth. If the world is so fine and divine, if in it
itself there is an immanent justification, if there is unnecessary any sort of a transcendent
egress from world history, then it is incomprehensible, from whence hath appeared the
evil of this world and the terror of the here and now life. For Rozanov, evil is some sort
of an unintelligible, an accident, a fatal mistake of history, going off on a false path. From
whence is it that Christ appeared, from whence is the power, according to Rozanov, of
His dark visage? Why does the religion of death have such an hypnotic hold over human
hearts? Why does death mow down worldly life? Rozanov is unable to answer even one
of these questions. He hides himself away from evil, within the joy of familial life, in the
sweetness of being, and with jelly-jam he wants to sweeten the bitter pill of life. Rozanov
cries out: I am fed up with tragedy, the sufferings have exhausted me, I want to hear
nothing about death, I cannot take already the dark rays, I want the joys of life, I want
only to accept the divine world. Overwhelmed by everything, all exhausted, there is
nothing thou canst do, evil is actual, and not an hypnotic sleigh of hand. Sex, cries out
Rozanov, -- here is salvation, here is the divine, here is the overcoming of death.
Rozanov wants to set up sex in opposition to the Word. But sex is poisoned at its source,
sex perishes and is subject to decay, sex is something dark, and only the Word can save
him.

And if there be seen in Christ a dark principle of non-being, hostile to the divine
world, then this is already a very profound failing of pantheism, this is a fracture, which
pantheism cannot bear up under. But Rozanov is quite the mystic, he quite latches onto
the Person of Christ, in order to explain rationalistically the mysterious might of this
Person. Rozanov senses this irrational mystery. But the evil of the world -- is likewise an
irrational mystery, and a pure pantheism comes to an halt before this mystery with a
sense of helplessness and awkwardness. Rozanov says right out, that the religion of death
has come from Christ. But let him also say right out, from whence the death has come,
how can it be compatible with an immanently divine world.

The extolled “world” of Rozanov is a cemetery, in it everything is poisoned by a

deadly venom. Rozanov wants in the cemetery to grow the flowers of divine life and to
console himself with the fertility of the rotting corpses. Rozanov apotheosises the
biological fact of birth, but the mystical enigma of life is contained not within the
biological birth in time, it is connected with the mystery of death. Rozanov does not want
as it were to see the duality of human nature, its belonging to two worlds, he closes his
eyes to the opposition between the eternal impulses of man, between the potentiality of
absolute life lodged within himself and the relativity of the here and now life of man, the
limitedness of all here and now realisations. But religion does possess this metaphysical
and anthropological taproot, within the duality of human nature there is rooted a religious
thirst. The religion of Christ denies within this world its sense of limitation and servile
bounds, denies it in the name of an absolute unlimitedness and freedom -- herein lies the
meaning of the opposition. If Rozanov had a deep sense of person, a feeling for the tragic
antinomy of each individual human being, he would then not have posed thus the
dilemma: the “world” or Christ. Beforehand would have had to be posed the dilemma:
the world or the person. In the “Rozanov world”, the person perishes together with all its
own absolute potentialities. But Christ has appeared: in Christ the person is saved and
there is realised all its own absolute potentialities, its filiation-sonship to God, wherein it
is called to participation to Divine Life. Christ also is in this world, in which is affirmed
the being of the person in the Divine economia. And therefore the dilemma -- “Christ or
the world” is stripped of all religious significance, or else comes to assume a meaning
other than Rozanov’s. True being is the person, and not the race, the true universal union
of persons is the Divine-human Sobornost’, and not impersonal nature. To affirm the
fullness of being in the world -- means to affirm an other, an authentic world, and not the
natural order. But Rozanov does not believe in the supra-natural, he brushes off every
distinction between a mystical sensation and an empirical sensation (this also is an
immanent pantheism), and therefore the religion of Christ presents itself to him as an
illusionary comfort, and not a real egress. I propose for Rozanov one question, upon
which everything depends. Was Christ resurrected, and what then becomes of this
dilemma, -- the world or Christ, -- if Christ was resurrected? Believing in the reality of
the Resurrection, would he have suggested, that the religion of Christ is a religion of
death? But Rozanov, together with all the rationalists and positivists, is compelled to see
in the Resurrection only an hoax, merely a myth, and for him in Christ it is death that
conquers, and not life. Herein however the struggle of Rozanov with Christ ceases to be
mystically terrible. It would be terrible, if that while believing in the reality of the
Resurrection, he nonetheless had the wherewithal to demonstrate, that the religion of
Christ is a religion of death. That “real” social reforms are by far more effective for life,
than the “illusionary” Resurrection of Christ, -- we have heard this from all the positivists
and we are not in the least afraid of this. Rozanov imperceptibly tumbles down the
slippery slope towards a vulgar positivism, the adolescent fuzz on the chin forces its way
through for him [and the strange impression yields in him the youthful attraction with
radical social ideas. The things, that Rozanov now speaks about, are things usually talked
about at an incomparably younger age. Soon he will outgrow the honeymoon period of
his romance with positivism and socialism, the consequent results of an irreligious
European culture.]

[A former conservative, a reactionary almost, Rozanov, as a contributor to the

“Russkii Vestnik” and the “Moskovskii Vedomosti”, has begun to flirt with revolutionary
elements, and imperceptibly he has been reborn a radical. But his political
uninformedness, I would say, ignorance almost, precludes Rozanov from getting a grasp
on the existing political currents, he remains foreign to politics in the unique sense of the
word. To the great chagrin of all those, who read this first-class writer, and hearken to his
words, his physiognomy remains twofold, his radicalism seems wanting in seriousness, a
caprice of his temperament. I think, that the attraction of Rozanov towards a social
radicalism, his love for the “left” has deeper a root. Rozanov feels, that the workings of
an immanent pantheism and a naturalistic mysticism can profit from the union of
socialism with a degenerated religion, its union with the progressive social approach of
this life. Socialism promises to enrich and to organise both the natural world and natural
mankind. A pantheism of Rozanov’s type could enrich and poetise the prosaic setting of
the social order, could perhaps inspire joy for the material life. His immanentist attitude
towards this world and the joys of this life and his hostility towards the transcendent set
him at one with socialism and even with positivism. But the “left” are such bunglers, that
they have no desire to make use of Rozanov, and Rozanov continues to endure no little
abuse from them: Rozanov, certainly, always remains the mystic, in him too strong is the
direct immediate feeling, and he would never consent to be shuffled off to the kitchen,
because of his extreme talent his spunk would always be more powerful than his silly
“leftwardness”, his dilettante and trite radicalism. There is an authentic and deep
radicalism, and the radicalism underlying Rozanov’s setting forth of the question of sex
and the flesh is quite more genuine, more sincere and remarkable, than his flirting with
the “left”.4]

There are merits to Rozanov in his criticism of official Christianity and official
churchliness which as such are tremendous, while by his themes he has done a service to
the new religious consciousness. (With an unusual radicalism, he has set before the
Christian consciousness the question about its attitude towards the life of the world and in
particular towards the source of life -- towards sex.) He has had a great influence upon
Merezhkovsky and “Novyi Put’”, and he has all but set the themes of the “Religio-
Philosophic Gatherings”. (He has done much for the betterment of the position of those
born out of wedlock.) People are quite apprehensive of Rozanov, yet they are quite
preoccupied with him, and his influence on the one hand has been beneficial and creative,
but on the other -- harmful and quite suffocating. Rozanov has hypnotised everyone with
his dilemma of “Christ or the world”, while all the same this dilemma that Rozanov
posits, does not exist. It is generated by a confusion and obscurity of consciousness. The
theme of Rozanov is very vital, very frustrating for official Christianity, for the church
coffers, but Christ it does not touch upon, towards Christ it involves perhaps a weakness
of consciousness, merely as in an eclipse. When Rozanov says, that Christian marriage
does not exist, that the Church in effect sanctions against love, when he posits the
question about the sacramental mystery of marriage thus, that if this sacrament genuinely
exists, then in the Church there ought to happen the union of the sexes, -- in this he is
empowered and radicalised, and has ingeniously made bold with what is important for us.
The official Church cannot and has not answered Rozanov anything. But what has this
religiously-pervasive question in common with the theosis-deification of this world,
immanently assumed, with the attempt to defeat Christ by a lifestyle? The historical
Church very much even acknowledges the familial way of life, and in general lives off of
it, but the sacramental mystery of love it does not acknowledge, it does not see the
transcendence of the mystery of marriage. The official churchly establishment is hostile
not to this world nor to the manner of life crystalised within it, it is hostile to the cosmos,
to the Divine flesh of the world, and in this is the tragedy of the Church. The Church as it
were is hostile to the very idea of the Church as a cosmic organism. But there has been
born a new religious consciousness, thirsting for a transfigurative flesh, and not the
aboriginal flesh of old. The aboriginal, the pagan, perishable flesh continues by a stealthy
path to live on in the Church, but the new resurrective flesh within it there is still not, it is
not manifest. Rozanov pronounces his own judgement upon the Church as the
representative of this old, pagan perishable flesh, which moreover also occupies too much
a place in the Church. [Here is why the “Religio-Philosophic Gatherings” did not succeed
thus in falling under the sway of Rozanov.]

Christ -- is the perfect, the Divine Child of God, the Image of the Cosmos. The
ChristChild is the absolute norm for the world-children. In the Name of His Son, the
Logos, God hath created the world, through the Son the world is filiated in sonship to
God, it returns to the Father. Christ is the Divine Mediator between God and the world: if
there were not Christ, then the world would not be the child to God, and the pantheists
could not perceive even their own partialised truth -- the divineness of the world. Only
the world, having accepted into itself Christ and having entered into Christ, only such a
world is wrought into a child of God, and divine. This world is fallen away from God,
and therefore it lies in evil, and therefore its divineness is fractured, impaired, and our
world -- is but doubtfully divine. But the world retains a connection with God, and this
connection in the mystical order of being is the Son of God, the God-Man, of God and of
the World, the eternal Intercessor. This connection was incarnated within history in the
Person of Christ. Through the God-Man, of-God-of-World -- the world becomes divine,
is deified. Between Christ and the world there exists only what seems empirically an
opposition, issuing forth from the weakness of the human consciousness, but underneathe
it lies hidden the mystically-real union. Within the historical bounds of Christianity the
conjoining of Christ and the world is insufficiently seen, inasmuch as the cosmic epoch
of redemption has not been brought to completion. Only within the Divine dialectic of the
Trinity is there ultimately perfected the conjoining of the world with God, only in the
Church to come will the flesh of the world resurrect. In the Spirit disappears every
opposition betwixt the two children of God, between the world-child and the ChristChild.
Christ hath manifest Himself the God-Man, the Holy Spirit manifests God-manhood. In
God-manhood transpires the theosis of mankind, the theosis of the worldly flesh. But the
new sacred flesh cannot be the old pagan and perishable flesh, that about which Rozanov
concerns himself: into the new world indeed will enter all the elements of our world,
transfigured however, and nothing destroyed, but all enlightened. We look forwards, and
not backwards, we look to the coming Kingdom of God, and not to a lost paradise of the
past. We desire to be as though it were religious revolutionaries, and not reactionaries.
[By a capricious historical irony, religious reaction sometimes is combined with a social
revolutionary trait.] Rozanov strives not towards the realm of the Spirit, not towards the
realm of God One in Trinity, but towards a realm of God the Father: the realm of God the
Father cannot still yet be, it is incompatible with the mystical dialectic of the Trinity,
ultimately co-uniting the Creator with the creature, and it would nowise differ from the
atheism, from which pantheism is separated only by an elusive boundary.

In the world is being born a new religious spirit. This spirit is deeply connected with
the very old, with that which was eternal in the old soul, but within it are being revealed
new horizons. For the new religious outlook and consciousness, -- having lived through
the whole experience of modern history with all the profound doubt and negation, the
question about the Church has to be posited otherwise, than it was for the consciousness
of old. We seek the Church, into which as it were has entered all the fullness of life, the
whole worldly experience, everything of value in the world, everything within history
that has been of authentic value. Beyond the walls of the Church nothing ought to remain,
except non-being. The Church is a cosmic power, the deified soul of the world, and the
Church is also the Divine world, the imperishable connection betwixt God and the world.
Entry into the Church is also an entrance into the authentic world, and not a leaving and
going out from the world. People of the old religious sensibilities and the old religious
outlook go into the Church to save themselves from worldly life, to atone their sins
accumulated in the world, but everything by which they live they then leave at the
church-yard gate, everything that is most precious for them, most dear in their lives, all
the creative impulses, [their fond dreams,] all the complexity of their experience, the
whole path of world history -- all this does not enter with them into the Church, does not
venture to go within. This dualism we can no more endure, this dualism has become
godless, it deadens the religious life, it is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Within the
Church there ought to be everything that is dear for us, everything that is precious for us,
everything that is suffered by us in the world, -- our love, our thought and poetry, the
whole creativity excluded from the Church for us by the old consciousness, all our great
worldly people, all our anticipated hopes and dreams, everything, transcendent in our life
and in worldly life. The Church ought to be the plenitude and fullness of life, the richness
of being, and not a seminary priestmonk’s cowl, which those in power keep their hands
upon. Dostoevsky and Vl. Solov’ev did more than anyone for the new religious impetus,
and these were our greatest people, our teachers, but their religious soul was still half the
old. Dostoevsky and Vl. Solov’ev were very complex people, having lived deeply
through all the experience of modern history, having passed through all the temptation
and the doubt, yet in them was accumulated much of the new riches. But into the Church
they came as of old, all their riches did not enter in with them into the Church, all their
experience did not render this Church more expansive and spacious, within the Church
they but negated themself. The religio-philosophic system of Vl. Solov’ev is far broader
than his churchly religiosity, in it there is the idea of God-manhood, but in his Church
there is still not a divine-human life. Dostoevsky in his “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”
reveals religiously the remote, he senses the unspeakable religious freedom, but he goes
into the Church with a mindset closed to all horizons. Wherefore I think, that none of the
existing historical churches is the universal Church, none yet contains within itself the
fullness of revelation, but the world seeks for the Universal Church, it thirsts to devote its
life to it.5

Rozanov says, that we are pantheistic with the idea of the Church, but that this
pantheistic tendency has nothing in common with its immanent pantheism. The Universal
Church, containing all the fullness of being, is the Church of God One in Trinity, the
Church of the Holy Trinity; in it ultimately disappears the seeming opposition between
the world and Christ. In the light of the new consciousness is born yet another dilemma:
the Christianity of the official-chambers, or Christ. The Christianity of the official-
chambers is the old world, the old lifestyle; Christ is a new world, contrary to every
lifestyle.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

[1908]

(1944 unpublished redraft)

KHRISTOS I MIR (Otvet V. V. Rozanov). Published originally in “Russkaya Mysl’”

1908, No. 1, p. 42-55; appearing then also in “Zapiski CPB religiozno-philosophskogo
obschestva”, 1908, No. 1 (Klep. #149).

Included thereafter in 1910 book “Dukhovnyi krizis intelligentsii”, Spb, sect. II-4.

Reprinted by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection: “Tipy religioznoi mysli
v Rossii”, (Tom III), ctr. 329-348, in the draft form of 1944 unpublished revision:
[bracketed text] is 1944 deletions from 1908 original; (parenthesis text) is 1944 new
inclusions to 1908 original.

1
trans note: This is the draft form text of Berdyaev’s 1944 unpublished revision:
[bracketed text] is of 1944 deletions from 1908 original; (parenthesis text) is of 1944 new
inclusions to 1908 original.

2
(The Peterburg Religio-Philosophic Gatherings of 1903-1904 were meetings of Russian writers,
religious seekers, together with hierarchs of the Church.)
[3 It suffices but to read through Justin the Philosopher, Ireneius of Lyons, and other apologetes
and teachers of the Church, in order to perceive, how inaccurate is that viewpoint, which sees
within Christianity an hostility to the flesh of this world. Christianity in particular has defended
the flesh of the world and the earth from the spiritising negation by Platonism, Gnosticism, etc.]

[4 What I wrote initially was more than two years ago. Rozanov has since then quite changed,
having returned to his original settings. And subsequent years have seen from him a series of
brilliant, religiously penetrating articles.]

[5 By this, however, I certainly do not deny, that the path to the utmost fullness of the Universal
Church lies through the sanctity of the historical churches, through their sacramental mysteries.]

ATTEMPT AT A PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION

OF CHRISTIANITY

(1909 - #158(4))

(Concerning the Book of V. Nesmelov “The Science of Man”)

The question about the possibility of faith, about its permissibility afront the
judgement of reason, stands acutely again before human consciousness. The will and the
heart of man draw him towards faith, but contemporary reason quite opposes itself to
faith, as once formerly the pagan reason opposed itself, and for which the matter of Christ
was folly. But is the matter of Christ genuinely, or is it facetiously in the court of reason,
and is this reason indeed genuine, which would invest itself with the almightiness of the
supreme court? People of a positivist mind consider it beyond doubt, that the matter of
faith is facetious (ultimately) and that the religion of Christ ought to be repudiated even
in the event, where the human heart might pine in longing for it and the human will strive
fully towards it. And for the contemporary world, as once formerly for the pagan world,
the matter of Christ continues to be a “temptation” and a “folly”. The contemporary
reason, having condemned the religion of Christ as irrational and folly, -- this is all but
the old pagan reason, and essentially in its objections it makes use of all the themes of the
old pagan arguments. But the traditional theology fights feebly against the temptations of
pagan reason, and serves sooner as a support for the hostility to faith, than for faith itself.
The spiritual baggage of contemporary “teachers” of the Church in a majority of cases is
so wretched and deplorable, that with it there is no conquering the stormily blustering
elements of this world. And it does not suffice to reminisce the old teachers of the
Church, who converted the whole of pagan wisdom into a weapon in defense of the faith
afront the court of reason, who with genius discerned that selfsame Logos in the
philosophic presentiments of the pagan world, which in Christianity is manifest as the
Logos in the flesh. Now ought anew ought to be continued the work of the great teachers
of the Church, afresh there ought to begin a time for a philosophic justification of faith,
and the very work of reason for the new history ought to be transformed into a weapon of
defense of the Christian faith. The Logos in the history of the new thought is that
selfsame eternal Logos, once but incarnated within world history. But philosophy cannot
give faith or be a substitute for faith. Gnosticism is no less dangerous, than a [hellish-
dark] (obscurantist) denial of reason. For faith it is impossible to go the philosophic path,
but after the experiential act of faith, a Christian gnosis is both possible and necessary.
For a philosophic justification of faith there is needed quite a freedom of spirit and quite a
breadth, such as is rather difficult to meet with among traditionalist apologetes of
Christianity. Usually those apologists, long since bereft of the bond with the spirit of life,
having lost the fire of soul, quite simplistically and with ease obliterate the recent history,
they negate the work of reason and uproot it with an impassable chasm betwixt the
religion of Christ and world culture and world reason. The official, the externalised
Christians too often -- are pagan in their life and pagans in their consciousness, and for
the sinful pagan world they provide not the opportunity to access the mysteries of the
Christian religion. It is as though they intended, so that ultimately there should not be
revealed to the world, that the mystery of the Christian religion is a mystery both of every
human heart and the [intellectual] (spiritual) nature of man. The matter of the defense of
the faith is posited in a position of being the opposite to the natural: the irrationality of
history has set adrift this matter into poor hands. To justify the faith in Christ it cannot
and ought not to be a matter in the everyday sense of this “spiritual-clergy” world, in
which long since already has been quenched the Spirit of life, and that “secular” world,
which is full of life, with the Spirit yet insufficiently comprehended. In Russia there have
always been “secular” people with a deep religious thirst, with an authentic spiritual life,
people inspired, and from them it is necessary to search out religious thought, the
comprehension of faith.

I want to turn attention to a certain remarkable, “secular” in his make-up a religious

thinker, but outwardly by virtue of his position belonging to the “spiritual-clergy” world,
one who is mindful of the old teachers of the Church and who genuinely serves the
revealing of this faith, in that the matter of Christ is a matter in the utmost sense rational,
rather than folly. I speak about V. Nesmelov, author of the large work “The Science of
Man”, a modest and little known professor of the Kazan Spiritual Academy [trans. note,
i.e. higher level seminary]. 1 Nesmelov is very bold, very deep and original a thinker. He
continues anew the matter of Eastern [mystical] theology, with which he unites a faith in
the divineness of human nature, a faith foreign to Western theology. 2 In certain regards
he is more interesting than Vl. Solov’ev: he has not suchlike a scope nor brilliance, but
there is a depth, an wholeness, an originalness of method and a vital sense of Christ. He is
a singular thinker, standing afar off from life. His nobility of style and integrity are
amazing for our tousled and fragmented era. In Nesmelov is the charm of his inner
tranquillity, an organic consciousness of what is right and the majesty of his work, the
independence from whatever the petty powers of the times of his interests and breadth. In
the restrained style of Nesmelov one senses the spirit of the extra-temporal, an orientation
towards eternity. In him there is not that overwrought and fragmented feel, which one
senses with people too caught up in our epoch, in its shifting moods, in its wickedness of
the day. Nesmelov is totally absorbed by the wickedness of eternity, and therefore he did
not squander his spiritual powers, he gathered them for a certain task. But these traits of
Nesmelov make him foreign to the people of our generation. It is difficult to throw across
a bridge from him to the contemporary restlessness in soul. He is altogether unknown of
and unappreciated, and for the contemporary world he mustneeds be discovered and
investigated.
 Nesmelov called his two-volume work “The Science of Man”. This -- is an unique
in its kind attempt of a philosophic construct of religious anthropology. This work is
broken down into a teaching about the essence of human nature, and derived from this
teaching the necessity of redemption. Nesmelov gives to philosophy a redemption,
strikingly profound and original, and he constructs it upon his teaching about man, which
he regards as strictly scientific. Nesmelov begins his work with an investigation of the
question about the tasks of philosophy. Does philosophy have its own autonomous
sphere, its own purpose, distinct from the purposes of all the other remaining sciences, or
disciplines? If in philosophy there be viewed the teaching about the universal, then the
boundaries, separating philosophy from the other sciences, become obscured, and it is
deprived of its own specific object. But, according to Nesmelov, there is one object in the
world, which in genuine manner cannot be investigated by any particular science and it
presents an impenetrable mystery for the scientific manner of looking at the world. This
object -- is man, and the mysteries are those lodged within his nature. This view has little
in common with that which sees the task of philosophy in the gnosseological
investigation of the subject and of the nature of cognition. The mystery of human nature
is an ontological mystery, and not gnosseological, and the object, which philosophy
proposes to investigate, is a fact of being, and not of intellect, a living mystery of the
human being, and not a mystery of the knowing subject. The method of Nesmelov can be
called ontologic-psychological, for he all the time starts out from lived facts, and not
from cognition and ideas. 3 The abstract dialectic of concept is totally foreign to
Nesmelov and it seemed to him scholastic. In this he quite differed from Vl. Solov’ev -- a
dialectician foremost. This may seem strange, but as a thinker, as an apologete, Nesmelov
has much in common with L. Feuerbach and he says straightoff, that the point of
departure of Feuerbach is correct, and that he goes the same path that Feuerbach does, but
arrives elsewhere. With Feuerbach, Nesmelov conceives of an identical understanding of
the essence of all religion, and the Christian religion foremost. Just like Feuerbach,
Nesmelov sees this essence in the enigma concerning man. Religion is the expression of
the mystery of human nature, the reflection of the enigmatic-ness of human nature. “For
man there does not exist in the world any sort of enigmas, besides man himself, and man
himself is manifest for himself an enigma only in this sole regard, that the nature of his
person in regard to the given conditions of his existence be rendered ideal. If it were
possible to reject this sole regard, then together with it quite reasonably it would be
possible to reject in the world both every wonder, and all mystery”. 4 “To realise oneself
however in one’s own natural makeup of one’s unique person, not one man is in a
condition to, in actual fact”. 5 And further on: “The image of unconditional being is not
created by man in any sort of abstractive thoughts, but in reality is given to man by the
nature of his person”. 6 “Through the very nature of his person, man necessarily images
his own unconditional essence and at that selfsame time he actually exists, as a simple
being of the physical world”. 7 This twofold aspect of human nature is also a great
mystery, which ought to be investigated by philosophy and it ought to lead to religious
anthropology, since positivist anthropology is not concerned with the fact of man’s
belonging to another world. Out of the things of the world man is unique, and man -- is
the image and likeness of unconditional Being, of the Absolute Person-ness. This is the
undoubtable initial truth, upon which all religion rests, and Nesmelov grounds it upon a
scientific objectivism without anything of the fantastic.
 It is from the fact of human nature, and not from the concept of God that Nesmelov
comes to the awareness of God. He anthropologically posits the being of God and by this
positing he philosophically affirms the objective verity of Christianity. God awareness is
a given by the ideal nature of the person as the image and likeness of God. The idea of
God “is actually a given for man, but not only is it not a given to him from somewhere
outside, in the capacity of a thought about God, but factual-subjectively it is realised in
him by the nature of his person, as a living image of God. If the human person were not
ideal in regard to the real conditions of its own particular existence, man would be
incapable of possessing the idea of God, and no sort of revelation would ever be able to
impart to him this idea, since he would be in no condition to comprehend it. And if man
had not consciousness by virtue of the ideal nature of his person, he would then be
incapable of possessing any sort of consciousness about the real being of the Divine, and
this consciousness would be unable to lodge within him any sort ever of a supernatural
actuality, since by his human consciousness he would be susceptive only to the reality of
the sense world and the reality of himself as a physical part of the world. But the human
person is real in its being and ideal in its nature, and by the very fact of its ideal reality it
without mediation directly affirms the objective existence of God as true Person-ness. 8
“The possibility of the consciousness of God is determined by the fact of the inner
contradiction between the conditional being of man and the unconditional character of his
person”. 9 In such manner, Nesmelov decisively and victoriously refutes the mechanistic
understanding of revelation, as something foreign and external to the inner nature of the
human person itself. His method of discerning the being of God is more powerful and
persuasive than all the discernments from intellect, and his proof -- is factual. But the fact
of an higher nature of man is unprovable and positively inexplicable. Man as a person is
conscious of himself as of an higher order, and not a thing of the natural order, and this
consciousness cannot originate from a world of things, from the order of a lower nature.
The consciousness of one’s God-likeness is a consciousness not from this world, it is a
consciousness, begotten from another world.

Within man, alongside his animate life, with his life as a thing of this world, there
is alive a consciousness of life true, perfect, and God-like. “The moral consciousness
springs forth for man from the ideal nature of his person, and therefore it leads man not
to the concept about the good of life, but exclusively only to the concept about the truth of
life”. 10 The consciousness of his belonging to another, to a Divine world, the
consciousness of his vocation-call to a true and perfect life is the source of a tormenting
dissatisfaction with this imperfect and false life. Man realises, that his unworthiness -- of
God-like existence -- makes for the life of a simple thing of the natural world. Out of this
is begotten the consciousness of guilt, the impossibility to be reconciled with this false
and imperfect life, the thirst for the redemptive atonement of guilt and the attainment of
the utmost perfection. For man is necessary not a pardoning of guilt, not an armistice
with God, which would grant the hope for a semblance of a forgiveness, but rather the
redemptive atonement of the guilt, the transfiguration of his nature in accord with the
image of God, the attainment of perfection. Man himself cannot pardon himself his sin,
his life in accord with the law of the animal world, he cannot reconcile with this his own
God like nature, his own consciousness of true life. And Nesmelov subjects to a deep
analysis the idea of salvation, which is rooted in the depths of human nature.
 The idea of salvation was not foreign to the pagan world, it was promulgated by
the nature religions, but therein it was altogether different than in the Christian
consciousness. The natural pagan religions were unable to arrive at the consciousness of
true life. They looked upon God and the gods as means for the attaining of earthly
happiness, as an help for their own purposes. True religion however requires the free
assimilation of likeness to God. “The striving of man towards the justification of his
existence upon the earth, amidst that hostile to the God-like life, gives rise to a juridical
relationship to God and by this it directly and decisively negates the truth of religion, and
the possibility of morality, since that in the grip of this relationship religion is
transformed for man into a simple deal with God, and like an ordinary worldly deal, it
necessarily becomes subordinated to the principle of the happiness of life”. 11 Such is the
idea of salvation in natural religion. And this juridical theory was carried over also into
the Christian world. In Catholicism (indeed in Protestantism also) the juridical
understanding predominates. The (radical) surmounting of it comprises the chief service
of Nesmelov.

The pagan salvation is a seeking of help and the fulfilling of wishes, and the pagan
relationship to the Divinity is a juridical contract with Him, a deal. Christian salvation is
a transforming of man, the attaining of perfection, the realisation of God-likeness. The
pagan idea of salvation Nesmelov sees not only in the pagan world, but also in the
Christian world. Far too many a “Christian” understands the idea of salvation in the
crudely pagan manner, they see in it only an heavenly projection of earthly greed, of
earthly egoism. Man finds himself serving heaven, and imploring God, in atonements for
his lower nature, and the attainment of blissful well-being. But the higher, the God-like
nature of man calls him not to well-being, but to perfection, not to a life of making
reparations, but to true life. The relationship of man to God ought to be defined by his
thirst of perfective, of true life, by his ineradicable need to realise his eternal image, and
not by his thirst for well-being and satisfaction. Therefore the relationship of man to God
cannot be a juridical contract, it is impossible to cajole out of God forgiveness and well
being, God cannot be given hurt feelings by man, wherein either to pardon or to punish
him. Christ revealed the truth about God-manhood, about sonship to God, about the God-
likeness of man and He called people to this, -- that they should become perfect, as their
Heavenly Father is perfect And God is not moreover Power, to be terrified of, which can
either punish or befriend, and which it is necessary by bloody sacrificial offering to win
well-being in life. God wants but the perfection of His children, and they themselves
desire this perfection, this likeness to their Father. Herein there is no place for
superstitious fears and terrors, for a contract, for pardons or punishments, of the crude
transference of the humanly-relative to the Divinely-absolute. This great truth which is
Christ’s, Nesmelov investigates and establishes, and he does a great service for the
liberation of Christianity from pagan superstition.

Nesmelov recognises the possibility of an intellectual basis of the ontological

significance of salvation, of a philosophic construct of an ontology of salvation. But his
religious ontology is wholly based on religious anthropology, and religious anthropology
is based on a scientific analysis of human nature, “on the psychologic history and critique
of the fundamental questions of life”. In such manner, Nesmelov attempts to provide a
scientific-philosophic justification of the truth of Christ. Nesmelov -- is a remarkable
psychologist, and he provides to psychology transcendent depths [and extremes] of the
soul life. His psychology of the fall into sin is striking. The higher human nature is
positively inexplicable, it remains an enigma for positive science, which acknowledges
only the manifestation of the nature, only as a thing. Within human nature there is hid an
enigmatic twofoldness, in man -- one of the things of the world, one of its phenomena,
there is the image of absolute person-ness, there is the striving towards true and God-like
life.

But there is a certain vagueness in the profoundly thought out teaching of

Nesmelov. The dualism of human nature, the dualism of an higher nature in man, of a
nature not of this world, and of a lower nature which is of this world, the dualism of God
likeness and beast-likeness is not a dualism of soul and body, or of the spiritual and the
material. It is indeed incorrect to say, that man in soul belongs to the Divine world, but in
body to the animal world, and that everything in him spiritual is of another world,
whereas everything material is of this world. The soul and body, the spiritual and the
material duality in man belongs simultaneously to two worlds. In his God-likeness man is
transformed not only in his body, but also no less in his soul; the lower, the evil principle
lies not only in the material sphere, but also in the spiritual sphere. The source of evil -- is
in spiritual pride, and of hence is begotten the evil of the material fetters. But Nesmelov
(sometimes) tends to express it, as though in the spirit he sees the sign of man’s God
likeness, but in the body man’s belonging to the animal world. Nesmelov in the results of
his analysis [correctly] arrives at this conclusion, that only a spiritualistic teaching about
man withstands the test of philosophic and scientific demands. [Spiritualism is the sole
true philosophy, and this is so.] But spiritualism can be varied, and least of all satisfactory
for us is the dualistic [medieval] form of spiritualism. A spiritualistic monism is [far and
above] more satisfactory a form of metaphysics. Together with this, a spiritualistic
monism transfers the centre of gravity of the dualism of human nature from the area of
philosophic ontology to the area of the religio-mystical. Philosophy can comprehend
human nature [only] spiritually, but lodged within it is not so much the ontological
dualism of soul and body, as rather the dualism of another order, the dualism of man’s
singular and complex spirit-(soul)-bodily nature belonging to two worlds -- to a world
Divine and free, and to a world bestial and of necessity. This is a dualism foremost of
freedom and necessity, the dualism of one’s consciousness of belonging to a necessitated
world of things, and one’s consciousness no less of belonging to a free world of God-like
existences. Man -- is a thing in the world and both in his soul and his body he is subject to
the necessity of the natural order, and man also -- is a free being, and he belongs both in
his soul and in his body to the Divine world. 12

With Nesmelov there is not fully shown the character of the dualism of human
nature. But here arises the possibility of yet other vagueness, connected with the ideas of
D. S. Merezhkovsky. Merezhkovsky repudiates the metaphysical truth of spiritualism, on
the basis that he wants to surmount the dualism of spirit and flesh, with which Christian
history and Christian culture have been infused. This mistake is rather greater, than is the
vagueness of Nesmelov, but it has the same root. Spiritualism is not a denial of flesh and
the earth, and it does not have any sort of relation to the religio-moral or religio-cultural
problem of “flesh”, to the problem of an ascetic or non-ascetic relationship to the world.
Spiritualism, or panpsychism, is but an understanding of the nature of man and the nature
of the world as being spiritual, as comprised of living monads [from spiritised
substances].The question about the religio-cultural dualism of spirit and flesh has
therefore nothing in common with spiritualist metaphysics, because the principle of
“flesh” in the moral, the cultural-historical and religious sense has nothing in common
with matter, with the empirical, etc. The spiritual exists not only in Heaven, in an other
world, but also upon the earth, in this world. It ought decisively to be stated, that the
vulgar distinction between soul and body, the spiritual and the material, is neither
possible to be identified with, nor to be brought into harmony with, a dualism between an
other world and this world, a dualism of an higher and a lower, etc. Nesmelov is unable
to detect the mistake of Merezhkovsky, since he himself but vaguely posits and resolves
this question. “Spirit” thus indeed belongs to “this world”, as also does “flesh”, and in
“spirit” there can however be a “lower”, -- just as also in “flesh”. The ontological dualism
of spirit and matter does not at all exist, but the moral and cultural dualism of “spirit” and
“flesh” finds resolution in the religion of God-manhood; in the deification of mankind
and the world in Christ. 13 Therefore the hostility of Merezhkovsky towards spiritualism
is a simple misunderstanding, a vagueness of philosophic consciousness, and the
association by Nesmelov of the twofoldness of human nature of soul and body -- this
likewise is a misunderstanding.

With the question about human nature is closely connected the question about
immortality and the resurrection. Nesmelov sees in this question a tremendous difference
between the naturalistic, pagan mindset and the Christian mindset. For the pagan mindset
there sufficed but the idea of a natural immortality, of a naturalistic passing-over from
this world to another world. Death also appears as such a naturalistic passing-over. But
the naturalistic teaching about immortality says nothing about the salvation of man nor
does it point out a path of salvation. Upon the basis of such an idea of immortality there
cannot be affirmed the meaning of life, nor can there be posited the purpose of life. Only
the Christian teaching about resurrection provides this meaning and leads to salvation.
The teaching of the natural religions about immortality only shows the impotence of man
to save himself. Nesmelov very keenly discloses the impotence of natural religion and its
fatal subordination to the principle of happiness, rather than truth and perfection.

II

“Christianity appeared in the world, as an incredible teaching and an

incomprehensible deed”. 14 The human mind -- is pagan, and the naturalist temptations of
the mind -- are pagan temptations. The naturalist human mind, left to its own devices, in
natural religion readily reduces itself to this, that “the religion necessarily transforms
itself into a simple implement for the attainment of its wishes, and the natural
transference of the idea of a physical salvation onto the soil of religion necessarily is
expressed for it only by the invention of a supernatural method towards the attainment of
the purely physical interests and ends of life”.15 With a [striking] (great) depth of
psychological analysis Nesmelov traced out, how in context of paganism people accepted
the deed of Christ. Both Jews and pagans readily submitted to the preaching of Christ and
the charm of His Person, but the mystery of this Person and the significance of His deed
they were unable to grasp, misinterpreting it altogether. People awaited an earthly king,
the establishing of an earthly kingdom, the saving of the physical life of people in accord
with their interests, with their thirst for well-being. But Christ taught: “Be ye perfect,
even as your Heavenly Father is perfect”; Christ said: “My kingdom is not of this world”.
The deed of Christ was salvation of another kind, a salvation incomprehensible for
people, immersed in this world and having neither perfection nor happiness. Nesmelov
says, that at the present time a tremendous multitude of the people, “Christians” namely,
are situated in a stage of religious superstition, a pagan-Jewish superstition. The people
have religion, since they think about their salvation, but not about their perfection, the
fear of perdition disquiets them, but not the thirst to realise their God-likeness. People of
a pre-Christian consciousness, “understanding their own salvation as a natural result of
their own proper merits before God, would concern themselves and actually did concern
themselves only about this, to discern for sure the will of God and for sure to define, what
is particularly acceptable to God and what is unacceptable to Him, what might please
God and what might anger Him”. 16 Upon this soil is begotten a juridical understanding
of salvation, i.e. the interpretation of the Saviour’s death on the Cross as a ransom
payment for the sins of people, as the appeasing of an angry God.

Religious anthropology, having under it a purely scientific foundation, leads to a

rational realisation of that great Christian truth, that man himself, by his own limited
powers is unable to save himself. The world was created for the perfective God-likeness
of the creation, for the free realisation of the Divine perfection of mankind, and not for
the egoistic and greedy aims of people, and not for God to lord it up in dominion over us.
Nesmelov penetrates to the intimate depths the psychology of sin and the psychology of
salvation and redemption, [and he has a grasp of transcendent psychological mysteries, as
but few have had]. People cannot themselves forgive sin, they cannot themselves make
peace with their falling-away from God. “They thought not about that they had come to
ruin, but only about this, that they -- were guilty before God, i.e. in other words, they
thought not about themselves, but only about God; it came to be, they loved God more
than themselves, and therefore they were not able to forgive themselves their
transgression”. And once there was such a psychology of sin, then also the psychology of
redemption had to be included in the striving to merit the mercy of God, the forgiveness
of sins, in the reconciliation with God from the fear of perdition. Nesmelov with
indignation rejects the conceiving of God as an egoistical holder of power, and in such a
view of God he sees the basis of the diabolical temptation. “God did not threaten
punishment for the transgressing of His commandment, but beforetime forewarned man
about what would necessarily follow, if His given commandment be transgressed by
them. Consequently, the fulfilling of the commandment was necessary not for God, but
only for people in the interests of their moral perfecting, and consequently, by the
transgressing of the commandment, man could bring to ruin only himself, since by this
transgression he was however altogether unable to convey an infinite affront to God”.17
God cannot be indignantly insulted by man and therein either punish man, or pardon him.
The will of God is in this, that man become perfect, like his Heavenly Father, to become
likened unto Him, and it is altogether not in this, that man be made obedient to His
formal will. Wherein therefore sin ought to be annihilated, and not merely pardoned,
annihilated in the name of perfection. Man himself, conscious of the God-like nature
within himself, recognises himself unworthy of forgiveness and thirsts to become perfect.
The meaning of Christ’s sacrifice -- is not in the ransom for sin, not in the appeasing of
God the Father, but in a miraculous transformation of human nature towards perfection.
The juridical teaching about redemption is an affront both to man, and to God. For
Nesmelov, in what is the essence of the sin, and why have people, in gnawing the apple
from the forbidden tree, committed transgression? Nesmelov provides a [profound]
psychology of the primordial transgression. He always makes use of the psychological
method, rather than one of abstraction. A “psychology of living facts”, and not a “logic of
concepts” -- in this is the originality of the method of Nesmelov in his religious
anthropology.

People “desired, that their exalted position in the world should not be dependent on
the free developement by them of their spiritual powers, but rather by their physical
eating of certain fruits, it means that they essentially wanted this, that their life and fate
should be defined not by them themselves, but by external material principle. And this
desire of theirs they realised in actual fact. They actually turned for help to the forbidden
tree in that particularly full confidence, that the somehow magical power of its fruits,
without any effort on their part, mechanically would render them all the more perfect. In
these calculations of theirs they were of course crudely mistaken, but the fact of fulfilling
their intention they nonetheless accomplished; and therefore the undoubtable
mistakenness of their calculations does not itself in the least degree alter the actual
significance and meaning of their fatal course of action: by their superstitious course of
action people voluntarily subordinated themselves to external nature and themselves
voluntarily destroyed that world significance, which they could and should have had in
accord with the spiritual nature of their person”. 18 People went their own particular
godless way, reckoning to attain by this path a Divine condition, but they fell into a
bestial condition, subjecting themselves to a restrictive material nature. Therefore the
Biblical account about the fruits of the forbidden tree has deep metaphysical significance.
Nesmelov emphasises especially, that the essence of the fall into sin -- is in a
superstitious attitude towards material things as a source for power and knowledge. The
[deep] truthfulness of this psychology of the fall into sin finds itself experientially
confirmed in the consciousness of modern man, in the personal fall into sin of each of us.
People “subordinated their soul life to the physical law of mechanistic causality, and it
means, they put their spirit into common bondage with the world of things. In
consequence of this, they can now essentially live only that life, which exists and is
proper to the particular nature of the physical world, and under these conditions death
appears inevitable. It means, that death is not something from somewhere from the
outside that has come upon people, in punishment, for example, God’s punishment for
sin; it has come upon them from them themselves, as a natural and necessary
consequence of that transgression, which people committed. In actual fact, this world, in
which people wanted to live and in which they actually entered by fact of their
transgression, God did not create and did not want to create, and all the appearances
which exist in this world, as in a world of transgression, exist not in accord with the
creative will of God, but rather in accord with the mechanistic forces of physical nature.
That world, which actually was created by God, man spoiled by his transgression”.19
Why did God permit the mutilation of His creation? “By virtue of His almightiness, God
undoubtedly was able to not permit the fall of the first people, but He did not want to
stifle their freedom, since He would not distort His own image in mankind”. 20

“The holy human life of Jesus Christ speaks but to this, that despite the existence of
evil in the world, the world nonetheless comes to realise the Divine idea of being. It
means, by fact of His immaculate life, Christ manifested only the justification of God in
His creative activity, and not a justification of people before God in their deviation away
from God’s law of life”. 21 “Sin never and in no case can be excused man, since every
pardoning of sin can only be a becoming reconciled with it, and not at all a liberation
from it. For this, that man actually should be delivered from sin, he ought invariably
annihilate it within himself”. 22 But the salvation of man is bound up with the salvation
of the world, and man himself even with a martyr’s death cannot deliver the world from
sin. Nesmelov understands Christianity as an universal deed, and not an individual one,
and he affirms the religious meaning of history. The righteousness of Christ is also for
him the righteousness of human nature in common. The appearance of Christ was a
continuation of the creation. “Recognising Christ’s resurrection as the efficacious basis
and first expression of a general law of the resurrection of the dead, we ought obviously
to recognise in Christ suchlike a Man, Who being a true possessor of human nature, did
not bear only an individual human person-ness, since that His righteousness was the
righteousness not of a separate man, but the righteousness of human nature, completely
independent of those who in particular partially possess this nature”. 23

Christ is also the appearance in the world of the God-like Man, a revealing of the
religious mystery of the human being. The redeeming of the world by Christ is as it were
a new creation: man comes to be in that position, in which he was situated before the fall,
but enlightened and deified with experience. The Person of Christ is also a God-
revelatory answer to the enigma of man: Christ is absolute and the Divine Man, the
praeternally existing image and likeness of the Father. But the appearance of Christ in the
world and His death on the Cross do not of themselves save, but rather only create the
conditions for the possibility of salvation. Salvation is a deed of the will, and not of
coercion by God. 24 Christ cleanses from sin those, who freely desire to be cleansed by
Him, those who love in Him the image of the existent Divine perfection, to which man
was fore-ordained.

“The death of Jesus Christ in actuality is not a ransom-payment to God for people’s
sins, but rather the sole means towards the possibility of the cleansing of people’s sins,
and furthermore not only of people’s sins, but of the sins also of all the transgressive
world in general. It actually and unconditionally cleanses all and every sin, yet still the
sins of only those sinners, which Christ the Saviour seeks out, and He seeks out only
those sinners, which acknowledge the need in the redemption of their sins and who
believe in the actuality of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. Whoever does not
acknowledge the need in redemption, that one also cannot ultimately desire, that his sins
be taken from him by Christ, and therefore he likewise remains in his sins. At the
opposite, whoso desires the redemption of his sins and believes in the actuality of
Christ’s sacrifice for sin, and turns himself towards the saving help of Christ, that one,
even though he should emerge from amidst the hosts of fallen angels, and even though he
be Satan himself, it is all the same -- he can be cleansed and saved by the holy blood of
Christ; since that even the devil likewise -- is a creation of God, since that he likewise
was created by God not for perdition, but for life eternal in the radiant world of God’s
saints”. 25 According to the noble teaching of Nesmelov, there can be cleansed and saved
both pagans, and the dead, and even the fallen spirits. With a pervasive power of
psychological intuition, Nesmelov repudiates the fear of hell’s torments and the terror of
perdition as un-Christian feelings, although (eternal perdition he does not deny) also he
defends the Christian character of fear of its own non perfection and terror of its own
beast-likeness. He saves the thirst for perfection, for God likeness, he saves the love for
Christ, the love for the Divine in life, but not the thought about punishment, chastisement,
hell’s torments, etc. “Whoso actually believes in Christ, and for whom the living source
of moral energy in every instance is lodged not within thought about the Dread Last
Judgement of Christ, but in the thought about the love of Christ beyond intellection, such
that he would fear Christ’s Judgement over himself only in this one regard, that with his
own sinful impurity he might be manifest unworthy of Christ, and Christ might separate
him off from living communion with Himself. This separation off for him is more terrible
than any punishment, since the life with Christ is higher than any reward, and since he
can conceive of his own life in Christ, evidently, not as a desire for heavenly rewards and
not in terror of hell’s torments, but exclusively and only through the moral imperative of
his own pure and reverent love for Christ. Such a man, reasonably, never would permit
the immoral thought to this effect, that people might sin in hope on God’s mercy, since
that in this hope he could affirm only the undoubtable truth of his faith, that through the
great mercy of Christ the Saviour that people should be saved from sin. Consequently,
whoso recourses to God’s mercy on the path towards licentiousness, such an one knows
Christ not at all and thinks about the mercy of God not at all, -- he simply commits
sacrilege through the ignorance of foolish people, and already it is reasonably apparent,
that to put oneself upon the path of truth and render oneself virtuous is not a matter set
upon the future threat of universal judgement, but only one’s spiritual enlightenment by
the ethical light of Christ’s truth”. 26

Nesmelov raises Christian consciousness to an high degree, he cleanses the

Christian consciousness from admixtures of crude paganism, from dark superstitions,
from degrading fears, for those seeking the truth of Christ. Nesmelov teaches, that the
eternal truth of Christianity is identical with the eternal truth of the ideal and God-like
human nature.

III

From the time of the infancy of mankind to our own time pagan idolatry and pagan
superstition have been part of religious life. Paganism, ultimately, is not identical with
idolatry and superstition, in paganism there was also a positive truth, a genuine sense of
God, but the residue of paganism in the Christian world customarily bears an idolatrous
and superstitious character. The strangest thing of all is this, that the most external aspect
of Christianity, the most official ecclesiality not only does not heal this ulcer of religious
life, but rather irritates it the moreso and intensifies it. The consciousness of the extra
temporal and ideal values is frequently strengthened in the mystic, in art, in creativity,
outside the circle charted out by the official ecclesiality, and the organ of its conscious
expression is found in the heights of philosophy, which by this serves no little in the
matter of the cleansing of the religious consciousness of mankind. The theoretical God-
knowledge and the practical God-communion have taught about the higher, the God-like
nature of man, while at the same time the representatives of the official ecclesiality and
the official religiosity have fallen too often into an heavenly utilitarianism -- this as a
projection of earthly utilitarianism. The pagan experiences within Christianity teach man
to be guided by his own interests, they sustain within him the sense of fear and terror and
by this they corrupt man, they evoke within him an indifference to the truth and the right.
The rightful truth however of the eternal Gospel within the human heart and
consciousness, the reflection of light from Christ teaches man to be guided by the thirst
for perfection, by the striving towards God-communion and towards God-likeness, and it
liberates from superstitious fears and terrors. The pagan superstition within Christianity is
recognised wherein God is worshipped as an idol, rather than as the source of perfection,
of truth, of true life, of value. And towards the Living God there can be an idolatrous and
superstitious attitude, and it always is so, when the superstitious fear of perdition or the
superstitious hope, that the interests of man be satisfied, takes precedence over the
reverent love towards God and the striving towards that absolute perfection, which is
reflected in the nature of man himself. The will towards the realisation of perfective
value, towards the God-like manner of being is also the source of an authentic, a free, a
non superstitious and non-idolatrous religious life. The will towards value, towards the
extra-temporal in regards to its own significance, the will towards the Divine, towards the
true and the free is at the basis of life of all the great people as regards religion, of all the
saints, the apostles and the prophets. Within their soul love hath conquered fear, the
striving for perfection hath conquered private interests. The consciousness of extra
temporal values, the consciousness of their own higher nature provides deliverance from
the pagan superstitions and fears, which abase and pervert the Christian faith. We cannot
yet believe, that a man, deprived of consciousness of values, a man, never sensing in the
depths of his nature the reflection of God, of filial sonship to God, -- that such a man by a
superstitious and idolatrous falling to the levels of the external ecclesiality by this itself
yet frees himself from guilt and sin and is rendered a member of the Divine world order,
of the Kingdom of God. Nor can we likewise believe, that a man with a rare escaping out
of the ranks here by a consciousness of values, and having discovered within himself the
Divine nature, is excluded from the Divine world-order, if he transgresses some aspect of
the official ecclesiality. Nesmelov deeply understands this problem, and he says straight
out, that everything of value, and true, and good in life is saved for eternity. 27 Nesmelov
with a noble indignation repudiates the superstitious-magical attitude towards the
sacramental-mysteries of the Church. The sacramental-mystery is not a conjuring, a
magic spell, it is not a relict of the pagan darkness, and towards it there cannot be a
mechanical attitude. A man, the whole life of whom is beast-like, does not become God
like through a mechanical communing of the mysteries. The partaking of the
sacramental-mysteries is connected with an inner rebirth into new life, though the
sacrament itself is independent of anything human. Evil-doers, who hope to receive
pardon and absolution through a mechanical touching-upon by the Church, and who go to
the sacramental-mysteries as a means to continue with their beast-like life and therein be
freed of the fear of perdition and punishment, suchlike a malefactor does not participate
truly in the sacramental-mysteries nor get truly into the Church. The Church is the world
soul, conjoined with Christ the Logos, it is the congregate Divine consciousness of
mankind, as a centre of the world, and it comprises all the positive fullness of being. The
mystical essence of the Church cannot be confused with the historical sins of the
empirical Church. The abomination of desolation can also be in the place of the holy.
[About this one ought to bear in mind both the “right” and the “left” in the church
question]. The Church has preserved the image of the Crucified Christ and for the
sacramental-mystery of communion to it -- only in this also mustneeds be sought the
mystical sanctity of the true Church. Nesmelov -- is a pious member of the Orthodox
Church, and yet is a merciless critic of the official religiosity, the exposer of the lie of the
state church. The book of this faithful son of the Orthodox Church helps to surmount the
crude paganism within “Orthodoxy”.

“Be ye perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect”, i.e. realise within
yourself the image of God. Herein is the eternal essence of Christianity, a setting in
opposition to every pagan superstition and idolatry the thirst for a perfect, true, eternal
and full life. But this essential core of Christianity cannot be transformed into moralism.
Only through Christ, manifest as Person in the Divine truth of human nature, is to be
attained God likeness. By a path exclusively human man cannot attain to a condition of
the Divine. Without the concrete truth about man, the abstract truth of idealism -- is dead
and is not realism. The pretensions of a philosophic knowing to substitute for religious
faith ought to be, not only religiously, but also philosophically repudiated. And the book
of Nesmelov brilliantly lays bare the pagan limitedness of contemporary philosophy and
of the whole contemporary mindset, for which the faith in Christ is folly and seduction.
Nesmelov succeeded in philosophically showing, that faith in Christ is reasonable, and
that only this faith is reasonable. Nesmelov speaks all the time about the “scientific” basis
of faith, and his work he calls the “science” about man. This is not altogether precise. It
would be more correct to speak about the philosophic justification of faith and about the
philosophy of human nature. Nesmelov is very contentious against any scholasticism, he
strives for a living knowledge and is proud of that his science of man is based on facts,
and not on concepts. The tremendous merit of Nesmelov might in brief be expressed
thus: the fundamental thought of Feuerbach about the anthropologic mystery of religion
is transformed by him into a weapon of defense of Christianity. People come to religion
through the twofoldness of their nature, through a lodged within them God-likeness
alongside with a beast-likeness or nature-likeness. Man cannot be reconciled with this,
not on the strength of his subjective desires, but only on the strength of his objective
nature. Positivism, in the broad sense of the word, makes this point as regards another, a
perfect world, this thirst of a Divine and absolute life, and for the subjective desires it is
something which ought with caution to be explained positively. Positivism is correct,
when it says, that the subjective desires never get accomplished fully, that essentially the
world is not bound to be, such as we would wish to see it. But actually this manner of
speaking addresses not the subjective desires of man, but it is rather about objective
nature, and this objective nature proves itself much objectified, this nature is positively
inexplicable, a mystery. Man -- is the member of another, a Divine world-order, he is not
only of the natural world, and this -- is a fact, a mysterious fact, demanding another
explanation. God, as Person, is perceived only anthropologically, within man; but in
nature, cosmologically -- He is perceived as an impersonal creative force. A synthesis
though of the cosmologic revelation of paganism and the anthropologic revelation of
Christianity has religiously yet neither been investigated nor found. In this religious
synthesis, which lies beyond the horizon of Nesmelov, 28 and there ought to be revealed
the not yet revealed Christian mystery of God’s creation.

Nesmelov reveals a new method of detection 29 of the being of God --

psychologically, or (more accurately) anthropologically. This detection is distinct from
the old ontological proof, which was based upon an intellectual concept and beyond the
limits of intellectual concept it does not go, and it is distinct also from the rather newer
moral demonstrative proof of Kant, which is grounded in subjective duty. Nesmelov’s
detection is grounded upon the objective fact of human nature. This, certainly, is not a
new discovery of Nesmelov, for the whole religious and philosophic developement of
mankind prepared this religious anthropology, it opened up the way to God. Furthermore,
the teaching of Kant about the moral-rational nature of man and about its intelligible
character has hidden within it the possibility not only of “religion within the bounds of
reason”, but also an authentic Christian religious anthropology. But Nesmelov gave clear
and deep expression to the truth of religious anthropology. 30 The consciousness of
person, as the image and likeness of God, the consciousness of his belonging to a true,
perfect and free world objectively demonstrates also the being of God, and the necessity
of the redemption of the world by the Son of God. The pathway to a Christian
consciousness lies through a mysterious self-awareness of being a person. And there
cannot be an understanding of Christianity for one in whom the person, -- the image of
the Divine being, is still asleep, is still dissolved within fated being. But when man has
become aware of his own person, he becomes conscious within himself of an higher
being and a vocation to an higher life, and then there stands forth the image of Christ and
nowise more can it be obscured.

For modern man at the vanguard of awareness, and especially for Russian man
among the Intelligentsia, it is (very) difficult to accept Christianity, there are obstacles
waiting at every step, obstacles both of mind and of heart. This man has consented at
times to accept each religion that pleases him, whatever a form of paganism, the religion
of Babylon or Dionysianism, Brahmanism or Buddhism, even Mahometanism, but only
not Christianity. In this turning away from Christianity is something strange and
mysterious. And the man of our era is quite willing to become a pantheist, if the religious
need has not ultimately gone numb within him. Pantheism and pantheistic mysticism is
esteemed whether by the positivist, the atheist, the Marxist, or whatever the teaching of
the contemporary time. Only Christian theism is esteemed by no one, and modernity does
not accept it. Modern man thinks, that under pantheism he preserves his person, and that
for mankind it betokens a tremendous significance, and freedom, and also other fine
things, would result under it, but that here under Christianity the person is enslaved, and
freedom vanishes, and mankind comes to naught. What s strange aberration! In actuality
it is all just turned around backwards. Only the Christian consciousness is grounded in
the sense of person, only it acknowledges the divineness of human nature and gives a
central place in the world-order to mankind, only this consciousness affirms the freedom
of man, his worth and his higher nature. Pantheism ultimately abolishes person, and
freedom, and mankind, dissolving everything ultimately into the world’s life, and
imperceptibly passes over into naturalism and materialism. Pantheism cannot
comprehend of our thirst for perfect and true life nor has it the ability to explain our
higher nature and the twofoldness connected with it. Only Christianity acknowledges an
absolute significance for man and his eternal destiny and no wise is he dissolved away, to
nothing is he enslaved. And the profound self-consciousness of man is a Christian self-
consciousness: in the depths of his self-consciousness man finds Christ -- the resolution
of the enigma of his nature. [But the Christian self-consciousness ought to be cleansed
from paganism, the consciousness of person ought to be set off from the consciousness of
the impersonal genus. And a sublime philosophy, like Nesmelov’s, serves towards this
important task.] The renewed and eternal Christianity transcends the relationship to God
as idol, and man recognises within Him the absolute source of his thirst for Divine
perfection, and within Christ the praeternally realised, Divinised humanity.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1909

© 1999 by translator Fr. Stephen Janos.

(1909 - 158(4) - en)

OPYT PHILOSOPHSKOGO OPRAVDANIYA KHRISTIANSTVA. (O knige V.

Nesmelova “Nauka o cheloveke”). Russkaya Mysl’, sept. 1909, ctr. 54-72.

Included thereafter in 1910 book “Dukhovnyi krizis intelligentsii”, Spb, sect. II-6.
(sic) #158(4) is Berdyaev article #158, book #4.

Reprinted by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection: “Tipy religioznoi

mysli v Rossii”, (Tom III), ctr. 302-328.

1
It is likewise impossible to deny the talent and originality of a professor of the Moscow
Spiritual Academy, M. Tareev, who recently published a four-volume collection, “The
Foundations of Christianity”. [But his interpretation of Christianity is but one of the
forms of a Protestant individualism. The impotence of religious thought on the soil of
Protestantism is clearly evident from a recently appeared booklet of
R. Aiken, “The Fundamental Problems of the Contemporary Philosophy of Religion”.]
2
Of the great teachers of the Church it was, evidently, St. Gregory of Nyssa who had
the greatest influence on Nesmelov, and who allotted a large place to religious
anthropology. (Nesmelov has written a book about St. Gregory of Nyssa.) [Brilliantov
has written an interesting book, “The Influence of Eastern Theology upon the Western in
the Works of J. Scotus Erigena”, and adeptly points out a distinction of Eastern
theologising from that of the West: Eastern theologising is objective and it starts from the
absolute givenness of the Divine, whereas the Western -- is subjective and starts from the
human.]
3
In the first volume of his work, Nesmelov gives a gnosseological basis to his religious
philosophy, but gnosseology does not appear to be his very strong or original side. With
an accurate instinct Nesmelov binds together gnosseology with ontology, but in this he is
inferiour to Solov’ev, whom unjustly he ignores. With Nesmelov there is a stronger
psychological side.
4
Vide: “The Science of Man” (“Nauka o cheloveke”), Tom I, p. 241.
5
Ibid., p. 242. 6 Ibid., p. 246.
7
Ibid., p. 246. 8 Ibid., p. 256-257.
9
Ibid., p. 261. 10 Ibid., p. 286.
11
Ibid., p. 296.
12
The principal dualism of spirit and flesh, as of the good and the evil respectively, is a
teaching not so much Christian, as rather Manichaean and Gnostic. Manichaeanism was
ultimately a product of Persian dualism, of two opposed gods, and Gnosticism taught,
that matter is created by another, by an evil god, and that matter cannot become deified.
Christianity however teaches about deification, transfiguration, the resurrection of the
worldly flesh. For Christianity the consciousness of the materiality chaining us down is
the result of the sinful corruption of the world, but there is no especial material principle
that is of itself evil. This likewise distinguishes Christianity from Platonism. Vide: “The
Collected Works of St. Ireneius of Lyons”, 1900 [Russian edition]. [Trans. note: for St.
Ireneius in English, vide Vol. I of “The Ante-Nicene Fathers” Series, which is also now
Online on the Internet.] St. Ireneius of Lyons with great strength reveals, that it is
Christianity namely that saves worldly matter and leads to the resurrection of the flesh,
which all the while the Gnostic heresies with their pseudo spiritualism would but suffer
and consign to perdition -- all the fleshly world, all the earth. From the Incarnation of
God, the Enfleshment of God, St. Ireneius deduces the inevitability of the salvation of the
flesh. St. Ireneius was an ardent defender of Chiliasm. Vide Bk. 5 of his “Against
Heresies” (“Adversus Haeresis”),
p. 445-548.]
13
Already in Justin the Philosopher it is possible to find an excellent explanation of the
Christian teaching about resurrection and the repudiation of a fleshless spiritualism. Vide:
“Works of St. Justin”, 1902, p. 479-484 [in English: Vol. I of Ante-Nicene Fathers].
14
Ibid., Tom II, p. 7. 15 Ibid., p. 25.
16
Ibid., p. 248. 17 Ibid., p. 249.
18
Ibid., p. 251-252. And in the source-springs of history evil is all rooted in this
superstitious attitude towards material objects.
19
Ibid., p. 257. 20 Ibid., p. 268.
21
Ibid., p. 305. 22 Ibid., p. 306-307.
23
Ibid., p. 350.
24
To Nesmelov was foreign the teaching of Bl(essed) Augustine about grace, which
denigrated human freedom. But it would be unjust to accuse Nesmelov of this, that he
belittles the significance of grace and falls into Pelagianism.
25
Ibid., p. 337. 26 Ibid., p. 420.
27
Catholics make a distinction between the soul of the Church (anima Ecclesiae), in
which belongs everything that is of a will towards the good and towards Divine life, and
the body of the Church, to which belongs all the faithful, subject to the hierarchy of the
Church and in communion with its sacraments. (Vide the fine book of Abbot Per?,
“Entretiens sur l’Eglise Catholique”, Tom II, p. 504-509).
28
Just like Orthodoxy in general, Nesmelov -- is an opponent of Chiliasm. His
exceptionally pessimistic view on the end of world history stands in contradiction with
his avowal of the meaning of history and the necessity of history for redemption.]
29
I say detection (“obnaruzhenie”), since this word is a demonstrative proof, strictly
speaking, and is not applicable to the being of God. In acknowledging the being of God
there is nothing logically compelling.
30
I am myself given to think, that the “Critique of Practical Reason” is of Kant’s greater
merit, than is his “Critique of Pure Reason”. But the religious rationalism of Kant
weakened his profound teaching about the twofoldness of human nature and about man’s
belonging to the realm of freedom.

Picasso
When one enters into the Picasso room in the gallery of S. I. Schukin, one is seized
with a feeling of subtle terror. That, what one senses, is connected not only with the
painting and the fate of art, but with cosmic life itself and its fate. In the preceding room
of the gallery was the charming Gauguin. And it seems, that one has experienced the
ultimate joy of the natural life, the beauty all still of an embodied and crystaline world,
the rapture of the natural rays of the sun. For Gauguin, the son of a refined and jaded
culture, it was necessary to flee to the island of Tahiti, to exotic nature and to exotic
people, in order to find in himself the strength to create the beauty of an embodied
crystaline, sun-bright natural life. After this golden dream one is roused wide awake in
the room of Picasso. Cold, gloomy, frightful. The delight of an embodied and sun-bright
life has vanished. A wintry cosmic wind has torn away veil after veil, all the blossoms
have faded, all the leaves, the skin of things is tripped away, all the coverings, all the
flesh, manifest in forms of imperishable beauty, has fallen away. It seems, that never
already will ensue a cosmic springtime, will not be the leaves, the greens, the beautiful
veilings, the embodied synthetic forms. And if too there will be a springtime, then it will
be totally different, new, unprecedented, with leaves and flowers not of here. It seems,
that after the dreadful winter of Picasso the world will not blossom still, as before, that in
this winter fall away not only all the veilings, but also that all the objective corporeal
world is shattered apart down to its foundations. There occurs as it were a mysterious
stretching apart of the cosmos.

Picasso -- represents an expression of genius of the disintegration, the stretching

apart and pulverisation of the physical, corporeal, embodied world. From the perspective
of the history of painting, the raison d'etre for the arising of Cubism in France becomes
understandable. Picasso was preceded as a painter by such immense figures, as Cezanne.
French painting already for a long time, from the time of the Impressionists, had gone
down the path of softening effects, had lost the sense of firm forms, down the path of the
exclusively picturesque. Cubism is a reaction against this softening effect, a searching out
of the geometric aspects of the objective world, of the skeleton of things. This -- is a
matter of analytic, and not synthetic, searchings. All more and more it becomes
impossible to have a synthetically-whole apperception and creativity in painting.
Everything analytically decomposes and becomes dismembered. By suchlike an analytic
dismemberment the painter gets down to the skeleton of things, to the firm forms, hidden
behind the softening veils. The material veils of the world have begun to decompose and
come apart and they have started to seek for the firm substances, congealed beyond this
softened effect. In his searching for the geometric forms of objects, the skeleton of things,
Picasso has arrived at the stone age. But this -- is an illusory stone age. The somberness,
the frigidity and firmness of the geometric figures of Picasso only but seem so. In
actuality, the geometric bodies of Picasso, piled up from the cubes of the skeleton of the
corporeal world, fall apart at the slightest shake. The final layer of the material world,
revealed by Picasso the painter after the stripping away of all the veils, -- is illusory, and
not real. The insights of the painter do not reveal the substances of the material world, --
this world proves to be non-substantial. Picasso -- is a merciless exposer of the illusion of
an embodied, materially synthetic beauty. Behind the captivating and alluring feminine
beauty he sees the fear of disintegration, dissolution. He, as a seer, sees through all the
veils, the garbs, the accretions, and there, in the depths of the material world, he sees his
own heaped-up monstrosities. These -- are the demonic grimaces of the fettered spirits of
nature. To go deeper even still, and there would not be any sort of materiality, -- there
already would be the inner level of nature, of the hierarchy of spirits. The crisis in
painting as it were leads to an emergence from the physical material flesh into another
and higher plane.

Painting, as also with all the plastic arts, was an embodiment, a materialisation, a
crystalisation. The higher ascents in the old painting provided a formal and crystaline
flesh. And painting was connected with a solidity of the embodied physical world, with a
stability of form with matter. But at present painting is undergoing an as yet
unprecedented crisis. If one penetrates deeper into this crisis, then it is impossible to term
it otherwise than as a dematerialisation, a disembodiment of painting. Within painting
there is happening something, it would seem, contrary to the very nature of the plastic
arts. It is as though everything already has been outlived within the sphere of the
embodied, materially-crystaline painting. Art ultimately has torn itself loose from
antiquity. There has begun a process of the permeation forth of painting beyond the limits
of the material plane of being. In the old painting there was much of spirit, but of a spirit
embodied and expressible within the crystals of a material world. Now there occurs a
reverse process: spirit does not become embodied nor materialised, but rather matter
itself becomes dematerialised, disembodied, it loses its firmness, its solidity, its stability
of form. Painting plunges into the depths of matter and there, in the bottommost levels, it
finds already no materiality. Were one to recourse to theosophic terminology, one might
then say, that painting is effecting a transition from bodies physical to bodies aethereal
and astral. Already within Vrubel there began a delicate distension of the material body.
With Picasso there is a shakiness to the very boundaries of physical bodies. There is the
same symptom with the Futurists, in their notices tempo of movement. The promotions
and charlatanism, distorting the present-day art, have deep causes in the distortion of the
crystaline aspect of everything vital. Already with the Impressionists began a sort of
disintegrative process. And this is not from an immersion within spirituality, but occurs
rather from an immersion in materiality. Early Italian painting was full of deep
spirituality, but the spirit was embodied in it. In modern art spirit is as it were on the
wane, and flesh becomes dematerialised. This is a very profound jolt for the plastic arts,
and which strikes at the very essence of the plastic form. The dematerialisation in
painting can produce the impression of the ultimate collapse of art. Painting just the same
is bound up with the crystaline forms of flesh, as poetry is with the crystaline forms of the
word. The dissociation of the word, its distention has to produce the impression of the
collapse of poetry. And truly indeed there happens the same stretching apart of the
crystaline aspects of words, as with the crystaline aspects of flesh. I shall not speak about
the Futurist poetry, which up til now has produced nothing remarkable. But here too is
Andrei Bely, whom I regard as an original, remarkable, nigh close to genius phenomenon
in Russian literature, who as such might be termed a Cubist within literature. In his novel
"Peterburg" can be discerned the same process of stretching apart and pulling apart of
cosmic life, which also is in the Picasso picture. In his belaboured and nightmarish word
combinations there become distended the crystaline aspect of words. He is the same sort
of vexing and nightmarish artist, as is Picasso. This painful vexation is from the
stretching apart, from the ruination of the world, or more precisely, not of the world, but
of one of the embodied worlds, one of the planes of world life.1
 And it seems a sad and bitter thought, that there will no longer be beautiful bodies,
pure crystals, the joys of embodied life, of the synthetically-whole apperception of things,
of an organic culture. All this is passe, and the passe is discovered in aching grief, in
sighs over the past, in painful fright at the perishing of the embodied beauty of the world.
Architecture already has irreversibly gone to ruin, and its ruination is very noticeable and
striking. With the perishing of the hope for the rebirth of a great architecture perishes also
the hope of a new embodiment of beauty in an organic, naturo-corporeal national culture.
In architecture a very shallow Futurism has long since already gained the victory. It
would seem, that in the world of a material embodiment, of corporeality, everything is
already crumbling irretrievably, everything is already detraque. On this plane of being
there has become impossible already any organic, synthetically-integral joy, any stability
of beauty. It would seem, that in nature itself, in its rhythm and cycles something
irreversibly has crumbled and changed. There is no longer and cannot be such a pretty
Springtime, such a sunny Summer, nor the crystaline aspect, the purity, the clarity, in
either the Springtime or in the Summer. The times of the year are all mixed up. People no
longer rejoice at the rising and the setting of the sun, as formerly they were wont to
rejoice. The sun itself no longer shines as before. In nature itself, in the meteorological
and geological phenomena there is occurring a mysterious process of an analytic
dissociation and distention. Many perceptive people now feel this, such as are endowed
with a mystical sensitivity towards cosmic life. About human life, about the human being,
about the human social aspect there is nothing to say. Here everything is clearly visible,
evident. Our life is a continuous decrystalisation, dematerialisation, disembodiment. The
successes of material technology only but enable the disintegration of historical bodies,
of the orderly manner of flesh born in life. All the stability is shaken, and with it is
shaken not only the past evil and injustice of life, but also the past beauty and past
comfort in life. The material world seemed to be absolutely stable, firmly crystalised. But
this stability has proven to be but relative. The material world is not substantial -- it is
merely functional. And already outmoded are those conditions of spirit, which
engendered this sense of stability and crystalising aspect of the embodied material world.
Now at present the human spirit is entering into another stage of growth in its being and
the symptoms of the distention and dissolution of the material world can be seen
everywhere: both in the jolts to traditional lifestyle and all our way of life, to kindred
bonds, and in science, which snatches away the traditional boundaries of experience and
is compelled to admit of a dematerialisation, and also in philosophy, and in art, and in the
occult currents, and in the religious crisis. There is decomposing the old synthesis of an
objective world of things, there perishes irretrievably the crystals of the old beauty. But
the attainment of beauty, which would have corresponded to another stage of growth for
man and the world, there is not still. Picasso -- is a remarkable painter, profoundly
agitating, but in him there is no attainment of beauty. He is all transitional, all -- crisis.

It would be onerous, pitiful and painful to live in such a time for a man, who loves
exclusively the sun, clarity, Italy, the Latin genius, the embodiment and crystalising
aspect. Such a man would experience immeasurable sorrow over the irretrievable
perishing of everything valuable within the world. And only in the depths of spirit could
he find an antidote against this terror and discover a new joy. In German culture this
crisis is sensed less, since the German culture always was too exclusively of spirit and did
not know of such an embodied beauty, of such a crystalisation within matter. The world
is changing its veils. The material veilings of the world were but a temporary attire. The
old leaves and blossoms had to fade under the cosmic wind. The old clothes of being rot
and fall away. This -- is a sickness in the maturing process of being. But being is
indestructible in its essence, not disintegrative at its core. Within the process of the
cosmic crumbling of the clothes and veilings of being both man and everything genuinely
existent has to persevere. Man, as the image and likeness of absolute being, cannot
crumble away. But he is subject to the dangers of the cosmic whirlwinds. He ought not to
surrender himself to the capricious whims of the wind. In the artistry of Picasso there is
no longer man. That, which he uncovers and reveals, is already no longer human; he
surrenders man to the whims of the crumbling wind. But the pure crystal of the human
spirit is indestructible. It is only that modern art is powerless to create crystals. At present
we approach not a crisis within painting, of which there have been many, but rather a
crisis of painting in general, of art in general. This -- is a crisis of culture, an awareness of
its failure, its impossibility to transform itself into a culture of creative energy. The
cosmic distention and disintegration engender a crisis of all the arts, jolting the
boundaries of art. Picasso -- is a vivid symptom of this sickened process. But such
symptoms are many. In front the pictures of Picasso I tended to think, that with the world
was transpiring something inharmonious, and felt sorrow and grief at the perishing of the
old beauty of the world, but then too joy at the birth of the new. This is a great praise to
the power of Picasso. The same thoughts occur with me, when I read occult books, and
communicate with people, living in this sphere of phenomena. But I believe, I believe
deeply, that there is possible a new beauty within life itself and that the perishing of the
old beauty merely seems so to us in regard to our limitedness, and because, that all beauty
-- is eternal and present at the deepest core of being. And the debilitating sorrow has to be
surmounted. If one say it as a truth less than ultimate, that the beauty of Botticelli and
Leonardo is perishing irretrievably together with the perishing of the material plane of
being, upon which it was embodied, then as an ultimate truth one ought to say, that the
beauty of Botticelli and Leonardo has entered into eternal life, since it always has abided
beyond the unstable veiling of cosmic life, to which we give the name material. But the
new creativity will be yet different, it will not be yet cut short by the pull to the gravity of
this world. Picasso -- is not the new creativity. He -- is the end of the old.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1914

© 2005 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1914 - 174(14,2) - en)

PIKASSO. First published in Journal "Sophiya", 1914, No. 3, p. 57-62.

Article was thereafter republished initially in Berdyaev's 1918 anthology text of 3
articles, “Krizis iskusstva” (“The Crisis of Art”) (Kl.#14), Ch. 2. Article has also
subsequently been reprinted in the Moscow "Liga" 1994 N. Berdyaev collection of
articles, under cover-title, "Philosophiya, tvorchestva, kultury i isskustva", tom 2, ctr.
419-425.

1
In philosophy Cubism also is possible. Thus, the critical genealogy in its final results
arrives at a distortion and disintegration of being. In the Russian philosophy of the
present time as a genuine Cubist there appears to be B. V. Yakovenko. His philosophy is
a pluralistic dissegmentation of being. Vide his article in "Logos". And it is characteristic,
that in Germany already there has appeared a work, suggesting a parallel between Picasso
and Kant.

The End of Europe

I

The visionary dream about world unity and world dominion -- is an age-old dream
of mankind. The Roman Empire was the greatest attempt at such unity and such
dominion. And every universalism is bound up even at present with Rome, as a concept
spiritual, and not geographic. The present-day world war, which is spreading all over and
threatens to engulf all lands and peoples, would seem deeply contrary to this old dream
about world unity, about a single world governance. Such a terrible war, it would seem, is
destroying the unity of mankind. But this is so only for the superficial glance. From a
perspective at greater depth the world war to the ultimate degree has brought into sharp
focus the question concerning world order upon the earthly globe, about the expanse of
culture upon all the surface of the earth. The present historical period has similarity to the
era of the great transmigration of peoples. There is the feeling, that mankind is entering
upon a new historical and cosmic even period, amidst some sort of great inevitability,
completely unforeseen by any of the scientific prognoses, meanwhile toppling down all
the doctrines and teachings. And it demonstrates first of all, that the ancient, the irrational
and indeed primitive instincts are stronger than all the modern social interests and
humanitarian feelings. These instincts, rooted within the obscure wellsprings of life, win
out over the feeling of bourgeois self-preservation. That, which seemed to the
consciousness of the second half of the XIX Century to be the solely essential things
within the life of mankind, have proven all to be merely at the surface level of life. The
world war tears away this surface skin of the civilisation of the XIX and XX Centuries
and reveals the deeper layers of human life, it sets loose the chaotically irrational within
human nature, covered over only outwardly, but nowise changed within modern man.
The social question, the struggle of classes, the humanitarian-cosmopolitanist socialism
etc, etc, all that which not so long ago seemed still singularly important, and in which
they saw the only possible future, now fades into the background, gives way to deeper
interests and instincts. Into the foreground move questions of nation and ethnos, the
struggle for dominance of various imperialisms, all that, which had seemed overcome and
left behind by cosmopolitanism, by pacifism, by the humanitarian and socialistic
teachings. The eternal bourgeois and socialistic world has proven phantasmic, a mere
abstraction. Within the fires of this terrible war have been burnt up all the doctrinalisings
and there has been melted away all the fetters, latched upon life by the teachings and
theories. The instincts of nation and ethnos in the XX Century have proven to be mightier
than instincts social and of class. The irrational has proven stronger than the rational
within the most bourgeois and well-organised of cultures. The struggle of ethnos, the
struggle of national dignities, the struggle of great empires for might and dominion is
essentially supra-national. Here the dark will for the expansion of the supra-personal life
wins out over all personal interests and plans, it capsizes all the individual perspectives
on life. How many individually unrewarded go the sacrifices that are demanded by
imperialistic politics or the struggle for national worth. And in our epoch there is the
displacing of instincts by still stronger instincts, upon which stand the imperialistic and
national struggle. The instincts particular to life, of the egoistic family, the philistine, are
won out over by interests of national life, of historical and world life, by instincts of the
glory of peoples and states.

II

The national consciousness and nationalism -- are phenomena of the XIX Century.
After the Napoleonic wars, inspired by the idea of a world empire, there began the wars
of national liberation. And national self-awareness grew. National states crystalised into
shape. Lesser peoples even wanted to assert their national visage, and to possess an
independent life. The national movements of the XIX Century are profoundly contrary to
the universal spirit of the Middle Ages, which was under the sway of ideas of world
theocracy and world empire and which did not know nationalism. The intense national
energies within the XIX and XX Centuries act alongside energies that were
cosmopolitan, socialistic, humanitarian-pacifist. The XIX Century -- was the most
cosmopolitan and yet the most nationalistic of centuries. The bourgeois European life
was also both very cosmopolitan and very nationalistic. But in it the spirit of universality
would be difficult to find. The nationalisation of human life involved also its
individualisation. And the striving towards individualisation always involves new
appearances. The national states, the national individualities are fully definable only for
the XIX Century. And quite parallel to the growth of the national manifold was a
lessening of the remoteness of states and nations, it weakened the provincial isolation. It
might be said, that mankind moves towards unity through a national individualisation.
Parallel to the individualisation in national existence is an universalisation, a
developement in breadth. And it can likewise be said, that mankind at present moves
towards oneness and unification through a worldwide discord of war, through prolonged
misfortune, into the period we are now entering. History -- is paradoxical and antinomic,
and its processes -- are twofold. Nothing within history is realised alongside a straight
line, by peaceful growth, without detours and without sacrifices, without evil,
accompanying the good, without a shadowing of the light. Races and peoples are locked
in a bloody struggle. Within the war there is an outlet for the particularistic and isolated
existence of peoples.

The most compelling feeling, evoked by the world war, might be expressed thus:
this is the end of Europe, as a monopoly on culture, as a closed-in province of the earthly
sphere, with its pretensions to be universal. The world war pulls into the cycle of world
life all the races, all the parts of the earthly orb. It brings East and West into so close a
contact, as never yet known within history. The world war poses the question about an
emergence onto world expanses, about the extension of culture across all the surface of
the earthly globe. It sharpens to the final extreme all the questions, connected with
imperialistic and colonial politics, connected with the relations of the European states to
other parts of the world, to Asia and Africa. One such aspect already is this, that the
present-day war with a fateful inevitability posits the question about the existence of
Turkey, about the dividing up of its holdings, which leads us beyond the borders of
European horizons. The semi-phantasmic existence of Turkey, which for a long time was
sustained by European diplomacy, kept Europe within its closed-in condition, forestalling
the too acute and catastrophic setting of questions, connected with movement towards the
East. In Turkey all was tied up in a knot, the undoing upon which depends the character
of the existence of Europe, since the end of Turkey represents the emergence of culture
eastwards, beyond the bounds of Europe. And besides the question concerning Turkey
the war posits still many other questions, connected with the world-historical theme: East
and West. And the world war demands resolution of all the questions.

III

The great powers conduct world politics, and make pretense of spreading their
civilising influence beyond the borders of Europe, to all parts of the world and to all
peoples, upon over all the surface of the earth. This -- is imperialistic politics, which
always contains within it universalistic pretensions and which ought to be distinguished
from nationalistic politics. Nationalism is particularism; imperialism is universalism. On
the strength of some almost biological law, a law of biological sociology, the great. or in
the terminology of N. B. Struve, the greatest powers strive towards a swallowing up of all
the weak and the small, towards a worldwide dominion, they want on their own terms to
civilise all the surface of the earthly sphere.

The talented and original English imperialist Cramb sees the significance of
English imperialism in this, that it "should inspire all peoples, living within the bounds of
the British empire, with the English world-outlook".1 In this he sees the striving of the
race for immortality. Imperialism with its colonial politics is a modern, a bourgeois
method of spreading of the universalisation of culture, of spreading civilisation beyond
the bounds of Europe, beyond the seas and oceans. Modern imperialism -- is a
phenomenon purely European, but it bears with it an energy, the ultimate revealing of
which spells the end of Europe. In the dialectics of imperialism is a self-negation. The
endless expansion and might of the British empire spells the end of England, as a national
state, as the individually particularistic existence of a people. For the British empire, as in
every empire, within its own bounds is the world, the earthly orb. In modern imperialism,
which I term "bourgeois" in distinction to the "sacred" imperialism of former ages,2 there
is the same striving for world dominion, as was also in the Roman empire, and which is
impossible to investigate, as mere national existence. This -- is the tantalising torment of
the great powers, unquenchable in their thirst. Only small peoples and states are content
with a purely national existence, making no pretense to be all the whole world. But how
distinct are the methods of modern bourgeois imperialism from the methods of the old
sacral imperialism. Both the ideology and the practice are altogether different. Now
everything possesses, foremost, an economic undertone. Modern imperialists no longer
speak about a world theocracy, nor about a sacred world empire. Colonial politics, the
struggle for dominion on the sea, the struggle for markets -- this is what concerns modern
imperialism, here are its methods and means of world might. Imperialistic politics indeed
does lead out beyond the bounds of the closed-in existence of Europe and indeed does
serve towards the universalisation of culture. But this is accomplished by crooked and
negative paths. In a straight-forward intent of imperialism to spread culture it is
impossible to believe. We know only too well, how the European great powers peddle
their culture over all the earthly sphere, how rough and ugly their contacts are towards
races of other parts of the world, their civilising of old cultures and savages. The cultural
role of the English in India, an ancient land of great religious revealings of wisdom,
which even now could help the peoples of Europe deepen their religious consciousness, is
all too well known, for it to be possible to sustain the lie of the cultural ideology of
imperialism. The world outlook of modern Englishmen is more superficial, than the
world outlook of Indians, and they can convey to India but an outward civilisation. The
England of the XIX Century would nowise be capable to beget a Ramakrishna, who was
born in India. In the contacts of modern European civilisation with the ancient races and
ancient cultures there is always something of the sacrilegious. And the conceited
European, bourgeois and scientific, civilising consciousness -- is a phenomenon so pitiful
and trite, that it spiritually can be looked at only as a symptom of the ensuing end of
Europe -- the monopolist of world culture. It is the nightfall of Europe -- here is a feeling,
impossible to be rid of. Barbarisation in part threatens Europe. Yet all the same it is
impossible to deny the significance of imperialism, as an emergence beyond the borders
of Europe and purely of the European civilisation, it is impossible to deny its external,
material, geographic mission. All the surface of the earthly orb has inevitably to be
civilised, all the races have to be drawn into the coursings of world history. This
worldwide task stands now more acutely before mankind, than the tasks of the inward life
of the crystalised European states and cultures.

IV

The British empire was the first to appear within the type of modern imperialism.
The last attempt at a sacred imperialism was the world empire of Napoleon, all still
constructed under the spell of the Roman idea. In the era of Napoleon however it
ultimately vanished, transformed into a phantasm, the Holy Roman empire. Hereafter an
empire, all still making pretense to world domination, would be built upon different
foundations and would have a different ideology. Imperialism is closely interwoven with
the economics of the capitalist era. England presents the example of a classical land of
building the growth of empire. The instincts of the Anglo-Saxon race have proven fully
suitable for the creation of a world empire on the new model. The British empire is
strewn throughout all parts of the world, and to it belongs a fifth part of the earthly orb.
The English have the calling for this, to spread their might beyond the seas. The English
imperialism -- is peaceful, non-militaristic, culturo-economic, sea-mercantile. It is
impossible to deny the imperialistic talent and the imperialistic vocation of the English
people. It might also be said, that England has a geographic-imperialistic mission. This
mission consists not in the sphere of an higher spiritual life, but it is necessary in the
fulfillment of the historical fates of mankind. Both as regards their geographic position
and innate to their race, the English -- are the most imperialistic, and perhaps, the solely
imperialistic people in the modern sense of the word. The English -- are great successes
at imperialistic politics. It is impossible to say this for the Germans. Both an unfavourable
geographic position, and the military-force instincts of the Germanic race make the
German imperialism onerous, coercive and intolerable for other lands and peoples. The
Germanic imperialism has to be aggressive and grabbing by force. In German
imperialism, capitalism on the modern model is closely interwoven with militarism. This
imperialism is purely militaristic, and the militarism -- is modernly capitalistic, futuristic.
The German empire, striving for world domination through force, always produces the
impression of being an upstart, and it tends to obsess the unbearable conceit of the
parvenue. It is characteristic, that Bismarck still was not an imperialist: he was more than
careful in regards to colonial politics. He created a national empire, he completed the
unification of the German people. The imperialism here is the child of the most recent
generation of the German bourgeoise and German Junkerism. Modern Germany with its
bourgeois feelers stretches into Russia, into Italy and other lands, and it tries to
Germanise everything. But Germany is not an imperialistic land as regards vocation. Its
imperialism -- is fatal for it itself and for all Europe. To the censuring namely of German
imperialism would be the fact upon exposure, that the imperialism inevitably leads not
only to war, but also to a world war. The world war -- is the result of imperialistic
politics. The seeds of war were lodged in the original grounds of quite peaceful an
imperialism. But no people is fated by a peaceful imperialistic politics to spread its might
over the surface of the world. Every imperialism in fatal manner crashes into a stormy
clash with another imperialism. The existence of several worldwide pretensions
foreshadows a world war. The clash of the rather older English imperialism with the
more recent Germanic was fatally predestined. Several years before the war, Cramb
spoke about this with great enthusiasm in his lectures, "Germany and England", although
it would be difficult to agree with his idealisation of German imperialism. Imperialism
does not have as its aim the spreading of civilisation over all the earth, the increase of
world community, but leads rather to discord and war. In the materialistic imperialism
ensues the nightfall of Europe. But the dawn after this night can only be a worldwide
dawning.

The world war presents the XX Century the task of the emergence of culture
beyond Europe and into the world expanses over all the surface of the earthly sphere.
Through the terror of the war and the evil of colonial politics, through the struggle of
races and nationalities will be accomplished the unification of mankind and the civilising
of all the earthly sphere. In facing this worldwide task, questions provincially European
for a certain while will be relegated to the secondary plane. Sooner or later there has to
begin the movement of culture towards its ancient sources, to the ancient races, to the
East, to Asia and Africa, which anew need to be drawn into the course of world history.
Egypt, India, Palestine are not forever fallen away from world history. And with its
tormentive problem China still has to be taken into account. The disappearance of a
purely European culture will be a dawning of the sun in the East. The enigmatic
expression of the faces of the ancient peoples of the East, which are so striking for us as
Europeans, ought for once to find solutions at some high points of history. To this
enigmatic glance of the ancient races Europe has not succeeded in determining, whither
to go. Europe ought not only to convey its culture to Asia and Africa, but it ought also to
receive something in return from the ancient cradles of culture. Imperialism with its
colonial politics has been but an external, a bourgeois expression of that inevitable
worldwide historical movement, which we foresee. Inwardly, this historical turnabout is
being readied by the spiritual crisis of European culture, the crashing of the positivism
and materialism of the contemporary European consciousness, the disenchantment in life,
the thirst for new faith and new wisdom. The centre of gravity for Western Europe, in all
actuality, is shifting still more to the West, to America, the might of which will grow
quite much after the finish of the war. And indeed the Americanisation of modern
civilisation will extend Europe all the way to America. The East -- is one exit beyond the
bounds of European culture, America -- is another exit. Europe is ceasing to be at the
centre of world history, the sole bearer of an higher culture. If Europe had wanted to
remain a monopolist and dwell in its European self-smugness, it should have refrained
from the world war. But long ago already European life had been transformed into a fiery
volcano. Now Europe faces fully a basic theme of world history -- the unification of East
and West. And the task is in this, that the end of Europe and the critical point in history
has to be experienced by man at spiritual depth and with a religious light.

Great roles in this worldwide movement of culture should fall to the allotted portion
of Russia and England. The mission of the English is rather more external. The mission
of Russia -- is more inward. Russia stands at the centre of East and West, it -- is an East
and West. Russia -- is the largest empire. But that is namely because foreign to it is the
imperialism in the English or German sense of the word. With us, as Russians, there are
no great-empire strivings, since a great empire -- is already a given for us, and not a goal.
Russia is too greatly large, to have pathos over expansion and domination. And indeed
the temperament of the Slavic race -- is not an imperialistic temperament. Russia does not
aspire after colonies, since that in it itself there are vast Asiatic colonies, which present it
much work. The mission of Russia -- is in the defense and liberation of lesser peoples.
Russia has still to be the bulwark against the dangers of the Mongol East. But for this, it
first of all has to be liberated from everything of the Mongol-East within itself. The sole
essential pretension of Russia appears to be Constantinople and egress through the water-
courseways to the seas. A Russian Constantinople ought to be one of the centres of the
unification of East and West. Material power and the material greatness of Russia -- are
initial givens for us. We have no need to conquer with difficulty every jot of earth, in
order to be great. And we have all the basis to suppose that the world mission of Russia is
in its spiritual life, in its spiritual, and not material universalism, in its prophetic
presentiments of new life, which Russian great literature was full of, just as with Russian
thought and the religious life of the people. And if there approaches also the end of the
provincially shut-in life of Europe, then all the more there approaches also the end of the
provincially shut-in life of Russia. Russia has to emerge onto the world stage. The end of
Europe will be with the emergence of Russia and the Slavic race into the arena of world
history, as determined by its spiritual power. The strong cosmic gusts batter all the lands,
and peoples and cultures. In order to withstand this gale, there is needed a strong spiritual
concentration and depth, there is needed a religious experiencing of the historical
catastrophes.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1915

KONETS EVROPY. First published in literary gazette "Birzhevye vedomosti", 12 June

1915, No. 14900. Later incorporated by Berdyaev into his 1918 book, "The Fate of
Russia" ("Sud'ba Rossii"), Section II, Chapter 13, (p. 324-332 in my 1997 Moscow
Svarog reprint).

IV
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR
AND THE MEANING OF WAR
THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NATURE OF WAR

It is not about the present war that I want to speak, but about every war. Why is
there war? How philosophically to make sense of war? At the superficial glance, war is a
moving about and clash of material masses, physical violence, killing, maiming, the
working of monstrous mechanical weapons. It would seem, that war is an exceptional
submersion into matter and has no sort of relation to spirit. People of spirit sometimes
readily avert their attention from war, as from something materially external, as a remote
evil, bound up with force, from which one can and ought to withdraw into the higher
spheres of spiritual life.

Some reject war out of a dualistic point of view, according to which there exists a
completely independent material sphere, external, given to violence, separate from and
opposed to the spiritual, the inward and free. But everything material is however only a
symbol and sign of spiritual activity, everything external is but a manifestation of the
internal, everything coercive and by force is a falsely directed freedom. To inwardly
make sense of war is possible only with a monistic, and not dualistic point of view, i.e.
seeing in it the symbolics of what transpires within spiritual activity. It can be said, that
war happens in the heavens, within other planes of being, within the depths of spirit, and
upon the flat surface of the material are seen but external signs of what is transpiring in
the depths. Physical violence, the committing of murder, is not something in itself
substantial, as an independent reality, -- it is a sign of spiritual violence, committing evil
within the spiritual activity. The nature of war, as a material violence, is purely reflective,
a sign, symptomatic, not something independent. War is not the source of evil, but rather
a reflection in evil, the sign of the existence of inner evil and sickness. The nature of war
-- is symbolic. Suchlike is the form of every material form of violence, -- it is always
secondary, and not primary. The particular condition of spiritual activity, wherein
mankind dwells, inevitably has to make use of material signs, as implements, without
which spiritual life could not realise itself. Man in the expression of his spiritual life has
to move his hands, his feet, the tongue, i.e. to recourse to material signs, without which it
is impossible to express love or hate, without which it is impossible to realise his
strivings of will. And war is a complicated complex of material moving about of feet and
hands, and of various implements, conducive to movement by the human will. On
principle one can grant the possibility of spiritual life without material signs and tools,
but this presupposes some other level of spiritual activity, at present unattained by
mankind and the world.

There occur sicknesses, which are accompanied by a rash upon the face. This rash is
but a sign of an inward sickness. The outward removal of the rash only drives the
sickness inward. It might even make matters worse from the sickness. It is necessary to
treat the inner sickness itself. The evil of war is a sign of an inner sickness of mankind.
The material acts of violence and the terrors of war are but the rash upon the body of
mankind, from which it is impossible to be healed externally and mechanically. We are
all culpable in this sickness of mankind, which breaks out with war. When an ulcer with
puss is discovered, then in this discovery of the ulcer itself it is impossible to see the evil.
Sometimes this discovery is necessary to do something forceful for the saving of life.

Long since already within the depths of spiritual activity there was begun the World
War, the world hostility, the hatred and mutual destruction. And this war, which began at
the end of July 1914, is but a material sign of a spiritual war transpiring in the depths, a
grievous spiritual infirmity of mankind. In this spiritual infirmity and spiritual war there
is a mutual responsibility of all, and no one can be excused the consequences of the inner
evil, of the inward murder, in which we all have lived. The war has not created the evil, it
has just made apparent the evil. All of modern mankind has lived by hatred and hostility.
The inner war has been veiled over only by the surface veil of world bourgeois life, and
the falsehood of this bourgeois world, which to many seemed eternal, was bound to be
exposed. The destruction of human life, as it occurs in world bourgeois life, is no less
terrible, than that, which is happening in the war.

II

In the Gospel it is said, that it is necessary more to fear those killing the soul, than
those killing the body. Physical death is less terrible, than spiritual death. And prior to the
war, in peacetime life human souls were killed, the human spirit was extinguished, and
this became so customary, that they ceased to note any terror in this killing. In the war
they destroy the physical outward part of man, but the core of the man, his soul can
remain not only undestroyed, but can even be reborn. It is very characteristic, that those
who most of all are afraid of the war and the killing in the war -- are the positivists, for
whom the chief thing is in order that man should live well upon the earth, and for whom
the totality of life consists in the empirically given. For those, who believe in the
infinitude of spiritual life and in values, transcending all earthly blessings, those such the
terrors of war and physical death do not so frighten. This explains why pacifists on
principle are to be met with more often amongst the humanist-positivists, than amongst
Christians. The religious outlook on life sees more profoundly the tragedy of death, than
the outlook that is shallowly positivist. The war is a terrible evil and a profound tragedy,
but the evil and tragedy are not merely in the outwardly assumed fact of physical
violence and destruction, but rather quite deeper. And at this depth the evil and tragedy
always obtain already prior to the war and its violence.

The war but manifests forth the evil, it thrusts it outwards. The external fact of the
physical violence and the physical killing is impossible to look at, independently of the
evil, as the source of the evil. The spiritual violence and the spiritual killing lie deeper.
And the capacity for spiritual violence is very subtle and grasped but with difficulty.
Some emotional stirrings and currents, some words, some feelings and actions, having no
apparent signs of physical violence, are more murderous and death-bearing, than the
crude physical violence and mayhem.

The responsibility of man has to be broadened and deepened. And indeed, man
oftener becomes violent and a killer, than he himself suspects or is suspected of him. It is
impossible to see the violence and killing only in war. All our peacetime life rests upon
violence and killing. And prior to the start of the present-day world war we committed
violence and killed in the very depths of life no less, than in the time of war. The war but
made apparent and projected out onto the material plane our old acts of violence and
killing, our hatred and hostility. In the depths of life there is a dark and irrational
wellspring. And from it are begotten the most profound and tragic contradictions.
Mankind, not having enlightened within itself with the Divine light this dark archaic
element, inevitably passes through a cross-like terror and death in war. In war there is an
immanent redemption of the ancient guilt. It is not given to man, remaining in the old evil
and ancient darkness, to avert the immanent consequences in the form of the terrors of
war. In the abstract intents of pacifism to avoid the war, while leaving mankind in its
former condition, there is something ugly. This -- is a desire to run away from
responsibility. War is an immanent chastisement and an immanent redemption. In war
hatred is smelted into love, and love into hatred. In war there intersect the limits of the
extreme, and the diabolical darkness is interwoven with Divine light. War is a material
manifesting forth of the age-old contradictions of existence, the discerning of the
irrationality of life. Pacifism is a rationalistic denial of the darkly irrational within life.
And it is impossible to believe in an eternal rational world. Not in vain does the
Apocalypse prophesy about wars. And Christianity does not foresee a peaceful and
painless finish to world history. In the below is reflected the same, that is above, upon the
earth the same, that is in the heavens. And above, in the heavens, the angels of God
contend with the angels of Satan. In all the spheres of the cosmos there storms the fiery
and raging element and it brings war. And upon the earth Christ has brought not peace,
but the sword [Mt. 10: 34]. In this is a profound antinomy of Christianity: Christianity
cannot answer evil with evil, cannot resist evil by force, and yet Christianity is a war, the
destruction of the world, the experiencing prior to the end of the redemption of the Cross
in darkness and evil.
 Christianity is full of contradictions. And the Christian attitude towards war in a
fatal manner is contradictory. A Christian war is impossible, impossible just as is a
Christian state, or Christian violence and killing. But all the terror of life is experienced
by the Christian, as a cross and a redemption of guilt. The war is guilt, but it is likewise a
redemption of guilt. In it the unrighteous, sinful, evil life is lifted up upon the Cross.

III

We are all guilty in the war, all are responsible for it and cannot escape the mutual
responsibility. The evil, living in each of us, is made apparent in the war, and the war for
none of us is something external, from which we can run away. It is necessary to assume
upon oneself responsibility before the end. And we constantly are mistaken, in thinking
that we can take off from ourselves the responsibility or not accept it at all. It is
impossible in crudely an external way to understand participation in war and
responsibility for it. We all in some way or other are participants in the war. Already in
that I accept the state, accept nationality, the sense of mutual responsibility of all the
people, or that I desire Russian victories, -- I therein participate in the war and bear
responsibility for it. When I desire victories for the Russian army, I spiritually participate
in killing and take upon myself responsibility for the killing, I accept the guilt. It would
be base to impose upon others the blame of killing, which is needful also on my behalf,
and myself hold the view, that in this killing I do not participate. Those, who eat meat,
participate in the killing of animals and are bound to admit their responsibility for this
killing. It would be hypocritical to hold the view, that we ourselves never do violence nor
kill and are incapable of violence and killing, that it is others that bear the responsibility
for this. Each of us benefits having the police, it is something needful, and it would be
hypocritical to hold the view, that the police are not there for me. Everyone who sincerely
wants the Germans to be squeezed back beyond the borders of Russia spiritually is
responsible for the killing no less, than the soldiers, who go forth in bayonnet attack. The
killing -- is in this case not physical, but rather a moral phenomenon, and it first of all is
done spiritually. The soldier doing the shooting and slaughtering is less responsible for
the killing, than that one, in whom there is the guiding will to victory over the enemy, and
who nowise directly strikes the physical blow. Such an one morally blameworthy may
want to be full clean and free of the guilt over the violence and the killing, and at the
same time may want for oneself and for those near and dear, for one's native land, that it
be at the price of violence and killing. There is a redemption in the very act of accepting
of guilt in oneself. Being guilty becomes morally higher than being pure. This -- is a
moral paradox, which it is proper to think upon deeply. The exclusive striving towards
one's own purity, towards the guarding of one's own white garb is not the highest moral
condition. Morally higher -- is to impose upon oneself the responsibility for those near
and dear, accepting the common guilt. I think, that at the basis of all culture lies the
selfsame guilt, which is at the basis of war, since it all is begotten and developes in
violence. But the evil, created by culture, just like the evil, created by war, -- is
secondary, and not primary, it -- is a response to the primordial evil, to the darkness,
encompassing the primal bases of life.

IV
 It is impossible to approach war in a doctrinal and rational manner. Absolutism in
evaluating life always proves bereft of life, coercive, always it is a pharisaical exalting of
the Sabbath higher than man. But man is higher than the Sabbath, and the Sabbath ought
not to serve as the absolute principle in life. There is both possible and desirable but a
vital plasticity of morals, for which everything in the world is an individually creative
task. The absolute is inapplicable to the sphere of the relative. In the historical corporeal
world there is nothing of the absolute. Absolute life is possible, but it is impossible to
apply the absolute to relative life. Absolute life is life in love. In absolute life there cannot
be war, the violence and killing. The killing, violence and war is a sign of life that is
relative, historically-corporeal, not of the Divine. Within the historical body, within the
material limitedness, the absolute Divine life is impossible. We live by force, insofar as
we live in the physical body. The laws of the material world -- are the laws of force. The
absolute negation of violence and war is possible only as a phenomenon profoundly
individual, and not as a norm and law. This presupposes an in-spiritising, a conquering of
the "world" and its fatal law, the enlightening of the human body by the light from
elsewhere. But for life within this material world it is impossible to apply the absolute, as
a law and norm. The Gospel is not a law of life. The absolute is not applicable, but it is
attainable. Absolute life lies within the life of grace, and is not life, filled with laws and
norms. The legalistic application of the absolute to the relative is also the Sabbath-
extolling, disdained by Christ.

The absolute truth about the non-resistance to evil by force is not a law of life in this
chaotic and dark world, submerged as it is in the material relativeness, inwardly pervaded
by discord and enmity. And grant that this world should pass over into absolute life in
love. One can only but wish for this and strive towards this. Yet this would be
accomplished mysteriously and unseen, just like it is that unseen cometh the Kingdom of
God. But there is no sort of inward meaning to desire the external world and yet deny all
external force, leaving the inner world in its former chaos, darkness, evil and enmity.
This signifies but nothing. The binding of absolute law to the relative life is a
doctrinalising, bereft of all inward meaning. One can but desire the inward health, and
not the outward guise of health amidst inward sickness. It is impossible to stress strongly
enough, that Christ's absolute love is a new life in the grace of the spirit, and not a law for
the relative material life. And herein is why infinitely complex is the problem of the
relationship of Christianity to war.

War can be conceived of only as tragic and suffering. The attitude towards war can
only be but antinomic. This -- is an experiencing of the inner darkness of world life, of
inner evil, the acceptance of guilt and redemption. A sweetly optimistic and exclusively
happy attitude towards war -- is impermissible and immoral. We both accept and yet
reject war. We accept the war in the name of its rejection. Militarism and pacifism -- are
alike a lie. Both within the one and within the other -- is the external attitude towards life.
The acceptance of war is an acceptance of the tragic terror of life. And if in war there is
brutality and the loss of the human visage, then in it also there is a great love, focused
into the darkness.

Nikolai Berdyaev
 1915

First published in literary gazette "Birzhevye vedomosti", 26 June 1915, No. 14928.
Later incorporated by Berdyaev into his 1918 book, "The Fate of Russia" ("Sud'ba
Rossii"), Section IV, Chapter 20, (p. 374-380 in my 1997 Moscow Svarog reprint).

WAR AND THE CRISIS

OF THE
INTELLIGENTSIA CONSCIOUSNESS

(1915 - #201(15))

Across the wide masses of the Russian Intelligentsia, the war ought to generate a
deep crisis of consciousness, a broadening of horizons, an altering of the basic values of
life. The customary categories of the thought of the Russian Intelligentsia have proven
completely unsuitable for judging about such large-scale events, as happen now in the
present-day world war. The consciousness of our Intelligentsia has not been oriented
towards the historically concrete and it is lacking in the proper organs for judgement and
appraisal in this area. This consciousness makes a fatal use of its judgement and
evaluations, taken from areas altogether different, and more the customary for it. The
traditional Intelligentsia consciousness was totally focused upon questions of internal
politics and it was oriented exclusively towards social interests. The world war inevitably
refocuses the awareness upon international politics and it evokes an exceptional interest
on the role of Russia in world life. The horizon of the consciousness is rendered
worldwide. There is a surmounting of the provincialism of awareness, the provincialism
of interests. By the caprice of fate, we are being led forth into the expanse of world
history. Many of the traditionally minded Intelligentsia, accustomed to evaluate
everything in accord with their abstract-sociological and abstract-moral categories, have
felt a sense of confusion, when there is demanded of them a live reaction to world
happenings of such magnitude. The customary doctrines and theories are rendered
irrelevant before the threatening face of world-historical fate. The provincial perspective
of Russian radicalism, of Russian Populism and Russian Social-Democratism did not
account for such world events. The traditional consciousness was accustomed to scorn
everything "international" and wholly consign it under the heading "bourgeois". But after
the world war started, no one still with contempt can turn away from the "international",
since it now affects the internal life of the land. Among the Russian Intelligentsia there
have awaken instincts, which were not accounted for in the doctrines and which indeed
were stifled by the doctrines, instincts of outright love for native-land, and the principle
underlying them of a vital impulse to revive the consciousness. For many this change of
consciousness is experienced as tragic and it is accompanied by a sense of being cast
adrift by history. It failed to transpire with the world, what they were accustomed to
foresee would happen, what was supposed to happen according to the traditional
doctrines and theories. Demolished was not only their "world-outlook", but even their
customary feelings. The forceful refocusing by world history towards international
interests, towards the historical fate of peoples and their mutual interactions focuses also
likewise inside the life of each suchlike people, and it elevates and strengthens the
national feeling and self-awareness. The focus upon the international and the world-
historical sharpens the feeling of the value of one's own nationality and the consciousness
of its tasks in the world. But absorption within the struggle of parties and classes weakens
the sense of nationality. For wide circles amongst the Intelligentsia, the war bears an
awareness of the value of their nationality, the value of every nationality, a value which
the Intelligentsia has had almost completely lacking. For the traditional Intelligentsia
consciousness there existed the value of the good, of justice, the welfare of the people,
the brotherhood of peoples, but there did not exist the value of nationality, occupying a
quite unique place in the hierarchy of world values. Nationality was presented not as of
value in itself, but as something subordinated to other abstract values of the good. And
what explained this first of all was this, that the traditional consciousness of the
Intelligentsia was never focused upon the historically concrete, it always lived by abstract
categories and values. The historical instincts and historical awareness amongst the
Russian Intelligentsia was almost as weak as obtains with women, it was almost
completely bereft of the possibility of assuming an historical perspective and
acknowledging historical values. And this signifies always the prevailing of perspectives
of welfare over perspectives of value.

Consequently, indeed, to have as a governing point of view -- the welfare of the

people, leads to a denial of the meaning of history and historical values, since historical
values presuppose the sacrificing of the people's welfare with its worship of the people, a
sacrificing in the name of that which is higher than the welfare and happiness of the
people and their empirical life. History, such as creates values, is essentially tragic and it
does not permit of any sort of delays for the benefit of people. The value of nationality
within history, as with every value, tends to assert a sacrifice, as something higher than
the mere welfare of people, and it clashes with the exclusive assertion of the welfare of
the people, as an higher criterion. The worth of the nation stands higher than the
benefiting of people. From the point of view of the present-day generation it might be
possible to consent to a shameful peace, but this is impossible from the perspective of the
value of nationality and its historical destiny.

II

The crux of the crisis, occurring for us under the influence of the war, can be
formulated thus: a new consciousness has been born, turned towards the historical,
towards the concrete, with a surmounting of the abstract and doctrinaire consciousness,
the exclusive sociologism and moralism of our thought and values. The consciousness of
our Intelligentsia has not wanted to know of history, as a concrete metaphysical reality
and value. It always operated making use of abstract categories from sociology, of ethics
or its dogmatics, it subordinate the historical concreteness to the abstract sociological,
moral or dogmatic schemae. For such a consciousness, there did not exist nationality and
ethnos, the historical fate and historical manifold and complexity, for it there existed
merely the sociological classes or abstract ideas of the good and justice. The historical
tasks, always concrete and complex, we loved to decide by the abstractly sociological, the
abstractly moral or the abstractly religious, i.e. to simplify them, to arrange them into
categories, taken from other areas. The Russian consciousness has an exceptional
tendency to moralise over history, i.e. to apply to history moral categories, taken from
personal life.

The moral meaning of the historical process can and ought to be discerned, but the
moral categories of history are substantially different from the moral categories of
personal life. Historical life is an independent reality, and in it are independent values. To
such realities and values belongs nationality, which is a category concretely historical,
and not abstractly sociological. In the Russian is the wont to demand, that everything in
the world be thought of morally and that religiously it has its own truth. The Russian soul
does not reconcile itself with the worship of thoughtless, immoral and godless power, it
does not accept history, as some sort of natural necessity. But out of this limited,
simplistic and schematising mindset there ought to be fashioned an healthy and valuable
grain of good sense. We ought to open up our soul and our consciousness for concrete
and manifold historical activity, an activity endowed with its own specific values. We
ought to acknowledge the reality of nation and the value of national historical tasks. The
question concerning the world role of Russia and about its destiny takes on tremendous
significance, it cannot be diluted away into the question of the people's welfare, about
social justice and suchlike questions. The horizon has become world-wide, world
historical. And it is impossible to squeeze world history into the dictates of any abstract
sociological or abstract moral categories, it knows instead its own goals. Russia has its
own independent purpose in the world, not dilutable into other purposes, and Russia
needs this purpose to reach Divine life.

The traditional transferal of abstract sociological categories over into historical life
and historical tasks by the Russian Intelligentsia has always been but a peculiar and
veiled form of a moralisation over history. When the war broke out, many of the Russian
Intelligentsia then made attempts to evaluate it from the point of view of the interests of
the Proletariat, to apply to it categories of the sociological doctrine of Economic
Materialism or the sociological and ethical theories of Populism. The Intelligentsia of yet
another camp likewise began to apply the doctrines of Slavophilism and to investigate it
exclusively from a dogmatic Rightist perspective. And the Tolstoyans boycotted the war
from the position of their abstract moralism. The Russian Social Democrats, or too the
Populists, likewise simplistically moralised over history with the help of their
sociological schemae, just like the Slavophils, just like the Tolstoyans, with the help of
their own religio-ontological and religio-moral schemae. All these traditional and
doctrinal perspectives fail to admit the independent historical reality and the independent
historical goals. They fail to open their soul before the manifold of historical reality, and
the energy of their thought works not towards new creative tasks, such as are availed by
life and by history. Their thought does not work towards new appearances and themes, it
does not penetrate into the concreteness of world life, it simplistically but rather applies
their own old schemae, their own treasured categories, be they sociological, moral or
religious. But world events demand an immersion within the concrete, a rise in the energy
of thought, the accomplishing of new work over every new phenomenon in life. The
Slavophil, the Populist or the Social-Democrat doctrinal schemae are quite unsuitable for
the new happenings of world history, since they have been worked out for a more simple
and elementary an actuality. Russian thinking has always been too monistic, too wrapped
up in one aspect and hostile to the multiplicity, hidden away beneathe the concrete
manifold. The world war is now producing a crisis for this exclusionary monism of
Russian thought, always inclined as it is to violate the infinite complexity of being. It is
necessary to begin thinking not by prepared schemes, not merely to apply the traditional
categories, but to think creatively over the manifest tragedies of world history. And it is
because the enormous moral and spiritual meaning will elude everyone, who attempts to
force history into their doctrinal perspective. An absolute incapacity for the relative, the
historical corporeal, is contained therein. All the relativity of the natural and historical
process is reducable towards unity with the absolute only in the depths of spirit, and not
in the external actuality.

IV

Another result of the war for our Intelligentsia ought to be a passover from a mindset
primarily negative into a positive consciousness. In the traditional Intelligentsia
consciousness there prevailed a redistributive, a non-productive attitude towards life,
boycotting but not constructing. Our social consciousness has not been creative. The war
with its bitter experience has an object lesson in this, that the people ought to gain itself a
positive power and might, in order to realise its own mission in the world. In the Russian
people and Russian society there ought to awaken a productive and constructive energy.
In the life of the people, positive moments ought to win out over negative moments. And
this presupposes a different condition of awareness -- more manly, responsible, free and
independent. Historical creativity stands higher than the negative struggle of parties,
currents, camps and groups. Only with the constructive, can there be a just
reapportionment. The Russian Intelligentsia has not yet been called to power in history
and therefore it is accustomed to an irresponsible boycott of everything historical. In it
ought to be born a taste for being a constructive force within history. The future of a great
people is dependent upon it itself, on its own will and energy, on its creative power and
on the enlightenment of its historical consciousness. Upon "us", and not upon "them",
depends our destiny. The settling of old accounts ought not so exclusively to govern our
consciousness and will. And negative reaction ought not to hold back our creative energy.
In the consciousness of the people, the debilitating idea of welfare and felicity ought to be
conquered by the strengthening idea of values. The purpose to the life of the people -- is
not welfare and felicity, but rather the creativity of values, the heroic and tragic living out
of their own historical destiny. And this presupposes a religious attitude towards life.

Liberal imperialism appears among us as a positive and constructive consciousness,

and in it there is a turning towards the historically concrete. But the liberal imperialism is
too much constructed upon Western European models, it is too little of the Russian and
national in its spirit. The soul of the Russian Intelligentsia is repulsed by it and does not
want to see even the dram of truth, lodged within it. The mindset of our Intelligentsia
needs to be reformed, regenerate and enriched by new values. I believe, that this will
happen under he influence of the war. But in the soul of the Russian Intelligentsia there is
its own non-transitory value, and this value -- is profoundly Russian. It ought to remain
and be present in the inevitable process of the Europeanization of Russia and its
gravitation into the cycles of world history. This purpose ought to be freed of negative
connections and limitations. The Russian Intelligentsia, freed from its provincialism, will
emerge, finally, onto the historical stage and there carry on with its thirst for truth upon
the earth, with its own partially subconscious dream about world salvation and its own
will to a new, a better life for mankind.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1915

© 2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1915 -201(15,3) -en)

VOINA I KRIZIS INTELLIGENTSKOGO SOZNANIYA. First published in the

newspaper "Birzhevnye vedomosti", 25 July 1915, No. 14986. Republished thereafter in
the 1918 Berdyaev's anthology text of articles, “Sud’ba Rossii” (“The Fate of Russia”),
Ch. 3, (p. 263-268 in my 1997 Moscow Svarog reprint).

N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)

Society and the Ruling Powers

(1915 - #203)

There is no land, in which there has been such a sickly rift between society and the
ruling powers, as there is with us. Our society always feels itself such, as though it had
not created the historical ruling power and is not responsible for it. We are accustomed to
regard ourselves as though in a conquered land, and the Russian state often has seemed to
us as not our state. An eternally indignant opposition, which also is the only thing left us
and which has fomented the incessant struggle of the ruling powers against society, has
taught us to look upon the state aspect as something foreign, "theirs". "They" have
regarded themself the bearers of the state national idea. Russian society is constraintly
held in condition of statelessness and there has remained to it nothing, except to
construct stateless theories and on principle to cleave to a stateless opposition. A sense of
civil responsibility is possible only for one, who is called to an active participation in
civil life, who himself has to create new forms of life. But one who is cast off onto the
sidelines and from the sidelines has ability to be indignant, tends readily to admit as
immoral and vile any sort of participation in the state civil authority. And the Russian
intelligentsia has not be given to even the thoughts, that there can ensue a moment, when
it will be called to an active and positive participation in civil life, when the state will be
"us", and not "them". The historically habitual alternative of a boycott on principle of
everything civil has remained up to the present. The consciousness of an active
citizenship among us is still weak. We are too accustomed to feel ourselves as slaves not
at liberty and hence to revolt like slaves. Rarely possible among Russians is to be met the
pride of a citizen in his fatherland. In the speeches of our extreme "leftists" is felt not so
much the dignity of the citizen, conscious of his mature power, as rather the mutinous
malice of the eternally downtrodden and oppressed. Russians too readily go into
hysterics, in both their deeds and in their words are lacking the power of the citizen. Rare
is the one who speaks among us, as one having power.

And it is very remarkable and joyful a thing, that in the historic session of the State
Duma on 19 July Russia truly heard citizenship speeches, full of citizenship worth and
citizenship indignation. This utmost worthiness of the citizens of their fatherland,
responsible for its fate, was sensed not only in the speeches of the progressivist
Ephremov and the Cadet Miliukov, but also in the speeches of the nationalist Count V. A.
Bobrinsky and the Oktobrist Savich. Beautifully citizen-like was the speech of the
peasant Evseev. The feel of citizenship was absent only in the speeches of Mr. Markov II
and Mr. Chkheidze. The talk of the two extreme representatives from the opposite
positions from that of the Russian societal effort was totally irresponsible. But the words
of Count V. Bobrinsky and Mr. Savich, expressive of moderate-rightist circles of Russian
society, spoke to the growth of a free citizenship, which would transpire in Russia under
the effect of the war and patriotic concern. The same awareness of citizen worthiness and
citizen responsibility was sensed also in the speeches of P. P. Ryabushinsky, uttered at
the session of the industrialists and in the military-industrial committee; in them is sensed
the growth of the political awareness of an entire class: into the arena enters our third
estate and powerfully demands its sharing in the state civil life. A maturity of societal
power is sensed also in the speeches of Prince G. E. L'vov. And behind all this stands a
new power -- the army, the armed people.

These are all important symptoms of a change of attitude between society and the
ruling power. And this new correlation can be characterised not as the growth of the
negative opposition of society, but as the growth of the positive authority of society, as
the assuming unto itself of power in the state. In political life everything is attained not by
the pronouncing of abstract formulas, but by the obtaining of positive power and the
consciousness of this power. And society assumes power for itself by this, in what it does
positive for the war effort, for the defense of Russia, for victory, and by this, in that
without the societal forces the state cannot conduct war, without the all-rural and all
urban unions, without the industrialists, without the State Duma, without the free press it
is impossible to advance the defense of Russia upon heightened a sense of duty. It is a
matter of objective historical and civil necessity, though also with delay, but it summons
broad societal forces to the matter at hand, to a sharing in civil state life, to authority. And
now the societal forces would win a free citizenship not by means of a negative
opposition, not out of a struggle for power, but out of a patriotic upsurge and a patriotic
concern, not so much a demand for rights, as rather a fulfilling of obligations. And now
the indignation itself against the ruling powers -- is a patriotic indignation, a fulfilling of
the awareness of national responsibility. What is established is not a parliamentary and
formal-juridical responsibility along with ministers of state, which presupposes a deep-
rooted change of the state structure and at the present time is hardly possible, but rather a
moral and factually real responsibility for the country. And this would give a jolt to a
ruling power, bereft of civil an awareness and responsibility towards its great country, a
ruling power, unworthy of its great land. A totally irresponsible ruling power can no
longer be tolerated. During these days of historical tribulations our society has to become
involved in the civil aspect and take upon itself power for a positive national effort. Such
a national matter should transpire in all spheres: the rural zemstvos, the cities, in industry,
in the State Duma, in the press. we begin to feel, that the state -- is us, that we are
responsible for it, that we share in its growth or decline.

Russians do not fully understand, that the state is a necessary function in the
historical life of peoples, that it is created and works through the peoples themselves.
However bad and rotten a given historical form of state might be, yet it is also compelled
to carry on certain functions common to every people. For us, and for every society, for
every people is necessary an army or court system, although the army or court system can
be poorly organised, and we then also have to strive to improve them. The state always is
called in its own way to contend against that chaotic element, such as would lead to the
falling apart of the societal life of the people. But the state civil consciousness has always
been weak not only for our society, but also for our ruling powers, which sooner instead
would stand upon the basis of its patrimony and imagine, that through an inherited right it
rules the Russian earth and people. Our "ruling" power has always been very capable of
wreaking havoc and anarchy into the societal life of the people. After 17 October, when
the State Duma was formed, the ruling powers failed to evidence the civil state
awareness, that the State Duma is a state institution, an organic part of the state. The
representatives of the ruling authorities continue to think, that the people's representation
is but a sufferable societal opposition to the governing powers, themself the sole bearer
and voice of the state. From the two opposite sides for us is merged the state with the
government.

But indeed the legitimate power of the people's representatives is quite more
deeply-rooted a principle of the state aspect, than is the executive power of the
government, which is but one of the transitory functions of the state mechanism. The
State Duma itself has to first of all consider itself an organic force of the Russian state
aspect, an expresser of the unity of Russia, and not merely one arena for party struggles.
The State Duma is society, with its contending forces, it itself is a force, it preserves the
Russian civil state aspect and Russian national unity no less than the governing power,
and rather moreso. With the government ministers, who have proven unfit in this
verymost threatening hour for the Russian state, there has been no sort of civil awareness
nor responsibility as regards the capacity of being bearers of the principles of the state
aspect. They have been reactionary spokesmen against the fundamentals of the state
aspect. The war has brought a casting aside of mere bureaucratic functions and a turning
to realities. The civil and national phraseology of our rightist bureaucracy has proven
illusory. And the war in the same a has brought a casting aside the fictions of all the
abstract political declarations, with a turning to the concrete. We have ceased to believe
in the phraseology of the rightist-bureaucratic, the leftist social democratic or the
doctrinaire-liberal. We now believe only in concrete realities and in deeds, in inward
power, finding expression in concrete outward actions.

The relationship between society and the ruling authority is entering upon a
completely new phase. This new correlation first of all brings awareness of the unity of
society and the army, which is an awareness all more and more. Russia has been led to
ruination by those destructive circles, which the State Duma has acknowledged as worthy
only to sit in the judgement dockets of transgressors. Russia will be saved and defended
by all of society, by all the people. And that civil state position, which will in fact have
been won by society, by a patriotic deed of saving the native land, cannot ever be taken
away. This henceforth -- is greatest a reality and power, not an abstract fiction. The war
has to cure us from the abstract formalism in politics -- it points to actual content, to the
vitally factual. We have to leave off with the irresponsible boycott and the principle-
entrenched opposition by people, standing as it were outside of Russia, outside the
Russian state aspect, outside the national unity. We have to surmount the formal and on-
principle opposition between society and the civil authority, have to conceive of ourself
as a positive force, acting within the united Great Russia, as responsible citizens of their
fatherland.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1915

Article originally published in literary gazette "Birzhevye vedomosti", 10 August 1915,

No. 15017. Republished in the anthology of N. Berdyaev articles entitled, "Padenie
svyaschennogo russkogo tsarstva, Publitsistika 1914-1922", Izdatel'stvo Astrel', Moskva,
2007, p. 340-344.

ON THE ABSTRACT AND THE ABSOLUTE

IN POLITICS

(1915 - #205(15))

An SD representative has declared, that the Social Democrats are refusing

participation in the military-naval commission and that they will not take upon
themselves responsibility for the defense of the land, since in the defense ought to
participate all the whole people. With equal success he might as well have said, that there
ought to participate all mankind or even all the animal and vegetative world. And still
more he might have said, that the Social Democrats will be in whatever way positive
about participating, only when the end of the world ensues and the Kingdom of God
transpires, since beforehand it is difficult to expect absolute justice upon the earth. This is
a classic model of the modern abstractness and formal absoluteness in politics. In
essence, this is a refusal for acting, on the grounds that the world is in too bad a shape for
me to participate in its affairs. In the affairs of this world always what rules is the
relative, and not the absolute, and in them everything is concrete, and not abstract. And a
large portion of the declarations of the Social Democrats are distinguished by the extent
of their abstraction and fictitious absoluteness. The Social Democrats do not believe in an
absolute, -- in philosophy, in religion they are always for the relative. But their politics is
a continuous application of the absolute to the relative, the absolutisation of the relative
material matters of this world, using abstractive categories for a concrete activity. I speak
about the Russian Social Democrats, who not infrequently remind one typically of
Russian boys. The German Social Democrats long since already are involved in a real,
concrete and relative politics, although they too earlier were absolutists. And everything
that I am talking about is even moreso applicable to the Social Revolutionaries.
Absoluteness and abstraction tend to distinguish the declarations of the political
doctrinists, whose fine constructs on societal life in the sphere of thought become
mistaken for real life. Such abstraction and absoluteness in politics in practise leads to
this, that the interests of a particular party or social group are set higher than the interests
of the country and the people, the interests of the part – are put higher than the interests
of the whole. The part, the group senses itself detached from the life of all the people, the
life in common of the nation and the state, so as to dwell itself in absolute truth and
justice. It casts aside the burden of responsibility for the whole, for the fate of the land
and all the entire people. That portion dwelling their own absolute and abstract truth have
no wish to participate in the mutual trust of national life, yea even of mankind in general.
Such is the psychology of a sect, sensing itself saved and righteous in an endlessly
surrounding sea of evil, darkness and perdition. And this is how every Social Democrat in
the State Duma senses himself. The sectarian psychology carries over from the religious
sphere into the political sphere. The sectarian psychology in religious life is also a
deviation and leads to self-assertion and self-absorption, but in political life it has no
rights to existence, since always it is a self-wrought idol from the relative things of the
world, replacing the Absolute God with the relative world.

II

A doctrinaire and abstract politics is always giftless – in it there is no intuition of

concrete life, there is no historical instinct nor historical insight, no subtleness, no
suppleness nor plasticity. It is like a man, who cannot turn his neck and is able to look
only straight ahead at a single point. Herein all the complexity of life eludes the eyes. A
living reaction to life is impossible. The abstractive doctrinalists in politics think, that
they can see far off. But their “remote vision” is not a foreseeing of the remote future.
They – are not prophets, and they see only their abstract doctrines, and not the real life
ahead. And indeed even the “remote vision” represents an impaired condition of sight,
which requires corrective spectacles, in order to see what is right under their very nose, to
read and to write. The abstraction in politics is a frivolous and irresponsible proclaiming
of trite commonplaces, irrelevant to the vital tasks arising and irrelevant for the historical
moment. Therefore, there tends to be no demand for any sort of creative work of thought
over the complex tasks, no sort of sensitivity, no sort of penetration into what is
happening. It suffices but to take out from the pocket the small catechism and recite from
it some several paragraphs. The abstract and maximalist politics proves always to be a
violation of life, its organic growth and flourishing. Such an abstraction denies, that
politics is creativity and an art, that a genuine, moreso historically based politics demands
special gifts, and not a mechanical application of trite commonplaces, a large potion of
which are out of place. The simplistic denial of the complexity and concreteness of
historical life, in which all the politics transpires, is an indicator of either a lack of
giftedness amidst an elementary approach in this sphere, or else it is an absence of
interest for this sphere, a lack of vocation for it. The aversion from the concrete
complexity of societal political tasks occurs with us often as the result of a monomania,
when a man comes wholly under the grip of a single idea, be it moral or religious or
social, but unfailingly it is in the sense of the salvation of mankind by some sort of one
method, by one path. This, in the final end, leads to a denial of the multiplicity of being
and the asserting of one single whatever. But politics always has to deal with the given,
with the concrete condition of the entire world, with the lower level of the human masses,
with unregenerate souls, against the resistance of necessity. Abstract social and political
teachings always err by their rationalism and their belief in the good fruits of outward
force over the low level of developement of the human masses, and the needs begotten by
this level. There is thus no rebirth in the texture of the soul of man and the soul of
society. Politics always is immersed in the relative. It exists only for a society, in which
are strong the swinish instincts. For a righteous society there would be no need of
politics.

The direct straight-line application of the absolute values of spiritual life towards the
relative historical life and the relative historical tasks is based upon a completely false
mindset. The absolute can be in the soul of politics and in the soul of the people, within
the subject of social creativity, but it is not in the politics itself, not in the social object. I
can be inspired to social action by absolute values and absolute ends, and behind my
activity can stand the absolute spirit. But the social deed itself is a turning towards the
relative, it is complex, demanding subtleness and flexibility in interaction with the
relative world, always infinitely complex. The transfer of absoluteness into the objective
social and political life is an entrapment of spiritual life by the historico-relative and
socio-material. Together with this, there is also an enslavement of all relative historical
life in context of the absolute connections and abstract principles. And it was thus with all
the theocratic currents, with pretensions to formally subject the society to a church. This
always represents a lack of desire to admit the freedom of a multi-faceted relative life.
There is a monistic coercion in both the right-theocratic and the left-socialist currents.
Spiritual life per se with all its absolute values is fully concrete. But its direct straight-line
conveyance over into the relativeness of the naturo-historical process transforms the
spiritual life into abstract principles and doctrines, bereft of concrete vitality. Spirit, free
in its inner experience, becomes instead obtrusive and coercive; it reveals itself to the
relative external life not as a living experience, but as inwardly obligatory lifeless
principles or norms. From a philosophic perspective, the relative historical life can be
acknowledged as an independent sphere of absolute life itself, one of the manifestations
of its drama being played out. And therefore the absolute ought not to be coercive, with
an external and formal obligating for the relative by transcendent norms and principles,
rather only can it be an immanent revealing of utmost life into the relative. The abstract
and absolute politics of the Social Democrats is just as bad and enslaving a
transcendentalism, as is the theocratic politics, as is Papocaesarism or Caesaropapism.

The denial of abstractness and absoluteness in politics should least of all be

understood, as a lack of principle or want for ideas. All the societal and political activity
ought to be inwardly moved and inspired by the utmost ends and absolute values, and
behind them ought to stand a spiritual rebirth, the regeneration of the person and the
people. But this spiritual tempering of the person and the people consists not at all in this,
in the applying of abstract ideas to life. The spiritually regenerated man and people would
make their politics otherwise, than with the proclaiming of external absolute principles
and abstract norms. The moral pathos would not be weakened, but rather increased, it
would carry over into another plane, would be made inward, not outward, with an
heightening of spirit, and not the political hysterics and political fanaticism. Robespierre
was very doctrinaire on principle and he loved abstract declarations, but he was a man of
the old sort, not the reborn man, he was of the flesh from flesh and blood from blood of
the Old Regime, an oppressor in the matter of freedom. There was only a change of attire.
Our maximalists in the revolutionary years likewise were of the old sort unregenerated
people, a poor human material for the deed of liberation, -- the makeup of their souls was
not ready for the fulfilling of historical tasks. Freedom – is not an external principle in
politics, but rather of an inwardly inspired origin.

III

The question about having principles in politics is quite more complex, than the
doctrinaire tend to think. It necessitates a recoursing to the question about spiritual
renewal, about a transformation of the very fabric of the people and society, about a
tempering of the character of the people. An outward and obligatory moralism in politics
is out of place and unsupportable. But behind politics there ought to stand the moral
energy of man, the moral tempering. However, with many of the moralists and radicals in
politics, grounded in abstract principles, there is often absent all the moral tempering of
the person. This too is to be discovered during moments of chaos and anarchy in society.
And thus it was at the pitiful end of the Russian Revolution [of 1905]. In it we had
individual heroes, capable of sacrifice, giving up their life for an idea, but in the
revolutionary masses there was no moral character. And the important thing is not the
abstract principle, but a live spirit, the renewed person. Having ideas in politics is bound
up with the deepening of the person, with a nourishing of the soul of all the entire people,
with a consciousness of great responsibility, and not with the simplification and
schematisation of complex historical life. The moral principles in politics are affirmed
from within, from the taproot of man, and not from the outside, not from the external
principles of sociality. I repeat, the absolute in politics is impossible, impossible whether
it be theocratic, or Social Democratic, or a Tolstoy’s anarchistic absoluteness. But the
absolute is possible within the well-springs of the human spirit, in the inward fidelity of
man to the holy. Politics however is itself always concrete and relative, always complex,
always it has to deal with historical tasks of a given time and place, all which are not
abstract, nor absolute, nor monistic. Our standing on principle abstract politics has been
but a form of detachment from politics. In politics everything becomes “in part”, nothing
becomes “in general”. In politics it is impossible to repeat anything automatically on the
force of principle. What is fine at one historical time, becomes bad in another. Each day
has its own unrepeatable and singular tasks and it demands skill.

Every sensitive man, non-doctrinaire, tends to understand, that the historic present
day in Russia pushes into politics foremost the tasks of governance, the organisation of a
responsible ruling power, and not tasks purely of legislative creativity and reform. But
the day can quickly ensue, when the tasks will be altogether otherwise. At present all the
forces have to be mobilised for the defense of Russia and for victory. This is an entirely
concrete task, it is not dictated by any sort of abstract political principles. But the
adherents of abstract political principles even now are making political declarations,
which are completely lifeless and which bypass the most urgent tasks of the historical
day. A spiritual upsurge, a moral power and inspiration is to be evidenced in a patriotic
deed of service to the native land, in defending the native land to the point of death.
These needs tend not to be foreseen by the principles of abstract politics; these tasks have
arisen within a given historical day, and this moral energy is evident only now. Several
years back there was not one of the politicians that foresaw, upon what it has become
necessary to direct all his powers. And yet now for one who has to readjust his activity
for the defense of the native land, there is hardly anyone who would call this
opportunism. This – is not opportunism, but the demand for action and responsibility.
The war teaches concreteness in politics, and it tempers the spirit. It introduces
tremendous changes in our moral judgements, it establishes an altogether different
correlation between the moral and the political. The point of view, which we are
defending, acts to liberate from the absolutisation of politics, from transforming it into an
idol, into a god. We ought not to bestow to the relative, that which is proper to bestow
only to the absolute, i.e. we ought to bestow to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God – that
which is God’s. The spirit, strengthened in its absolute well-springs and regenerated,
ought to turn itself to the manifold and complex concreteness of the world, with a living
creative reaction and discover its creative gifts. Russia has need most of all of people
with a talent for rule, and such people have to appear.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1915

Published first in the newspaper "Birzhevnye vedomosti", 18 Aug. 1915, No. 15034.
Republished thereafter in the 1918 Berdyaev's anthology text of articles, “Sud’ba Rossii”
(“The Fate of Russia”), Ch. 25, (p. 404-409 in my 1997 Moscow Svarog reprint).

WORDS AND REALITY

IN SOCIETAL LIFE
 (1915 - #206)

Words possess an enormous power over our life, a magical power. We are under the
enchanting spell of words and to a remarkable degree we live in their realm. Words act,
like independent powers, and independent of their content. We are accustomed to
pronounce words and to hear words, not rendering ourselves an accounting of their real
content and their real gravity. We take words on faith and provide them limitless credit.
At present I propose to speak exclusively about the role of words in societal life. And in
societal life it is a conditional phraseology, having become customary, that acquires
sometimes a power almost absolute. Label-words -- possess a societal power all their
own. The words themselves per se can inspire and they can kill. Apparently it was
Thackeray who said: "Men kill by deeds, and women -- with words". But men also can
quite go the womanly route, -- and their words can kill. Behind the words follow the
masses. Every agitation to a remarkable degree is based upon the power of words, upon
the hypnotic spell of words. The customary phraseology is spliced together with the
instincts of the masses. For one segment of the masses it is necessary to employ "leftist"
phraseology, for another -- "rightist" phraseology. And demagogues well know, what
words necessary are to be employed. Societal life gets weighed down with the routing of
words. How impressively and how powerfully come across in effect such words as "the
left", "the right", "radical", "reactionary", etc., etc. We become hypnotised by these words
and are almost unable to think on society outside of these labels. And yet the real gravity
of these words is not so great, and their real content gets to be all the more and more
inverted. In the societal word useage it is a nominalism that reigns, and not realism. I
might hear, how everyone says: this is a very "radical" fellow, vote for him. And this
"radical" fellow -- is a lawyer, pulling down 20,000 rubles a year, neither believing in
anything nor given to any values, and behind the radical phraseology is concealed a quite
complete societal callousness and irresponsibility. The personal preparedness of a man
for social action is relegated to the background in the face of conditional and routine
phraseology. With us, the qualities of the person in general are little valued, and have no
defining role in societal life. With us therefore is so many completely false a societal
reputation, and there is many a name, created by the power of words, and not by the
reality. The inertia and conditional aspect of words impedes the analysis of genuine
character. In societal life almost not at all does there occur a natural selection of persons
of character. And in the life of the state clearly there occurs the selection of characters
unfit and lacking in good qualities. With us, amidst the help of conditional phraseology,
people profound of idea and with a moral tempering of character in a trice are made
scoundrels of, while people bereft of idea and lack of moral tempering get to be highly
exalted. Least of all tolerated are people of an independent and original frame of mind,
unable to be crammed into any of the customary routine categories. With us, people
often kill by means of affixing labels -- "reactionary", "conservative", "opportunist" etc.,
even though perhaps behind this be hidden a more complex and original phenomenon,
undefinable by the customary categories. In the other camp they kill with the help of
words of an opposite stamp. And everyone lives in terror of the words and labels.
 The vast masses of the people live not by realities and not by the essentials, but by the
outer trappings of things, they see only the cut of the clothes and only in accord with the
cut of the clothes is anyone met. Broad segments of the Russian Intelligentsia within
society live especially by fictional watch-words and illusional trappings. The power of
inertia is truly frightening. If there be the great power of inertia and habitually ingrained
categories in the unsophisticated circles, then this is understandable and forgivable. But
the Intelligentsia make pretense to be the heralds of thought and awareness, and it is more
difficult to forgive this laziness and indolence of thought, this servility to the rote and
obligatory and outward. It is difficult to live by the realities. For this there is necessary an
independent working of spirit, an independent effort, an independent thought. It is easier
to live by fictions, by words and the outer trappings of things. The vast masses of he
people accept on faith words and categories, worked out by others, like a vampire it lives
off the experience of some stranger. There is no sort of properly real experience bound up
with the words, by which however, are defined all the values in life. The words were real
content for those, whose own experience and whose own thought and spiritual life they
were. But these selfsame words have become normal and without content for those,
which live by inertia, by rote and by imitation. Thus also it happens in the religious life,
where too many feed off the experience of a stranger and live purely by a literal
dogmatics, and it is there too in societal life, where the memorised party slogans, the
formulas and words are repeated without any independent act of will and thought. Upon
this basis is worked out the political formalism, bereft of any desire to know the real
content of human life. In the life of society everything indeed -- is in the strength, the
energy of spirit, is in the character of the people and their society, in their will, in their
creative thought, and not in abstract principles, formulas and words, all not worth the
half-copeck. The indeed most important and essential thing -- is the people, the living
souls, the interweaves of the societal fabric, and not he external forms, behind which can
be hidden whatever the content one pleases or even the full absence of any content. A
democratic republic, in which everything is set together upon fine formulas and words,
can reflect a most abject slavery and violence. This long ago already became apparent
with the bitter experience of life of European mankind, which ought to teach us to be
mistrustful towards the purely outward forms and not be duped by the pretty phraseology
of equality, brotherhood and freedom. How merely formal, how indeed nominal even
people of a Socialist bent can prove to be. Here is why it is necessary to strive with one's
will towards an essential freedom, towards a regeneration of the fabric of society,
towards the realisation of values yet higher, those of the life within. This inward process
would lead inevitably to an outward change of the societal order and societal system, but
always in correlation with a real content and direction by the will of the people.

II

Many think, that the chief woe of Russia is in this, that Russian society is
insufficiently liberal or radical, and they expect much from a turnabout of our society
leftwards in the traditional sense of this word. And in this opinion there is evoked for us
the fatal power of words and formal concepts. Our society -- is liberal and of a leftist
bent, but this liberalism and this leftism -- is powerless and is expressed primarily in an
oppositional mindset or else indignation. The chief woe of Russia -- is not in any
insufficiency of leftism, which can grow even without any essential changes for Russian
society, but in a poor societal fabric, in an insufficiency of authentic people, such as
history could summon forth for a real and genuinely radical transformation of Russia, it is
in the weakness of the Russian will, in the insufficiency of societal self-nourishment and
self-discipline. For Russian society there is an insufficiency of character, of the ability to
define oneself from within. The "means" too easily entangle Russian man, and he is too
wont to emotional reactions upon everything outward. The "radicals" and the "leftists"
might be completely unsuitable a material for a new, regenerated Russia. It is unseemly
to get caught up in the illusions of word-play. The important and the essential thing, is of
what sort is the man himself and of what sort is the people, and not the what sort are his
word slogans and abstract political concepts.

Thus too, for example, our "rightists" have been poor material for a true
conservatism. They have always been sooner the destroyers, rather than protectors of
whatever the values. The patriotic, the national and state phraseology of the "rightists" --
is words, words and more words. Our rightist circles are bereft of a true state of national
consciousness. Such an awareness is possible to be met with only in individual persons,
but not in their societal segments and groups. The complete absence of a genuine
conservatism -- is a fatal peculiarity of Russia. The Russia of the "right" had begun
already to decompose, when the Russia of the "left" was still not yet fully matured.
Everything happens for us too late. And we for too long have found ourselves in a
transitory condition, in a sort of interregnum.

Russia needs, first of all, radical moral reform, a religious rebirth of the very
wellsprings of life. But, alas, even a religious renewal can become merely nominal and
formal. The great power of words exists even in the religious life. The labels --
"Orthodox", "sectarian", "the Christian of a new consciousness" etc., have assumed a
significance nowise corresponding to their real gravity. The "Orthodox" nominalism has
long since already poisoned the religious life in Russia. The religious phraseology of the
rightist circles long since already has degenerated into an hideous hypocrisy and
sanctimoniousness. But there is no help for us even having the assertion of whatever the
"leftist" religious consciousness, applicable to the societal aspect externally and formally.
In the depths of the fabric of the life of the people there has to happen a rebirth, occurring
from within, and I believe, that it will happen, that the Russian people spiritually is alive
and that a great future lies ahead of it. The troubled era will pass. Time will fling aside
the outer trappings and discover the true essence of things, the true realties. Our greatest
moral task -- is a passover from fictions to the realities, a surmounting of the hypnotic
effect of words. Fearlessness in the face of words -- is a great virtue. And on the positive
side of this fearlessness always there will be the love for righteous-truth. The pathos of
the love for righteous-truth -- is a great pathos of the people. But around our words, our
formulas and concepts, of the right, the left and the middle, there has accumulated too
much of the conditional lie and rot. In truth, the singularly great revolution facing us to
achieve, is a revolution of dethroning the false and the lie-laden, the empty and invented
words, formulas and concepts. It is necessary to stop being afraid of labels, which hey so
love to stick on, in order literally to exalt or degrade people. It is necessary to catch sight
of the realities beyond the words. And genuine insight involves also a scorn for much,
which is insignificant and insubstantial. And thus ought to transpire the nurturing of the
independence of the societal character, the maturing of autonomous societal thought.

III

The tragedy of the war gives a primacy to deeds over words -- it manifests the
realities and casts down the fictions. The rightist bureaucracy with its national state
phraseology thus clearly has lived by fictions and empty words. This has become evident.
The lie is toppled. Now already it is becoming more clear, who actually is the patriot,
who it is that loves his native-land and is prepared to serve it. The words of the
nationalists are being weighed on the scales of history. Last Winter among us here began
to spread about a pseudo-patriotic mindset, intolerant of self-criticism in Russia, a
mindset irresponsible and tending to self-praise. With some it found expression in the
restoration of a religio-Slavophil phraseology, the more lofty option, and among others --
a state national phraseology, less lofty. But these frames of mind were swept off by
events. And this Summer there has begun a genuine and healthy patriotic upsurge, there
has grown a sense of societal responsibility, which always presupposes self-criticism.
The words and fictions face opposite the realities. The unhealthy patriotism, fearful of the
truth and given to expression to a literal idealisation of what actually is, is being replaced
by an healthy patriotism, staring fearlessly into the eyes of the bitterest truth, as expressed
in service to that, what ought to be. And to breathe it will become easier, though events
be gloomy and onerous. One can speak the truth and appeal for the deeds of truth. In that
stifling atmosphere, which one time formed, only false words could be dealt, only
fictitious ideologies could flourish.

A freedom of words is necessary for the dethroning of the fictitious power of words.

In an atmosphere lacking in freedom it is the empty words that flourish, and they
become irrefutable. The word itself per se betokens something Divine [trans. note: the
Logos-Word of God underlying the logical, through the word], and the Divine
signification of words can be revealed only in an atmosphere of freedom, where the
realism of words wins out in struggle over the nominalism of words. A lack of freedom
but encourages the empty phraseology of the "left" and the empty phraseology of the
"right". The realities, such as stand behind the words, cannot be made apparent in this
setting. The complete freedom of the word is a singularly real struggle against the misuse
of words, against a degeneration of words. Only in freedom does the truth of words win
out over the lie in words, the reality wins out over the nominalism. The freedom of words
leads to a natural selection of words, to a survival process of words vital and genuine.
The false and empty words will continue to be heard, but hey will no longer have the
halo, which is created for them by an atmosphere oppressive and stifling.

Render the word more powerful, and the power of words over societal life will cease;
the word-realities will win out over the word-fictions. Freedom leads to responsibility.
The lack of freedom makes everything all irresponsible. The restoration of the meaning
of words, of a correct, real and fully-weighed use of words would lead to the awareness,
that our society ought not to remake a mere change of clothes, howsoever very radical the
costume should be, not merely replace the outward trappings, but actually instead it
should be reborn and change its very fabric. The power of words has been an external
power. And e ought to convert it into an inner one. The whole entirety of life has to begin
to define itself from within, not from without, it has to be from the depths of freedom,
and not from some superficial intermediation.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1915

© 2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1915 - 206 (15, 26) - en)

SLOVA I REAL'NOSTI V OBSCHESTVENNOI ZHIZNI. First published in the

newspaper "Birzhevnye vedomosti", 26 August 1915, No. 15049. Republished thereafter
in the 1918 Berdyaev's anthology text of articles, “Sud’ba Rossii” (“The Fate of Russia”),
Ch. 26, (p. 410-415 in my 1997 Moscow Svarog reprint).

The Tasks
of Creative Historical Thought

(1915 - #218)

One of the saddest things, made evident during the time of the war, is something that
brings little attention upon itself. I have in view the almost complete absence among us of
creative historical thought. The traditional character of our thinking is very poorly
adapted to the positing of creative historical tasks, to world perspectives. Our national
thought is all still stuck in its provincialism, and its direction chiefly is in reporting
negative accounts. Russia has been too inwardly torn apart and absorbed with trifling
political disputes, with party considerations, with social group antagonisms, obscuring
moreso all the world historical perspectives. The unempowered Russian society cannot
feel a sense of responsibility for deciding the world destiny of Russia. The world war,
essentially, ought to have directed national thought to world tasks. It would seem, that
there ought to have been made attempts to ponder about the war, to define the place of
Russia in world life, to conceive of its vocation. A genuine national self-consciousness
should set the existence of nation into the perspective of world history, it should
surmount the provincialism of national life and national interests. An insightful national
awareness is likewise a consciousness that is all the world historical. The naked and
unenlightened egoism of nationalism or imperialism is no justification, and upon it
cannot be conceived the spiritual existence of peoples.

Does Russia exist, as a certain unity, deeper, than all the separate interests of its
human composite, is there in the world an unique visage of Russia and what does the
expression of this visage mean for the world? Does Russia have its own unique calling in
the world, ought it to have its say in world history? What sort of concrete tasks face
Russia from the world war? All these questions, which relate to a new day in world
history, demand tremendous efforts of creative thought. No sort of the ready and
traditional categories of thought are suitable for the resolving of these questions. There
needs to be wrought a totally independent and new reworking of thought, an extension of
the creative spirit. But our national thought tends to think very little about this or it thinks
in accord with the old models, with the customary categories. The tasks of the war for us
have not all still been genuinely thought out. The prevailing justifications of the war are
sufficiently alike banal. It is impossible to be satisfied merely thinking that Russia is
repulsing the evil of German militarism. The problem, posed by the war, goes much
deeper. It is impossible likewise to rest easy upon the old Slavophil self-praise, -- for in
this is expressed a laziness of thought, an inclination spiritually to live in any event. The
Slavophil thought indeed is all still an assertion of the self-smug provincial existence of
Russia, and not its worldwide existence. Slavophilism worked great services in the matter
of national self-consciousness, but it was an initial and childish stage of this self-
consciousness, not corresponding to the current historical stature.

Neither in our "right" nor in our "left" camps is there as yet transpiring any creative
historical thought. They are too absorbed by their matters of the "right" or of the "left",
i.e. by all the still national and not world tasks. The historical mindset is almost absent
among us. We are accustomed to operate exclusively by moral or sociological categories,
not by the concrete, but by the abstract. Our consciousness moves predominantly along
the negative, and not the creative path. The "rightists" are absorbed by completely
negative badgerings about the nationalities, the intelligentsia, the rosy "leftist" dangers
and the quest for the exterminating all the manifestations of a free society. The "leftists"
in contrast are concentrated upon exposing the "bourgeoise", on the utilising of negative
facts for agitational purposes, and overly dividing Russia into two camps. And Russia
still cannot at all conceive of itself as one, still cannot creatively define its world
historical tasks. The process of applying abstract sociological categories divides, and
does not unite, the ill-will with moral suspicions and moral judgement ultimately
disunites and leads to a splintering, as it were, into two different races. Only a resolute
turning of our consciousness to the depths of national existence and towards the wide
expanse of world historical existence will set before us the pressing creative problems.
Creative historical thought ought ultimately to surmount both our negative nationalism
and our negative cosmopolitism.
 II

For anyone, who looks at the world war from the point of view of the philosophy of
history, it ought to be clear, that at present there is being played out one of the acts of the
world historical drama of East and West. The world war leads to an exceptional coming
into contact of the world of the West and the world of the East, it unites through division,
and it leads out beyond the borders of European culture and European history. The
problem of East and West has in essence always been a basic theme of world history, its
axis point. The European equilibrium has always been a conditional arrangement.
Beyond the bounds of the self-enclosed world of Europe there has been a wide world,
stretching far off into the East. Unsettling for the state and cultural life of the peoples of
Europe always have been the world expanses, the unknown and unexperienced East and
South. The imperialistic politics of the great powers of Europe have occasioned the
spreading of imperialistic might and cultural influence beyond the seas and oceans,
towards the surmounting of the isolation of a purely European existence. The unknown
extents of the earthly orb exerts an attractive pull. Glances were turned towards Asia and
Africa, towards the ancient cradles of culture. The reverse movement from West to East,
evidently, reflects an inner inevitability of the dialectics of European culture. In the shut-
in and self-satisfied European culture there is a fatal tendency towards a limited
satisfaction, towards desiccation, towards decline. And it inevitably has to search for
stimulation beyond its borders, in the far and yon. Imperialism with its colonial politics is
one of the outward expressions of this irresistible movement of history. But still deeper
lies the cultural and spiritual challenge of the re-uniting of East and West. The nightfall
for Europe has begun.

It was not by chance, that the conflagration of the world war began with the Balkans,
and from thence always has come the threat to the European world. It is not by chance,
that now also the central interest of the war again turns to the Balkans. The Balkans -- are
the path from the West to the East. Constantinople -- is that gateway, through which the
culture of Western Europe can pass through to the East, in Asia and in Africa. At
Constantinople -- is the point of intersection of East and West. The destruction of the
Turkish empire would be a reverse coursing of the West to the East. The peoples of
Europe are afraid of this prospect, sensing themselves unprepared for it, and the fact of
the continued existence of Turkey with Constantinople as the entryway of the West to the
East has been an expression of the spiritual immaturity of the European peoples. How
dissimilar in this is the modern Europe from the medieval Europe, given over to the
impulsive visionary-dreams of the Crusades! But now Europe as it were is itself fighting
for the defense of Turkey. And Europe is even moreso afraid of the enormous and
mysterious Russia, seeming always so foreign and unfriendly. The European politics of
the XVIII and XIX Centuries was to a remarkable degree directed to the object of
keeping Russia from Constantinople, keeping it from access to the seas and oceans.
Europe was interested in forcibly keeping Russia going in circles, not allowing it to enter
onto the world stage, impeding the world role of Russia. Such Russian national
ideologies, as Slavophilism, sought to justify the provincially isolated, the non-worldly
extent, of the existence of Russia. Russia set itself all in opposition to Europe, to Europe
as an unified whole. Both the Slavophil, and also the Westerniser consciousness alike
believed in the existence of Europe, as being of one spirit, of one single type of culture.
Slavophilism set Russia in contrast to Europe, with Russia being of an higher spiritual
type, and Westernism dreamed about Europe, as the ideal for Russia, as the singular type
of world culture. But herewith exploded the world war and it destroyed the illusion of an
united Europe, of a single European culture, of a single spiritual European type. Europe
can no longer hold a monopoly on culture. Europe -- is a study in instability. Within
Europe itself lie concealed quite contrary principles, quite hostile elements, quite
mutually exclusive spiritual types. Germany has proven to be more terrible to many of
the peoples of Europe, than was Russia, more foreign, than was the East. The war ought
on the one hand to move Europe towards the East, and on the other towards the extreme
West. In the final results of the war it cannot but bolster America and it cannot but posit
questions about the historical vocation of the Slavic race. Europe long ago already has
aspired to surmount itself, to emerge beyond its bounds. Europe is not some ideal culture
all in general. Europe itself is provincial. In Europe long ago already there is a secret
inner tugging towards the East, which on the surface of history has received various
explanations. Such phenomena, diverse in character, as imperialism in politics and
theosophy in spiritual life, alike are symptomatic in the gravitation for an outlet beyond
the borders of European culture, for the movement from west to East. And while the great
tasks of the Crusades have gone inward, they yet have remained for Europe. What sort of
position, however, ought Russia to occupy in this world historical movement?

III

Russia can conceive of itself and its vocation in the world only in light of the
problem of East and West. It stands at the centre of the Eastern and Western worlds and
can be defined, as an East-West. It was neither in vain nor by chance that Russian thought
throughout the course of the XIX Century centred round the disputes of Slavophilism and
Westernism. In suchlike a direction of Russian thought there was the same truth, which
for the Russian consciousness was a basic theme -- the theme concerning East and West,
about this, whether Western culture appears to be singular and universal, and whether or
not it be perhaps a different and higher type of culture? In the actual ideologies of
Slavophilism and Westernism there was a limitedness and immaturity. But the theme
itself of the Russian thinkers was profound, and for Russia fundamental. This theme has
remained all still ideological, little connected with practical perspectives. Russian
intellectual society was indeed quite irresponsible, and its thought thus could remain
quite irresponsible. But the world war has dragged Russia into the vital setting
concerning theme about East and West. At present the pondering on this theme can no
longer be so abstract and irresponsible. But it has so happened, that for this critical
moment of our history that the level of our national thinking has gone downwards, the
themes of the eternal ponderings of our intelligentsia have diminished quite downwards.
And before us stands the task -- to raise the level of national thought and connect it with
the vital tasks, posed by world events. Russia has been so deeply sucked into the very
muck of world life, that no sort of Russian lethargy and inertia can still spare it from
resolving the basic tasks of its history. Should the war happen to end, whatever might be
its immediate political consequences, -- the spiritual consequences of this war can be
foreseen.
 The world war ought to lead Russia out of its isolated provincial existence into the
wide world of life. The potential strengths of Russia have to be discovered, and its
genuine visage, which up til now has been all still twofold, -- has to be shown the world.
This, in any case, ought to happen, if not by way of victorious power and direct growth of
might, then by way of sacrificial suffering and even humiliation. There is mystery in
many a path, so likewise in the fate of peoples, which we rationally never will resolve.
The most terrible sacrifices are perhaps necessary for a people, and through the great
sacrifices become possible achievements, which would have been impossible for the self-
contented and happy mere vegetative existence. A spiritual result of the world war will
likewise be an overcoming of the one-sidedness and aloofness of the so-called European
culture, its emergence onto the world stage. And this means, that the world war will bring
Russia and Europe face to face with the age-old theme of East and West in a new
concrete form. Before Europe and before Russia, with an unprecedented acuteness and
concreteness, will be set not only the external, but also the inward spiritual questions
about Turkey and PanSlavism, about Palestine, about Egypt, about India and Buddhism,
about China and PanMongolism. Europe has been too shut-in within its own self-
smugness. The old East and South have interested it, chiefly, on the side of colonial
politics and the grabbing of markets. Russia however still has not risen up to the setting
of the worldwide questions, with which is connected its position in the world. Russia has
been too inwardly in disarray, too much of the elementary has yet to be resolved in it. Vl.
Solov'ev attempted to turn our attention to these world-historical themes, but he was not
always successful. Yet in any case, he represented a great step forward in comparison
with the Slavophils and the Westernisers.

IV

Russia ought to manifest a type of East-West culture, to overcome the one-

sidedness of Western European culture with its positivism and materialism, the self-
smugness of its limited horizons. Our Russian provincialism and isolatedness cannot be
overcome by the European provincialism and isolatedness. We have to cross over onto
the world stage. And in this expanse there ought to be seen the ancient religious cultural
sources. The East ought anew to counter-balance the West. In a certain sense the
Europeanising of Russia is necessary and irreversible. Russia ought to become for Europe
an inner, not an external power, a power creatively transfigurative. And for this Russia
has to be culturally transformed into European. The backwardness of Russia is not the
uniqueness of Russia. The unique moreso ought to be discovered at the higher, and not
the lower, stages of developement. Russia has to conquer in itself the dark East, held in
the grip of its elemental stages. But the Westernism is a mistake of childish immaturity,
and it runs counter to the world tasks of Russia. The patterns of Westernising thought are
just as ill-suited for comprehending the meaning of world events, as are the patterns of
Slavophil thought. The historical epoch, into which we are entering, demands an organic
combining of a national consciousness with a consciousness universal, i.e. defining the
world vocation of nationality. Afront our thinking stands quite concretely the task of
being aware of the world role of Russia, of England and Germany and their interrelation.
It is necessary to speak about this some other time, but I think, that in the world the
dominant position has to belong either to Russia and England or to Germany. The
prevailing of Russia and England ought to lead to a closeness of East and West and to a
deciding of the problem of East and West. The prevailing of Germany would lead to an
attempt to create a new world empire, making pretense to world domination and
essentially incapable of bringing together and uniting anything, since it would be
incapable of admitting the worth in itself of anything.

The orientation towards creative historical tasks would heal us of our inward
provincial disputes, from the trite hostility. We are spiritually obligated to perceive the
place of Russia within the worldwide struggle. It would be shameful to define oneself
only negatively through the will of the enemy. Russia has its own independent tasks,
quite apart from the ill-will of Germany. Russia should not only defend itself, but should
also decide its own independent tasks. Yet over these independent tasks our thought has
been too little at work. It is necessary to appeal to the independent creative national
thought, to lead us out into the free air, at the surface. But creative historical thought
presupposes acknowledging the history of independent initiative, of an especial
metaphysical reality. Such a turning to history has amongst us up to the present been
almost non-existent, and we have not seized upon responsible categories for thinking
over history and its tasks. But in such a turnabout of consciousness there would be for us
something liberating.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1915

ZADACHI TVORCHESKOI ISTORICHESKOI MYSLI. First published in literary

gazette "Birzhevye vedomosti", 22 December 1915, No. 15285. Later incorporated by
Berdyaev into his 1918 book, "The Fate of Russia" ("Sud'ba Rossii"), Section II, Chapter
14, (p. 333-339 in my 1997 Moscow Svarog reprint).

Power and Coercive Violence

I

Particularly acute in our day arises the question concerning the nature of power and
its relationship to coercive violence. The problem of power agitates Russian thought and
nudges it along a new direction. With Russians here is no love for power, no cult of
power, there is always a morally contemptuous attitude towards it. Power seems sooner
diabolical, than Divine, and it readily gets confused and identified with coercive violence.
The love for power, the religion of power we tend to imagine of the Germans and we see
in this a lower spiritual type. But it cannot be said, that we have been altogether alien to
coercive violence, that nowise possible is it to say this for all the austere Russian state
aspect. We tend to be proud, that the ideology of power is foreign to us. The violence
amongst us has to be examined as a fact, and not as an idea, as our sin, and not as our
heresy. But it is time already for us to make better distinctions in the concepts of power
and coercive force. This has great significance for our national consciousness and for our
very national existence itself. And herein I tend to think, that for us it is inwardly needful
to be fond of power, to cultivate and strengthen it in ourself, and only then will we not be
bullied nor be bullies. Without a radical and spiritual transformation of our attitude
towards power, in awareness and in action, we will remain in a condition of servility.
Coercive violence in Russia has always been but the reverse side of powerlessness.
Coercive violence anywhere and everywhere is the reverse side of powerlessness. Power
however is a positive concept and value. Power -- is of God. God first of all is power. In
every great man, genius or saint, is power. In every great deed in the world there is
power. In a great value -- is power. In great creativity -- is power. In life itself is power.
Powerlessness, an insufficiency of power is something very negative, bad a thing.

It is time already to cease opposing power with Russian humility. This beloved
opposition gets nowhere. A great and saintly humility is itself a spiritual power, a mastery
over its lower elements. A bad and slave-like humility is however a matter of inability
and dependence. Russian humility, recoiling from every aspect of power, frequently has
become the fruit not of an inner spiritual power, but rather the woesome and dependent
fate of Russian people, of the Russian people, of the inability to manifest its own inner
might. The Russian people has not yet known an historically voluntary and world
existence. Too much in it has been repressed and driven inward. Russian humility has
often become an instrument of self-protection for the Russian people, its means of
adapting to the grievous conditions of existence. The Russian creative power has not yet
been summoned forth for historical activity, it has slumbered in the depths of Russian
man. And in Russian man there has not been a consciousness of Divine power. Power to
him has seemed a matter of coercive violence, since he is accustomed to acts of power
external to him, over him and against him. Power tends to stand before the Russian in
material a form, it seems materially crushing. Spiritual power however is not sensed as
power, but the rather as humility, love, renunciation, as of an ineffable depth and not
translatable into the language of the "world". But suchlike power tends to be that, which
happens upon me, threatens me and violates me, and not that, what happens from me and
transforms the world. And herein is the characteristic feeling of Russian man.

II

No sort of a genuine power within human life can be merely an external and
material power. Every power -- is inward, a spiritual power, might, drawn from Divine a
wellspring. All the material powers of mankind, all the outward implements of his
mightiness -- are the fruits of spiritual a power. And even though these implements can
be directed towards evil, it does not diminish the essence of the matter. External material
powers, nowise connected with inner spiritual powers, do not exist, this is only a
deception from superficial a perceiving of life. Every authentic power, not merely
seemingly so but for real, is an inward spiritual action upon that upon what the power
itself manifests forth, is an inward and spiritual act of communion, of co-uniting and
appropriating. Active powers in the human world cannot be by an external and
mechanical impetus. One, who has power over me, has to establish an inner contact with
my soul and spiritually act upon me, evoking from my depths a spiritual and free
admitting of his power as not foreign to me. That which remains foreign to me, can with
violence coerce me, but it does not have power over me. A power of governance, having
lost contact with the souls, the spiritual community, is no longer a power of governance,
it is already powerless. Whoso rules only the bodies and shifts around the atoms of
matter, does not possess a true power of rule, his power of rule is illusory. Coercive
violence is illusory a method.

Power by its essence is deeply contrary to coercive force. Coercive force is always
powerless or in any case an indicator of insufficiency of power. Coercive force is a sign,
that a given energy does not act sufficiently deep enough, skips a beat, does not penetrate
at depth, does not inwardly act, does not set afire or take hold. An oppressive mechanical
shoving in human life is of powerlessness, an incapacity. An authentic power and might
sets free, grants freedom to all and everyone, it is a transition into the world of Divine
energy, its taking root into the very core of things. Powerlessness always enslaves, is
violence prone, and bestows beatings. Authentic power evokes a respect for itself, meets
with acknowledgement, and in its supreme manifestations -- is a delight. Whoso
possesses true power is one who rules over human souls or the soul of the entire people,
and is never sensed as an oppressor. An oppressor however rules nothing. In every state
there is coercion and force, but no state can rest entirely upon coercion and force. A state
tends to fall apart and collapse, when the power of rule in it is violent force, and not rue
power. And thus, the coercive national politics with us has always been the result of he
powerlessness of Russians in regard to the non-Russians.

A true power indeed amongst the Russians would lead to the freedom of the non-
Russians, to a liberation of all the nationalities. Only someone, who has a sense of his
own powerlessness in his own enormous state, would want a limitation in rights and
restraints on others, and that they be under restraints enough, limited in rights and
situated under minority status. This -- is shameful a powerlessness, unworthy of a great
people. The exaggeration of dangers and fears reflects a break-down of the elementary
national hygiene. The power and might of a true national politics is always creative, and
not terror. The governing nationality of a great empire should be endowed with spiritual
power, setting afire and taking hold, ought to captivate by its visage. And I believe in the
spiritual might of the Russian visage. But in this might our rightist circles do not believe.
The ruling prevalence ought always to belong to power, and not powerlessness. If the
Jewish, the Polish, the Finns, the Georgian/Gruzinians, the Armenians, the Tatars and
other foreigners are spiritually stronger than the Russians and the Russians can protect
themself only by coercive force, to manifest their own national visage only by the
repression of a foreign visage, then it becomes impossible to believe in the fate of the
Russian people. Then the coercive force, which accompanies reactionary politics, the
same as politics purely revolutionary, is always of an insufficiency of power, the
insufficiency of an inner contact, a spiritual persuasiveness and appeal, the absence of a
national all-peoples inspiredness. Factually all the phenomena within the life of peoples
and of mankind is complex, and in them there is an admixture of power and
powerlessness.
 III

Material power is not itself per se an existent reality. Material power is begotten of
a manifestation of spiritual power. The material technical aspect is a manifestation of the
inner power of a nation. But insofar as a material manifestation of spiritual power resorts
to coercive force, the spiritual power proves insufficient for mastering and co uniting, for
a mastery over existences, over the souls of people and things.

In the world there is evil coercive violence, insofar as Divine power fails to take
root in the world, and does not take hold in the world down to its very depths. Power
always proceeds from within and goes inward. Power -- is ontological, real in the deepest
meaning of this word, it is contrary to all illusiveness and all non-being. An insufficiency
of power is a diminuation of being. And insofar as the world cannot yield and be brought
under the mastery of an inner spiritual power, it is illusory and of non-being. No other
sort of power, except spiritual a power, can there be. Only God is powerful, the devil
however is completely powerless, he only pretends to be powerful, and his mastery in the
world -- is illusory a mastery. The powers of this world in an ontological sense can prove
to be very weak. For the Russian people and for Russian man is needful a consciousness
of the majesty of power, its spiritual and Divine aspect. And for us it is necessary to
surmount the externalistic attitude towards power. For the purpose of the spiritual
hygiene of the individual man and the entire people it is not good to sense oneself as
weak, on all sides beset by dangers and dwelling upon one's weaknesses, such as
humility, as a quality, almost unknown to other peoples. The ever eternal feeling of
oneself as weak, as helpless and beset by dangers, tends to engender a mistrustful anxiety
and, in the final end, leads to such phenomena, as with the Jewish pogrommes, -- this is
an extreme example of a national powerlessness and inability. Power is not a given,
received externally, power is drawn forth from the inner depths. Power can and ought to
increase in oneself, and needful for this is a spiritual hygiene of the person and the nation.
Out of a mistrustful anxiety, out of fear, out of an idealisation of weakness, power is
lessened and falls for real. And power for real grows and rises forth out of an awareness
of oneself as strong, out of a love for power, out of a fearlessness in the face of dangers.

It is needful to call forth from the depths a feeling of power and to strengthen the
awareness of power as spiritually higher an existence. In the depths of each man and each
people there is power, but in slumbering a condition and weighed down beneathe the
external layers of life.

For foresight into the activity and discernment of power it is nowise indifferent
thing, whether it be a consciousness of the majesty and spiritual value of power, or
whether on the contrary, it be a consciousness of the sinfulness and untruth of all power.
And needful therefore in Russia is a radical reform of consciousness in relation to power.
Power -- is immanent to man and the people, and not transcendent. A transcendent
consciousness involving power would hold the people in slavery. The cult of a spiritual
power, as also of any power, would seem to many Russians to be a Germanic, and not
Russian an idea. But this is a simplification of the problem and a self-deception. Within
Germanism there is a specific cult of power, transitioning into a will to power over the
world. But of itself the idea of power, as spiritual and Divine a potentiality, is worldwide,
trans-national and objective an idea. Only power conquers the inertia of the world. All
ought to be powerful and uncover their power in the world. World conditions at present
compellingly demand of Russians, that they be powerful in all regards, that they transfer
into an active condition all their potential powers and ultimately be aware of the
significance of power. The Russian people, as with any people, ought to realise, that they
themself are the fashioner of their own fate, that from their own particular power depends
their historical future, rather than from the powers, bursting forth over them. Neither the
person of the individual man, nor the person of the entire people can presume unto
themself power, they themself have to be powerful. Both the power of the person and the
power of the nation have to be organised. Russian power has to be directed otherwise,
than the Germanic power, it ought to be liberating, bestowing also goodness, but it ought
also to be power, rather than powerlessness. Russians however have hitherto tended to
think, that power is something Western European, a foreign land thing, and German a
category predominantly. For Russian man very characteristic is the wont for non-
resistance, passive refusal and withdrawal. But it erroneous to set non-resistance as the
opposite to violent force. If violent force reflects a powerlessness or insufficiency of
power, then "non-resistance" is illusory a way out, a refusal of the cultivation of power,
in overcoming world evil. It can be said, that the violent force in the war signifies an
insufficiency of power, a powerless good, but the refusal from participation in the war, its
boycott, nowise signifies a cultivation of power, indicative of positive might. This is only
a powerless ignoring of the worldwide cycle of responsibility, of historical a cultivation
of power, often fine for the sensitivities, but feckless for the awareness. And there is no
other way out of it for the person and the nation, except a positive cultivation of spiritual
power, creating for oneself also all the necessary material tools, along with the finding of
oneself in the outer world. Christianity itself is a religion of power, and not of
powerlessness, a struggle towards power and a matching up of spiritual strength. The
perspective of power is a perspective of value, and not of utility. Power possesses
sacrificial a nature, it bestows from its exuberance, and neither usurps nor plunders.
Power -- is a supreme good. A powerless truth -- is ungodly. But a truth that is mighty is
not a good and benefit of this world, it is but a path towards the transformation of this
world. And all of life ought to be based upon a [true sort of]1 power.

N. A. Berdyaev.

1916

© 2010 by translator Fr. S. Janos.

(1916 - 225 -en)

SILA I NASILIE. Article originally published in literary gazette "Birzhevye vedomosti",
2 April 1916, No. 15478. Republished in the anthology of N. Berdyaev articles entitled,
"Padenie svyaschennogo russkogo tsarstva, Publitsistika 1914-1922", Izdatel'stvo Astrel',
Moskva, 2007, p. 405-409.

1
text of paper damaged, word restored as to contextual meaning.

THE COSMIC AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL

WORLD-SENSE

The World War conveys with it for humanity a profound spiritual crisis, which can
be judged about from different sides. The consequences of such an unprecedented war are
incalculable and cannot completely be anticipated. There is much a basis to think, that we
are entering upon a new historical epoch. And if we cast our glance at the changes in the
external aspect, the international, the political and the economic, then the inward and
spiritual changes tend to proceed unnoticed. This is always a subliminal process. Our
foresight into the future ought to be totally free of the customary optimism or pessimism,
free from estimates in accord with the criteria of happiness. It would be shallow-minded
to think of life for oneself after such an exhaustive war in any especially cheerful and
happy light. One might the sooner consider, that the world is entering upon a period of
prolonged woe and that its tempo of developement will be catastrophic. But the values,
discovered by man in the worldwide struggle, are not to be defined by any increase or
diminishing of happiness.

Comparatively much is spoken and written about the economic and political
consequences of the war. Less so is there thought about the spiritual consequences, upon
its influence on all our world-outlook. It is about one such little foreseen consequence
that I want to speak. During the XIX Century the world-sense and the world-
consciousness of the progressive elements of mankind had become tinged in a vividly
social light. It has been pointed out more than once already, that sociology had replaced
theology, that the religious feeling of mankind’s lost faith was redirected to the social.
The orientation of life was rendered social predominantly, and to it were subordinated all
other values. All values were posited in the social perspective. The human social aspect
has been rendered isolated from cosmic life, from the whole of the world, and it has come
to feel itself as a closed-in and self-sufficing whole. Man has tended finally to settle down
into a closed-in social territory, in it he wanted to be lord, he forgot about all the rest of
the world and about other worlds, in which extend not his power and domain. The
conquests of man within a delimited and closed-in social territory brought about a
weakening of memory, a forgetting of infinity. And perhaps it was necessary for man to
experience the period of this isolated world-feeling, in order to intensify and strengthen
his social energy. Every sort of limitation reflects pragmatic needs during certain periods
of human evolution. But the limitedness of this sociological world-sense cannot be
continued for too long. This limitedness has hidden within it the possibility too much of
unanticipated catastrophes. The endless ocean of world life plies its waves upon the
locked-in and defenseless human social realm, set out upon a not large territory of the
earth. The World War is also thuslike a world Great War, ninefold so. It reveals for
everyone, even the most blind, that all the social utopias, constructed in the isolation of
the social aspect as separate from cosmic life – are all superficial and unenduring. Under
the shock of the worldwide war have fallen the utopias of humanism, of pacifism, of
international socialism, international anarchism, etc., etc. This finds its explanation not by
some theory, but by life itself, that social humanism possessed too limited and too
superficial a basis. It has been overlooked, that there exist the deep loins of the earth and
the unbounded worldly expanse and starry worlds even. Much of the darkly irrational,
always bearing the unexpected, lies within these loins and the unbounded expanse. The
human shut-in and limited social mindset with its exclusively sociological world-outlook
reminds one of the proverbial ostrich, hiding its head in its feathers. There is too much
that is overlooked in the social utopias, always based as they are upon simplifications and
artificial isolation. Or similarly, just as with the unenduring and insubstantial aspect of
the existence of an oasis – is a community in the spirit of the Tolstoyans or utopian
socialism, just as unenduring and insubstantial also is the existence of all the human
social-outlook within the complexity and infinitude of cosmic life. Social utopianism is
always rooted in this isolation of social-mindset apart from cosmic life and apart from
those cosmic powers, which are irrational in regard to the social mindset. This always – is
a concealing of complexity through one’s limitedness. Social utopianism is a faith in the
possibility of a final and unceasing rationalisation of the social aspect, independent of
whether all nature is rationalistic and whether there is some sort of cosmic harmony.
Utopianism has no desire to know of any connection of social evil with cosmic evil, it
does not see the social as belonging to the whole cycle of the natural order or natural
disorder. And such catastrophes, as the World War, cause one to open one’s eyes, thy
force a broadening of the horizon. There is discerned the bankruptcy of such rational
utopias, as that of eternal peace in this evil natural world, or that of a stateless anarchistic
freedom in this world of necessity, or of worldwide social brotherhood and equality in
this world of discord and hostility. Oh, certainly the great value of peace, of freedom, of
social brotherhood remains immutable. But these values are unattainable in that
superficial and limited sphere, in which they are presupposed to be attainable. The
attainment of these values presupposes an infinitely great depth and expanse, i.e. the still
very complex and prolonged catastrophic process in human life, it presupposes the
transition from an exclusively sociological world-sense over to a world-sense which is
cosmic.

II

A deepened consciousness ought to move forward with the idea of a cosmic social
mindset, i.e. a social mindset, pondering and entering into unity with the world whole,
with the world energies. There has always existed an endosmosis and exosmosis between
the human social aspect and cosmic life, but this has not been sufficiently perceived by
man, and he craftily surrounded himself within his boundaries, thus having saved himself
from the infinitude. But on a deeper level there ought to be posited the truth, whereof the
greatest attainments of human social life are connected with the creative power of man
over nature, i.e. are connected with a creatively active orientation towards cosmic life,
both in concept, and also in action. And this presupposes an immensely great self-
discipline on the part of man, moreso than that which is in him at present, an higher
degree of mastery over himself, of his own proper elements. Only the one, who has
mastery over himself, can aspire to mastery in the world. The tasks of the social aspect –
are first of all cosmic-productive tasks. With this is connected both the personal morals
and societal self-discipline. And this mindset is directly contrary to that, upon which rests
our populism in all its shades and with all its distributive morality.

Creative toiling over nature, extended to a cosmic dimension, ought to be set as the
cornerstone. This toil ought not to be a servile attachment to the earth, towards its limited
expanse, it ought always to have worldwide perspectives. The XX Century is advancing
along with cosmic tasks in the sphere of creative work with nature, and in the areas of
production and technology, about which the XIX Century with all its discoveries could
not even dream, let alone suspect. And it is striking that Marxism, which so advocated the
productive instances, the growth of the productive powers in social life and by this
providing a counterbalance over the instances of distribution, it is striking that it was
completely bereft of any cosmic world-sense and showed itself an extreme form of
sociological utopianism, locking man in within a limited and superficial social outlook.
Marxism has believed, that it is possible to rationalise all completely societal life and
bring it to an outward perfection, not taking into account those energies, which in the
infinitude of the world are over and around man. Marxism – is a most extreme form of
sociological rationalism, and therefore also of sociological utopianism. All the social
teachings of the XIX Century lacked the awareness, that man – is a cosmic being, and not
the inhabitant of an ephemeral social aspect merely on the surface of the earth, it lacked
the awareness that he is actually in communion with the depths of the world and the
heights of the world. Man – is not an ant, and human society – is not an ant-hill. The ideal
of a perfectly constructed ant-hill has been demolished and with no turning back. But a
deeper consciousness is possible only upon a religious basis. The world catastrophe ought
to enable a religious deepening of life.

That spiritual turnabout, which I characterise as the transition from the sociological
world-sense to a world-sense that is cosmic, would have also quite purely political
consequences and expressions. There would be overcome the socio-political
provincialism. Facing the social and political consciousness would be the world’s
expanse, the problem of mastering and directing all the surface of the earthly orb, the
problem of bringing together East and West, the meeting of all types and cultures, the
unification of mankind through struggle, the interaction and communion of all races. The
vital settings of all these problems would make politics more cosmic, less shut-in, would
bring to mind the cosmic expanse and the historical process itself. Truly the problems,
connected with India, with China or the Musselman world, with the oceans and
continents, are all more cosmic in nature, than the isolated problems of the struggles of
parties and social groups. Ultimately the ever more acute question about the relationship
of every individual national being to the oneness and unification of mankind has to be
resolved, as a question of cosmic dimensions. The orientation towards the depths of
national life involves together with this a turning to the broad expanse of historical life
throughout all the world. Within imperialistic politics there were already objectively
cosmic proportions and cosmic tasks. But the consciousness of the ideologues of
imperialism was limited. This ideology was a bourgeois ideology, it rarely went deeper or
farther than the purely surface economic and political tasks. And in the paths of
imperialistic politics there was much evil, begotten of the limited incapacity to engage the
souls of those cultures and races, into which the imperialistic expansion had spread, , it
was blind to the external tasks of mankind. But the significance of imperialism, as an
inevitable phase in the developement of modern societies for the uniting of mankind over
all the surface of the earth and for the building of a cosmic social awareness, can be
acknowledged as irresponsible for the positive pathos of imperialism. The World War is a
catastrophic moment in the dialectics of imperialistic expansion.

III

In order to shed light on the darkness flooding the world, there is necessary a cosmic
deepening of consciousness. If we remain but at the surface of the light, then the darkness
will engulf us. The European peoples, the European cultures are entering upon a period of
exhaustion. These shut-in cultures are headed towards decline, they are decaying. The
long and destructive World War is sapping the powers of Europe, and for the peoples of
Europe it is difficult to seek the sources of new energy in the great depth and great extent
of the world expanses. The old purely sociological orientations and values of life are
unsuited for the measures of the events that occur, for both their complexity and their
novelty. Abstract sociologism, as a cohesive world-outlook, is discovering its
unsuitableness in all regards, it reaches its end and ought to yield place to deeper and
broader points of view. The catastrophe of this war is very bitterly dividing people and
not at all per those categories, by which they are wont to be divided. They have proven to
be quite spiritually unprepared for this catastrophe, it has burst out upon them as a greatly
unanticipated happening, forcing them out of all their reinforced positions. And it is in
such a position that a large part of the people of a purely sociological world-outlook now
find themselves. They had been quick to adapt their old points of view to current events,
but these despondent people have sensed, that they had been left behind. Many have
come to feel themselves thrown overboard by history. Yet others are spiritually ready for
the world catastrophe, there was in it for them nothing unanticipated, nothing relating to
life from their point of view. Such people, who earlier had more cosmic a feel of life, had
broader horizons. They know, that the war is a great evil and a chastisement for the sins
of mankind, but they see the meaning of world events and they enter upon the new
historical period without that sense of despondency and shipwreck, which the people of
the former type feel, those who espy within it no inner meaning. The cosmic world-
outlook is less so the happy, less so the rationalistically optimistic, and more untranquil,
than is the sociological world-outlook, -- it foresees that there are great unanticipated
events and is prepared to enter into a realm unseen and unknown. The deeper and broader
world-outlook and consciousness does not permit of those rationalistic illusions, for
which the future world is definable only by powers, set at the very surface of a delimited
bit of the earth. There are active powers that are deeper, still unknown, with energies
pouring forth from remote worlds. Bravery is necessary to go forth to meet the unknown
day, to go into the darkness towards a new dawn. The World War is totally meaningless
for every rationalistic optimism, for every sociological utopianism. For people of this
spirit it cannot provide any sort of lesson, they have no desire to pass over to new life
through death. But the World War possesses a symbolic meaning for those, who always
have foreseen the actively concealed cosmic powers, not subject to rationalisation. The
nature of war – is not creative, it is negative, and destructive; but war can rouse creative
powers, it can enable a deepening of life. Before mankind stand ever newer and newer
creative tasks, tasks of a creative transformation of energy, issuing from the dark and
primordial depths of being into a new life and a new consciousness. The developement of
mankind, the ascent of mankind, never occurs along a direct line, by way of the growth of
one-sided positive elements. This – is a process to an utmost degree antinomic and tragic.
The onrush of darkness is that barbarity of existence, without which in human life would
ensue the drying up of energy, a desiccation. The World War serves a purpose for
European culture, with its being submerged in its barbarism and dark power. In this
darkness much ought to perish and much be born, just as with the incursion of the
barbarians upon the culture of antiquity. But this barbarian power – is inward, and not
outward. We can draw a conclusion. The people of the old sort, though regarding
themselves as at the vanguard of the sociological world-sense, have been left behind.
They – are conservators of the yesterday and the day before. The people of a cosmic
world-sense are spiritually prepared to go forth towards the unknown future with a
creative impulse.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1916

KOSMICHESKOE I SOTSIOLOGICHESKOE MIROOSCHUSCHENIE. Published first

in the newspaper "Birzhevnye vedomosti", Aug. 1916, No. 15706. Republished
thereafter in the 1918 Berdyaev's anthology text of articles, “Sud’ba Rossii” (“The Fate
of Russia”), Ch. 16, (p. 348-354 in my 1997 Moscow Svarog reprint).

Power and Responsibility

Prior to the revolutionary turnabout we had a prolonged crisis of power. The old
powers had ceased to be national and statelike, had assumed an hostile attitude towards
all the nation, and was overthrown into non-existence on an impulse by all the nation.
The entire people's revolution has had to put forward a provisional government, to
express a maximum of national and state unity, and to lead in line with the historical
tasks, corresponding to the level of the societal developement of Russia. Power itself
possesses objective a nature, it cannot be totally subjective and capricious, a matter of
party and class. When it happens thus, the power of authority degenerates and falls. The
old Christian wisdom taught, that all power is from God [Rom.13,1]. It would be
inaccurate to interpret this truth merely in the context, that an autocratic monarchy or
some other defined form of state power is something mystical and divine. This truth
mustneeds rather be understood thus, that every power of authority by its nature is
mystical and divine, if it fulfills its objectively destined purpose, if it is expressive of the
civil and national nature in general, if it transforms chaos into ordered cosmos, sets limits
to the triumphing of an evil will, and organises the people's life. In this context, the power
of authority in democratic republics is mystical and divine the same, as is also every other
power, congruent with its destined purpose. In the nature of the power of authority and in
the attitude, which it evokes towards itself, there is a sort of mystery, which cannot be
rationally grasped. The power of authority can degenerate into an evil principle, into a
self-assertion merely, and then it betrays its divine wellsprings and its destined purpose,
then it ceases to be of service. Such an evil degeneration of he power of authority long,
for quite long occurred under the old regime. And it mustneeds straight out be said, that
the power of authority of the provisional government, so unstable and transitory, is
moreso divine, moreso in accord with the eternal nature of power, than was the power of
authority of Nicholas II, set upon so ancient a grounding, than was the power of his
temporary governments. The power of authority by its nature and its destined purpose is
not a right, is not a privilege, is not a matter of interests. Power is a duty of obligation, a
burden and service. In the self-satisfying and self-asserting struggle for power there is
always a great untruth. It is because anyone taking upon himself the burden of power first
of all imposes upon himself a great responsibility. One having taken upon himself the
burden of power cannot still look upon all from partial a perspective, from the
perspective of a group, class, party, from the perspective of opposing some private power
against the whole. Unperceivable on the part of the life of the great whole. he enters into
the mysterious life of the whole people and the whole state, he enters therein not only at
some given moment of its existence, but into its historical continuance, into the
connection of the times. In having assumed upon oneself the burden of power, it obligates
one to think about the enormous whole, to organise it, and not permit the falling apart of
the whole, or an ultimate uprising of a part against this whole. To this mystery of the
whole, of the whole people and the whole state, is united only one who bears upon
himself the responsibility. Power is inseparable from responsibility, an irresponsible
power has to fall, it has to be overthrown. The old hence fell, because it was unable to
bear the responsibility for the fate of Russia, because it irresponsibly helped ruin Russia,
shoved it towards the abyss.

Our provisional government can be criticised from various points of view, but it is
indisputable, that in it is an highly developed sense of responsibility, it has taken upon
itself the responsibility for the great whole, for Russia namely, in very difficult moment
of Russian history and it is prepared to bear this responsibility to the end. The provisional
government has expressed a line of action objectively-national and objectively for the
state, a line of action for the great whole. It has concerned itself with the fate of Russia,
with the accomplishing of daily historical tasks. The provisional government, under the
impetus of the Russian revolution, possesses original features, distinct from those of other
temporary provisional governments of other revolutions. In it there is not the self-serving
lust for power, not the self-assertion, nothing of the dictator. Moreso rather it consolidates
upon too great an humanness and gentleness, almost akin to a Tolstoyan non-resistance.
It -- is sacrificial, completely unselfish and it bears the power of authority, as a burden
and obligation. It desires nothing to grab for itself. It is responsible for the whole, it is
immersed under weighty considerations for the administering of Russia, for its defense,
and the averting of anarchy. In this "bourgeois" government, as regards the irresponsible
street terminology, there is something characteristically Russian, a Russian dislike for
holding power, a readiness to resign power, if this be necessary for Russia. The
provisional government holds power not out o a sense of a right and greed for it, but from
a sense of duty and responsibility. At the present historical moment the power in Russia
is a cross, and with reluctance is the resolve to take it upon oneself.

It has impossible a position. Those social democrats, which are hostile to the
provisional government, organise demonstrations against it and want to overthrow it, they
struggle for power, as though it were their right and privilege, but they are afraid of
holding power and lack the resolve to take upon themself the responsibility, connected
with power. And it mustneeds be said, that this hesitancy and fear of taking upon
themself the responsibility for power is not only the effect of cowardice and lack of
resolve, it has deeper real roots. Power in the hands of the socialists, with their class
proletarian perspective, cannot be responsible. This power in its administration would not
have the perspective of the enormous whole entirety, bearing the name Russia, it could
not in essence be national and of state in general. Upon everything it would be impelled
to look only from a perspective of private interests. Dealing with the mystery of power,
certainly, there would have to be a change somewhat in the nature of those, who now
stand upon purely a class point of view without any concern about the whole. But this is
something they also are afraid of, something they do not want to do. One, who enters into
governance, becomes fatally involved in the state aspect and looks with a statewide
perspective upon that, which he previously regarded from private a perspective. And the
social democrats are afraid of being rendered as the object of an irresponsible opposition,
fighting for private interests, they are afraid to dirty their socialistic purity, their red
socialist attire. To administer Russia in that hour of its existence, when an extraordinary
revolution is combined with an extraordinary war, when the ruling power has been left
such a terrible legacy from the old powers, is not only difficult, but also horrendous. The
social democrats wanted to hide behind the sweetness of an irresponsible and pure
confession of their abstract teachings. But every power in the world is a sacrificing of
purity in the name of responsibility for the fate of peoples and states. And it mustneeds be
said, that in certain regards the "mensheviks" are worse than the "bolsheviks", since they
want it both ways and yet are afraid. It is immoral to want power and not want the
responsibility. This is a denial of the great mystery of the whole, the mystery of the
national and state being, a denial for which history will fiercely punish.

It is not only now that the working class in Russia cannot rule, but also never can
any sort of class, rule. The nature of power -- transcends class. Class dominance would
subvert power. A socialist, having entered into governance, would the same defend the
citizen rights of the bourgeiose, as would also every other minister, he would have to
concern himself over provisioning all classes of the population, the security and defense
of the Russian state, the organisation of police, the courts, securing the rights of citizens,
whatever the class they might belong to. Every power has to be powerful -- a powerless
power is meaningless, and no one needs it. An example of a powerless power was
manifest in the final period of the old regime. And a power has to be especially powerful
in the era of such a crisis, as Russia is experiencing at present. But a powerful power has
to have credibility and possess support among the people. It has to feel, that it expresses
the middle line of the will of the entire people, which only can bring Russia out of the
crisis. A power is responsible, when upon it they have imposed responsibility for the
administration of the country, when they allow it freedom of action and do not hinder it at
each step. The mania of mistrust, which at present has infected the Russian people,
subverts not only the power, it subverts Russia, it is killing the soul of the people. This
irresponsible preaching of mistrust everywhere, this hunting for "bourgeoisness" is the
greatest evil of our day. The principle of democracy is perceived for us first of all as a
mistrust and suspiciousness towards every manifestation of a personal principle. And this
is the legacy of the old Russia, having undergone the old slavery. The preaching of
mistrust by soldiers towards officers and generals subverts the army and puts Russia in
defenseless a position. The preaching of mistrust towards the "bourgeoise" and the
"bourgeois" government breaks up Russia into parts, seeking to abolish every
remembrance about the unity of the people. And this -- is a slave's preaching. It seems
further, that after the revolutionary turnabout the mistrust has become greater, than under
the old regime. The first days of Russian freedom have become poisoned. The preaching
of mistrust repudiates man in Russia, repudiates the dignity of the person, it repudiates
the Russian people. And for the salvation of Russia and Russian man there has to ensue a
moral sobering up and renewal of health, an austere awareness of moral responsibility.
The moral and religious ascetic aspect has to put a limit to the irresponsible and dissolute
orgies of social fantasies.

N. A. Berdyaev.

8 May [1917]

© 2010 by translator Fr. S. Janos.

(1917 - 264 -en)

VLAST' I OTVETSTVENNOST'. Article was originally published in the weekly

Journal "Russkaya svoboda", 1917, No. 5, May, p. 3-6. Republished in the anthology of
N. Berdyaev articles entitled, "Padenie svyaschennogo russkogo tsarstva, Publitsistika
1914-1922", Izdatel'stvo Astrel', Moskva, 2007, p. 534-537.

CONCERNING THE RELATIONSHIP

OF RUSSIANS TOWARDS IDEAS

(1917 - #256(15))

Much in the mentality of our social and populist psychology leads to sad
considerations. And one of the saddest facts needful to recognise is the indifference
towards ideas and towards ideational creativity, to recognise the ideational backwardness
of broad segments of the Russian Intelligentsia. In this is evidenced a desiccation and
inertia of thought, a dislike for thought, a disbelief in thought. The moralistic frame of
mind of the Russian soul begets a suspicious attitude towards thought. Life amidst idea is
accounted by us as a luxury, and in this luxury they do not see any essential relationship
to life. In Russia from quite contrary points of view is preached an ascetic abstinence
from ideational creativity, from the life of thought, from going over beyond the limits of
the necessary useful for goals social, moral and religious. This asceticism in relationship
to thought and to ideational creativity is affirmed for us simultaneously both from the
religious perspective, and from the materialistic perspective. This is quite characteristic to
Russian populism, taken both in its extreme left, and its extreme right forms. This frame
of mind for the Russian soul has been clearly expressed by the Tolstoyans. Some reckon
it alone sufficient for us that minimum of thought, which is enclosed in the Social-
Democrat brochures, while with others, -- that which can be found in the writings of the
holy fathers. The brochures of the Tolstoyans, the brochures of the “Religio-Philosophic
Bibliotek” of M. A. Novoselov and the brochures of the Social Revolutionaries all show a
completely identical dislike and contempt for thought. The value in itself of thought is
denied, the freedom of ideational creativity was cast under suspicion at one point from
the perspective of the Social Revolutionaries, and at another point from the perspective of
the religious guardians. They love for us to have only catechisms, which superficially and
simply are applied to every instance of life. But the love for catechisms is also a dislike
for independent thought. In Russia there was never a creative abundance, there was never
anything of a renaissance, there was nothing of the spirit of the Renaissance. How sad
and melancholy has Russian history been constituted and rendered for the soul of Russian
man! All the spiritual energy of Russian man was directed to the sole thought about
salvation, about the salvation of his soul, about the salvation of the people, about the
salvation of the world. In truth, this thought about universal salvation -- is a
characteristically Russian thought. The historical destiny of the Russian people has been
sacrificial -- it saved Europe from the invasions of the East, from the Tatar-Mongol Yoke,
and in it there did not take hold the strength for free developement.
 Western man creates values, he forms rich cultures, and he has an independent love
for values; Russian man searches for salvation, and the creativity of values for him is
always a little suspicious. Not only do believers of Russian soul seek salvation, the
Orthodox and the sectarians, but it is also the Russian atheists, the socialists and
anarchists, they all seek after salvation. For the matter of salvation catechisms are
necessary, but free and creative thought is dangerous. It is a mistake to think, that the
best, the most sincere element of the Russian leftist revolutionary intelligentsia is social
in accord with the directives of its own will in concern with politics. It is impossible
within it to find the least signs of social thought, of a political consciousness. It -- is
apolitical and non-societal, by distorted paths it seeks salvation of soul, purity, to be able
to seek out ascetic deeds and service to the world, but bereft of the instincts of civil and
social organisation. The “social” world-concept of the Russian Intelligentsia,
subordinating everything of value to politics, is merely the result of a great confusion, a
weakness of thought and awareness, an hodgepodge of the absolute and the relative. The
maximalism, the revolutionism, the radicalism of the Russian Intelligentsia is a peculiar
form of moralistic asceticism in relation to the civil, the social and historical life
generally. It is very characteristic, that Russian tactics usually take the form of boycotts,
strikes and work-stoppages. The Russian intelligent is never certain, whether he ought to
accept history with all its tormenting, violent and tragic contradictions, none the more
correct, or whether to repudiate it entirely. He refuses to ponder over history and its tasks,
and he prefers to moralise over history, to impose upon it his own sociological schema,
very reminiscent of theological schema. And in the Russian intelligent, torn away from
his native soil, he remains characteristically a Russian man, having never the taste for
history, for historical thought and for the drama of history. Our social thought has been
intensely primitive and elementary, it has always striven after simplicity and feared
complexity. The Russian Intelligentsia has always been confessing some sort of doctrine,
containable in a pocket catechism, and an utopia, promising an easy and simplistic
method of universal salvation, but it was not fond of and it feared creative thought as
being of value in itself, before which might open infinitely complex perspectives. Among
the broad masses of the so-called radical Intelligentsia, thought was not only made
simplistic, but also neglectful and flippant. The reduction of old ideas among the half-
indifferent masses -- was poisonous. The catechisms are tolerable only for an heated
atmosphere, and it is in the hot-house atmosphere that they are produced and born.
Creative thought, which posits and considers all ever new and newer tasks -- is dynamic.
Russian thought however has always been too static, despite the shifting of various
beliefs and currents. This is valid identically both in regard to the theocratic-guardian
doctrines, and in regard to the positivist-radical and socialist doctrines.

II

The Russian dislike for ideas and indifference towards ideas is often transformed into
an indifference towards truth. The Russian man does not very much seek truth (istina), he
seeks just-truth (pravda), which he thinks of now religiously, now morally, and then
socially, he seeks salvation. In this there is something characteristically Russian, and
there is its own genuine Russian just-truth (pravda). But there is also a danger, there is a
turning-away from the paths of knowledge, there is a tendency towards a populism-based
churlishness. Bowing before an organic wisdom of the people has always paralysed
thought in Russia and cut short ideational creativity, wherein the person tends to be on his
own responsibility. Our conservative thought has been still a native thought, and in it
there has been no self-consciousness of personal spirit. But this self-consciousness of
personal spirit also has little been sensed in our progressive thought. Thought, the life of
ideas was always subordinated to the Russian soul-emphasis, a mixing up of rightful-
truth (pravda-istina) with rightful-justice (pravda-spravedlivost’). But the Russian soul-
emphasis was not subordinated to spirituality, it did not pass through spirit. Upon the
basis of this soul-emphasis unfold all sorts of psychologism. Native thought, thought,
connected with the element of the soil, is always of soul, and not spiritual thought. But
the thinking of the Russian revolutionaries has always transpired in an atmosphere of
soul-emphasis, and not spirituality. The idea, the meaning reveals itself in the person, and
not in the collective. And the people’s wisdom reveals itself at the summits in the
spiritual life of persons, expressing the people’s spirit. Without great responsibility and
the daring of personal spirit there cannot be realised developement of the people’s spirit.
The life of ideas is the uncovering of the life of spirit. In creative thought spirit
transcends the soul-body elements. The exclusive dominance of soul-emphasis with its
brutal heatedness opposes itself to the liberating life of spirit. The greatest Russian
geniuses were afraid of this responsibility of personal spirit, and from the heights of the
spiritual they fell downwards, they fell all the way to the ground, and they sought
salvation in the elementary wisdom of the people. Thus it was with Dostoevsky and
Tolstoy, and thus it was with the Slavophils. In Russian religious thought only Chaadaev
and Vl. Solov’ev stood out as exceptions.

The Russian people’s elemental soul-emphasis has assumed very manifold, very
contradictory forms -- the protective and the seditious, the nationally-religious and the
internationally-socialist. This -- is at the root of Russian populism’s hostility to thought
and ideas. In the mentality and the tendency of the Russian people’s soul-emphasis there
is something anti-gnostic, holding the process of cognition under suspicion. The heart has
been victorious over the mind and the will. The Russian populist soul-emphasis type is
moralistic, it applies to everything in the world a moralistic evaluation. But this moralism
is incapable of results of a personal character, it does not create the tempering by spirit. In
this moralism there predominates a vague soulfulness, a tender cordiality, often very
charming, but there is no sense of courage of will, responsibility, self-discipline, firmness
of character. The Russian people, perhaps, is the most spiritual people on earth. But its
spirituality floats on some sort of elemental soulfulness, even moreso on corporeality. In
this spirituality, the masculine principle adrift does not embrace the feminine principle, it
does not give it form. But this means also, that spirit does not embrace the soulful. This is
valid not only in regard to the “people”, but also in regard to the “intelligentsia”, which is
broken away and external to the people, but preserving very characteristic features of the
people’s psychology. Upon this ground also is born the mistrust, the indifferent and
hostile attitude towards thought, towards ideas. Upon this very ground also is born
moreover the reknown weakness of the Russian will, of the Russian character. The far
right Russian Slavophils and the far left Russian populists (to them with few exclusions
mustneeds on the basis of soul mentality be included also the Russian Social Democrats,
dissimilar to their Western comrades) both alike rise up against “abstract thought” and
demand thought that is moral and salvific, having essentially a practical application to
life. In the rising up against abstract thought and in the demand for integral thought there
has been very great truth and the presentiment of an higher type of thought. But this truth
has foundered on the adrift soul-emphasis and the incapacity for analysis and
differentiation. Human thought upon the pathways of the human spirit ought to proceed
through dichotomy and analysis. The primordial organic integrality cannot be preserved
and carried over into an higher type of spirituality without a tortuous differentiation
process, without a falling-away and secularisation. Without the consciousness of this
truth organic integral thought passes over into an hostility towards thought, into
thoughtless nonsense, into an obscure moralism. The unique originality of the Russian
soul cannot be killed by thought. Such a fear displays a lack of belief in Russia and in
Russian man. The non-differentiation of our conservative thought has carried over into
our progressive thought.

III

In Russia a genuine emancipation of thought has still not been accomplished.

Russian nihilism has been an enslaving, not liberating, thought. Our thought has
remained servile. Russians fear the sin of thought, even when they do not believe in any
sort of sin. Russians have still not altogether risen up to the awareness, that in living
creative thought there is light, a transfigurative element, transfixing the darkness.
Knowledge itself is life, and therefore it is impossible to say moreover, that knowledge
ought to be subordinated to life in an utilitarian manner. There mustneeds be for us a
liberation from Russian utilitarianism, so enslaving for our thought, be it religious or
materialistic. The slavery of thought has led in wide circles of the Russian Intelligentsia
to an ideational poverty and an ideational backwardness. The ideas, to which many still
continue to point to as “foremost”, in essence are very backward ideas, which do not
measure up to the heights of contemporary European thought. The adherents of a
“scientific” world-concept have lagged half a century behind the actual developements in
science. Both the intelligent and the half-intelligent masses also attempt to live by
antiquated ideas of stuff, long already relegated to the archives. Our “vanguard”
intelligentsia remain hopelessly behind from the developements in European thought,
hopelessly behind from the all more and more complicated and intricate philosophic and
scientific creativity. It believes in ideas, which were current in the west more than fifty
years back, and it is quite seriously capable of confessing the positivist world-view, the
old theory of the social mean, etc. But this is the ultimate terminus and ossification of
thought. Traditional positivism long ago already tumbled down not only in philosophy,
but also in science itself. If it be never possible to speak seriously about materialism, as a
directive for the half-literate, then it is impossible too to speak seriously about positivism,
and soon it will be impossible to speak about criticism of the Kantian type. And it will be
likewise impossible to support that radical “sociologism” of world-sense and world-
concept, which all the masses of the intelligentsia in Russia still adhere to. New “cosmic”
perspectives of world-sense and world-concept are unfolding. The social cannot be
sundered and isolated from cosmic life, from the energies, which spill forth into it from
all the planes of the cosmos. Thus impossible is even the social utopianism, always
grounded in a simplification of thought concerning social life, in the rationalisation of it,
whilst disregarding irrational cosmic forces. Not only in creative Russian thought, which
in a small circle survives the period of transition, but also in Western European thought
there has occurred a radical shift, and the “vanguard” in thought and consciousness
appears altogether otherwise, than what too many among us continue to believe -- idle
and inert thoughts.

The uppermost of mankind has already entered into the night of a new Middle
Ages, when the sun ought to shine itself within us and bring us towards a new day. The
external light fades out. The crash of rationalism, the rebirth of mysticism is also of this
nocturnal moment. However, when the crash of the old rational thought occurs, it is quite
necessary to appeal to creative thought, to a revealing of the idea of spirit. The struggle
moves to the spiritual summits of mankind, it is there that the fate of human
consciousness is determined, it is a genuine life of thought, a life of ideas. In the middle
yet prevails the old inertness of thought, there is no initiative in the creativity of idea, and
shreds of the old world of thought drag on in their miserable existence. Middling thought,
imagining itself as the intelligent, arrives at a condition of complete absurdity. We are
endlessly bumping up against static thought, while dynamic thought is nowise apparent.
But thought by its nature is dynamic, it is an eternal developing of spirit, before it stand
eternally new tasks, eternally new worlds are disclosed, and it mustneeds bestow
eternally creative solutions. When thought is made static -- it shrivels up and dies. For
many of our foremost Westernisers thought came to a stop 60 years ago, and they -- are
the guardians of this old thought, they halted at a very elementary stage of enlightenment,
which arose back in the West during the XVIII Century. These people in the area of
thought are neither progressive nor revolutionary, they are rather conservators and
guardians; they aspire backwards, towards the rational enlightenment, they re-warm long
since chilled-down thoughts and are hostile to any heated blazing of thought.

IV

The creative developement of ideas does not occasion for itself any sort of strong
interest in the broad circles of the Russian Intelligentsia community. For us it has even
included the conviction, that for social actions ideas are altogether unnecessary or needed
only in minimum supply, which always it was possible to find in the supplies of the
traditional, the long ago cooled-off and static-ossified thought. All our developements in
1905 were not inspired by vitally creative ideas, it fed itself off ideas that were tepidly
warm-cold, but was torn asunder by heated passions and interests. And this ideational
poverty has been fateful. In the last fifty years for us there has been expressed many a
creative idea, and ideas not only abstract, but of life and concrete. But surrounding all
these ideas there has still formed no sort of cultural atmosphere, nor has there arisen any
sort of social stirring. These ideas hold on in a few circles. The world of ideas and the
world of sociality remain disconnected. On the part of the social element there has been
no demand for ideas, there were no commands for ideational creativity, it had enough
with the pitiful remnants of the old ideas. All the abnormality and sickness of the spiritual
condition of our society was particularly sensed, when the world war started, requiring
the exertion of all powers, not only material, but also spiritual. It was impossible to
engage the world tragedy with the stock of old enlightenment ideas, of the old rationalist-
sociological schemata. Man, armed with but these antiquated ideational armaments, was
left to sense himself crushed and cast off onto the beehive of history. The humanitarian-
pacifist current, always very elemental and simplistic, was powerless before the
gruesome face of the historical destiny, the historical tragedy. If for us there had been an
insufficient material preparation for the war, then also there was not a sufficient
ideational preparation. The traditional ideas, for decades prevailing for us, were
completely useless for the measures being played out in the world of events. Everything
was shifted from its usual place, everything requires a completely new creative work of
thought, a new ideational inspiration. Our social element during the time of
unprecedented world catastrophe was poor in ideas, insufficiently inspired. We are paid
back for the long period of indifference towards ideas. The ideas, upon which the old
authority rested, have ultimately crumbled. It was impossible to revive them by any
means. No sort of poisoned mystical justifications can help, drawn forth from the old
supply. But the ideas of the Russian social element, appealing for the rebuilding of
Russian life and the renovation of authority, had become chilled off and weather beaten
earlier than the hour which transpired for their realisation in life. It remains to turn things
around towards a creative life of idea, which imperceptibly impends in the world. Shaken
loose are the ideological bases of Russian conservatism and Russian radicalism. There is
need to pass over into another ideational format.

In the world struggle of peoples the Russian people ought to have its own idea,
ought to bear into it its own tempering of spirit. Russians cannot be content by negative
ideas of repelling German militarism and gloomy defeat by an internal reaction. Russians
in this struggle ought to rebuild not only civilly and socially, but also to rebuild
ideationally and spiritually. The shameful indifference towards ideas, reinforcing the
backwardness and stony petrification of thought, ought to be replaced by a new ideational
inspiration and ideational ascent. The soil is harrowed loose, and the time is propitious
for ideational propagation, upon which all our future depends. In this very difficult and
demanding hour of our history we find ourselves in a condition of ideational anarchy and
muck, in our spirit takes place a rotting process, bound up with the putrefaction of
thought both conservative and revolutionary, of ideas both of the right and of the left. But
in the depths of the Russian people there is a living spirit, concealing great possibilities.
In the loosened soil there ought to sprout the seeds of new thought and new life. The
maturing of Russia towards a world role presupposes its spiritual rebirth.

Nikolai Berdyaev

(Jan.) 1917

© 2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1917 - 256(15,9) - en)

OB OTNOSHENII RUSSKIKH K IDEYAM. First published in the journal “Russkaya

mysl’”, Jan. 1917, p. 66-73. Republished in 1918 Berdyaev's anthology text of articles,
“Sud’ba Rossii” (“The Fate of Russia”), Ch. 9, (p. 295-302 in my 1997 Moscow Svarog
reprint). Article reprinted also in 1989 YMCA Press Tom 3 of Berdyaev’s writings, --
“Tipy religioznoi mysli v Rossii”, p. 50-59.

ABOUT BOURGEOISNESS AND SOCIALISM

(1917 - #266)

Many a word, now enjoying wide currency on the streets, bears a character of
magical effect; many a formula, now wending its way, assumes a sacral guise and is
accepted by the masses not only without criticism, but also without understanding. And
to such magical-incantational words belongs the word "bourgeoise" and "bourgeoisness".
This word at present has a grip upon the masses, the masses find themselves enslaved to
this word, the meaning of which cannot be adequately comprehended. The word falls into
a dark obscurity, not prepared to encompass complex meanings, and it does not enlighten
the darkness, but instead only increases it. The incantation arouses some sort of dark
instincts, corresponds to some sort of interests, but no sort of clear concepts and ideas can
be connected with it. What is the understanding of "bourgeoise" at the present day?
Under "bourgeoise" is understood not simply the industrial class, not simply the
capitalists, not the "third estate". With us at present the category of "bourgeoise" is
employed in immeasurably more broad a sense. All of Russia, all of mankind is divided
into two irreconcilable worlds, two realms -- a realm of evil, of darkness, the devil -- the
bourgeois realm, and a realm godly, good, of light -- the socialistic realm. In its own way
in this psychology there is a re-experiencing of the old, age-old religious division and
opposition, but in a distorted form. The Social Democrats, having poisoned the working
masses with a destructive hatred for the "bourgeoise" and "bourgeoisness", make use of
these words in a social-class, materialistic sense, and upon their own social-class point of
view they bestow an almost religious stamp. This positivist-materialist, social-class sense
of the world cannot ultimately hold up. And the socialists, the materialists are compelled
to admit, that "bourgeoisness" reflects a certain psychological disposition. A certain
frame of values regarding life, not so much a condition of social matter, as rather an
attitude of the human spirit towards it. A "bourgeois" disposition and a "bourgeois" set of
values can be in a man, not belonging to the bourgeois class, no wise possessing property,
and on the contrary, someone bourgeois as regards his class position can also be without
such a "bourgeoisness". It is quite indisputable, that "bourgeoisness" is a condition of the
human spirit, and not the social-class position of a man, -- it defines itself by a
relationship of spirit to material life, by a spirit unfree and powerless to overcome the
force of matter, rather than by material life itself.

The great strugglers against the bourgeois spirit in the XIX Century were
Nietzsche and Ibsen, who were not socialists, they did not have any sort of relationship to
the proletariat and at present, surely, they would be consigned to the realm of the
"bourgeoise", since at present the street wisdom consigns to the "bourgeoise" all the
people of spirit. And perhaps the most vivid expression of the anti-bourgeois spirit in
Russian literature was that of the reactionary, K. Leont'ev, -- all his life's work was a
struggle against the impending grey-dull realm of Philistinism. His spirit was less
"bourgeois", than the spirit of all the "Bolsheviks" and "Mensheviks", aspiring to the dull
happiness of their earthly paradise. In France there is the remarkable writer Leon Bloy,
unique as a Catholic, a reactionary's reactionary, having nothing in common with
socialism, and he rose up with an unprecedented radicalism against the primary
foundations of bourgeoisness, against the bourgeois spirit reigning in the world, against
the bourgeois wisdom. As a Christian, he revealed the metaphysical and spiritual grounds
of bourgeoisness and he grasped the mystery of the bourgeois, as in opposition to the
mystery of Golgotha. The "bourgeois" always prefers the visible over the invisible,
always prefers this world -- over the other world. Nietzsche would have said, that the
"bourgeois" always loves more what is "closer at hand", than the "remote". The spirit of
bourgeoisness is opposed to the mountain-heights spirit of Zarathustra. Ibsen would have
said, that to the bourgeois spirit is opposed the spirit of that man, who stands the path of
life alone. To the bourgeois, spirit is profoundly and essentially opposed -- not the
socialist and proletariat spirit, but rather the aristocratic spirit. The bourgeois realm is a
realm of the quantitative. To it stands opposed the realm of the qualitative. The bourgeois
spirit builds everything on the basis of welfare, felicity and satisfaction. The spirit such as
is the polar opposite to it tends to build on the basis of values, it has to gravitate towards
the great spiritual far-off. The bourgeois spirit therefore does not love and indeed is afraid
of sacrifice, whereas the anti-bourgeois spirit at its basis is sacrificial, even when it
asserts power. The bourgeoisness was not created by socialism, it was created by the old,
the decrepit world. But socialism accepts the legacy of bourgeoisness, it desires to
increase and develop it and carry this spirit on to an universal triumph. Socialism is but a
passive reflexion upon the bourgeois world, it has been wholly defined by it and received
all its values from it. In it there is no creative freedom.

II

The ideal of the ultimate arranging of this world and of an ultimate satisfaction and
happiness in this world, killing off the thirst for an other world, is also a bourgeois ideal,
is also within the bounds of bourgeoisness, an all-encompassing and just distribution of
bourgeoisness over all the earth. The bourgeois spirit -- is first of all an anti-religious
spirit. Bourgeoisness is an anti-religious satisfaction with this world, the desire to assert
in it an eternal principle and to fasten down the human spirit to this kingdom, in
preferring the world -- over God. And the very idea of the Kingdom of God upon earth,
in this three-dimensional material world is a bourgeois distortion of a true religious
expectation. In the old Jewish chiliasm there was a bourgeoisness, which has passed over
into the new with its socialistic transformation. The bourgeois senses himself exclusively
a citizen of this isolated world and of this surface of the earth, foreign to him is heavenly
citizenship, the citizenship of other worlds. For the bourgeois, heaven is always
exclusively contrived for the interests of the earth, and the other world -- for the interests
of this world. Suchlike is the religiosity of the bourgeois. And truly the anti-bourgeois is
that one, who puts the holding of values as higher than well-being, puts the inward higher
than the outward, sacrifice higher than satisfaction, quality higher than quantity, the
remote higher than the near at hand, the other world higher than this world, the person
higher than the impersonal masses, and who loves God more than the world and one's
own self. This means also the clash of two polarly opposite world principles. The
bourgeois is a destroyer of the eternal in the name of the temporal, a slave of time and
matter. The duping of the world, the duping of men and the human mob is also a basic
trait. But the inward freedom of spirit, the victory over the power of temporality and
materiality is also a victory over "bourgeoisness". Christ condemned wealth, as being a
slavery of spirit, as being chained down to this limited world. The meaning of this
condemnation is not social, but rather spiritual, oriented towards the inner man, and it
least of all can be used to justify envy and hatred for the rich. This envy and hatred is a
bourgeois stirring of the human heart and reveals all that selfsame slavery of the human
spirit.

And it mustneeds resolutely be stated, that within socialism there is nothing

opposing the spirit of bourgeoisness, there is in it no sort of antidote against the ultimate
reign of bourgeoisness in the world. A worker can be no less the typical bourgeois, than
the industrialist or merchant, his economically oppressed position does not guarantee him
any sort of spiritual qualities, and often it even deprives him of nobility of character.
Bourgeoisness is not dependent upon belonging to a particular class, though whole
classes can be caught up in a spirit of bourgeoisness. In essence, every class psychology
-- is bourgeois, and the bourgeoisness is conquered only then, when man gets above the
class psychology in the name of higher values, in the name of truth. The workers and the
peasants, in their purely class psychology, in their interests, can be spiritually bourgeois
just the same, as the industrialists, the merchants and the land-owners, and this is nowise
affected, in that the interests of the former be more just, than the interests of the latter.
For a class socialism, making pretense to the creativity of a new culture, it is fatal that all
the higher values, the values of spiritual culture, the values of "science and art" should
have been created by the bourgeoise, in the social class sense. The working class has not
created any sort of values, has not discovered the rudiments of creativity of a new culture,
of a new spiritual type of man. It borrows everything from the bourgeoise, it feeds off it
spiritually and fatally becomes "bourgeois" in the measure of its growth of being
cultured, its consciousness, its sharing in the blessings of civilisation. For the fifty years
of its most heroic existence, the socialist proletariat -- this "messiah-class" -- has created
nothing. In the sphere of religious awareness, the socialist proletariat has appropriated for
itself the old bourgeois atheism and the old bourgeois materialistic philosophy, in the
moral sphere -- the old bourgeois utilitarian morality, in the sphere of artistic life it has
inherited the bourgeois alienation from beauty, the bourgeois dislike for symbolism and
the bourgeois love for realism. The level of proletarian culture has not been lifted higher
than the quite old, banal and as regards a more cultural segment -- the long since decrepit
"enlightenmentism". The intellectual wretchedness of the socialist movement is striking.
Is this how Christianity entered into the declining world of antiquity with its good news
about new life? Where is it possible to find the signs of an original proletarian creativity?
It is not the impulses of creativity, but rather the biding of interests that guides class
psychology. The value itself of socialism was created by the bourgeoise, by the bourgeois
cultural segment, to which belonged also the first utopian-socialists, and Marx, and
Lassalle, and Engels, and the Russian ideologues of the Social Democrats, and of the
Social Revolutionaries. For the proletariat, socialism is an interpretation of their interests
and immediate instincts. And only for the ideologues from the bourgeois cultural segment
has it been an idea, a value. How the interests and greedy instincts of some particular
class can be transformed into an idea and value for separate figures who have emerged
from other classes, -- this is a most interesting problem of the psychology and ideology of
socialism.

III

Socialism also is an ideal ultimately bourgeois, of a bourgeoisness as such

equitable and universally spread about, the ideal of a forever attachment like serfs to this
world in a bourgeois well-being. It would be foolish to expect from socialism a victory
over the modern "bourgeois" culture -- it would only carry it on further to its end. The
bourgeoisness mustneeds be sought not in the outward forms of socialism, but in its
inward spirit. This spirit regards quantity higher than quality, well-being higher than
value, the impersonal masses higher than the person, satisfaction higher than sacrifice,
the world higher than God, -- this spirit is fastened down to this world, it is caught up in
necessity, and not in freedom. Socialism through the present time has not come out with
any sort of values, besides the values of material security, satisfaction and satiety.
Spiritually it lives by values, created by the "bourgeois" world, its creativity, its sciences
and arts, its discoveries. The promises to manifest forms of creativity purely proletarian,
purely socialistic, have not been fulfilled, and the socialist movement draws away all
farther and farther from the fulfillment of these promises. The socialistic spirit stands
with an hostile attitude towards every sort of creative personal originality, in which only
can there be sought an antidote against "bourgeoisness". Socialism represents spiritually a
leveling, it leads all to a median dull-grey level, it gains a certain raising of the level of
equality at the dear price of the disappearance of all the heights. Listen to the talk of the
Social Democrats, read their newspapers, their brochures, their books. They all say one
and the same thing, they write all the same language, they repeat the same words, they
relive the same dull-grey thoughts. Nowhere is there apparent the person, personal
thought, personal creativity. It is almost to the extent of being vexatious. There descends
a grey foggy mist and promises a grey paradise, a paradise of non-being. The ideal of
socialism -- is not creative, but rather expansive, not lofty, but equitable, and flat. The
"bourgeois" world -- is indeed half-fast and sinful a world, in it are no enduring values.
Socialism desires as it were to affirm an ultimate "bourgeoisness", a sacred
"bourgeoisness", an equitable, a correct, an wholistic "bourgeoisness". The religion of
socialism falls for the temptation of the loaves of bread, spurned by Christ in the
wilderness. Socialism makes bread into a religion and for bread it betrays the spiritual
freedom of man. Dostoevsky reveals this in his legend about the Grand Inquisitor. And
Vl. Solov'ev also reveals this in his story about the Anti-Christ. Christ spurned the
temptation of bread and taught to pray instead for daily bread.

I think, that the spirit of the materialistic class socialism, particularly in its Social
Democratic form, is a deeply bourgeois spirit, a deeply anti-Christian spirit. But I say this
not as an enemy of socialism. I think, that in socialism there is its own great truth and its
own great question. But I think likewise, that the blame for the spiritual lie and untruth of
socialism rests not upon it, but upon those social segments, which first entered upon the
path of bourgeoisness, the path of the enslavement of spirit by materiality and class
assertion. Socialism has but a reflective nature, it only continues on with the process, and
does not start it, it lacks for initiative spiritually, and is only completive. The truth such as
it is in socialism can only be realised in a different spirit, in a different spiritual
atmosphere, in other than a materialistic consciousness, and without the class hatred,
without pretension to the forceful establishing of the Kingdom of God upon earth,
through some revolutionary cataclysm, but rather with a preserving of inward spiritual
freedom. In the thralldom to its own passions, under the deceit of the interests and
instincts of the masses there cannot be created a kingdom of freedom. The spirit of class
hatred and malice leads to a denial of the image of God in man, it breaks down the idea of
mankind and leaves it situated in an irreconcilable contradiction of the hopes of socialism
itself. Social greed is an human sin, but social greed, established as an utmost sanctity, is
already the spirit of the Anti-Christ. Everything is twofold within socialism and within
democracy, -- the truth gets jumbled together with lie, the light with darkness, Christ with
the Anti-Christ. World life is entering into a period, when there is no longer a crystal
clear clarity, there are no easily recognised boundaries, separating the realm of light from
the realm of darkness. The human spirit has set facing it the greatest of trials and
temptations. Temptations of the greatest evil can appear under the guise of the good. And
there is needed a vigilance of spirit and a sobriety of spirit, in order to unriddle the
twofold nature of socialism, which moves along in the world with a newly promised
realm. And incapable of discernment are those, who remain in a condition of primitive
drunkenness and spiritual slavery.

Into the still dark masses of the Russian people have been thrown -- the seeds of
hatred towards the "bourgeoise" and "bourgeoisness". The meaning of these hateful
words remains misunderstood for the masses. And the way in which the masses
assimilate these conjurative words about the "bourgeoise" and "bourgeoisness", tends to
arouse something dangerous not only for the fate of Russia, the Russian state, the Russian
people's economy, but -- a thousand times more importantly -- for the fate of the very
soul of the Russian people, a soul feminine, dejected and frail, not having gone the way
of the severe school of self-discipline and self-direction. The preaching of hatred towards
the "bourgeoise" and "bourgeoisness" also makes the Russian people "bourgeois",
distorts its Christian visage. For awhile we have still a quiet, a sort of benevolent anarchy,
so characteristic for the Russian tribe. But there can come about something more vexing.
And then the responsibility will fall not upon the people, but upon those segments of he
Intelligentsia, which in having no wont for perceiving the deep meaning of words, tend to
throw them around irresponsibly, and superficially. Thus within the Russian soul is killed
what is holy, giving way to the rule of special interests. But the Intelligentsia itself ought
to be preaching, that the basic division within the world and mankind remains not some
temporal division into a realm "socialistic" and a realm "bourgeois", but rather a division
into realms of truth and of lie, of good and evil, a Kingdom of God and that of the devil,
of Christ and that of the Anti-Christ. In the spiritual sense of the word, only Christianity
stands forever against "bourgeoisness". In it, the inner man gains victory over the outer
man.
 Nikolai Berdyaev

1917

O BURZHUAZNOSTI I SOTSIALIZME. Published originally in the weekly

"Russkaya svoboda", 13 June 1917, No. 8, p. 3-8, Petrograd-Moscow.

Republished in Tom 4 of Berdiaev Collected Works by YMCA Press, in the collection of

1917-1918 Berdyaev articles under the title, "Dukhovnye osnovy russkoi revoliutsii
(Stat'i 1917-18)" ("Spiritual Grounds of the Russian Revolution (Articles 1917-18)",
Paris, 1990, p. 19-28.

TRUTH AND LIE

IN SOCIETAL LIFE
I

During the final years before the Revolution we were smothered with lies. The
provocation was made at the instigation of the Russian statecraft of the Old Regime. The
atmosphere was thick with betrayal. Azephovism, Rasputinism, Sukhomlinovism -- all
this poisoned the life of the people and rotted the Russian state. In the final months before
the turnabout, the muddled air became intolerable, it was impossible to breathe, and
everything became ambiguous. The image of the old powers became twofold. The Old
Regime a long time already had lived by the lie. It continued to exist through inertia, and
the passivity of the people sustained it. The moral disintegration had reached
unprecedented dimensions. Amongst those active for the old power in the final period of
its existence it was difficult to encounter people with a clear human image, such people
comprised the exception and they did not long last. In the hours of the finish of the
Russian tsarism, it was surrounded by the likes of Grigorii Rasputin, the Sukhomlinovi,
the Shtiurmeri, the Protopovi, the Voeikovi, the Manusevichi-Manuilovi and suchlike,
duplicitous and nebulous figures. The old Russian monarchy drowned in its muck, in its
lies, in its wont for betrayal and provocations. It not so much was overthrown, as rather
that it disintegrated and collapsed. The Russian Revolution was not so much the result of
an accumulation of creative powers, of creative impulses towards new life, as rather the
result of an accumulation of negative conditions, of processes of rot in the old life. This
facilitated the triumph of the Revolution in its initial days and gave it a strong push in its
ultimate course. The destructive powers seized the upper hand over the creative powers.
The sickness seemed too far-gone, its consequences passed over into the new Russia, and
they remain active, like an inner poison. The Revolution in its accomplishments of an
elementary political freedom has come too late, and namely because in it there prevails a
social maximalism, which always is the result of the unpreparedness of the masses, beset
by darkness. The storm has abated, it was irreversible and was sent down by Providence.
But the atmosphere has not cleared. For us it is no easier to breathe after the
revolutionary storm, the air has not become clear and lucid, the muck remains, and as
before there prevail ambiguous and duplicitous figures, though also in new guises, the lie
as before reigns in our societal life, the wont for betrayal and provocation has not been
removed, although Sukhomlinov and Shtiurmer sit in prison. The old people, entangled in
lies and having lost their moral centre, appear in new attire and veil themselves behind
new words. As before there are no people for truth, there is no acknowledgement of the
self-sufficiency and absolute value of truth, something which cannot be sacrificed away
for any sort of utilitarian and greedy aims, parties, classes or persons.

There are mouths, spouting hatred and contempt for Nicholas II, that formerly spoke
about "the God-given monarch", about fidelity and service to the tsar. Much of this, that
never was sacred, was transformed into a conditional lie, and the words had lost their real
content. All the frightful part was in this, that long ago already the "God" aspect being
honoured was not God, but rather "Caesar", and this transgressing of a basic
commandment, this fashioning for oneself idols of every sort upon the earth, this idolatry
has poisoned the life of the Russian people. But here the old idol of autocracy has been
cast down and trampled in the dirt. Just as always happens, the crowd, shortly before
worshipping it, now tramples it underfoot. But after the casting down of the old idols,
have we become free of all idolatry, from everywhere honouring as God the Kingdom of
Caesar? No, we have not become free of such. There have arisen new idols, which have
been set up higher than the truth of God. The idol-worship, which always is a betrayal of
the Living God, has remained, it has but assumed new forms. There has begun a new
fashioning of idols, there has appeared many a new idol and earthly little-gods, --
"Revolution", "Socialism", "Democracy", "Internationalism", "Proletariat" etc. All these
idols and little-gods belong the same to the kingdom of "Caesar", just as did the old idol
of the tsar's autocracy, and upon them are bestown godly honours. The realm of Caesar in
a Christian, Gospel sense of the word is not some sort of perpetual autocracy, monarchy,
connected unfailingly with tsar or emperor, it is broader and more varied, and to it also
can belong a democratic realm. Around the worship of new idols in the Kingdom of
Caesar there has already well accumulated many a lie and murkiness. The new idolatry,
just like the old, screens out the sunlight of truth. Never does the idol-worship proceed
along gratis for the moral nature of man and the people, it morally cripples and maims by
way of the lie. Man, in worshipping something on earth in place of God, already ceases
distinguishing truth from falsehood, he is rendered obsessed, he -- becomes a slave of
temporal relative things, in the name of which everything becomes permissible.

II

Revolution is but a moment within the life of a people, a temporary function, a

passing and transitory condition, through which it can pass over to an higher and free life,
but always sickly and onerous, evoked by the piling up of the old evil. When some
whatever the man lances a festering boil, then it would be terrible to acknowledge this as
something most luminous and divine in the man, and to substitute replacing the man
himself with this moment in the developement of the process of sickness within him. But
with us namely this is the process occurring in relation to the Revolution, which is but the
opening up of a festering boil on the body of Russia. The transforming of the Revolution
itself into a god and bestowing upon it the honouring of a god is a repulsive idol-worship,
a forgetting of the true God. This is no better, than to worship Caesar as an idol, it is of
the same nature. Russia previously replaced dynasties, which led it to make sacrifices;
now Russia has it replaced by the revolution, which likewise will cause it to make
sacrifices. If the "God-given monarchy" is transformed into a repulsive and ugly lie, than
in suchlike a lie it can be transformed into a "God-given revolution", if it does not
become subject to an higher truth. Truth however stands higher than all the changes into
the Kingdom of Caesar, in it [i.e. truth] there is nothing ambiguous, wavering and
variable, it is lodged by God Himself within the human heart, and its discernment is a
foremost task and most accurate path to a new and free life. Idolatry always precipitates
down into the realm of lies and enslaves one. And we are already situated in a quite
terrible slavery of lies. An innumerable quantity of lies has poisoned the awareness of the
people, the heart of the simple people in the dark, those little ones, and dimmed their
minds. Formerly, before the Revolution the people were poisoned by one lie, now they
are poisoned by another lie. Demagoguery is a lie, elevated into a principle, into a
guiding principle of life. The demagogue considers every lie appropriate to the attaining
of his goals, for enticing the masses. All the revolutionary-socialistic phraseology of our
day is being transformed all more and more into a conditional lie, similar to the lie from
that phraseology, upon which rested the Old Regime. Those, who hide themselves behind
the veils of lofty words about the sanctity of the Fatherland, the state and the Church, too
often in fact have betrayed the Fatherland, undermined the state and surrendered the
Church into the grip of the dark powers. And thus do many of those deal with the Divine
value of freedom, veiling themselves under the new revolutionary phraseology. The real
significance and the real weight of words is lost, since behind these words stand the
human souls of scoundrels.

"Dark and irresponsible influences" the same thus begin to govern the revolution,
just as they had governed the old ruling powers. Betrayal, provocation and cruel greed
thus veil themselves the same behind loud slogans of "Internationalism", "Revolutionary
Socialism" etc., just as earlier they had been veiled behind loud slogans of
"Monarchism", "True-Russian Patriotism" etc. Bolshevism has too much in common with
Rasputinism and the Black Hundreds. The Reds and the Blacks in the colours of the
masses has ultimately gotten all jumbled together. Even prior to the Revolution one
tended to hear from respected Social-Democrats, that in the midst of Bolshevism it was
difficult to distinguish the revolutionaries from the provocateurs and traitors. The moral
principle itself revolutionary maximalism is such, that it makes difficult any distinctions,
since everything is declared permissible for revolutionary aims and truth is not
considered essential. There coalesces an underground atmosphere, an apprehensive fear
of light. In this atmosphere Azeph flourished. This atmosphere was always muddled with
the security forces, with the departments of the police, with murky underground Court
influences. This underground and ambiguous atmosphere did not disappear after the
turnabout, it passed over into the new and free Russia, where thee ought not to be such a
place for underground intrigues. The conveyers of this atmosphere were primarily
Bolsheviks. The disclosures, which were made after 4 July about the German espionage,
about the treason and betrayal among those, who called themselves internationalists and
the solely true Bolshevik-Socialists, tend to have too much in common with what was
revealed about Myasoedov and Sukhomlinov, and with what fell out surrounding the
name Shtiurmer and the German party at Court. It reeked in spirit. We have not gotten
free nor cleansed, we are all still in slavery to the dark powers, we are all still languishing
in the underground. The Revolution has undergone a moral corruption, its idealistic
elements have been squeezed out and fallen into slavery to dark ambiguous elements. The
nihilism from the right and the nihilism from the left -- are of the selfsame nature.

III

In the name of "Revolution" now is permitted the same sort of lie, as earlier was
permitted in the name of "Monarchy". The prestige of the idol is set higher than the truth,
the simple and in its simplicity Divine truth. The Revolution has not freed us from the
false guarding of the prestige of the prevailing powers, it demands the guarding of its
own prestige foremost of all. And this provides the push onto the path of falsehood. The
new, the free life will begin in Russia only then, when in the name of truth, set
uppermost, there is the consent to sacrifice every prestige, every conditional lie, -- of the
Revolution, just as with the Monarchy. Let reign the prestige of truth itself, which with
all its powers ought to be revealed in the heart of the people, and let vanish every
falsehood, all the conditional phraseology! It is time already to loudly declare, that the lie
with its principle has poisoned the Russian freedom and plunged us into slavery. The
Socialist parties with their maximalist bent have from their very start permitted the lie for
the guarding of their own prestige, the prestige of the Revolution, since they worshipped
not God but an idol. Many a lie and untruth has begun to hold sway in Russian life. All
these demagogic cries about the "bourgeoise", "bourgeoisness" and "bourgeois", to which
also have been enumerated all thinking and educated Russia, all these inquests into
"bourgeois countre-revolution" from the very start have been an ugly lie. Beyond pushing
off from the coasts and sailing the sea, the bourgeoise of the Russian peasant-kingdom do
not in any genuine and precise sense of the word play any role amongst us. Such still
faces a progressive developement. The real danger, countre-revolution, threatens
exclusively from the side of the Bolsheviks and anarchists. Reasonable and respectable
Socialists finally begin to perceive this, but they do not want to loudly talk about this out
of fear of causing a loss of prestige for revolutionary socialism. There was an ugly lie in
the assertion, that the war was being waged exclusively in the name of the grasping
interests of an international bourgeoise, led by P. N. Miliukov. And this then, when it
involved the matter of the elementary defense of the Fatherland and its honour. There
was an ugly lie in the veiling over of desertion and quite greedy egoism with loud words
about internationalism and the brotherhood of peoples. All this lie undermined the army
and prepared for us an unheard of scandal of treason and flight from the field of conflict.
An ugly lie -- was in the assertion, that the human mass as it were could exist and fulfill
its duty without state, churchly or cultural discipline. The masses, having returned to the
natural state, are transformed into disorderly mobs and in the final end into beastly
hordes. It is an ugly lie to term as socialism the greedy and grasping interests of the
elemental masses, not subject to any sort of a common and higher truth. An ugly lie is in
the view, that the Petrograd events of 4 July have no direct connection with the
Bolsheviks, and that the responsibility for this rests upon the emergence of some sort of
countre-revolutionary elements and even upon the withdrawal of the Cadet ministers. It is
an ugly lie that cries out, that the People's Freedom Party -- is bourgeois, that it defends
the interests of the capitalists, and that in it is lodged the seeds of countre-revolution.
Honestly and as regards the actual reality, this party can as it were be accused of a certain
academism, an over-reliance upon external constitutional forms, a clumsiness in
attracting to itself the broader masses, in evoking any passionate responses from them,
and in insufficient strength and will. This -- is the party of a legislative idealism, the least
greedy of our parties, clean of any demagoguery, but suffering with party bureaucratism.
In its composition, the Cadet Party is the party of the utmost Intelligentsia of the land, of
professors and Zemstvo members, while any "bourgeois" elements in the precise sense of
the word play in it but an insignificant role. It is an ugly lie to confess the principles of
democracy, to demand a Constituent Assembly, while deciding everything prior to the
Constituent assembly and without out. The revolutionary Socialistic Democracy prior to
the Constituent Assembly, i.e. without the will of the sovereign people, is deciding the
form of governance, the agrarian question, regional autonomy and suchlike basic
questions. But the truth consists in this, that for revolutionary socialism altogether
unneeded are the principles of democracy and unneeded is the Constituent Assembly,
since it represents a danger for any purely class party, because it subordinates every class
to the will of the nation. And it is the Cadets namely that appear at present to be the most
consistent democrats. There is the falsehood too in proclaiming maximal social slogans,
the actual and real achievement of which there is no belief in, and which are proclaimed
only for attracting the masses. There is an ugly lie in bowing down to the mass elements
of the Revolution, to seek in it itself the criteria of truth and right and to term as countre-
revolutionary every attempt to subordinate this mass element to criteria of truth and right,
such as is independent of the capriciousness of the human masses. It is a lie -- to proclaim
freedom and at every step to impede it. An heap of lies forms the murkiness in the
revolutionary atmosphere. Only the truth, independent of rapid shifts by days and hours,
and not dependent upon the inconstant instincts of the masses, can set us free. Politics has
been poisoned by falsehood, with some -- for craven ends, and with others -- for ends
more lofty, but still bereft of moral bases. All this leads to an awareness of the eternal
truth, that the rebirth of a people cannot be exclusively external and material-social, that
it has to be first of all an inward changing of the soul of a people, a victory within it of
truth over the lie, of God over mere idols, with a spiritual restoration of the health of the
human person. The voice of truth and a basic moral instinct compel one to admit, that in
the present threatening hour what matters is the saving of our native-land, the saving of
Russia, and not the Revolution, and that the governance of a national salvation can only
be of such a government, in which are included representatives of all the groups, and all
the parties, and not the party of a single class, which cannot hold the trust of the nation.
The politics of a governance of national salvation can only be a politics of all the nation
in common.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

24 July 1917
Republished in Tom 4 of Berdiaev Collected Works by YMCA Press, in the collection of
1917-1918 Berdyaev articles under the title, "Dukhovnye osnovy russkoi revoliutsii
(Stat'i 1917-18)" ("Spiritual Grounds of the Russian Revolution (Articles 1917-18)",
Paris, 1990, p. 83-91.

The Religious Foundations

of Bolshevism
(From the Religious Psychology of the Russian People)

(1917-#275)

I.

Such a setting of theme might evoke astonishment. What relationship has

Bolshevism to religion? The Bolsheviks, just like the overwhelming majority of the
Social Democrats, -- are materialists, positivists, atheists, foreign to them is every
religious interest, and they mock at any religious setting of themes. Everyone tends to
say, that Bolshevism is a phenomenon totally non-religious and anti-religious. All this is
indeed so, if we stay at the surface and regard as conclusive those word formulas, in
which people tend to cloak their consciousness. But I think, that the Bolsheviks themself,
as so often transpires, know not the final truth about themself, do not perceive, of what
sort of spirit they are. To recognise about them a final truth, to recognise, of what sort of
spirit they are, is possible only for people of a religious consciousness, endowed with a
religious criterion of distinction. And here, I am wont to say, that Russian Bolshevism --
is the manifestation of a religious order, in it are active certain ultimately religious
energies, if by religious energy be understood not only that, oriented towards God. A
religious substitute, an inverted religion, a pseudo-religion -- is indeed likewise the
manifestation of a religious order, in it there is its own absoluteness, its own final end, its
own all-encompassing aspect, its own pseudo and phantasmic plenitude. Bolshevism is
not merely politics, not simply a social struggle, it is not a partialised and differentiated
sphere of human activity. Bolshevism is a state of spirit and a phenomenon of spirit, an
entire world-sense and world-outlook. Bolshevism has pretentions to seize upon the
whole of man, all his powers, it seeks to give answer to all the questions of man, upon all
the human torments. Bolshevism seeks to be not merely some-thing, not merely a part,
not some separate sphere of life, but rather the all, and all-encompassing. As a fanatic
faith-confession, it does not tolerate anything alongside it, does not want to have anything
separate from it, it wants to be the all and in all. Bolshevism indeed is socialism, having
reached a religious disposition and a religious exclusiveness. In this it is akin to the
French revolutionary syndicalism. In all its formal signs Bolshevism displays religious
pretentions, and it is necessary to define, of what sort is this religion, of what sort is the
spirit that it conveys with it into the world.
 Revolutionary Social Democracy has become subject to a process of fading
intensity, of becoming bourgeois, of differentiation, it gradually is becoming transformed
into a practical social politics of the evolutionary-reform type. The pathos of
revolutionary socialism imperceptibly has become weather-beaten. The European Social
Democrats have become cultural people, they have acknowledged such "bourgeois"
values, as nationality and the state, and their teleological world-concept has become
transformed into a partialised matter. Only within the consciousness of the Russian
Bolsheviks does the revolutionary socialism remain a religion, with which by fire and
sword they want to thrust upon the world. This is something upon the order of a new
Islam, in which they want to merit themself paradise by the killing of unbelievers. The
Bolsheviks, just like all religious fanatics, divide all the world and all mankind into two
realms -- the realm of God, the realm of the socialistic proletariat, in opposition to the
realm of the devil, the bourgeois realm. But all the while I shall be speaking about the
sincere, the believing Bolsheviks, since in this medium there are also many dark
elements, provocateurs, spies, the corrupt, and moral idiots.

The religious basis of Bolshevism for the time being is very unclear and for many
unnoticed. But a Christian, believing in the Christ having come and awaiting the Christ to
come, has to assume the audacity to declare, what sort of spirit it is that enters the world
with the fanatical revolutionary socialism of the Bolsheviks. The Russian great writers --
Dostoevsky in the "Legend about the Grand Inquisitor", and Vl. Solov'ev in his "Tale
about the Anti-Christ" -- help us to solve the riddle of this spirit. Russian religious
thought has done much for exposing the ultimate religious foundations of socialism, for
making apparent its twofold nature, it has done this moreso, than has Western thought.
Within Russian religious thought there has always been an apocalyptic disposition and
striving. And therefore it has succeeded in making clear, that this is the spirit, of one who
is to appear at the end times and who will tempt with his semblance to Christ, who will
act in the name of the happiness and well-being of people, in the name of a million happy
infants, not knowing sin. This spirit desires to leave people happy, having deprived them
of spiritual freedom. For the renouncing of their spiritual birthright, the renouncing of the
image of God in man and his Divine destiny, the Grand Inquisitor promises happiness,
bliss, world-unity and tranquility. "He sets about to the merit of himself and his, that the
final thing is that they shall have vanquished freedom, and rendered things thus, that they
have made people happy". "Yes, we shall force them to work, but in their hours free of
toil we shall arrange their life, as child's play, with childish songs, with choruses and
dancing. Oh, we shall absolve them also their sins, for they are weak and without
strength". "And all will be happy, all the millions of beings". "If it were to be in that light,
then certainly already it is not for such, as they are". And the hero of the "Legend about
the Anti-Christ" -- is a great philanthropist, he likewise wants to make people happy, he
ultimately resolves the social question and installs a social paradise, but all this at a
terrible price.

II.

Dostoevsky and Solov'ev prophetically and with genius revealed this twofold image
of suchlike future alluring millions of infants. When one ponders what at present is
occurring, one tends to remember then the truth of the words of the Legend of the Grand
Inquisitor: "Nothing ever for man and human society has been more unbearable than
freedom". Both the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" and the "Tale about the Anti-Christ"
posit the problem concerning the Anti-Christian connection with the problem of
socialism. And truly within socialism, as a worldwide phenomenon on a massive scale,
there is something twofold and divided -- within it truth is mixed together with lie, Christ
with the Anti-Christ, a principle liberating together with a principle enslaving. Socialism
-- is a very complicated phenomenon, complicated both in idea, and complicated in life.
And it is impossible simply to be a friend of socialism or its enemy. The alluring
temptation of the Anti-Christ is grounded upon this, that the ultimate evil manifests itself
under the guise of seeming good, that this ultimate evil is impossible to distinguish on the
surface, that the evil power acts in the name of the well-being of mankind, in the name of
lofty, just, beautiful aims, in the name of equality and brotherhood, in the name of
universal happiness and felicity. Upon this basis rests all the whole seductive dialectics of
the spirit of the Anti-Christ, as revealed by Dostoevsky. This spirit accepts all those
temptations, spurned by Christ in the wilderness. This spirit conducts the Inquisitor's acts
of violence in the name of the well-being and happiness of people, in the name of justice
and equality. Socialism, as a religion, is first of all also the acceptance of the first
temptation in the wilderness, the temptation of the loaves of bread. "And see Thou these
stones in this barren and scorched wilderness? Turn them into bread, and Thou wilt win
over mankind, like an herd, grateful and obedient, though also eternally trembling, lest
Thou hold back Thine hand and cease Thine bread for them". And the obedient herd is
won over by those, who would tempt it with the turning of stones into bread. Bolshevism
follows in the footsteps of the Grand Inquisitor. In the name of happiness and equality
this spirit would destroy everything uplifting, everything of quality, everything of value,
all freedom, all individuality. This spirit preaches a worldwide equality of bliss in non-
being. This spirit hates being, as qualitative, as uplifting, all in the name of equality and
blissful tranquility it would destroy and subject it to non-being. Hateful to this spirit is
that ontological aristocratism, which sets at the basis of every religion and most of all --
Christianity, an aristocratism of spiritual freedom and spiritual birthright, of the Divine
descent of man. This spirit of Hamism affirms instead a lower descent of man's origin.
People for it -- are not sons of God, but rather sons of the world. From a verymost low
matter and material darkness it seeks to arouse revolt and rebellion in the name of a
leveling down and equating being with non-being, in the name of submerging all the
qualities of being into a qualityless non-being. This -- is a mystical Communism.

This spirit accepts not only the first temptation with the loaves of bread, but also the
two other temptations, and upon them it desires to create a kingdom of this world. This
spirit consents to worship the kingdom of this world and plunges into the abyss. The
worldwide revolutionary socialism of the Bolsheviks wants to transform stones into
bread, to plunge headlong into the revolutionary abyss in the hope of a revolutionary
miracle and to found a forever kingdom of this world, replacing the kingdom of God.
This religion of socialism is opposite in everything to the religion of Christ, which
teaches, that not by bread alone doth a man live, but also by the word of God, it teaches
to worship the Lord God alone, and not the kingdom of this world, it repudiates the
temptation for a miracle, in the name of freedom. The religion of socialism wants to
destroy everything qualitative of being, everything uplifting, and to drown it in non-
being. It spurns freedom, the freedom of the sons of God, and it accepts the necessity and
coercion of the sons of this world, of the children of lower matter. The temptation of a
world social cataclysm, "of a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom",
is also the allure with the temptation to plunge into the abyss, the temptation for a social
miracle. The social revolution, having taken on a mystical hue, is also the third
temptation, spurned by Christ in the name of the spiritual freedom of man. To this
temptation has to be opposed a social sobriety, as a demand for ascetic religious
discipline. Socialism, as a problem of social politics and social ethics, as social
reformism, as a real bettering of the lot of the toiling, providing daily bread, is religiously
neutral and can comprise an inalienable part of the Christian attitude towards life. In
socialism there is its own great truth. But this true socialism issues forth from the
freedom of the human spirit and does not permit of the enslaving of the human spirit at
the price of bread and the dark abyss, the promises of a miraculous bliss in an earthly
kingdom. Socialism however, in its dreaming about the creation of a worldwide kingdom
by mechanical revolutionary miracles, is a temptation of the Anti-Christ, it denies the
freedom of the spirit and deprives man of his filial relationship of sonship to God.

III.

Russians by their feminine nature readily fall subject to the allures of twofold
images, to the temptations of evil, masked under the guise of good. Imposters and
pretenders are so characteristic in Russian history. Within it have often appeared twofold
images, the nature of which are indeterminate, not as a person, but as a mask. In our
mystical sects amongst the people there have been no little of such masks, twofold
images, pseudo-Christs and pseudo-Mothers of God. In the Russian people there is a very
peculiar element, the Klysty element, submerged within the depths of the pagan roots of
the life of the people. Russian Klystyism in the final end is bound up with an incorrect
and impaired interrelationship of the masculine and feminine principles in the soul and
the character of the Russian people. Within the mystical depths of the Russian people
there has not occurred as it were a marital consummation, a true union of the masculine
and feminine principles within the people's character. The soul of the people remains
feminine, separated from the masculine principle, eternally awaiting a bridegroom and
eternally not accepting any as her destined one. Upon this basis has developed a
metaphysical hysteria in the character of the Russian people. Dostoevsky discerned it.
Upon this basis blossoms forth every sort of obsession. The obsession with Bolshevism is
a new form of the age-old Russian Klystyism. This Klystyism can alike be both black,
and red, the Klysty-like hero can alike be either Grigorii Rasputin, or Lenin. And all this
would be thus a manifestation of the passivity, and not the activity of the Russian soul, its
sickly ugly and hysterical femininity. The Bolsheviks, certainly, are under the domination
of a sort of spirit unrecognised by them, they are passive to the core and they mislead
otherwise only by their revolutionary shouting on the outside. A masculine and active
spirit would never be dominant in such elements.

With the more masculine peoples of the West, having received a Catholic or
Protestant upbringing, there is a sharper sketching out of the boundaries, moreso a
separating apart good from evil, God from the devil, than in the Russian indistinctness.
The Catholic world has been tempted by the devil, as evil, but this is a distinctness of
form, a crystalised world perceptive of its boundaries, and is not so readily tempted by
the Anti-Christ -- by evil, having assumed the guise of good. Satanism, the demonic
aspect has always been a specialty of the Catholic and Romance world; the Anti-Christ
however is a specialty of the Orthodox Slavic world, with its indistinctness and
unlimitedness. The devil is not a temptation for the Russian soul, but the Anti-Christ can
quite readily be a temptation for it. The devil presupposes distinctness, the Anti-Christ
however is grounded in confusion and substitution. This -- is a very interesting contrast in
religious psychology. The satanic sects are impossible in the Russian Orthodox East, but
very possible there is a confusion of pseudo-Christs with the true Christ, and in the
Russian mystical sects this is always occurring. The piously pure cult of the Virgin Mary
readily gets jumbled together with Astartism, and the Mother of God gets identified with
a pagan goddess of the earth.

The West has everything set within its place, has in place all its religion, its culture,
all its activity, its manly history, its chivalrous past, its free submission to law and norms.
This makes the West little sensitive to the mystical impulses of the spirit of the Anti-
Christ. The feel of the Anti-Christ is a religious specialty of Russia. It was there always in
the religious life of the people and also at the heights, in Russian literature, in Dostoevsky
and Solov'ev, and in the modern religious searchings. Within the Russian nature there is
no sharp separation of good and evil. Russians tend to be captivated by evil, under the
guise of good, whereas that selfsame evil, in not assuming the guise of good, rarely tends
to captivate them. Here is why for Russians the dread thing is not the devil, but rather the
Anti-Christ -- an ultimate and approaching manifestation of evil. And with Russians
particularly strong has taken hold the religion of revolutionary socialism, of a magical
socialism, the religion of Bolshevism, captivating with its equality, justice and world
triumph of an ultimate social truth and social paradise. Western socialism -- is a matter of
laws; the Russian socialism however -- is lawless. Bolshevism is a Russian, a national
phenomenon, and this -- is our national ailment, which also in the past has always existed
in Russian history, but in different forms. Germany is making use of this sickness of the
Russian spirit, turning it into its own obedient tool. The manly German spirit is
committing violence over the feminine Russian soul, abusing its sick passivity and
hysteria. Germanism has presumptions to be the bridegroom in marriage to the Russian
earth. To conquer this Russian sickness is impossible merely by rational, state, political
methods of doctoring. To conquer it is possible only religiously, only by opposing against
the false semblance of the Good with rather the authentic power of the Good -- of Christ.
In this world the kingdom of the Anti-Christ can occur only as the result of the non-
success of the matter of Christ in the world, -- it proposes to unite by violence this world,
which is not being united in the love and freedom of Christ. If the principle of the Anti-
Christ triumphs, then the blame will fall upon the Christian world, upon Christian
mankind, upon its spiritual bourgeoisness. Christians do not show even an hundredth part
of the energy, that the Bolsheviks show. In truth, the energy of the latter -- is misleading,
is illusory, it is only an obsession. But a most important matter is the uniting of all the
powers of the Christian world against the coming evil, since the struggle with it has to be
conducted not only on the external, the political and social plane, but also in the inward,
the spiritual and religious plane.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

11 July 1917

© 2007 by Fr. S. Janos

(1917-275-en)

RELIGIOZNYE OSNOVY BOL'SHEVIZMA. Article originally published in the

weekly Journal "Russkaya svoboda", Petrograd-Moskva, 8 aug. 1917, No. 16/17.

Republished in Tom 4 of Berdiaev Collected Works by YMCA Press, in the collection of

1917-1918 Berdyaev articles under the title, "Dukhovnye osnovy russkoi revoliutsii
(Stat'i 1917-18)" ("Spiritual Grounds of the Russian Revolution (Articles 1917-18)",
Paris, 1990, p. 29-37.

Concerning Freedom and Integrity

of the Word
(1917 - #281)

When they speak with pathos about the freedoms won by the Revolution1, then first
of all they ought to have in view those rights of man, which cannot be taken away in the
name of whatever the earthly blessings. But it is about these sacred and inalienable rights
of man among us that they least of all think and least of all care about. Pathos for the
freedom of man does not exist within the elements of the Russian Revolution. There is a
strong basis to think, that Russians do not love freedom and do not value freedom. Our
so-called "Revolutionary Democracy" is obsessed with a passion for equality, such as the
world has never seen, but under freedom it however understands the right of violence
against neighbours in the name of its interests, and arbitrariness in the overall leveling. In
the name of equality it is ready among us to destroy whatever freedom pleases it. And the
moral source of the denial of rights, such as guarantee freedom, mustneeds be sought in
the weak awareness of the sense of duty and in an undeveloped sense of personal dignity.
The rights of man presuppose first of all a sense of duty in a man. Without an awareness
of the duty to preserve the sacred right of one's neighbour, it is impossible to speak
seriously about any sort of rights, for all rights will be squashed. The Russian
revolutionary consciousness however initially denies the sense of duty in man, it stands
exclusively upon the pretensions of man. And one, in whom the pretensions and demands
are stronger than the sense of duty and obligation, morally loses his rights, morally buries
his freedom. In the Russian revolutionary democratic emotional outlook there has
completely faded the sense of guilt, such as is characteristic of the children of God, and it
has been replaced by a sense of endless pretensions, as is characteristic to the children of
this world. Any awareness of duties has faded in that element, which now is dominant in
Russia, and therefore outrages are committed incessantly against the rights of man. In the
guarantee of the rights of man most important -- is not the pretensions of one, who
possesses a right, but rather the sense of duty in one, who ought to respect these rights
and not infringe upon them.

Russian revolutionary democracy sees as its most valuable conquests the universal
electoral right, as in the Constituent Assembly, in the developing of the class struggle, in
the democratisation and socialisation of society, but it fails to see them in the rights of
man, in the free rights of man. And indeed this is no surprise. The spiritual understanding
of freedom is totally foreign to the revolutionary democracy, and it is prepared to betray
freedom, such as is bound up with the birthright of man, for a motley pottage of interests.
And the Russian Revolution has given us no sort of the real and substantial rights and
freedoms of man. We have no habeus corpus. On the contrary, in the measure that the
Revolution has "developed" and "deepened", all the moreso there has triumphed the
outrage against every human right and every human freedom. And first of all it has
proven a stifling of the most sacred of the rights of man, the most sacred of freedoms --
the freedom of the word, the freedom of speech. We are experiencing a period of the
most terrible servility of word and slavery of thought. In our nightmarish days, few are
those who are resolved freely and independently to think, freely and independently to
express their thought in words. Our press is in sore straits; it is in a condition of restraint,
and tends to support the conditional lie, connected with the ruling powers. Formerly it
tended much to speak about "his majesty the lord emperor", now in no less quantity it
tends to speak the conditional lie about its majesty the revolutionary democracy. And no
one makes bold to say, that the king has on no clothes (as in the saying of Anderson). On
the streets and squares few are those who are resolved loudly to express their thoughts
and feelings, everyone is afraid to turn upon them the heads the comrades in the
neighbourhood. The Russian people have begun to speak in whispers the same, as during
the worst times of the Old Regime. And it is necessary straight out and loudly to say, that
the freedom of thought and the freedom of speech at present is in greater peril, than it was
in the Old Regime. Back then for speaking freely they threw you in prison and exiled you
to Siberia, now they might tear you to pieces and murder you. Back then, under the old
oppression, free speech did work and it radically criticised the governing powers, morally
it made a protest against the oppression and for a whole century it morally undermined
the prestige of the powers, which had deprived people of rights and freedoms. Societal
opinion went against the fundamental principles of the old tyranny and it always
expressed this, though in a roundabout language. Now societal opinion has been rendered
less free. Few are those who might resolve to rise up against the fundamental principles
of the modern oppression and expose the moral ugliness of the present-day tyranny. The
tyranny of the mob is more terrible, than the tyranny of the one or of several. Russian
thought is situated in a grievous state of captivity. Societal opinion has become paralysed,
it has lost its moral centre. There is no sounding forth freely and independently, rising
above the struggle of interests, above the raging elements, there does not sound forth such
a voice of the national conscience, of the national sense of reason, of thought-word
(logos).

II

Many among us tend to criticise the tactics of revolutionary democracy, they appeal
for unity and coalitions, but morally they capitulate before that element, which breeds
tyranny, which forcibly abuses thought and speech. Too much already everything is
blamed on the Bolsheviks, who have become a common target, at a time when the evil is
not only in them and it not only they that are destroying freedom in Russia. The evil has
spread widely and its sources run deep. Our intelligentsia has confessed the world-
concept of the slave, it has denied the very sources of freedom -- the spiritual nature of
man, of man's sonship to God. The people for too long already have lived in slavery and
darkness. And the most sacred rights of man, justified by his boundless spiritual nature,
have been surrendered over into the grip of the quantitative human masses, the harrowing
crowd. And if the fate of the freedom of the word is being entrusted to utilitarian interests
and calculations, then in recent days the right to have this word is admitted only insofar
as it is of service to the revolutionary democracy, but they abuse and refuse the right to
words, which serve other ends, more lofty and deeper ends, upon this shaky ground that it
is only words, playing up to the interests and instincts of the masses, that should receive
unlimited freedom. All other words however, resounding from a greater depth, are
subject to suspicion and violence. An hideous sense of blackmail connected with
accusations of counter-revolution leads to a tyrannical mob justice against free thought
and speech, the inviolable freedom of the person. It is necessary finally and forcefully to
declare, that a true freedom of the word in Russia presupposes the possibility to have a
say by everyone, even by those, that are proponents of monarchy. If the freedom of the
word be given exclusively to the proponents of the democratic republic, then it will not
be greater, but less so, than under the Old Regime, -- then it would be unlimited freedom
for words, but merely only by the former opposition current. And in a free Russia they
want to limit the freedom of the word to only but one current! And indeed it is
presupposed, that the Constituent Assembly, i.e. the sovereign people, will decide,
whether in Russia there will be a republican or monarchical order, and that consequently
segments having the most varied opinions can freely prepare for it. But monarchical
convictions none of us dare freely express, this would be not without danger, the freedom
and rights of such people could not be guaranteed. And this involves a moral lie, such as
is wont to beget tyranny. Republicans, such as be worthy of this name, ought to bestow
everyone a greater freedom, than did the monarchists. Bereft of the moral right to speak
about freedom necessarily are those, who admit of freedom only for themself and for
their own.

The self-appointed worker and soldier organisations already for half a year have been
committing outrages against the rights of man, they live to deny freedom. It is impossible
to deny not only the right, but also the duty of the workers to organise for defending their
essential interests and for the increase of their societal standing, but with us the soviets
from the very start of the Revolution have entered upon the path towards a class
dictatorship, of a peculiar twist to a monarchical dictatorship, and this has turned into a
destruction of freedom in Russia. The outrage against the freedom and dignity, the
integrity of the word reached its extreme expression, in the playing out of the Kornilov
tragedy. All at once darkness has enveloped Russian society and no one has made bold to
counter it. The press was terrified and conducted itself unworthily, without any resolve to
demand first of all an explanation of the truth, and it swallowed the government's
conditional lie about the "mutiny" of General Kornilov2. An investigation was begun, and
over Russia hung the terrible phantom of a Red Terror, of a self-appointed mob inquiry
over those suspected of sympathising with General Kornilov. Fright seized hold upon the
woesome Russian society, a fright far greater, than in the most terrible times of the
tsardom. Fright always tends to become magnified, but it is characteristic of the spiritual
atmosphere of the Russian Revolution. In Russian society started a moral tenseness. Out
of fear there were whispers about provocations, causing the Kornilov tragedy. The right
even to freely defend General Kornilov, a war hero, a passionate patriot and indisputable
democrat, was not given. And only gradually did exposures leak into the press, shedding
light upon this dark and grim history. But those nightmarish days have ultimately
disclosed for us the absence of the freedom of the word, the manipulation of thought, the
stifling of spirit. For us the course of the Revolution has developed into faint-heartedness.

III

It is necessary loudly to proclaim, that in Revolutionary Russia the freedom of

speech, the freedom of thought does not exist, indeed even less so, than in the old and
autocratic Russia. The revolutionary democratic societal order tends to read better into
the heart of matters and demands a greater conformity of thought, than did the pre-
revolutionary reactionary powers, which were too indifferent to every nuance of societal
thought and incapable of making sense of it. The censorship by the revolutionary
democratic societal setup is more all-encompassing and pervasive, than our old
censorship. And it mustneeds be said, that a censorship urged on by the masses of the
people is always more terrible, than the censorship by a government power, where much
tends to slip by. When the people itself infringes upon the freedom of thought and
speech, this encroachment is more terrible and oppressive, than the encroachment of a
government power, -- in this scenario there is nowhere safe. After the revolutionary
turnabout the constraints of censorship fell off and there was abolished even the military
censorship as is necessary during wartime, but there was not a declaration of the rights of
freedom of thought and the freedom of speech, the infringement upon which is a crime
against both man and God. A wantonness and dissoluteness of speech is not freedom.
This wantonness and dissoluteness has destroyed freedom of speech for us. The freedom
and worthiness, the integrity of speech, presupposes a discipline within speech, an inward
ascesis. The right of the freedom of speech presupposes a sense of responsibility in the
use of words. Every freedom presupposes a disciplining and ascetic effort, and with
irresponsibility it always perishes. Those wanton orgies of words, which for all these
months have been practiced in the revolutionary socialistic press, have prepared the way
for the destruction of all freedom of speech. The wantonness, the dissoluteness and
arbitrariness are destroying freedom, for freedom demands the preservation of integrity in
man, keeping it clean, a self-restraint. The corrupt manipulation of words destroys the
integrity of the word and becomes enslaving. In the revolutionary press occur orgies of
verbal corruption. The revolutionary phraseology has degenerated into a quite real
perversity. Is it not perverse, all those false cries about "counter-revolution", is it not
perverse all these false promises for a speedy start to a social paradise, is it not perverse
all these words about the sacredness of the Revolution, about the sacredness of the
Internationale, etc.? For the winning of a true freedom of the word it is necessary to fight
against this corruption of the word.

Russian writers, conscious of their calling, their integrity and their responsibility for
their native-land, ought to demand a promulgation guaranteeing the freedom of thought
and word. But this demand can morally carry weight only in the mouths of those writers,
who are observant of the higher integrity of word and thought, who set truth and the right
higher than whatever the interests. Over the course of these revolutionary months there
has as it were grown dim the integrity and significance of Russian literature and Russian
free thought. Too many of the Russian writers have been subjected to stifling street
shouts about their "bourgeoisness", about the "bourgeoisness" of all the educated, of all
the creators of culture. In them there has not proven a sufficient strength of resistance in
the face of the raging elements, they go to pieces and begin themself to pronounce words,
inconsistent with the depths of their being. With too many Russian writers there has not
appeared their own unique idea, which they are called to introduce into the life of the
people, and they instead seek for ideas in that very people, which is itself situated in
darkness and in need of light. In Russia there ought to be heard truly free words about
that moral savagery and ugliness, to which we have fallen, and these words ought to be
raised above the struggle of classes, groups and parties, above the struggle for interests
and the struggle for power, they ought to be a reflection of the Divine Word, to which
only can be based the sanctity of the free word and free thought, now so abused and
trampled upon. This is not a question of politics, this -- is a question of the people's
ethics, a question of the religious conscience of the people. The people's conscience and
reason ought to possess a centre, a central focus. And such a central focus can only be
with the bearers of an higher spiritual culture, free of the slave-like orgies. We inevitably
have to renew the spiritual foundations of our life and seek for the inner sources of
freedom. A purely external path will drag us down to ruination and slavery. We have no
further desire for more slavery, neither the old, nor the new. The revolutionary violence
against free thought and words in essence bears within it the seeds of counter-revolution,
it is the violence of the old demonic darkness and it cannot be tolerated in a free land.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

7 October 1917

Republished in Tom 4 of Berdiaev Collected Works by YMCA Press, in the collection of

1917-1918 Berdyaev articles under the title, "Dukhovnye osnovy russkoi revoliutsii
(Stat'i 1917-18)" ("Spiritual Grounds of the Russian Revolution (Articles 1917-18)",
Paris, 1990, p. 216-223.
 1
[trans. note, n.b.: this is the 27 Feb./12 Mar. 1917 Russian "February Revolution"
which formed the Provisional Government under A. F. Kerensky, which was supplanted
by the 15 Oct./ 7 Nov. 1917 Russian "October Revolution" under the Communist
Bolsheviks and V. I. Lenin. Berdyaev's present article here was published on 7 October
1917, late in the life of the Kerensky revolutionary democratic Provisional Government,
and reflects the increasing chaos that led to its collapse.]
2
[trans. note: 28 Aug./ 10 Sept. 1917, when General L. G. Kornilov attempted to restore
order during the prevailing chaos under the Provisional Government, and was in turn
arrested, denounced and vilified by Kerensky, who relied increasingly upon the support
of the leftist socialist soviet elements.]

The Crisis of Art

(1918 - #14,1)

Art has survived many a crisis over its history. The transitions from antiquity to the
Medieval and from the Medieval to the Renaissance betoken such profound crises. But
that, which is occurring with art in our epoch, cannot be termed merely one crisis in a
series of others. We are present at a crisis of art in general, amidst the deepest tremours
within its thousand year old foundations. The old ideal of the classically beautiful art has
become ultimately tarnished, and there is a feeling for a return to its images. Art has
convulsively striven to go beyond its limits. The borderlines have shattered, such as
distinguish one art from another and indeed art in general from that, what yet already is
not art, from what is higher or lower than it. There has never yet been so acutely put the
problem of the relation of art to life, of creativity and existence, never yet has there been
such a thirst to pass over from the creativity of producing art to a creativity of life itself,
new life. There is awareness of an impotence of the creative act of man, a lack of
correspondence between the creative task and the creative realisation. Our time knows
simultaneously both an unprecedented creative boldness and an unprecedented weakness.
The man of the utmost final creative day wants to create something never before existing
and in his creative rapture oversteps all the bounds and all the limits. But this finalistic
man fails to create any yet so perfect and beautiful products, such as were created by the
more unassuming man of former epochs.

From opposing ends there is to be noticed a crisis of the old art and the search for new
paths. In modern art can be discerned strivings synthetic and strivings analytic, currents
diametrically opposite. Both the strivings towards a synthesis of arts, towards their
confluence into a single mystery, and the opposite strivings towards an analytic
dissection within each art, tend simultaneously to shake the bounds of each art, and
simultaneously also they signify a profound crisis of art. The synthetic strivings have
been noted already with Mallarme. And in a very vivid decorative setting there was the
musical drama of R. Wagner. The Symbolists were the bearers of these synthetic
strivings. Certain of them wanted to lead art out of the crisis through a return to the
organic artistic era. The arts -- are a product of differentiation. They -- are derived from a
temple and cultic origin, they developed from a certain organic unity, in which all the
parts were subordinated to a religious centre. Many of the Symbolists of our generation
and the generation before dreamt about restoring to art a significance both liturgical and
sacral. The sacral art of the ancient world and of the Medieval world, the most vividly
organic epochs within the history of human culture, remained for them enticing and
captivating, and the call of the past for them was stronger than the call for the future. We
are living out the end of the Renaissance, we are experiencing the final remnants of that
epoch, when the human powers were set free and their bedazzling unfolding begat
beauty. At present this free unfolding of human powers has passed over from
regeneration into degeneration, it no longer still creates the beautiful. And there is an
acute sense of the inevitability of a new direction for the creative powers of man. Man
has become too much free, too much the release from his empty freedom, too much the
exhaustion from the prolonged critical epoch. And man has come into an anguished
yearning within his creativity for organicity, for a synthesis, for a religious centre, for
mystery.

A very brilliant theoretician of these synthetic-organic strivings amongst us is

Vyacheslov Ivanov. To the Futurists he would seem very archaic. His preaching of
sobornost'-communality in art is oriented backwards, to the ancient sources of art and
culture. He -- is eternally the Alexandrian as regards his outlook, and like an
Alexandrian, he experiences the sobornost', the organic and sacral aspect of the ancient
and archaic Greece. When Vyach. Ivanov preaches a theurgic art, his preachings then
bear reminiscences and reflections of the old cultures. The theurgic idea is great. But a
theurgic foundation for contemporary art could easily come to be transformed into a
norm thrust on from the outside, a residue from the remote past. The sobornost' aspect
with V. Ivanov is not at all something immanent for our times, rather instead is quite
transcendent for it. V. Ivanov himself -- is a remarkable poet, but his theoretical strivings
in our epoch, lacking in an awareness of sobornost', can prove dangerous for the
autonomy of art. In the art of painting, Chiurlenis has represented an expression of
synthetic aspirations. He goes beyond the bounds of painting as a distinct and
autonomous art and seeks to synthesis painting with music. He attempts within a musical
painting to express his own cosmic feeling, his own clearly evident contemplation of the
complexion and construct of the cosmos. He is both remarkable and interesting as regards
his strivings. But the painting of Chiurlenis is inadequate to his visions, it is an
incomplete transformation of them into a different language, as it were. He is
picturesquely helpless, the painting insufficiently elaborated and the history of painting
unenriched by new norms. The painting of Chiurlenis -- is a very characteristic example
of what, as synthetic strivings, can have destructive effects upon art, and in any case,
would express a profound deficiency for art: the striving towards a synthesis of the arts
and the subjoining of mysticism to art can be destructive of the artistic form.
Immeasurably more powerful is another expresser of synthetic strivings. I have in mind
the revolutionary genius of Scriabin. In modern art I know of no one else, in whom there
has been such a rapturous creative outburst, devastating the old world and laying the
foundations for a new world. The musical genius of Scriabin is so great, that in music he
has managed adequately to express his own new and catastrophic world-sense, to extract
from the dark depths the existence of sounds, which the old music had ignored. He
wanted to create a mysterium, in which would be synthesised all the entirety of art. And
the mystery he conceived of eschatologically. It should have to be the end of this world.
All the creative values of this worldly aeon, towards which we approach, would enter into
the mystery. And this world would end, when there resound the sounds of this finalative
mystery. The creative vision of Scriabin is unprecedented in its boldness, but scarcely is
it likely that he will bring it to realisation. And yet he himself is an astonishing
phenomenon of the creative path of man. This creative path of man makes art obsolete in
the old and seemingly eternal sense of the word. The synthetic searchings give a pull
towards mysterium and by this they go out beyond the bounds not only of the separate
arts, but also of art in general. What however happens with art in its modern analytic
aspirations?

The positings of a verymost profound crisis of art are not the result of the synthetic
searchings, but of rather the analytic searchings. The searchings for a synthesis of art, the
searchings after a mysterium, the attempts at a return to an art liturgical and sacral has as
its representatives remarkable thinkers and creative people, but in them there is much
preserved from the old and eternal art, and it is not ultimately shaken down to its
foundations. In the strivings towards synthesis nothing is dissociated, the cosmic winds
do not carry off the artist-creators and the artistic creations from those age-old spots,
which are prepared for them within the organic structure of the earth. Even within the
revolutionary art of Scriabin there is to be noted not so much a dissociation and
dissolution, as rather the conquests of new spheres. But with Scriabin there was even too
great a faith in art, and his bonds with the great past were not sundered. An altogether
different nature and different sense obtains in those phenomena, which I term as the
analytic aspirations in modern art, shattering and sundering every organic synthesis both
of the old natural world and of the old art. Cubism and Futurism in all its manifold hues
appears an expression of these analytic strivings, shattering all organicity. These waftings
of a final day and final hour of human creativity ultimately disintegrate the old beautiful
embodied art, always connected with antiquity, with the crystalising forms of the flesh of
the world. The most remarkable results of this tendency obtain in painting.

A genius-endowed representative of Cubism is the artist Picasso. When one gazes

upon a picture by Picasso, one then tends to think belaboured thoughts.1 "The happiness
of an embodied life under the sunlight has vanished. The wintry cosmic wind has stripped
away the veil behind the veil, all the flowers and the leaves have become scorched,
stripping away the skin of things, all that was clothed has fallen away, all the flesh,
manifest in images of incorruptible beauty, has dissipated. It comes to seem, that never
will ensue the cosmic Springtime, never will there be the leaves, the greenery, the
beautiful veilings, the embodied synthetic forms. It comes to seem, that after the terrible
Winter of Picasso the world will not yet blossom forth, as before, that in this Winter will
fall away not only all the veils, but likewise all the objective corporeal world will become
unhinged down to its very foundations. There transpires as it were a mysterious coming
apart of the cosmos. All more and more it becomes impossible to posit a synthetically-
whole artistic apperception and creativity. Everything analytically is dissolved and
dismembered. By means of such an analytic dismemberment the artist intends to get
down to the very skeleton of things, down to the solid forms, hidden behind the softening
veils. The material veilings of the world have begun to disintegrate and shred apart and
there is the searching out of the solid substances, hidden behind this softening. In his
searching out of the geometric forms of objects, the skeleton of things, Picasso has
arrived at a stone age. But this -- is an illusory stone age. The gravity, the solidness and
welding together of the geometric figures of Picasso only seems so. In actuality the
geometric bodies of Picasso, assembled from the cubic skeletons of the corporeal world,
fall apart from the slightest shake. The final layer of the material world, revealing itself to
Picasso the artist after stripping away all the veils, -- is illusory, and not real. Picasso -- is
a merciless exposer of the illusion of an embodied, materially synthetic beauty. Behind
the captivating and alluring feminine beauty he sees the terror of disintegration,
dissolution. He, in his sharp-sightedness, sees through all the veilings, the covering
cloths, in layers there also, in the depths of the material world, he sees its own deposits of
the monstrous. This -- is the demonic grimacings of the fettered spirits of nature. To go
still further in depth, and for there still to be no sort of materiality, -- there already is the
inward structure of nature, of the hierarchy of spirits. Painting, just like all the plastic
arts, had been an embodiment, a materialisation. The highest upsurges of the old painting
provided a crystalised and formalised flesh. Painting was connected with a firmness of
the embodied physical world and stability of formal matter. But now at present painting
is experiencing an as yet unprecedented crisis. If one penetrate the further into this crisis,
then it becomes impossible to term it otherwise than as a dematerialisation, a
disembodied sort of painting. In painting is transpiring something, it would seem, quite
opposite the very nature of the plastic arts. Everything already as it were has become
exhausted within the sphere of the embodied, materially-crystaline painting. In modern
painting there is no spirit that becomes embodied, becomes materialised, and matter itself
becomes dematerialised, becomes disembodied, and loses its solidness, its firmness and
sense of form. Painting submerges itself into the depths of matter and there, in the very
final layers, it finds there already no materiality. With Picasso the boundaries of physical
bodies become unsteady. In modern art the spirit as it were tends to wane, and flesh to be
dematerialised. This -- is a very deep jolting for the plastic arts, and which shakes the
very essence of the plastic form. The dematerialisation in painting can produce the
impression of the ultimate collapse of art. It would seem, that in nature itself, in its
rhythm and cyclic-turns, that something irreversibly has fractured and changed. The
world has altered its veilings. The material veilings of the world were merely temporary
coverings. The age-old attire of being has rotted and fallen away".

All the firm delineations of being have shattered, become decrystalised, stretched
apart, pulverised. Man passes over into the state of an object, objects pass over into the
human state, one object passes over into another object, all the layers get jumbled, all the
planes of being get confused. This new sense of world life attempts to find its expression
in Futurist art. Cubism was but one of the expressions of this cosmic whirlwind,
sweeping everything from its place. Futurism in all its manifold variations goes even
further. This -- is a sequential shattering of the features of the settled state of being, the
vanishing of all the definitely delineated images of the objective world. In the old, the
seemingly eternal art, the image of man and the human body had firm contours, he was
distinct from the images of other objects in the world, from minerals, plants and animals,
from rooms, houses, streets and cities, from machines and from the infinitude of the
worldly expanse. In Futurist art there are erased the boundaries, separating the image of
man from other objects, from the enormous mechanical monstrosity, called the modern
city. Marinetti proclaims in his manifesto: "Our bodies enter into the couches, upon
which we sit, and the couches enter into us. The autobus is transformed into the houses,
alongside which we drive past, and in their turn the houses rush at the autobus and pour
off from it". The human image vanishes in this process of a cosmic stretching apart and
pulverisation. The Futurists wanted as though with pathos to kill away and reduce to
ashes the image of man, always reinforced by the image of the material world separate
from him. When the material world is sent reeling to its foundations, the image of man
also is sent reeling. The world in its dematerialisation penetrates through into man, and
man having lost his spiritual stability dissolves away in the diluted down material world.
The Futurists demand a transferring of the centre of gravity from man over to matter. But
this does not mean, that they can be called materialists in the old sense of the word. Man
vanishes, as vanishes also the old matter, with which he corresponded. "To abolish the "I"
within literature, i.e. to abolish all psychology" -- thus formulates Marinetti one of the
points of his programme. "Man does not represent any sort of absolutely greater an
interest. And thus, expunge him from the literature. Chalk him up finally as matter, the
essence of which it is necessary to grasp by bursts of intuition. Discern through his free
objects and capricious motorings of breathing the sensation and instincts of metals,
stones, trees, etc. Eliminate the psychology of man, henceforth empty, with a lyrical
impulse of matter". "Of interest to us is the solidity of the steeliness of the plastic art per
se, i.e. the non-conceptual and non-human union of its molecules and electrons, which
resist, for example, the pull of the nucleus. The warmth of a bit of gland or of wood is
more exciting for us, than the smile or the tears of a woman". "It is necessary, moreover,
to catch the gravity and smell of objects, which up to now they have disdained to do in
literature. To strive, for example, to convey the landscape of smells, perceptible by a dog.
To hearken to motors and reproduce their utterances. Matter always has been investigated
by an absent-minded and cold I, excessively concerned with itself, full of prejudicial
wisdom and human impulses". The hostility to man, to the human "I" is clearly apparent
in the Futurist manifesto of Marinetti. And herein lies concealed a fundamental
contradiction of Futurism. The Futurists want to have the growth of an accelerated
dynamic and yet they deny the wellspring of the creative dynamic -- man. There is no
lever, by which the Futurism could flip over the world. There is no genuine dynamism
within Futurism, the Futurists are situated in the grip of a certain worldwide whirlwind,
not knowing the meaning of what is occurring with them, and essentially, remaining
passive. They are obsessed with a certain sort of process, they spin round in it with an
ever growing acceleration, but actively creative they are not. They are situated in the grip
of a disintegration of the material world. Futurism possesses an enormous symptomatic
significance, it indicates not only a crisis of art, but also a crisis of life itself. Regretably,
the agitational manifestos of the Futurists take precedence over artistic creativity. In these
manifestos they express their own altered sense of life. But they are incapable to
adequately express this new sense of life in the fashionings of art. This creative
incapacity is especially to be sensed in the Futurist poetry and literature. What happens is
a decrystalisation of words, a flattening down of words, sundering words apart from any
sense of the Logos. But a new cosmic rhythm, a new sense of harmony the Futurists fail
to detect. The problem with Futurism consists in this, that it is too oriented backwards,
negatively attached to the past, too concerned with settling accounts with it and not at all
with a passing over to a new creativity in freedom. It is merely a transitory state, moreso
the end-point of the old art, rather than the construction of a new art. The Futurists
perceive only on the surface the quite profound processes of change in human and world
life. But they dwell in a verymost profound spirit of ignorance, with them there is no sort
of spiritual knowledge of the meaning of what is occurring, not that intensive spiritual
life, which would have made visible not only the disintegration of old worlds, but also the
arising of new worlds. A philosophic approach towards apperception is needed within
Futurism.

Where is one to seek out the vital sources behind the Futurist outlooks and Futurist
currents in art? What has transpired within the world? Of what sort is the fact of being
having begotten a new sense of life? There was some particular fateful moment in human
history, the point from which there began to fall apart all the stability and crystaline
aspect of life. The tempo of life has accelerated infinitely, and the whirlwind, caused by
this accelerated pace, has seized hold and sent spinning both man and human creativity.
Near-sightedly one would not have seen that in the life of mankind there has transpired a
changing point, after which over the course of a decade there would happen such
transformations, as earlier occurred only over the course of a century. In the old beauty of
human existence and human art something from this critical moment radically collapsed,
from this revolutionary event. Architecture tended to perish -- that finest expression of
every organic artistic epoch. Modern architectural creativity is marked by the
construction of enormous rail-stations and hotels. All the creative energy of man tends to
go into the planning and construction of automobiles and aeroplanes, upon the discovery
of means of accelerated transportation. The beauty of the old manner of life was static.
The church, the palace, the rustic country-house -- were something static, they relied
upon the stability of life and upon its slow tempo. Now however everything has become
dynamic, everything statically stable is undone, swept up into the rapidity of mechanical
motion. But a new dynamic style has not been fashioned, and there appears doubt of the
possibility of the fashioning of such a style. Decadence was an initial stage of this
process. But it was oriented backwards, in it there was a debilitating and total languor
over the accepting of a process of life, destructive of beauty. The Decadents -- are
aesthetes. Futurism -- is the final stage of this process, it seeks to be oriented forwards, in
it is a delighted acceptance of this process of life, a total devoting of oneself to this
process. And the Futurists -- are anti-aesthetic. What happened, where did it all come
about from?

The machine came out victoriously into the world and shattered the age-old harmony
of organic life. This revolutionary event changed everything in human life, and it affected
everything. It is impossible to sufficiently appreciate this event quite highly enough. Its
enormous significance -- is not only social, but also cosmic. The growth of the
importance of the machine and of the mechanical within human life tends to signify the
entry into a new world aeon. The rhythm of organic flesh within world life has been
broken. Life has been ripped away from its organic roots. Organic flesh has been replaced
by the machine, in the mechanism is to be found the organic developement of its root.
Machinisation and mechanisation -- are a fateful and inevitable cosmic process. It is
impossible to hold back the old organic flesh from ruin. But only to the superficial glance
does the machinisation represent materialisation, in the which spirit perishes. This
process is not a transition from a more complex organic over to a simpler non-organic. At
a deeper glance the machinisation has to be conceived of as a dematerialisation, as a
pulverisation of the flesh of the world, a stretching apart of the material composition of
the cosmos. The machine itself per se cannot kill spirit, it rather moreso enables the
liberation of spirit from its bondage to organic nature. The machine is a crucifixion of the
flesh of the world. Its victorious arrival betokens the eradication of all organic nature, it
bears with it death to both plant and animal, to forests and flowers, to everything organic
and by nature beautiful. The romantic grief over the perishing beautiful flesh of this
world, for flowers, for trees, for pretty human bodies, beautiful churches, palaces and
rustic dwellings is powerless to halt this fatal process. Thus is fulfilled the fate of the
flesh of the world, it moves on towards the resurrection and to a new life through death.
Futurism is a passive reflection of the machinisation, the disintegration and the crumbling
of the old flesh of the world. The Futurists sing out about the beauty of the machine, they
are delighted by its noise, and inspired by its movements. For them the charm of a motor
has replaced the charm of a feminine body or flower. They are fascinated by the machine
and the new sensations, connected with it. The miracle of electrification has replaced for
them the miracle of divinely-beautiful nature. Other planes of being, concealed behind
the physical trappings of the world, they do not know and do not want to know. The
denial of other-worldliness -- is one of the points of the Futurist programme. And
therefore they but reflect the process of disintegration on the physical plane. In their
creativity they are open only to the splinters and chips of the old flesh of the world, they
reflect a confusion of planes, not knowing the meaning of what is transpiring.

Only the spiritual apperceptivity of man can comprehend the transition from an old
and disintegrating world to a new world. Only the creatively-active attitude of man to the
elementally occurring process can beget a new life and a new beauty. The generation of
the Futurists of every shade all too passively but reflect this elemental process. In such
quite latest trends, as Suprematism, there is incisively posited the long since already
considered task of an ultimate liberation of the pure creative act from the grip of the
naturo-objective world. And the painting from a purely graphic element would have to
recreate a new world, totally dissimilar to all the natural world. And in it there should
have to be neither mature, with all its images, nor even man. This is not only a liberation
of art from the here and now, this -- is a liberation from all the created world, a creativity
propped up upon nothing. But is such a radicalism possible for the Futurist
consciousness? I tend to think, that with the Futurists this is merely a powerless creative
gesture and its significance but symptomatic. Futurism as regards its sense of life and its
consciousness is nowise radical, it -- is merely a passing fancy, moreso the end of the old
world, than the beginning of a new. The level of awareness of the Futurists remains
superficial and it never penetrates down into the depths of the cosmic changes. They see
only the surface level of what changes and stormy world movements are happening. That,
what is occurring in the depths, remains hidden for them. They are too servilely
dependent on the processes of the disintegration and stretching apart of the old flesh of
the world, its material trappings, in order for them to be able to create a new world not
dependent upon the external process enslaving them. They are situated under the grip of
the process of mechanisation, and their creativity is full of this machine-like objectness.
They are liberated from the human bodies, from trees, from the seas and the hills, but
they cannot liberate themselves from motors, from the electric light, from aeroplanes. But
indeed this is likewise part of the object-oriented world. It is from this that the Futurists
create, and not from the creative nothingness of the human spirit. The creative spirit is
denied by them, they believe more in motors and electric lamps. The Futurists, given the
condition of consciousness in which they are situated, create under the power of the
motor and reflect the changes, wrought by the motor in world life. There is no wellspring
of the dynamic with them. The Futurists are very shrill in their expressions, but in
essence they are hopelessly unassuming and dependent upon the outward world. And to
the Futurists must be opposed an immeasurably greater radicalism and creative daring,
going out beyond the limits of this world. Passivity is powerless to contend against
Futurism. To return to the old art, to the old beauty of the embodied world, to the
classical norms, is impossible. The world has become disembodied in its trappings,
reincarnated. And art cannot be preserved in its old embodiments. It has to create the
new, the bodies not yet material, it has to carry over into another plane of the world. The
true meaning of the crisis of the plastic arts -- is in the spasmodic attempts to penetrate
beyond the material trappings of the world, to discern a more subtle flesh, to surmount
the law of impenetrability, and this is a radical severing of art from antiquity. In the
Christian world the Renaissance proved that everything is still possible, with its
orientation towards antiquity. The forms of the human body have remained enduring. The
human body -- is a thing of antiquity. The crisis of art, in which we are at present, is
evidently a final and irreversible severing from all classicism.

Futurism obtains moreso in painting, than in literature. Literary Futurism has

manifested itself most of all in manifestos. It is short on artistic creativity. There are a
few poets of talent, and with them are some verses of talent. But a singularly noteworthy
Futurist in artistic prose there is perhaps by name of Andrei Bely. He belongs to the
generation of the Symbolists and he has always confessed a Symbolist faith. But in the
artistic prose of A. Bely can be discerned images of an almost of genius Futurist
creativity.2 This is to be sensed already in his symphonies. "With A. Bely there belongs
uniquely to him an artistic sensing of a cosmic crumbling and stretching apart, a
decrystalisation of all the things of the world, the breaking up and vanishing of all the
firmly established boundaries between objects. With him the images themselves of
people tend to get stretched and decrystalise, the borders get lost, such as separate one
man from another and from the objects round about in his world. One man passes over
into another man, one object passes over into another object, and the physical plane --
into the astral plane, the cerebral process -- into the existential process. There occurs a
displacement and jumbling together of various planes. It began to seem to the hero of
"Peterburg", that both he, and the room, and the objects in that room were re-embodied
momentarily from objects of the real world into mentally-posited symbols purely logical
in construct: the room dimensions became confused together with his lost awareness of
body in the general existential chaos, termed by him the universe; the consciousness of
Nikolai Apollonovich, separated from the body, became directly united with the electric
light of the writing table, and termed "the sun of consciousness". This fragment can be
termed totally Futurist as regards the expression in it of the sense of life. It is
characteristic for A. Bely as a writer and an artist, that with him there begins a spinning
about of words and interactive sounds and in this word-combination whirlwind that being
itself tends to stretch, sweeping away all bounds. The style of A. Bely always in the final
end passes over into a frantic circular motion. A. Bely sensed the whirlwind motion
within cosmic life and found for it an adequate expression in his whirlwind word-
combination. This -- is a direct expression in words of the cosmic whirlwinds. In the
whirlwind intensification of word-combinations and sounds there obtains an increase of
vital and cosmic intensity, an impulsion towards catastrophe. A. Bely stretches and
pulverises the crystaline aspect of words, the solid forms of a word, seemingly eternal,
and by this he expresses the stretching apart and pulverisation of the crystals within every
thing of the objective world. The cosmic whirlwinds as it were break free and tear apart,
pulverise all our settled and solid crystaline world. The creativity of A. Bely is also
Cubism within an artistic prose, in style akin to the painting Cubism of Picasso. With A.
Bely there are torn loose whole veilings of the world's flesh, and for him there are no
already yet salubrious organic images. In him there perishes the old, crystal-like beauty
of the embodied world and there is born a new world, in which there is as yet no beauty.
In the artistic prose of A. Bely everything likewise gets dislodged from its old, seemingly
eternal place, just as with the Futurists. A. Bely belongs to a new era, when the integral
perception of the image of man has been jolted, when man has gone through a
fragmentation. He submerges man into the cosmic infinitude, betrays him to being torn
apart by the cosmic whirlwinds. Lost are the boundary-lines, separating man from the
electric lamp. There opens forth an astral world. The firm boundaries of the physical
world have on the other hand safeguarded the independence of man, his particular firmly
set boundaries, his crystaline features. The contemplation of the astral world, of this
intermediate world betwixt spirit and matter, erases the boundaries, and decrystalises
both man and the world surrounding him. All these whirlwinds -- are astral whirlwinds,
and not whirlwinds of the physical world or of the humanly-emotional world". The
Futurist world-sense and Futurist creativity of A. Bely radically is more distinct from
other Futurists, in that it is connected for him with a great spiritual knowing, with a
contemplation of other planes of being. From spiritual life A. Bely catches sight of a
process of a cosmic disintegration and changing of all the cosmic order, and not from a
dissolution itself of the materiality of the world. Here is why he detects a new cosmic
rhythm, and in this is his virtue as an artist. The art of A. Bely is tormentive, it does not
directly gladden, just as also with modern art. He does not permit of an artistic catharsis.
But A. Bely moves on to other worlds, at a time when the Futurists in their blindness
move on within an empty gaping void. It is necessary to admit of Futurism, to grasp its
significance and move on to a new creativity. For this however there is inevitable a
transition to another path, to another plane, outside that line, along which modern art is
developing.

Art has to be free. This -- is an axiom very elementary, something not worth breaking
a spear over. The autonomy of art has forever been affirmed. Artistic creativity ought not
to be subjected to norms external to it, whether moral, social or religious. But the
autonomy of art does not at all signify, that artistic creativity can or ought to be torn
asunder from spiritual life and from the spiritual developement of man. Freedom is not a
void. Free art emerges out from the spiritual depths of man, as a free fruition. And only
profound and valuable is that art, in which there is sensed this depth. Art reveals freely all
the depth and encompasses by itself all the fullness of being. But those, who are too
frightened of heteronomous principles in art and its subordination to external norms,
think to save the autonomy of art moreso, than they would by forcibly consigning it to an
existence superficial and isolated. This is also what I tend to call spiritual illiteracy. A
man, cast stranded on the surface, a man with an "I" disintegrated core, torn asunder into
mere moments and shreds, cannot create powerful and great art. Art inevitably has to
emerge from its shut-in and isolated existence and pass over to the creativity of a new
life. And in this has to be admitted the truth of the synthetic strivings in art. Theurgy,
about which have tended to dream the finest Symbolists and heralds of a religious art, --
represents the ultimate limit of human creativity. But the paths to theurgy are complex,
tortuous and tragic. There is the danger of too prematurely and externally conceived a
theurgic art. Art cannot and ought not to be subordinated to any sort of an external
religious norm, to any sort of norm of spiritual life, which would transcend the art itself.
By such a path would be created merely a tendentious art. In a truly however theurgic art
the spiritual life of man would shine forth from within, and his religiosity would be but
totally immanent. R. Wagner believed too much in the sacralness of the old culture, and
V. Ivanov too much believes in this. Theurgic art in the strict sense of the word would be
already an egress beyond the bounds of art as spheres of culture, as unique from cultural
values, would be already a catastrophic passing over to the creativity of existence itself,
of life itself. The path to it lies not through the safe-guarding of the old art and the old
culture, not through a return to the past and not through a restoration of the sacral art of
the ancient world and the Medieval world; the path to it lies through a sacrificial firmness
of resolve to go forward through this process of fragmentation, distention and
disintegration, the symptoms of which we see within Cubism and Futurism, and to
survive this cosmic whirlwind with faith in the indestructibility of the creative spirit of
man, of the core "I", called to creative work in the new world epoch. The Futurist
machine aspect is but an external expression of a profound metaphysical process, an
altering of all the cosmic harmony, begotten of a new cosmic rhythm, which proceeds
from the depths. The new theurgic creativity, which is not something artistically to be
anticipated, lies along another line, within the spiritual plane. When the new painters
verymost current begin to set in their pictures newspaper clippings and bits of glass, it
runs along the line of a material dissociation to the point of an abject renunciation of
creativity. At the end point of this process there begins to be a falling apart of the creative
act itself whereby the creative daring gets replaced by a bold negation of creativity. Man
is not a passive tool of the world process and of everything happening from its
deterioration, he -- is an active creator. The cosmic pulling apart does not abolish the
personal spirit, does not exterminate the "I" of man, if the human spirit makes an heroic
effort to persevere and create within the new cosmic rhythm. The cosmic distention can
only but enable a making apparent and reinforcing of the true core of the "I". The human
spirit is being liberated from the old grip of organic matter. The machine with its claws
tears out the spirit from the grip of matter, it destroys the old consolidating together of
spirit and matter. In this -- is the metaphysical meaning of the appearance of the machine
in the world. But the Futurists do not understand this. They situate themselves moreso on
the perishing of matter, than on the liberating of spirit. The new art will create no longer
still in the forms of physical flesh, but in the forms of another, a more refined flesh, it
will pass over from material bodies to bodies soul-like.

The pathos of Futurism -- is the pathos of speed, a rapture of rapid movement. "We
declare, that the magnificence of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty
of speed". Thus declaims Marinetti. But speed is not something devised by the Futurists.
The Futurists themself were created by the aspect of speed. The world indeed has entered
into an era of rapid movement. But the Futurists conceive of and express merely the
outward side of this rapidity of temporal motion. The inward motion, the inward speeding
up as it were remains for the Futurists something hidden. But for a pervasive view it is
clear, that the unprecedented motion and the unprecedented speeding up are begun within
the depth of being and that the wellsprings of this motion and rapidness mustneeds be
sought for within spiritual life. The apocalyptic prophecies speak about an accelerated
aspect of time. The accelerated time, in which there developes an unprecedented and
catastrophic motion, is an apocalyptic time. Futurism also can be conceived of as a
phenomenon of apocalyptic time, although by the Futurists themselves this is something
altogether inconceivable. But within apocalyptic time the greatest possibilities are
combined with the greatest dangers. That which transpires with the world in all its
spheres, is an apocalypsis of the whole enormous cosmic epoch, the end of the old world
and the preliminaries of a new world. This is both more awesome and more abstract, than
the Futurists themself realise. In the whirlwind jostling of the world, in the accelerated
tempo of motion, everything gets dislodged from its place, breaking the material chains
of old. But in this whirlwind there can perish also the greatest values, it can be, that man
should not persevere, should be torn to shreds. There is possible not only the arising of a
new art, but also the perishing of all art, of every value, of all creativity.

The present world war was initiated by Germany as a futuristic war. The Futurism
from art passed over into life and in life gave more grandiose results, than within art. The
futuristic exercises in conducting the war were prescriptions by Germany for all the
world. The present war -- is a machine war. It -- to a remarkable degree is the result of
the growing power of the machine within human life. This -- is an industrial war, in it the
machine replaces man. The military might of Germany, now intimidating all the world, is
a might first of all that is industrially mechanical, technical. In the present-day war the
Futurists of the Marinetti type should be able to discern the new "magnificent world, the
beauty of speed". The Futurist militarism has no respect for the great values of the old
world, the old beauty, the old culture. We, as Russians, are least so the Futurists in this
war, we are least so capable of its machine demands, its speed, its whirlwind motion, and
we have most preserved both the old emotional virtues and the old emotional sins and
vices. We are all given to being extensive, but not intensive. In this is the wellspring of
our weakness. Within German militarism the futuristic machine aspect and the futuristic
rapidity of movement have gotten to the point of supreme virtues, of frightening futuristic
virtues. England and France strive to outstrip Germany in this, and they too make new
discoveries. Thus the whole world is drawn into a military futuristic whirlwind. And the
age-old barbarism of man, ingrained deeper than all culture, helps bring out this Futurism
in life. But the sources of the world war, assuming such a futuristic guise, lie deeper,
within the spiritual plane, where it begins and where it ends. In cosmic life indeed a
spiritual war is being waged and a struggle made for the greatest values. And only by the
spiritual war can mankind and the nations be saved for a new life. The material warfare is
but a manifesting forth of the spiritual warfare. And all the whole task consists in this,
that in this worldwide whirlwind there should be preserved the image of man, the image
of a people and the image of mankind for an higher creative life. This task stands there in
art, the same as this task stands there also in life. It stands contrary to futuristic life and
Futurist art. Its fulfilling cannot be attained by any sort of appeals to the past, nor by a
safeguarding of this past. Futurism has to be passed through and surmounted both in life
and in art. The surmounting is possible however through a deepening, through movement
along a different measure, a measure of depth, and not along a flat plane, through
knowledge, not abstract knowledge, but rather a living knowledge, cognitive-being.

We approach the final problem, which the crisis of art presents, a problem, which has
tremendous significance for all our culture. I speak about the interrelationship of
barbarity and decline. Human culture at its summits has an insurmountable tendency
towards decline, towards decadence, towards an exhaustion. Such it was in the great
culture of antiquity, which, essentially, is the eternal wellspring of all culture, and so also
in the culture of the modern world. Culture constantly becomes separated from its vital
and existential wellsprings, and at its summit it opposes itself to life, to being. There then
ensues an epoch of late cultural decline, a very refined and beautiful culture. This -- is a
beauty of fading blossoms, an autumnal beauty, knowing the greatest contradictions,
losing its integral wholeness and spontaneity, but discovering a sagacious knowledge not
only of itself, but also of that contrary to it. Epochs of cultural decline and cultural decay
become likewise epochs of intensified awareness. Such epochs are to the utmost degree
capable of an enfeebling, but also at the same time of an enriching of reflection, with a
splintering and fragmenting, egressing beyond the borders of all organic givenness.
Epochs of refinement and decline are not without fruition for the human spirit, and in
them is its own glimmering of light. The decadence of culture makes for enormous
proficiency and provides an opening ever so slightly to the unknowable. The typically
impotent decadence can make assertions only from a certain delimited and relative point
of view. But from a deeper point of view the decadence of the culture of antiquity,
reaching the point of dead exhaustion, was profoundly fruitful and provided much for the
spiritual life of the new, the Christian world. NeoPlatonism can be termed a philosophy
of cultural decline for an entire world epoch. But NeoPlatonism played an enormously
positive role in the spiritual life of mankind and plays it still also at present. Christianity
was a salvific spiritual barbarism in regard to the cultural decline of the ancient world.
But by mysterious paths the elements of decline passed over into this regenerating and
renewing barbarity, without which the world would ultimately have perished. The
barbarism of spirit and the barbarism of flesh and blood, welling up powers from the
deepest dark wellsprings of being, drawing forth vigour from the dark roots of all life,
from the not as yet enlightened nor transformed culturally unfathomable, in a mighty
torrent had to flood upon human culture, when in it decline and exhaustion sets in.
Christianity had to seem barbarism to the cultured peoples, such as were under the sway
of the decline of the ancient world. And yet, this is but a limited pole of perspective. In
actuality, Christianity was a revealing of light, drawn forth from the deepest depths of
being, to which the ancient world had been unable to attain to. It was verymost a
transformation of darkness into light, as ever the world did know. With the Gnostics there
occurred a combining synthesis of all the old revelations of the ancient cultures together
with the new Christian revelation from its depths of being. The Gnostics see not one thing
only, but also another, they know in a light of wholeness and a light of disparateness,
they unite together the revelations of "barbarism" and the revelations of "decadence". In
this is the eternal sagacity of the Gnostic spiritual type. And this applies also for our era.

Every new culture in a fatal manner tends ultimately towards decline and
exhaustion. The end of the XIX Century at its heights of culture generated the poisoned
blossoms of decadence. These blossoms do not flower for long, they rapidly fade off. The
Latin race, which also had produced the foundations of the old European culture, in
which there was never any decisive breaking of its connections from antiquity, underwent
a great stagnation, and in it ensued an exhaustion of vital powers. The French decadence
was a final beautiful fruition of the cultural creativity of this great and very old race. The
Germanic race in comparison with the Latin race was barbaric, in it there was not that
ancient connection with antiquity, it had not those old traditions. In the culture, created
by the Germans, there was a new depth, but there was not the subtle refinement nor the
diversity, obtaining for the sagacity of a late setting. The Germans also were those
barbarians, who once upon a time flooded upon Rome, upon the ancient world and
renewed the blood of the old cultured races. With the Germanic race, having preserved in
its blood even up to the present a certain barbarity, there is not so acutely the problem of
the relationship of barbarism and decline, as with the Latin race. Oh, certainly, in German
culture would be involved decadence in the process, and this is to be sensed in the
present-day war. The whole of European culture at its summits had to have sensed
exhaustion and decay with having to seek out a reinvigoration of its powers in barbarity,
which in our era is perhaps moreso inward, than outward, i.e. moreso deep a stratum of
being, not yet transformed into culture. But world culture has gone out so far distant and
so drained itself, that it cannot itself per se be of a strength for transforming that flood of
darkness, which engulfs from the depths of being. At the summit heights of culture,
which finds itself all more and more to be worldwide, there is discovered an ultimate
barbarity. Culture is shewn to be but a very delicate layer. This is most of all perceived in
the Latin race, the cradle of all European culture. Futurism had to have its birth in Italy,
staggeringly bent beneathe the weight of its own great cultural past, sapped of strength by
this past greatness: Futurism likewise is a new barbarism upon the summits of culture. In
it there is the barbarian coarseness, the barbarian wholeness and barbarian ignorance.
This barbarism should have effected a change in the decline. But it transpired from a not
very great depth. The culture is rending its own particular veils and discovers a not very
deeply buried layer of barbarity, and here hence resound loudly the barbarian cries of the
Futurist literature from the fissures, formed from the crisis of culture and art. And there is
almost no hope, that the eternal normative culture, deriving its classical forms from
antiquity, will vanquish these barbarian cries, these barbarian gestures. It begins to feel,
that the trappings of culture, of the eternally classical culture, of the canonical culture, is
sundered forever and cannot be reborn in the old sense of the word, which was always a
return to antiquity. The sundering of the trappings of culture and the deep fissures in it is
the symptom of a certain profound cosmic process. The world is changing its attire and
trappings. Culture and art as an organic part of it is merely a set of attire of the world,
merely the trappings of the world. I speak about the culture of which I am myself aware
and construe as distinct from being, from life, and which sets itself in opposition to being,
to life. Culture has transformed the initially given barbarian darkness of being into a
certain bright realm, in which it has isolated itself and in which it takes pride as being
self-sufficient. But culture in this its classical sense is not the sole path of the
transformation of darkness into life, it is not the sole path of giving form to chaos.
Through culture lies a path upwards and forward, not backwards, not to a pre-cultural
condition, and this -- is the path of the transformation of culture itself into new bring, into
a new heaven and a new earth. Only upon this path, bursting forth into culture, can the
barbarian shouts and the barbarian gestures be harnessed to the new cosmic harmony and
the new cosmic rhythm. Not only art, but all human creativity also will perish and plunge
into the primordial darkness, if it does not become a creativity of life, a creativity of the
new man and his spiritual path. The cultured and the decadent are situated in a condition
of impotent fragmentedness, whereas the barbaric Futurists are situated in a condition of
coarse wholeness and ignorance. For the new life, for the new creativity, for the new art
there need to break through those Gnostics of the new type, who know the secret of
integrality and the secret of dividedness, they know both the one and they know the other,
opposite to it. Such a sagacious knowledge ought to help overcome the great conflict of
barbarism and decline, which has many an expression, and which is but the manifestation
moreso of the profound tragic conflict of the creativity of life and the creativity of
culture. The emergence from this can be only through a passing over into a new world
aeon, in the which all creativity would already become a continuation of God's Creation
of the world. This transition is impossible to understand outwardly, and the inward
understanding of the fate of art ought not to be transformed into a norm inwardly binding
upon it. Art, just like all the spheres of culture, has to deal with its own existence and
ultimately experience its own fate. In the world they will still create verses, pictures and
musical symphonies, but in creativity the inner catastrophe will accelerate and from
within glimmer through. Everything will turn out proportionate to the spiritual growth of
man and the world. There exists now in world life however a variable growth and it is
impossible from the outside and in terms of art to anticipate it. It has been said, that in the
end-times people will get married and wed, will buy and trade. And in the upper spheres
of cultural creativity much inwardly as it were remains as of old, inwardly however all
will be engulfed by the flames. And those, who have sensed and have perceived the
workings of these flames, bear a great responsibility and have to work at the spiritual
regeneration of man and the inner enlightening of all his creative activity.

N. A. Berdyaev.

1918

© 2005 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1918 -14,1 - en)

KRIZIS ISKUSSTVA. Published originally as lead article to Booklet (Kl.#14) entitled
"Krizis Iskusstva, Sbornik statei" ["The Crisis of Art, a Collection of Articles"], Moscow,
1918, G. A. Leman and S. I. Sakharov, 47 p. In this anthology, the second article is
reprint from 1914 (Kl.#174; 14,2), -- "Picasso"; the third and final article is reprint from
1916 (Kl.#233; 14,3), -- "An Astral Novel: A. Bely's "Peterburg"".

Berdyaev's "The Crisis of Art" article has subsequently been reprinted in tom 2 of the
1994 Liga Moscow Russian text, "Philosophia, tvorchestva, kul'tury i iskusstva", c. 399-
418.

1
I am citing here from certain places of the article about Picasso, which follows further
on. For the construction of my "Crisis of Art" text, Picasso is necessary by way of
example, and by which I develope my own thought about art. Paraphrasing myself
however I consider bad form.
2
On the same basis, by which I quoted from certain places in the article about Picasso,
I here quote certain places from an article, concerning the "Peterburg" of a. Bely.

Class and Man

(1918 - #290)

The struggle of classes fills the whole history of mankind. It is not a discovery of the
XIX and XX Centuries, although in these centuries it assumed new acute forms. This
struggle occurred way back in the ancient world and there already it had quite varied
appearances. Much that is instructive can be gleaned from the book of [Robert von]
Pohlmann [1852-1914], "History of Ancient Communism and Socialism". Certain pages
bring to mind the chronology of our own days. The social uprising of the masses always
and everywhere was alike as regards its psychological atmosphere. Too much gets
repeated in social life, and it is difficult to imagine new combinations and settings. There
was many a class communistic movement in the past, and they often assumed a religious
hue. Suchlike communistic movements were especially characteristic of the era of the
Reformation. The elemental communism of the lower classes is one of the oldest
principles, periodically arising and making an attempt to topple the individualistic and
hierarchical principles. Communism -- is as old as the world, it was there at the cradle of
human civilisation. Many a time within history have arisen the lower peoples, and there
was the attempt to do away with all the hierarchical and qualitative principles within
society and to establish a mechanical equality and mixing. This disruptive leveling and
simplification of society always was non-correlative with the progressive historical tasks,
with the cultural level. Periodically within history have occurred deluges of chaotic
darkness which have striven to topple the societal cosmos and its laws of developement.
Such a kind of movement over and over continually could become quite reactionary and
throw off a people backwards. The socialist Lassal did not regard as progressive the
peasant wars of the Reformation era, he regarded them as reactionary, i.e. contrary to the
basic historical tasks of that time. And in elements of the Russian Revolution are active
likewise the same old, reactionary forces, in it is stirred up the ancient chaos, lying
beneathe the thin layers of Russian civilisation.

The class struggle, the original sin of human societies, tended to deepen and change
during the XIX Century. In this progressive century human society became very
materialised, it lost its spiritual centre, and the beastly greedy man attained an extreme
intensity and expression. The moral character of the bourgeois-capitalistic century makes
the struggle of classes for their interests all the more brazen, than in former centuries.
And this is connected not with the fact of industrial developement, which is a good per
se, but with the spiritual condition of European society. The spiritual poison in this
society went from the top down, from the dominating classes to the oppressed classes.
The materialistic socialism of Marx and others, having concentrated in itself all the
poison of the bourgeois godlessness, failed to restrain itself amidst a more acute
perception of the fact of class struggle, -- it sanctified this fact and ultimately subjected
man to the class. The means of struggle ultimately eclipsed the higher aims of life.
Materialistic socialism, enslaved by the economic aspect of capitalistic societies, denies
both man and human nature in common, it acknowledges only the class-man, only class
collectives. There is begotten an altogether peculiar sense of life, it is only the masses
that feel and they altogether cease to sense the individual man. Class represents quantity.
Man however represents quality. The class struggle, elevated into an "idea", has obscured
the qualitative image of man. In our harsh era, with all the veils torn away, the naively
amusing old mode of idealism is already an impossibility, impossible too is a turning
away from the ugly fact of class struggles, from the perceiving of class antagonisms and
class solidifications, distorting the nature of man. Class antagonisms and class distortions
play an enormous though unappreciated role in social life. But upon this fact of nature
ought not to depend our moral judgements and our reflections concerning the spiritual
image of man. Human nature can be distorted by the class position of a man, the outward
aspects of a man can become determined by class greed and class limitation. But the
spiritual core of a man, the individual human image never is determined by class, is not
dependent upon the social medium. And anyone, who denies this, winds up denying man,
and commits a spiritual homicide. It is godless and immoral, in place of man with his
good and bad traits, to see only some collective substance of bourgeois or proletariat.
Such an idea of class kills the idea of man. This murder theoretically is committed in
Marxism. Within elements of the Russian Revolution it gets to be committed practically
and for real in dimensions yet unseen within history. The "bourgeois" man and the
"socialistic" man cease to be people for each other, brothers by the One Father of the
human race. Within this revolutionary element there cannot be a true liberation of man,
since man is negated within his primal basis. The liberation of class as it were constrains
and enslaves man.
 II

From such time as the world became Christian and accepted baptism, within its
religious consciousness it acknowledged, that people -- are brothers, that we have One
Heavenly Father. In the Christian world the master and the slave as regards their social
trappings cannot look upon each other as wolves, in their sin perhaps they can, but they
cannot in their faith. In their moments of clarity, in their spiritual depths they have
admitted each other as brothers in Christ. The Christian world has remained a sinful
world. It fell, it betrayed its God, it did evil, in it people hated one another, and in place
of the law of love they fulfilled a law of hatred. But the sin of hatred, of malice and
violence was recognised by all Christians as sin, and not as a virtue, not as a way to an
higher life. The faith in man, as the image and likeness of God, has remained a belief of
the Christian world. Man may have been bad, but his faith was good, and good was the
spiritual foundation itself, lodged within Christ and His Church. Yet within the Christian
mankind there occurred a grievous crisis. The soul of peoples and the soul of nations
sickened. Faith became impaired, and there ceased to be a belief in man as in the image
and likeness of God, since there had ceased to be a true belief in God. The very spiritual
foundations of life became altered. Socialism was not to blame for this spiritual downfall,
it occurred earlier. Socialism but slavishly adopted this unbelief in man and in God, it
merely takes it to the limit and gives it a common expression. The unbelief in man led to
the apotheosis of man. The struggle of classes ceased to be a socio-economic fact, it
became a spiritual fact, it spread to all the junctures of human nature and human life.
There did not remain a single corner of the human soul, within human experiences and
human creativity, not intruded upon by the struggle of classes with their interminable
pretensions. The theories of economic materialism anticipated and corresponded to the
new human actuality -- economism, flooding across all the scope of human life. And
upon this basis was lost within human society a singular law of the good. The
"bourgeois" good and the "socialistic" good want to have nothing in common between
them, and over them stands nothing higher, of a single good. And therefore there is no
longer a direct relationship of man to man, there is only the relationship of class to class.
Revolutionary socialism, as transpiring at present in Russia, ultimately kills the
possibility of the brotherhood of people on principle, in its new faith, in its very idea.
And as regards this new faith, there is no longer man, there is only the bearer and declarer
of an impersonal class substance.

Not only is it that the "proletariat" and the "bourgeoise" are not brothers to each
other, being rather instead wolves, but also the proletarian is not a brother with his fellow
proletarian, being rather instead "comrades", comrades in interests, in woe, in
togetherness of material desires. Within the socialistic faith, comrade has replaced the
brother of the Christian faith. Brothers were united one to another, as children of the One
God, through love, through a common spirit. Comrades are united one to another through
a commonness of interests, through hatred for the "bourgeoise", through a like material
basis to life. Comrades in their comradeship have a respect for class, but not for man.
Such a comradeship kills at the root the brotherhood of people, not only the higher unity
of Christian mankind, but even the modicum of unity of civilised mankind. The French
Revolution made bad use of the slogan, "Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood". But
brotherhood it did not realise and did not attempt to realise. The socialistic revolution
imagines, that it can and ought to realise brotherhood. But it realises only comradeship,
bearing an unprecedented divisiveness into mankind. Equality is not brotherhood.
Brotherhood is possible only in Christ, only for a Christian mankind, since this -- is a
revelation of a religion of love. The idea of brotherhood is derived from Christianity and
outside of it, it is impossible. The pathos of equality is the pathos of jealousy, and not of
love. Movements, begotten by the passion of a leveling equality, breathe vengeance, they
do not want to be sacrificial, but rather to take away. Brotherhood -- is something
organic, equality is however something mechanical. In brotherhood is affirmed every
human person, in the equality of "comrades" there however vanishes every person into
the quantitative mass. In the brother triumphs man, in the comrade there triumphs class.
The comrade becomes a substitute for man. Brother -- is a religious category. The citizen
-- is a political category, a state-legal category. The comrade -- is a pseudo-religious
category. The "citizen" and the "brother" have justification. But through the idea of the
comrade, class kills man. Man to man is not a "comrade", man to man is a citizen or
brother, -- a citizen in the state, in worldly society, and a brother -- in church, in the
society religious. Citizenship is connected with law; brotherhood is connected with love.
The comrade denies law and denies love, he admits only common or contrary interests. In
this conjunction or disunion of interests, man perishes. Man needs either a citizenly
relationship to himself, laws acknowledging him, or a brotherly relationship to him, a
relationship of free love.

III

The Russian people has to go through the school of citizenship. In this school has to
be worked out a respect for man and his rights, there has to be perceived the dignity of
man, as a being, living within society and the state. Every man and every people has to go
through this stage, it is impossible to overleap it. When slaves in revolt declare, that the
citizen condition for them is unnecessary and not to their liking, that they at once can
pass directly over to an higher condition, then usually they fall into a beastly condition.
The school of brotherhood works out the love of man for man, the consciousness of a
spiritual commonness. This -- is a religious plane, which ought not to be confused with
the political plane. It would be unseemly and dishonest to transfer a miracle of religious
life over to the life political and social, bestowing the relative with an absolute character.
A compulsory brotherhood is impossible. Brotherhood -- is the fruition of a free love.
Brotherly love -- is a blossoming of spiritual life. With the citizen however everything
can be obligatory. Everyone can demand a respect for his rights, the acknowledging in
him of man, even if there is no love. The socialistic comradeship is in its idea a forced
virtue, a coercion to association, greater than that, which a man voluntarily would wish.
"Comrade" is an impermissible muddling of "citizen" and "brother", the mixing together
of in society of state and church, the substituting of one plane by another, not that and not
this. And these past months the word "comrade" in Russia has assumed a laughable and
almost shameful significance. With it is connected for us the destruction of citizenship
and an ultimate denial of a brotherhood of love. The class in the guise of the "comrade"
has risen up not only against class, but class has risen up against man. In the raging of
class hatred they have forgotten about man. Man however is an authentic and enduring
reality. It is man that inherits eternity, and not class. Every class is a temporal and
transitory phenomenon, it once was not and again will not be. Man is what is concrete.
Class however is an abstraction. Within this abstraction are conjoined complex social
interests and complex social psyches. But these abstract conjunctions can never form an
authentic reality, a real value. The "proletariat" of the socialists is an abstract "idea", and
not a reality. In reality there exist only varied groups of workers, often differing in their
interests, and in their manner of soul. Yet they want to compel the workers themself to
submit to the abstract idea of the proletariat. And to this bloodless abstraction, like to an
idol, they offer human sacrifices.

Class is likewise lacking in that reality, which is had by the nation, and the state.
Class -- is a very relative mode, it can occupy only a very subordinate position.
Everything regarding "class" relates to the outward trappings of life, and not to the core.
The attempt to posit at the basis of the fate of society the idea of class and the fact of
class is a demonic attempt, it is directed at the extermination of man, of nation, the state,
the church, all the genuine realities. Class, that to which they ascribe the supremacy,
undermines everything of value and distorts all the vital settings of value. The working
class, persuaded, that it is the sole chosen class, leaves no place for living, it steals and
cripples everything. In Russia there will be no free citizenry, as long as Russians live
under the power of the demonic idea of class. And this dark class idea will extirpate the
remnants of brotherhood in the Russian people, as a Christian people. The hypnotic effect
of the class idea distorts even socialism itself and bestows it a destructive and suicidal
character. If socialism were possible and allowable, then at its foundation ought to be put
man, and not class. Against class absolutism it is necessary to preach a crusade. In the
darkness of the Russian people, in the grip of a false idea, deceived and abused, there
ought to awaken man, the human image and the human dignity. The conceit and
impudence of class are not an human worthiness, in them man perishes. In the masses of
the workers and the peasants not only does man not awaken, but ultimately he becomes
forgotten and sinks into the element of dark instincts. The Bolshevik collectivism also is
a final obscuring in Russia of the human principle, of the human person, of the human
image. The proletarian class communism on Russian soil is an experiencing of a
primitive human communism. The revolution has set loose this communistic darkness,
but it has done nothing in the life of the masses of the people for the development of a
free citizenry. A new and better life will begin in Russia, when the bright spirit of man
wins out over the dark demon of class.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

8 January 1918

Republished in Tom 4 of Berdiaev Collected Works by YMCA Press, in the collection of

1917-1918 Berdyaev articles under the title, "Dukhovnye osnovy russkoi revoliutsii
(Stat'i 1917-18)" ("Spiritual Grounds of the Russian Revolution (Articles 1917-18)",
Paris, 1990, p. 56-64.

The Power and Psychology

of the Intelligentsia*
(*this article was written prior to the Bolshevik turnover)

Here already it has been several months, with Russia facing unresolved tasks -- to
create a strong state power from an human material, totally unprepared for the holding of
power and for determining the fate of the state, unprepared as regards all its past,
unprepared as regards its mental frame of mind to not be called to power nor rule in the
state. Over the course of the "unfolding" of the Revolution the power gradually passed
over to the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia, to the Russian Social Revolutionaries and
the Social Democrats, i.e. to people, who in their dreams never imagined, that they might
actually come to power, and whose whole world-outlook and psychology denies the very
principle of holding power. The tumbling over from the underground into a ministry -- is
no easy thing, it can be mentally maddening. The Russian socialistic intelligentsia had no
presentiment, had no thoughts, which might have prepared it for holding power. The
Russian revolutionary-socialistic intelligentsia had crystalised into a peculiar race, into a
peculiar variety of people, which could be recognised even by its physical appearance,
and this race was incapable of governance. Its governing and holding of power is
anthropologically, psychologically and morally something ridiculous. This variety of
people cannot create an aesthetic style of holding power, as might be but repulsive. The
shouted about lack of power is not only aesthetically repulsive, -- its aesthetic non-
acceptability is likewise an indicator of spiritual unpreparedness and untruth. By all its
very blood and all its thoughts our revolutionary intelligentsia has always denied the
holding of power, and for it the struggle with the autocratic power passed over into a
denial of the state, the nation, and history. The revolutionary intelligentsia has lived with
utopias and dreams of a perfect social order. And at that blissful point in time, when this
social order ensues, it presupposes the absence of every sort of holding of power, since
every having of power is from evil. Prior to this desirable moment, however, there has to
be an irreconcilable opposition to every sort of power, there being needful permanent
revolution. The absolutisation of the revolutionary psychology makes impossible any
participation in the holding of power. The Russian revolutionary does not imagine it
possible for him to participate in power prior to the realisation of socialism, and yet he
would tend to imagine for himself the realisation of socialism as the final blessed
surmounting of every holding of power, of everything to do with the state. For him the
holding of power would either be something too premature, or too belated. He is
accustomed to experience a religious absoluteness in societal life, where everything is
relative. And this distorted religious feeling has not been to a strengthening morally,
instead it has led to a moral distortion and decay. The soul of the Russian intelligentsia
has fallen under the grip of false gods and idols.

No sort of positive habits of constructive a societal and state outlook have

preceeded the sudden and catastrophic appearance in power of the Russian intelligentsia.
The intelligentsia has been accustomed to sense itself alienated from its native land, from
its history, from the legacy of ancestors, from the whole of the state and the people.
Never has there opened before it the perspective of the span of history and never has it
directed its will to creative tasks. Its psychology was caught up in its own narrow circle,
stuffy and stifling. This world of the intelligentsia has been completely self-enclosed
world, dwelling within its deeply provincial interests, its own party considerations,
speaking in its hideous jargon, setting itself in opposition to the breadth of the universal
and historical. This was a sectarian like little world with all the peculiarities of the
sectarian psychology. Foreign to it was a language national and a language all-human.
The sectarian is not capable of thinking about the great entirety nor is he able to direct his
will to this entirety, and in this he is distinct from the churchly man, who senses himself
within the universal whole. The sectarian psychology of the revolutionary intelligentsia
has led to an extreme simplification of the thinking process. All the complexity of life has
eluded his sight, visible only is a direct straight line, God's whole manifold world is
rendered either on the "right" or the "left". The sectarian psychology of the intelligentsia
never was creative nor productive, it was totally in the grip of a thirst for division and
redistribution. The intelligentsia sectarians never wanted to recognise any sort of
objective principles of societal life, and to them this seemed "bourgeois". The fate of the
state and society was relegated by them to the domain of human subjectivity, everything
was explained by the evil or good will of people and classes. The cosmic and natural
grounds of human society always remained unconceivable and unacceptable for the
intelligentsia sectarianism. Limited by nothing, the subjective moralism has led to an
immoral violence against the objective nature of society and state, to the immoral denial
of principles, set higher than the subjective arbitrary will of people and their subjective
well-being. This has been a moralism of the underground and the renegade, for which
there does not exist any great mystery of the whole nation and world, there does not exist
any mutual responsibility. And here now the elemental historical surging wave lifts to the
summits of power these sectarians, accustomed to live in the underground, as renegades
from the national entirety, and to deny the state, the fatherland, and the pre-eminence of
history.

II

The whole revolutionary history of the Russian intelligentsia has accustomed it to

irresponsibility. It never was summoned to responsible deeds within Russian history. The
responsibility for the woeful state of Russia, for all the evil of Russian life, the
intelligentsia tended to lay on "them", the ruling power, in opposition to the people, but
never upon itself. The banishings, the prisons and the executions morally strengthened
the sense of irresponsibility. The hapless Russian intelligentsia was accustomed to a
persecuted position and in everything it regards as blameworthy its persecutors. One who
lacks the vocation for a constructive life, who as it were is thrown overboard, is one who
is deprived the possibility to develope and strengthen in himself a sense of responsibility.
The intelligentsia was accustomed to confess the most irresponsible theories and utopias,
which never were credible in actual experience. In its self-contained little world, the
intelligentsia came up with the most extreme teachings, but never did it seriously prepare
itself for the vital testing of these teachings. For several days prior to the turnover, the
representatives of the revolutionary intelligentsia did not even realise, that it had befallen
their lot to take upon themselves the responsibility for the fate of a great state. Even after
the turnover occurred, when all the obstacles on the paths to democracy had fallen, the
revolutionary democracy relegated to the Provisional Government almost the same
structure, as it had applied to the old government, it transferred over its old habits onto
the new Russia. It is incapable of putting aside its underground and mutinously negative
revolutionary psychology. The professional revolutionaries have continued on with
making revolution even then, when there is no one and nothing to make it against. The
irresponsible sense of revolutionary opposition has been totally carried over also into the
liberated Russia. And it mustneeds straight out be said, that the Russian revolutionary
intelligentsia is, perhaps, a very inert and very reactionary inheritance, received by the
new Russia from the old Russia -- it lives in the old, it breathes with the old and negative
feelings, it is incapable of being pervaded with a creative psychology. This -- is the
product of people, organically incapable of the constructive view for a new life.

These people started with this, with committing an immense crime -- in the dark
masses of the people they spread the seeds of class malice and hatred and brought about
the act of the rising up of class against class in monstrous proportions, auguring the death
of the state and the nation and transforming Russian life into a living hell. Then these
very people became alarmed at the deed wrought of their hands, they tasted the bitter
fruits of their destructive work and hastily they began to do the elemental schooling of
state and national learning, and certain of them by rote began to pronounce the word
fatherland. Having received the rule of power, they began without success to set right
certain of their mistakes, for example, they tried to revive the army, but alongside this
they made ever newer and newer mistakes. The Russian socialistic intelligentsia faces the
danger of being swept away by the very element in the people that it has set loose. The
revolutionary intelligentsia itself began to destroy the liberated new Russia, and having
come to power, it is powerless to try to set right the consequences of its destruction. It has
not been the creative, but rather the destructive deeds that brought the Russian socialists
to power, and this path has begotten a tragically impotent holding of power. The weave
of soul of these people is such, that they are incapable of rule. The holding of power -- is
not an intelligentsia trait. When the revolutionary intelligentsia ceased to be persecuted
and changed into persecutors, they displayed features of a frightful moral ugliness. They
were incapable of worthily bearing the burden of power, since first of all they understand
power as a right, and not as an obligation. For one to worthily hold power, it is necessary
to be done with the revolutionary psychology, to get into communion with the mystery of
the whole and the mystery of succession. "Revolutionary ruling power", just like
"revolutionary order", -- is an absurd word combination. The attempts to create a
"revolutionary ruling power", relying upon the revolutionary psychology, over the course
of several months have made for an atmosphere in which the governing power is creating
bedlam and has begotten appearances morally ugly. After the revolutionary turnover
occurred, it became necessary to organise in Russia a new order of life, to enter upon
construction and creativity. Instead of this healthy path -- a path of national renewal, --
with us they produced a revolution on to infinity, they set upon a path of destruction and
lacked the ability to give up on the old revolutionary psychology, begotten of oppression
and brotherhood. The revolutionary democracy cannot rule, this -- is an old, and not a
new democracy. As a builder of life, as the builder of a new Russia there can be only the
democracy of a new type of outlook, with a developing sense of responsibility, with a
developing instinct for productivity, with a strong awareness of the national and state
totality and having a bond with the historical past, i.e. a creative national democracy. The
democracy ought also to create an aristocracy, i.e. the selection of the finest. The
revolutionary democracy, however, which is but the revolutionary intelligentsia, is
putting the finish to its history with the Russian Revolution.

III

Our socialists simultaneously fight for power, while in every way which they can
they discredit the "bourgeois" holding of power, and they are likewise afraid of the
holding of power, they do not want to take upon themselves the fullness of responsibility.
Having lost neither their shyness nor scruples, the Russian socialists are ill at ease over
what in the Revolution they tended to call "bourgeois", yet the socialists are now at the
top, and the bourgeoise squeezed into the background. This -- is a paradox of the Russian
Revolution, which disquiets the Russian socialists, such as are not ultimately bereft of a
sense of responsibility. The socialistic structure at present cannot be introduced into
Russia, a land industrially backward, wretched and uncultured, with its working class
unenlightened and unorganised, and amidst an indisputable social antagonism of the
peasants and workers. And indeed the socialistic order is an abstraction, while manifold
social reforms are what is concrete. The radical socialistic experiments at present are
throwing Russia backwards, splintering it. And forthwith the socialists demand
participation in the organisation of power, without them cannot be made the "bourgeois"
revolution, but they have need of them only as a smoke-screen, in order to shift from their
own shoulders the immense sense of responsibility. As soon as s coalition is formed, the
socialist elements demand, that the bourgeois elements completely fulfill their
programme. Such indeed was the attitude of the old powers towards the liberal elements
of Russian society: in dangerous moments they were prepared to call on them, but with
them it was a matter of preserving intact the old regime. The socialist influence has
caused much woe and has led Russia to great disgrace, but the socialists do not want to
assume completely upon themself the answerability for these misfortunes and this
disgraceful state of affairs. The revolutionary democracy is fighting for total power, yet it
does not want to deal with that power, which unexpectedly has fallen to its lot.

It is with fear that the representatives of the socialist intelligentsia have scampered
up to the summits of power. Their own shouts against the bourgeoise have placed them in
a tragic position. They have morally fallen out on top. These people could morally
undergo persecution, but they cannot morally undergo being in power. The ruling ability
does not flow in their blood, they do not belong to the sort that are rulers. The Russian
socialist intelligentsia having power is a phenomenon of tragic impotence. It cannot
create an aesthetically viable style of holding power and it is doomed to a moral
unseemliness and collapse. A man, having fallen into a situation too unsuited and
impossible for him, becomes impotently paralysed, he aesthetically becomes lacking in
ability and it is only with difficulty that he remains upon the moral heights. History has
set a trap for the Russian socialist intelligentsia, and beyond the ecstatic moments of its
power and glory it faces a grievous payback. To me it is quite clear, that with the Russian
revolutionary intelligentsia being in power and with its experiments, which it makes upon
hapless Russia, represents its finish, its graveyard, the proving out of the falseness of its
basic ideas and principles. With us the ruling Russian socialism is now taken too
seriously, we are too frightened and beset by it. This however -- is a false perspective. All
this prevailing "revolutionary democracy" is but an expression of Russian chaos and
Russian darkness. This is a matter of illusions and mirages within Russian life. Within the
Russian Revolution there has been too much of the unreal, many a declaration which can
be snatched away at any moment, and theatrical forms, nowise active of real personages.
The authentic realities lie hidden, and the real interplay of powers is not at all such, as it
would seem on the surface. With us there was created a myth about the Bolsheviks, and
this myth has assumed the appearance of reality, but the Bolsheviks also shake with terror
at the prospect of counter-revolution and the return of the old masters, and they belong to
a sort, not for long called to rule. Momentarily their rule will be a spectre, one of the
nightmares of the great soul of the Russian people, nothing more. Sooner or later in
Russia there has to be a real, a strong national state power. This power might be varied in
whatever its shading, but it cannot be a power of the revolutionary intelligentsia, -- a
breed, doomed to extinction. There will be a new power, stronger and more integrated,
not consumed from within by the old sicknesses, not debilitated by moral reflections, and
capable of fulfilling severe duties. There cannot be in power those, who still on the eve
did not know, whether war is permissible and justified in defense of the fatherland, who
were doubtful whether to maintain order in the land by forceful measures and thereby
avert anarchy, and who reflected Hamlet-like over the repulsive severity of every manner
of state. The coming Russian democracy, if it is to be, will have nothing in common with
what at present is called "revolutionary democracy". And if we are to have an healthy
socialist movement, then it will have nothing in common with the Russian revolutionary
socialism, now having its orgy. Russia has to find itself a manner of people, truly capable
of rule, a new aristocracy.

Nikolai Berdyaev

Jan.-Feb. 1918

Republished in Tom 4 of Berdiaev Collected Works by YMCA Press, in the collection of

1917-1918 Berdyaev articles under the title, "Dukhovnye osnovy russkoi revoliutsii
(Stat'i 1917-18)" ("Spiritual Grounds of the Russian Revolution (Articles 1917-18)",
Paris, 1990, p. 198-206.
 THE REVELATION ABOUT MAN
IN THE CREATIVITY
OF DOSTOEVSKY

Thou didst take everything, that is unusual,

conjectural and indefinite, Thou didst take
everything that was beyond the powers of
people, and there didst behave as though
loving them not at all.
Legend of the Grand Inquisitor

Many a truth has already been written about Dostoevsky and much has been said
about him, which has come to be almost banal. I have not in view the old Russian
criticism, of which the article by N. K. Mihailovsky, "The Cruel Talent" ("Zhestokii
talant"), might serve as a typical example. For the journalistic criticism of this type,
Dostoevsky was completely unacceptable, and it had no clue to the revealing of the
mysteries of his creativity. But people also of another spiritual dimension wrote about
Dostoevsky, they were more akin to him, of another generation, those peering into the
spiritual distances: Vl. Solov'ev, Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, Volynsky, L. Shestov,
Bulgakov, Volzhsky, Vyach. Ivanov. All these writers each in his own way attempted to
get to the bottom of Dostoevsky and to disclose the profundity in him. In his creativity
they beheld the utmost revelations, the struggle of Christ and the Anti-Christ, of the
Divine and the demonic principles, of the disclosing of the mystical nature of the Russian
people, of the uniqueness of Russian Orthodoxy and Russian humility. Thinkers of the
religious tendency saw the essential content of all the creativity of Dostoevsky in the
singular revelations about Christ, about immortality and about the God-bearing Russian
people and they bestowed his ideology a special significance. For others still, Dostoevsky
was first of all a psychologist, disclosing the underground psychology. Dostoevsky had
all of this in him. He was extraordinarily gifted, and from him there go many directions
and each could be used by him for its own ends. The enigma of Dostoevsky can be
approached from various sides. And I want to approach this enigma from a side, which
has been insufficiently approached. I do not think, that the religious explanation of
Dostoevsky, which has become dominant for us, has detected the most primary thing in
him, that central theme of his, with which is connected his pathos. It is impossible within
the limited expanse of an article to encompass the whole of Dostoevsky, but it is possible
to take note of one of his themes, which suggests itself to me as central and from which
he explains everything.

Dostoevsky had one thing very inherent to him, an unprecedented regard for man
and for his destiny -- here is where it is necessary to see his pathos, here is with what is
connected the uniqueness of his creative type. For Dostoevsky there is nothing and
naught else than man, everything is revealed only in him, everything is subordinated only
to him. N. Strakhov, who was close to him, noted: "All his attention was directed upon
people, and he grasped at only their nature and character. He was interested by people,
people exclusively, with their state of soul, with the manner of their lives, their feelings
and thoughts". In the journey abroad "Dostoevsky was especially occupied neither by
nature, nor by historical memorials, nor works of art". And this is attested to by all the
creativity of Dostoevsky. No one ever had such an exclusive preoccupation with the
theme of man. And no one had such a genius for revealing the mystery of human nature.
Dostoevsky was, first of all, a great anthropologist, an investigator of human nature, its
depth and its mystery. All his creativity -- is of anthropological experiences and
experiments. Dostoevsky -- is not a realist as an artist, he is an experimentator, a creator
of an experimential metaphysics of human nature. All the artistry of Dostoevsky is but a
method of anthropological searchings and disclosings. He is not only beneathe Tolstoy as
an artist, but also in the strict sense of this word, he cannot be termed an artist. That,
which Dostoevsky writes, -- is not a novel and it is not tragedy, it assumes no set form of
artistic creativity. And this is ultimately some sort of a great artistry, wholly captivating,
pulling one into its peculiar world, working magically. But it is impossible to approach
this artistry with the usual criteria and demands. Nothing is easier, than to point out the
artistic defects in the novels of Dostoevsky. In them there is no artistic catharsis, they are
tormented, they always transgress the limits of art. The plots in the novels of Dostoevsky
are improbable, the persons unreal, the collisions of all the influential persons at one
place and at the same time -- with always the impossible tension, strained beyond the
purposes of the anthropological experiment, where all the heroes speak with one voice, at
times very vulgar, and with several places bringing to mind the crime novels of less than
lofty quality. And it is only through misunderstanding of these novel-tragedies that they
can seem realistic. In these novels there is nothing epic in scope, there is no depiction of
manner of life, there is no objective depiction of human and natural life. The novels of
Tolstoy, perhaps the most perfect of all those ever written, give the sensation, as though
cosmic life has disclosed them, as though the very soul of the world wrote them. In
Dostoevsky it is impossible to find such, as snatched from life, real people of flesh and
blood. All the heroes of Dostoevsky -- are actually himself, the different sides of his
particular spirit. The complexity of plot in his novels is a revealing of man in various
aspects, from various sides. He discloses and depicts eternal elements of the human spirit.
In the depth of human nature he reveals God and the devil and endless worlds, but always
he reveals through man and from out of some sort of frenzied interest in man. In
Dostoevsky there is no nature, there is no cosmic life, there are no things nor objects,
everything is enveloped by man and the endless human world, everything is enclosed
within man. Within mankind however there are at play frenzied, ecstatic, swirling
elements. Dostoevsky exerts an allure, he pulls everything together into a sort of fiery
atmosphere. And all else becomes insipid after one sojourns in the realm of Dostoevsky,
he kills the taste for the reading of other writers. The artistry of Dostoevsky is altogether
of a peculiar sort. He produced his anthropological investigations through artistry, whilst
drawing on the mysterious depths of human nature. Within these depths always there is
involved a frenzied and ecstatic whirlwind. And this whirlwind is a method of
anthropological revealings. Everything written by Dostoevsky is of a whirlwind-like
anthropology, everything there is revealed in an ecstatic-fiery atmosphere. Dostoevsky
reveals a new mystical science of man. Access to this science is possible only for those,
which have been drawn into the whirlwind. This is the path of initiation into the mystery-
knowledge of Dostoevsky. In this science and its methods nothing is static, everything --
is dynamic, everything is in motion, there is nothing congealed or petrified or at a
standstill, this -- is a torrent of red-hot lava. Everything is passionate, everything frenzied
in the anthropology of Dostoevsky, everything goes beyond the boundaries and limits. To
Dostoevsky was given to know man in his passionate, impetuous, frenzied stirrings.
There is nothing of a noble aspect to the human persons revealed by Dostoevsky, none of
that Tolstoyan nobleness, always detected at some static moment.

II

In the novels of Dostoevsky there is nothing, save for mankind and human
relationships. This has to be apparent for anyone, absorbed in the reading of these spirit-
gripping anthropologic tracts. All the heroes of Dostoevsky only but visit with one
another, they converse with one another, and they are drawn into the miring abyss of
tragic human fates. The sole serious vital deed of the people of Dostoevsky is their
mutual-relations, their passioned attraction and repulsion. It is impossible to find any
other sort of "deed", any other vital array in this immense and endlessly manifold human
realm. Always there is depicted some sort of human centre, some sort of central human
passion, and everything rotates, revolves around this human axis. There is depicted a
whirlwind of passionate human relations, and into this whirlwind is drawn everything,
everything somehow turns round in a frenzy. The whirlwind of impassioned, fiery human
nature pulls down this nature into the mysterious, enigmatic, unfathomable depths. It is
there that Dostoevsky discloses the human infinity, the bottomlessness of human nature.
But even in the very depths, and in the light of day, and in the abyss man remains, his
image and countenance do not disappear. We take delight from the novels of Dostoevsky.
In each of them is revealed an impassioned entry into inexplicable depths, an human
realm, in which everything exhausts itself. Within mankind is revealed infinitude and
fathomlessness, and there is nothing except man, there is nothing interesting besides man.

Here for example is the "Adolescent" ("Podrostok"), one of the most genius-
endowed and as yet insufficiently esteemed works of Dostoevsky. Everything revolves
around the image of Versilov, everything is saturated by an impassioned relationship to
him, by the human attraction and repulsion of him. The story concerns an adolescent, the
illegitimate son of Versilov. No one is occupied by any sort of work, no one has an
otherwise organic place in the established order of life, everything is off the beaten track,
off the paths of orderly life, everything is in an hysteria and frenzy. Yet all the same there
is the sense that everyone is at some immense deed, infinitely serious, and that they will
resolve very important tasks. What indeed is this deed, what is this task? About it fusses
the adolescent from morning til evening, whither it is that he hastens, and why has he not
a moment of respite nor rest? In the usual sense of the word the adolescent -- is a
complete idler, as is also his father Versilov, as also are almost all the active personages
in the novels of Dostoevsky. But all the same, Dostoevsky gives the impression that an
important, serious, Divine deed is transpiring. Man for Dostoevsky is higher than any
deed, he is also himself the deed. There is posited the living enigma about Versilov, about
man, about his destiny, about the Divine image within him. The resolution of these
riddles is a great deed, the greatest of deeds. The adolescent wants to discover the
mystery of Versilov. This mystery is hidden within the depths of man. All sense the
significance of Versilov, all are struck by the contradictions of his nature, for all there is
thrown into their gaze something deeply irrational in his character and in his life. The
enigma of the complicated, contradictory, irrational character of Versilov with his strange
fate, the riddle of an extraordinary man is for him a riddle about man in general. The
whole complicated plot, the complex intrigue of the novel is but a means for the revealing
of the man Versilov, for the revealing of complex human nature, about the antinomies of
its passions. The mystery of the nature of man is disclosed most of all in the relations of
men and women. And about love Dostoevsky happened to reveal something
unprecedented in Russian and world literature, he had a fiery concept of love. The love of
Versilov and Katerina Nikolaevna pulls in such an element of fiery passion, as nowhere
and never existed. This fiery passion was concealed beneathe an outward appearance of
calm. At times it seems, that Versilov -- is the Vulcan of yore. But this impresses upon us
also all the more sharply the image of Versilov's love. Dostoevsky shows the
contradiction, the polarity and the antinomy in the very nature of this fiery passion. Such
a verymost intense love is unrealisable upon the earth, it is hopeless, desperately tragic, it
begets death and destruction. Dostoevsky does not like to take man in the set living order
of the world. He always shows us man in the desperately hopeless and tragic, in the
contradictions, leading to the very depths. Such is the utmost type of man, manifest by
Dostoevsky.

In the "Idiot", perhaps the most artistically perfect of Dostoevsky's works,

everything likewise exhausts itself in the world of fiery human relationships. Prince
Myshkin journeys to Peterburg and at once he is caught up in the red-hot ecstatic
atmosphere of people's relations, which takes hold of him completely and into which he
brings his own tranquil ecstasy, evoking violent whirlwinds. The image of Myshkin -- is
a genuine revealing of a Christian Dionysianism. Myshkin does nothing, just as with all
the heroes of Dostoevsky, he is not bothered with having to order his life. The immense
and serious living task, which was set before him when he fell into the whirlwind of
human relationships, -- this is something pertaining to the destiny of every man, and first
of all to two women -- Nasta'ya Philippovna and Aglaya. In "The Adolescent" everything
is concerned with but one man -- with Versilov. In the "Idiot" one man -- Myshkin -- is
concerned with everything. Both there and here transpires an exclusive absorption in the
solving of human destinies. The antinomic duality of the nature of human love reveals
itself in the "Idiot" at its utmost depth. Myshkin loves with a different love both Nastas'ya
Philippovna and Aglaya, and this love cannot bring forth any sort of results. There is
immediately a sense, that the love for Nastas'ya Philippovna is endlessly tragic and will
lead to ruin. And Dostoevsky reveals here the nature of human love and its fate in this
world. This -- is not a piecemeal and ordinary narration, but rather anthropologic
knowledge, revealed through ecstatic immersion of man in the fiery red-hot atmosphere,
shown in depth. A passionate, fiery connection exists between Myshkin and Rogozhin.
Dostoevsky perceived, that love for a single woman not only separates people, but also it
unites them, binds them. Otherwise, in other tones, this bond, this connection is depicted
in the "Eternal Husband" ("Vechnyi muzh"), one of the genius-endowed works of
Dostoevsky. In the "Idiot" it is very clearly apparent, that Dostoevsky was entirely
interested not by the objective order of life, the natural and the social, he was not
interested in the epic event, the stasis of living forms, of attaining and evaluating the
ordering of life, be it familial, social, cultural. What interested him only were the genius-
endowed experiments over human nature. Everything remains with him in the depths, not
on this plane, where the apparent life is manifest, but in a completely different dimension.

In the "Possessed" (or the "Devils", "Besy") everything is concentrated around

Stavrogin, as in "The Adolescent" it was around Versilov. To define the relationship to
Stavrogin, to resolve his character and his fate is a singularly vital matter, around which
is concentrated the action. Everything is drawn towards him, everything is merely his
fate, his emanation, effected from his demonic-possession. The destiny of man, issuing
forth by his power into the infinitude of his yearnings, -- here is what comprises the
theme of the "Possessed". The person, from whom the narrative proceeds, is totally
absorbed by the world of human passions and the human demonic-possession, encircling
round about Stavrogin. And in the "Possessed" there is nothing of value attained, no sort
of building up, nothing of any sort organic realised in life. It is all indeed this riddle about
man and the passionate thirst to resolve it. We are dragged into the fiery torrent, and in
this torrent melt down and burn off all the congealed trappings, all the stable forms, all
the chilled-down and established modalities of existence, impeding the revelation about
man, about his depth, about his goings forth into the very depths of the contradictions.
The depths of man for Dostoevsky are always shown as unexpressed, unmanifest,
unrealised and unrealisable til the end. The revealing of the depths of man always leads to
catastrophe, beyond the bounds and limits of the felicitous life of this world.

In the novel, the "Insulted and the Humiliated" ("Prestuplenii i nakazanii") there is
nothing, except the revealing of the inner life of man, his experimenting over his unique
nature and human nature in general, besides the discovering of all the possibilities and
impossibilities, situated within man. But the anthropological discovery in the "Insulted
and the Humiliated" leads otherwise, than in the other novels, in it there is no such
strained passionateness of human relations, there is no such revealing of a single human
person through the human manifold. Of all the works of Dostoevsky, the "Insulted and
the Humiliated" most of all brings to mind the experience of a new science of man.

The "Brothers Karamazov" -- is the richest in content, abundant with thoughts of

genius, though also not very perfective a work of Dostoevsky. Here again the problem
about man is put into an impassioned and strained atmosphere of human multiplicity.
Alyosha, -- least successful of the depictions of Dostoevsky, -- sees his singular vital task
in having an active relationship with his brothers Ivan and Dmitrii, with the women
connected with them -- Grushen'ka and Katerina Ivanovna, and to the children. But he is
not bothered with building a life. Drawn into the whirlwind of human passions, he goes
now to one, now to another, to attempt to resolve the human enigma. Most of all does the
enigma of his brother Ivan intrigue him. Ivan -- is a worldly enigma, the problem of man
in general. And everything, which in Dostoevsky is connected with Ivan Karamazov, is a
profound metaphysics of man. The participation of Ivan Karamazov in the murder, done
by Smerdyakov, -- this his other half, the stinging conscience of Ivan, the conversation
with the devil, -- all this is anthropologic experiment, the discovery of the possibilities
and impossibilities of human nature, its but with difficulty grasped, most subtle
experiencings of an inward murder. Through a favourite device of Dostoevsky, Mitya is
set betwixt two women, and the love of Mitya leads to ruination. Nothing that is possible
is realised in the external order of life, everything possible transpires in the infinite,
inexplicable depths. Dostoevsky thus also did not show the realising of a felicitous life by
Alyosha, since indeed it was not very needful for the anthropological investigations.
Positive felicity is given in the form of the discourse of Starets Zosima, and it is no
accident that Dostoevsky has him die off near the very beginning of the novel. His further
continued existence would merely have made maddening the revealing of all the
contradictions and polarities of human nature. All the primary novels of Dostoevsky
bespeak this, that what interests him only is man and human relations, that he but follows
out human nature, and by his artistic-experimental method, so very revealing with him,
he reveals all the contradictions of human nature, plunging it into a fiery and ecstatic
atmosphere.

III

Dostoevsky -- is Dionysian and an ecstatic. In him there is nothing Apollonian,

there is nothing moderative or introduced within the limits of form. He is immoderate in
everything, he is always in a frenzy, in his creativity all the boundaries are burst asunder.
And a greatest trait in Dostoevsky mustneeds be seen in this, that in the Dionysian
ecstasy and frenzy -- with him man does not vanish, in the very depths of the ecstatic
experience the image of man is preserved, the human countenance is not rent asunder, the
principle of human individuality remains as from the very day of its genesis. Man -- is
not at the periphery of being, as he is for many a mystic and metaphysician, he is not a
transitory appearance, but rather of the very depths of being, nigh off into the bosom of
Divine life. In the ancient Dionysian ecstasy the principle of human individuality was
snatched away and there transpired an absorption into an impersonal unity. Ecstasy was
the way of extirpating all multiplicity within the unity. The Dionysian element was
outside the human, and was impersonal. But not so for Dostoevsky. He is profoundly
distinct from all those mystics for whom in ecstasy the countenance of man vanishes and
everything dies away within the Divine unity. In the ecstasies and in the frenzies
Dostoevsky to the end remains a Christian, since to the end for him man remains, his
countenance remains. He is deeply antithetical to the German Idealist monism, which
always purports for itself the Monophysite heresy, the denial of the autonomy of the
human nature with its being swallowed up always by the Divine nature. Dostoevsky is
altogether not a monist, he to the very end acknowledges a manifold of persons, the
plurality and complexity within being. Characteristic for him is a sort of frenzied sense of
the human person and its eternal, indestructible destiny. The human person for him never
dies off within the Divine, into the Divine oneness. He perceives always the process with
God concerning the destiny of the human person, and he wants to surrender nothing of
this destiny. He ecstatically senses that man also survives, and not only God. He burns
eternally with the thirst for human immortality. And he would sooner consent to the
horrid nightmare of Svidrigailov about eternal life in the lower room with the spiders,
than to the disappearance of man into an impersonal monism. Better hell for the human
person, than unpersonal and unhuman bliss. The dialectics about the tears of a child, on
account of which the world is repudiated, although put also into the mouth of the atheist
Ivan Karamazov, -- all this appertains to the creative imagination of Dostoevsky himself.
He appears always as the advocate of man, a proponent for his destiny.

How profound the distinction between Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. In Tolstoy the
human countenance sinks down into the organic elements. Multiplicity for him was
merely modality, merely in the appearances of the organic array of life. As an artist and a
thinker, Tolstoy -- was a monist. The facelessness, the roundness of Platon Karataev is
for him the highest attainment. Man for him does not go into the very depths, he -- is
always a phenomenon on the periphery of being. The question of man does not torture
Tolstoy, only the question of God tortures him. For Dostoevsky however the question of
God is connected with the question of man. Tolstoy is more the theologian, than is
Dostoevsky. The matter of Raskol'nikov and the matter of Ivan Karamazov is a
tormentive question about man, about the limits, set for man. And even when Myshkin
sinks into a quiet mindlessness, it remains accurate, that the human countenance does not
disappear into Divine ecstasy. Dostoevsky reveals to us the ecstasy of man, his whirlwind
stirrings, but never and nowhere does man for him plunge away into cosmic infinitude, as
for example, in the creativity of A. Bely. Ecstasy always is but a stirring in the depths of
man. The exclusive interest of Dostoevsky towards transgressions was purely an
anthropological interest. This -- was an interest in the limits and boundaries of human
nature. But even in transgression, which for Dostoevsky always is frenzy, man does not
perish and he does not disappear, but rather is affirmed and reborn.

It is necessary still to stress one peculiarity of Dostoevsky. He is extraordinarily,

diabolically skillful, his thoughts unusually acute, his dialectic terribly powerful.
Dostoevsky -- is a great thinker within his artistic creativity, and foremost of all he is an
artist of thought. From the greatest artists in the world as regards strength of mind, there
might in part compare together with him only Shakespeare, also a great investigator of
human nature. The works of Shakespeare are fully pervaded by an acuity of mind, -- of
the Renaissance mind. The abyss of the mind, of a different but still more immense and
pervasive aspect, is revealed by Dostoevsky. Merely but from the "Notes from the
Underground" and the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" is presented an enormous mental
wealth. He was even too skillful for an artist, his mind impeded the attainment of artistic
catharsis. And here it is necessary to note, that the Dionysianism and ecstacism of
Dostoevsky did not quench his mind and thought, as often this occurs, it did not
submerge the acuity of mind and thought into the mindlessness of a Divine intoxication.
Dostoevsky the mystic, the enemy and unmasker of rationalism and intellectualism,
adored thought, he was enamoured with dialectic. Dostoevsky presents an extraordinary
manifestation of orgianism, of an ecstaticism of thought itself, he was intoxicated by the
power of his mind. His thought is always whirlwind-like, orgiastically frenzied, but with
this it does not diminish in strength and acuity. With the example of his creativity
Dostoevsky showed, that the surmounting of rationalism and the disclosing of the
irrationality of life is not invariably a diminution of mind, that the acuity of mind itself
facilitates the revealing of irrationality. This original peculiarity of Dostoevsky is
connected with the theme, that for him to the very end man remains, he is never dissolved
into an impersonal oneness. Therefore he acutely knows the antithetical. In monism of
the German type there is depth, but not an acuity, a pervasiveness of thought, yielding
knowledge of antitheses, and everything instead sinks into oneness. Goethe was vastly
endowed with genius, but it does not obtain to say for him, that he was vastly skilled, in
his mind there was not the acuity, there was not the pervasive penetration into the
antithetical. Dostoevsky always thought antithetically and by this he sharpened his
thought. Monophysitism dulls the acuity of thought. Dostoevsky indeed always saw in
the depths not only God, but man also, not only unity, but multiplicity also, not only the
one, but also the antithetical to it. The acuity of his thoughts is in the polarisation of the
thoughts. Dostoevsky -- is a great, a greatest thinker foremost in his artistic creativity, in
his novels. In the journalistic articles, however, the strength and acuity of his thought was
weakened and dulled. Within his Slavophil agrarian and Orthodox ideology is missing
that trait of the antithetical and the polarity, disclosed within his mind acute with genius.
He was mediocre as a journalist, and when he began to preach, his level of thought
lowered; his ideas simplified. Even his famed speech about Pushkin tended quite to
exaggeration. The thoughts in this speech and the thoughts in the "Diary of a Writer"
("Dnevnik pisatelya") are insipid and bland in comparison with the thoughts of Ivan
Karamazov, of Versilov or Kirillov, in comparison with the thoughts of the "Legend of
the Grand Inquisitor" or the "Notes from the Underground".

Many a time already it has been noted, that Dostoevsky, as an artist, was tormented,
that in him there was nothing of the artistic catharsic-cleansing and egress. This egress
has been sought for in the positive ideas and setting of belief partly in the "Brothers
Karamazov", and partly in the "Diary of a Writer". This reflects a false attitude towards
Dostoevsky. He is in anguish, but never does he remain in darkness, in despair. With him
there is always an ecstatic egress. He pulls with his whirlwind beyond all the boundaries,
he rends the limits of every darkness. That ecstasy, which is experienced during the
reading of Dostoevsky, is an egress already by itself. This egress mustneeds be searched
out not in the doctrines and ideological constructs of Dostoevsky the preacher and the
publicist, not in the "Diary of a Writer", but in his tragedy novels, in that artistic gnosis,
which is revealed in them. It would be a mistake to set forth a platform upon the not
entirely successful image of Alyosha as a bright point of egress from the darkness of Ivan
and Dmitrii and the earlier accumulated darkness of Raskol'nikov, Stavrogin, Versilov.
This would be a doctrinal attitude to the creativity of Dostoevsky. The egress is without
preaching and without moralising, in a great shining forth of ecstatic knowledge, in the
very immersion into the fiery human element. Dostoevsky is poor in theology, he is rich
however in his anthropological investigations. With Dostoevsky, only the question about
man is profoundly put. Questions about society and the state were put by him, however,
with not much originality. His preaching of theocracy is almost banal. But in him it is
necessary to seek out his strength. The highest of all and first of all for Dostoevsky -- is
the human soul, it stands greater than all the kingdoms and all the worlds, than all world
history, than all the reknown progress. In the process transpiring within Mitya
Karamazov, Dostoevsky revealed the incommensurability of the cold, objective,
unhuman civil realm in contrast to that of the soul of man, the incapacity of the civil
realm to penetrate to the righteous truth of the soul. But he poorly perceived the nature of
the civil realm. Dostoevsky is regarded as a criminalist in terms of his themes and
interests. He dealt most of all with the revealing of the psychology of transgression. But
this is merely the method, by which he carries out his investigation into the irrationality
of human nature and its incompatibility with any sort of ordered life, -- whether it be with
any sort of rational civil realm, or with any sort of the tasks of history or of progress.
Dostoevsky had a fiery religious nature and was a most Christian of writers. But he was a
Christian first of all and most of all in his artistic revealings about man, and not in any
sort of preachings or doctrines.

IV

Dostoevsky wrought a great anthropological revelation, and in this mustneeds first

of all be seen his artistic, philosophic and religious significance. But what was this
revelation? All sorts of artists have depicted man, and many among them were
psychologists. How subtle a psychologist, for example, was Stendhal. And Shakespeare
revealed a diverse and rich human world. In the creativity of Shakespeare was revealed a
dazzling interplay of human power, set free during the era of the Renaissance. But the
revealing by Dostoevsky is incomparable with anyone or anything. Both in his raising of
the theme concerning man, and in the means of its resolution for him, it is entirely unique
and particular. He was interested by the eternal essence of the human nature, its hidden
depths, which no one had ever gleaned. And it was not the stasis of these depths that
interested him, but rather their dynamics, their stirrings that as it were in very eternity had
transpired. This movement is totally inward, not subject to external evolution and history.
Dostoevsky reveals not a phenomenal, but rather ontological dynamics. In the
penultimate depth of man, in the abyss of being, -- there is not stillness, but rather
movement. All the visual interplay of human passions and the appearances manifest by
the human psyche is but at the periphery of being. Dostoevsky revealed the tragic
contradiction and the tragic stirrings within the penultimate plane of the being of man,
where it is immersed already within the ineffable Divine being, yet not vanishing into it.
Too well known are the words of Mitya Karamazov: "Beauty -- this is a frightful and
terrible thing! Frightful, since that it is indefinable, and it is impossible to define it, since
God hath made it entirely an enigma. Here the shores coincide, here all the contradictions
live together… Beauty! Moreover I cannot bear it, that another, even more upright in
heart a man and with a mind lofty, can begin with the ideal of the Madonna, and end up
with the ideal of Sodom. More fearful still, is that the one with the ideal of the Sodomic
in soul does not deny also the ideal of the Madonna, he is ardent in his heart, and in truth,
in truth he is as ardent as in his youthful, innocent years. No, man is vast, too vast, I
should judge". All the heroes of Dostoevsky -- are but he himself, various of the sides of
his endlessly rich and endlessly complex spirit, and he always puts into the mouths of his
heroes his own genius-endowed thoughts. And here it is indicated, that beauty, -- the
highest form of ontologic perfection, about which in another place it is said, that it would
save the world, -- here it presented itself to Dostoevsky as contradictory, twofold,
frightful, terrible. He does not contemplate the Divinely tranquil beauty, its Platonic idea,
he sees right down to its very end, to the utmost depths of its fiery, whirlwind stirrings, its
polarisation. Beauty reveals itself to him only through man, through the vast, the too vast,
mysterious, contradictory, eternal stirrings of the nature of man. He does not contemplate
beauty in the cosmos, in the Divine world-order. Hence -- the eternal restlessness.
"Beauty is not only frightening, it is also a mysterious thing. It is here that the devil and
God do contend, and the field of battle -- is the heart of people". The distinction between
"godly" and "diabolic" does not coincide for Dostoevsky with the usual distinction
between "good" and "evil". In this -- is a mystery of the anthropology of Dostoevsky. The
distinction between good and evil is peripheral. The indeed fiery polarisation goes to the
very depths of being, and it is present to the very utmost -- in beauty. If Dostoevsky had
revealed his teaching about God, he would then have been obliged to acknowledge a
duality in the Divine nature itself, a furied and dark principle in the very depth of the
Divine nature. He gives intimations of this truth with his genius-endowed anthropology.
Dostoevsky was an anti-Platonist.

And Stavrogin speaks about the various attractions of the two antithetical poles, the
Madonna ideal and the Sodomic ideal. This is not a simple struggle of good with evil in
the human heart. In this it is also a matter, that for Dostoevsky the human heart at its most
primary basis -- is polarised, and this polarisation begets a fiery stirring, which does not
permit of peace. Peace, having unity within the human heart, within the human soul, is
seen not by those, which like Dostoevsky glance into the very depths, but rather by those,
which fear to glance into the abyss and remain hence at the surface. With Dostoevsky to
the very depths there was an antinomic attitude towards evil. He wants always to
acknowledge the mystery of evil, and in this he was a gnostic, he did not push out evil
into the sphere of the unknowable, nor did he discard it altogether. Evil was for him evil,
evil blazed for him in the hellish fire, and he passionately strove for the victory over evil.
But he wanted to do something with evil, to transform it into an handsome metal, onto an
higher Divine being and by this to save evil, i.e. to genuinely conquer it, and not relegate
it to the outer darkness. This -- is a profoundly mystical motif in Dostoevsky, a revelation
of his great heart, of his fiery love for man and for Christ. The falling away, the
separation, the apostacy never appeared for Dostoevsky simply as sin, this was for him
likewise -- a pathway. He does not read morally over the living tragedies of Raskol'nikov,
Stavrogin, Kirillov, Versilov, Dmitrii and Ivan Karamazov, he does not set opposite them
any elementary catechism truths. Evil mustneeds be overcome and conquered, but it
provides also an enriching experience, in division much is revealed, it enriches and
provides knowledge. Evil likewise is a path also of man. And everyone, who has gone
through Dostoevsky and experienced him, has recognised the mystery of dichotomy, has
received the knowledge of the antithetical, is outfitted in the struggle with evil by a new
mighty armour -- by the knowledge of evil, has received the possibility to overcome it
from within, and not merely externally to flee from it and cast it away, remaining
powerless in the face of its dark element. Man makes his way through the progression of
the heroes of Dostoevsky and attains to maturity, an inner freedom in relation to evil. But
in Dostoevsky there is a separation of the dual and inverted likenesses to illusory being,
of rejects upon the path of development. Suchlike are Svidrigalov, Peter Verkhovensky,
the eternal husband, Smerdyakov. This -- is but the chaff of straw, for they do not truly
exist. These beings lead a vampire-like existence.

Dostoevsky makes the first of his revelations about human nature, very
substantially so, in his "Notes from the Underground", and he refines on these disclosures
in the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor". He denies, first of all, that man at the root of his
nature strives for the advantageous, for happiness, for satisfaction, or that human nature is
rational. Within man there is enclosed a demand for the arbitrary, for freedom in excess
of any benefit, for an immeasurable freedom. Man -- is essentially irrational. "I should
not at all be surprised, -- says the hero of the "Notes from the Underground", -- if
suddenly from neither here nor there, amidst the universal future harmony there should
arise some sort of gentleman, with an ignoble, or better to say, with a retrograd and
sneering physiognomy, and with arms akimbo at his sides in reproach he would say to all
of us: should we not shove aside for a time all this harmony, shove it underfoot, into the
dust, solely with the purpose, that all these logarithms be dispatched to the devil, and so
that we again may live by our own absurd will. (Italics mine. -- N.B.) This would be still
nothing, yet there is the rub, that indeed undoubtedly he would find followers, for thus so
is man made. And all this from the emptiest of reasons, about which the mere mention
could not seem to obtain: namely from this, that man, always and everywhere, whosoever
he might be, might act thus as he wanted, and nowise thus, as reason and advantage
should demand him; he might even possibly want that which is contrary to his own
advantage, and sometimes even positively must. His own particular willful and free
desire, his very own, even though it be the most wild caprice, his own fantasy, irritating
sometimes even though to the point of madness, -- this here is that verymost allowable,
most advantageous advantage, which comes under no sort of classification and from
which all the systems and theories fly off to the devil. And from what have all those wise
men assumed, that man has necessary some sort of normal, some sort of good-willing
desire? From what have they assuredly imagined, that to man is necessary an assuredly
prudent-advantageous desire? Alone necessary to man is only his own autonomous
desire, whatever this independence might cost him or to what it might lead him". In these
words is already given in rudimentary form that genius-endowed dialectic about man,
which further on takes shape through the fate of all the heroes of Dostoevsky, and in a
positive form finds its completion in the "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor". "There is only
one instance, only one, when man can intentionally, consciously wish for himself the
harmful, the absurd, even the most absurd, and it is namely: so as to have the right to
want for himself even the most absurd and not be bound by the obligation to want for
himself only the sensible. Indeed this most absurd, indeed this his caprice in actual fact,
gentlemen, is perhaps the most advantageous of all for our brother from everything that is
upon the earth, particularly in some other instances. And partly perhaps it is the most
advantageous advantage even in that instance, where it brings evident harm and
contradicts the most healthy deductions of our reasoning about advantages, since that in
every instance it preserves for us that which is foremost and most dear, i.e. our person
and our individuality". (Italics mine. -- N.B.) Man -- is not arithmetic, man -- is
essentially enigmatic and problematic. Human nature -- is polarised and antinomic to the
very end. "What indeed is it expected of man, as a being, endowed with such strange
qualities?" Dostoevsky gives blow after blow to all the theories and utopias of human
felicity, of human earthly bliss, of the ultimate constructs of harmony. "Man desires the
most destructive disputes, the most uneconomic nonsense, solely for this, to mix into all
this positive felicity his own destructive fantastic element. It is particularly his own
fantastic day-dreams, his own trivial absurdity that he wishes to assert for himself, solely
for this, that he can affirm for himself, that people all are still people, and not some sort
of forte-piano keys". "If you say, that also all this can be reckoned out according to
calculations, about the chaos, and the darkness, and the curses, such that yet with the
mere possibility of a prior calculation everything should stop and reason prevail -- then
man would deliberately in this instance make himself mad, so as to be bereft of reason
and to have his own way. I believe in this, I answer for this, since indeed the whole
human matter, it seems, actually also consists but in this, that man should be constantly
able to demonstrate for himself, that he is a man, and not a pin-tack". (Italics mine. -- N.
B.) Dostoevsky reveals the incommensurability of the free, the contradictory and
irrational human nature in contrast to rationalistic humanism, with rationalistic theories of
progress, with the ultimate goal of a rationalised social organisation, with all the utopias
about crystal palaces. All this represents for him a degeneration for man, for human
worthiness. "What yet herein would your will be, when the matter is reduced to
calculations and to arithmetic, when only alone there will be twice two is four at the
start? Twice two would be four even without my will. What indeed your will would
become!" "Is it not therefore, perhaps, that man is so fond of destruction and chaos, in
that he instinctively is afraid to reach the goals and finish off the built edifice?… And
who knows, perhaps, whether also every end on the earth, towards which man strives, is
but to be comprised in this incessant process of attainment, or expressed otherwise -- in
life itself, and not particularly in the actual ends which, reasonably, ought to be naught
other than twice two is four, i.e. a formula, but indeed twice two is four is already not
life, gentlemen, but rather the beginning of death". (Italics mine. -- N.B.) Arithmetic is
not applicable to human nature. Needful here is an higher mathematic. In man, taken
deeply, there is an impetus to suffering, a contempt for felicity. "And why are you so
firmly, so solemnly convinced, that only alone the normal and the positive, in a word --
only alone prosperity is advantageous to man? Might not reason be mistaken in the
advantages? Indeed, perhaps, man might not love only the thriving. Might it not be, that
he just as equally love suffering? Might it not be, that suffering for him be just as equally
advantageous, as prosperity? And man is terribly fond of suffering, passionately so… I
am convinced, that man would never renounce authentic suffering, i.e. destruction and
chaos. Suffering, -- yes indeed this is the sole principle of consciousness". In these
amazingly keen thoughts of the hero from the underground, Dostoevsky posits the basis
of his own new anthropology, which is disclosed in the fate of Raskol'nikov, Stavrogin,
Myshkin, Versilov, Ivan and Dmitrii Karamazov. L. Shestov pointed to the immense
significance of the "Notes from the Underground", but he investigated this work
exclusively from the side of the underground psychology and by this he provided only an
one-sided interpretation of Dostoevsky.

VI

The postulate mustneeds be considered, that the creativity of Dostoevsky falls into
two periods -- that of before the "Notes from the Underground" and that of after the
"Notes from the Underground". In between these two periods there occurred for
Dostoevsky a spiritual turnabout, after which there was revealed to him something new
concerning man. Only after this there also begins the real Dostoevsky, the author of
"Crime and Punishment" ("Prestuplenie i nakazanie"), the "Idiot", the "Devils", the
"Adolescent", the "Brothers Karamazov". In the first period, when Dostoevsky wrote
"Poor Folk" ("Bednye liudi"), "Notes from the House of the Dead" ("Zapiski iz mertvogo
doma"), the "Insulted and the Humiliated", he was still an humanist, fine of soul, na?ve
and not free of the sentimental humanism. He was still under the influence of the ideas of
Belinsky, and in his creativity is felt the influence of George Sand, V. Hugo, Dickens.
But even then already was disclosed the uniqueness of Dostoevsky, though he had not yet
become fully himself. In this period he was still "Schiller". And with this name he
afterwards loved to call the fine souls, bowing to everything "lofty and beautiful". Then
already in the pathos of Dostoevsky there was a sympathy for man, for the humiliated and
the insulted. But beginning with the "Notes from the Underground", man is perceived as
knowing good and evil, and undergoing a divisiveness. Dostoevsky becomes an enemy of
the old humanism, he becomes an exposer of humanistic utopias and illusions. In him
conjoin the polarities of a passionate love for man and hatred for man, of a fiery
sympathy for man and yet fierceness. He inherited the humanism of Russian literature,
the Russian sympathy for all the neglected, the wronged and the downtrodden, the
Russian sense of the value of the human soul. But he surmounted the na?ve, the
elementary foundations of the old humanism, and there was revealed to him a completely
new, a tragic humanism. In this regard Dostoevsky can be compared only with Nietzsche,
in whom the old European humanism came to an end, and as regards the new there was
set forth the tragic problem of man. Many a time this has been pointed out, that
Dostoevsky foresaw the ideas of Nietzsche. They were both heralds of a new revelation
about man, both were first of all great anthropologists, and the anthropology of both --
was apocalyptic, approaching nigh the extremes, the limits and the end-points. And thus,
what Dostoevsky says about the man-god and Nietzsche about the ubermensch, is an
apocalyptic thought about man. And thus is posited the problem of man by Kirillov. The
image of Kirillov in the "Devils" is a very Christian, though angelically pure idea of the
liberation of man from the power of all fear and the attainment of a Divine condition.
"Whoso conquereth pain and fear, that one himself becomes God. Then is a new life, then
is a new man, everything is anew". "Man would become god and transform the physical.
And the world would be transformed, and matter be transformed, and all thoughts and
sensations". "Everyone, who desires the chief freedom, that one ought to dare to kill
themself… Whoso dares to kill themself, that one is God". In another conversation
Kirillov says: "He wilt come and the name for him will be man-god". "God-man?", --
questions Stavrogin. "No, the man-god, in this is the difference". With this opposing
point of view they then make very evil useage of a Russian religio-philosophic thought.
The idea of the man-god, manifest to Kirillov in its pure spirituality, is a moment in the
genius-endowed dialectic of Dostoevsky, concerning man and his pathways. God-man
and man-god -- are polarities of human nature. This involves two paths -- either from
God to man or from man to God. In Dostoevsky there was not an invariably negative
attitude to Kirillov, as would be to an expressedly anti-Christ principle. The way of
Kirillov -- is the way of an heroic spirit, conquering all fear, striving towards the summits
of freedom. Yet Kirillov is only himself but one of the principles of human nature, by
himself insufficient, one of the poles of spirit. The exclusive triumph of this principle
leads to ruin. But for Dostoevsky, Kirillov is an inevitable moment in the revelation about
man. He was needful for the anthropological investigations of Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky
had entirely no desire to spell out the morale about how bad a thing it is to strive after
man-godhood. With him the immanent dialectic was always a given. Kirillov -- was an
anthropological experiment purely up in the air.

By theme and by the method of an immanent dialectic, Dostoevsky reveals the

Divine foundation of man, the image of God in man, in the power of which not
"everything is permissible". This theme about whether all is permissible, i.e. of what are
the limits and the possibilities of human nature, persistently was of interest to
Dostoevsky, and he returns to it constantly. This -- is the theme of Raskol'nikov and of
Ivan Karamazov. Neither Raskol'nikov, a man of thought and action, nor Ivan
Karamazov, exclusively a man of thought, were able to overstep the bounds, with all the
tragedy of their lives they are forced to repudiate, that all is permissible. But wherefore
indeed not permissible? Can it be said, that they took fright, that they sensed themselves
ordinary people? The anthropologic dialectic of Dostoevsky suggests otherwise. Of the
infinite value of every human soul, though it be the very least, of every human person he
indicates, that it is not at all permissible, it is not permissible to scorn the human person,
its conversion into a mere means is not permissible. The narrowed down of the scope of
possibilities with him is drawn from the infinite expanse of the vast possibilities of every
human soul. A transgressive enroachment upon man is an enroachment upon this infinity,
upon the infinite possibilities. Dostoevsky always affirms the Divine infinite value of the
human soul, of the human person against every enroachment, simultaneously both against
transgression, and against theories of progress. This -- is a sort of ecstatic sense of the
person and personal destiny. It is admissible to think, that Dostoevsky was all his life
most tormented by the question about the immortality of the soul. But the question about
immortality was for him also a question about the nature of man and about human
destiny. This -- was an anthropological interest. Not only the question about immortality,
but also the question about God was subjected in Dostoevsky to the question about man
and his eternal destiny. God for him is revealed within the depths of man and through
man. God and immortality are revealed through the love of people, the relationship of
man to man. But man himself is audaciously exalted by him, lifted to an extraordinary
height. The little tears of a child, the weeping of children -- this is all a question about the
human destiny, posited by love. Because of the fate of man in this world Dostoevsky was
prepared not to accept the world of God. All the dialectic of Ivan Karamazov, and also
other of the heroes, -- is his own especial dialectic. But with Dostoevsky himself
everything is more complex and richer than it is for his heroes, he knows more than them.
The chief thing that Dostoevsky finds need to search out is not in humility ("be thou
humbled, haughty man"), it is not in the consciousness of sin, but in the mystery of man,
in freedom. With L. Tolstoy, man -- is under the law. With Dostoevsky, man -- is in
grace, in freedom.

VII

Dostoevsky reaches the heights of his consciousness in the "Legend of the Grand
Inquisitor". Here his anthropologic revelations find completion, and the problem of man
is set forth in a new religious light. In the "Notes from the Underground" man was
acknowledged as essentially irrational, problematic, full of contradictions, given to a
thirst for the arbitrary and to a need for suffering. But there it was merely a tangled and
subtle psychology. There had not yet obtained Dostoevsky's religious anthropology. It
was discussed only in the Legend, narrated by Ivan Karamazov. It had become possible
only after the lengthy and tragic path, traversed by man in "Crime and Punishment", the
"Idiot", the "Devils", the "Adolescent". And it is very remarkable, that the greatest of his
revelations was related by Dostoevsky through Ivan Karamazov, he expressed them not
in the form of ideological preaching, but in the embellished form of a "fantasy", in which
something ultimately glimmers forth, but the embellished aspect remains. Towards the
end something remains twofold, permitting of contrary interpretations, for many almost
dually ambiguous. And Alyosha is entirely right, when he exclaims to Ivan: "thy poem is
a praise to Jesus". Yes indeed, the greatest praise, which was ever pronounced in the
human tongue. The Catholic setting and expose of the poem are not substantial. And it is
completely possible to dismiss the polemics against Catholicism. In this poem,
Dostoevsky shifts his mystery about man close up together with the mystery about Christ.
Dearest of all to man is his freedom, and the freedom of man is dearest of all to Christ.
The Grand Inquisitor says: "Their freedom of faith was dearest of all to Thee even then,
fifteen hundred years ago. Didst Thou not often then say: "I want to make ye free"… The
Grand Inquisitor wants to make people happy, organised and tranquil, he emerges as the
bearer of the eternal principle of human well-being and organisation. "He holds it to the
merit of him and his, that finally they have conquered freedom, and made it thus, that
people should be made happy... Man was constructed a rebel; but really can rebels be
happy?" And the Grand Inquisitor says with reproach to He that was manifest the bearer
of the infinite freedom of the human spirit: "Thou didst reject the sole way, which could
make people happy". "Thou didst wish to come into the world and Thou didst come with
bare hands, with some sort of promise of freedom, which they, in their simplicity and
their inborn rowdiness cannot even think about, which they fear and are afraid of, for
nothing and nowhere would there be anything more intolerable for man and for human
society than freedom!" The Grand Inquisitor adopts the First Temptation in the
Wilderness -- the temptation with the loaves of bread, and upon it he wants to base the
happiness of people. "Freedom and earthly bread sufficient for everyone is
inconceivable". People "will be convinced, that they can never even be free, because they
are weak, depraved, insignificant and rebels. Thou didst promise them heavenly bread,
but how can it compare in the eyes of the weak, the eternally corrupt and eternally
ungrateful human race, how can it compare with the earthly?" And the Grand Inquisitor
accuses Christ of aristocratism, of a scornful neglect "for the millions, innumerable, like
the sands of the sea, the weak". He exclaims: "or are only the ten thousand, great and
strong, dear to Thee?" "No, for us the weak are also dear". Christ rejected the First
Temptation "in the name of freedom, which He put above everything". "Instead of
seizing control over the freedom of people, Thou didst increase it all the more for them!
… Thou didst take everything, which is extraordinary, conjectural and indefinable, Thou
didst take everything, that would be beyond the power of people, and didst therefore act,
as even though not loving them at all… Instead of seizing control over people's freedom,
Thou didst multiply it and enburden its kingdom of the soul of man with torments
forever. Thou didst desire the free love of man, so that freely he should follow after Thee,
charmed and captivated by Thee. In place of the harsh ancient law, with a free heart
instead ought man to decide for himself henceforth, what is good and what is evil, having
but for hand-guidance only Thine Image before him". "Thou didst not come down from
the Cross, since that therefore Thou again desired not to enslave man by a miracle and
Thou hast craved a free belief, not by miracle. Thou hast craved a free love, and not the
slave-like raptures of the unfree before mightiness, once always terrifying him. But here
also Thou didst adjudge too very highly as regards people, since ultimately, they are
slaves". "Esteeming man so much, Thou didst act, as though ceasing to have compassion
for him, since also Thou didst demand too much from him… Esteeming him less, Thou
wouldst demand less from him, and this would be nearer to love, since it would be easier
bearing it". "Thou canst with pride point to those children of freedom, their free love,
their free and magnificent sacrifice in Thy Name. But remember, that of them there were
only several thousands, and indeed godly, but the rest? And in what are the remaining
weak people guilty in, that they could not endure, what the mighty ones could? With
what is the weak soul culpable, that it has not the strength to accommodate such terrible
gifts? Art Thou indeed come really but to the chosen and for the chosen?" And then the
Grand Inquisitor exclaimed: "we are not with Thee, but with him, herein is our mystery!"
And he sketches out a picture of the happiness and contentment of millions of weak
beings, deprived of freedom. At the end he says: "I did depart from the haughty and
returned back to the dead for the happiness of these dead". For his justification he points
to "the thousand millions of happy infants".

In this genius-endowed metaphysical poem, perhaps the greatest of all written by

mankind, Dostoevsky reveals the struggle of two principles in the world -- of Christ and
of Anti-Christ, of freedom and of compulsion. The Grand Inquisitor speaks all the time as
the enemy of freedom, scorning man, wanting to make happy though compulsion. But in
this negative form Dostoevsky reveals his positive teaching about man, about his infinite
worthiness, about his infinite freedom. That which was foreshadowed in negative form in
the "Notes from the Underground", now in a positive form is revealed in this poem. This
-- is a poem about the proud and lofty freedom of man, about the infinite height of his
vocation, about the infinite abilities lodged within man. In this poem is situated a
completely exclusive sensation of Christ. It is striking the similarity of the spirit of Christ
with the spirit of Zarathustra. The Anti-Christ principle -- is not Kirillov with his striving
towards man-godhood, but rather the Grand Inquisitor with his striving to deprive people
of freedom in the name of happiness. The Anti-Christ for Vl. Solov'ev possesses features,
akin to the Grand Inquisitor. The spirit of Christ values freedom more than happiness, the
spirit of Anti-Christ values happiness more than freedom. The higher, the God-image
worthiness of man demands the right to arbitrary freedom and to suffering. Man -- is a
tragic being, and in this is a sign of his belonging not only to this, but also to another
world. For a tragic being, containing infinity within him, the penultimate order,
tranquility and happiness upon the earth is possible only by way of renunciation of
freedom, of renunciation of the image of God within him. The thoughts of the
underground man are transformed in the new Christian revelation, they proceed through
the cleansing fire of all the tragedies of Dostoevsky. The "Legend of the Grand
Inquisitor" is a revelation about man, set into an intimate connection with the revelation
of Christ. This -- is an aristocratic anthropology. The Anti-Christ can assume various and
very contrary guises, from the very Catholic to the very socialistic, from the very much of
Caesar to the very democratic. But the Anti-Christ principle always is hostile to man,
destructive of the dignity of man. That blindingly inverted light, which falls from the
demonic words of the Grand Inquisitor, comprises within itself more religious a
revelation, than the discourse of Zosima, than the image of Alyosha. And herein it
becomes necessary to search out the key to the great anthropological revelations of
Dostoevsky, for his positive religious idea concerning man.

VIII

The "soil" ideology of Dostoevsky himself, which he developed in his articles,

situates his religious populism at variance to his unique revelation concerning man.
Within his novels is hidden away a different ideology, with genius, a profound
metaphysics of life and of man. Dostoevsky was a populist, but he never portrays the
people. They comprise it exceptionally in the "Notes from the House of the Dead". But
there also, it involves a world of criminals, and not the people in its everyday life. The
stasis of the people, the peasant way of life, its being did not interest him. He -- was a
writer of the city, of the city intelligentsia stratum, or of the stratum of the petty officials
and citizens. In the life of the city, preeminently Peterburg, and in the soul of the citizen,
alienated from the people's soil, he revealed an exceptional dynamic, and disclosed the
limits of human nature. In a whirlwind of motion, at the limits are located also all those
Captains Lebyakin, Snegirevs and others. Of interest to him were not the people intensely
of the soil, the people on the land, with their way of life, the believers from the soil, the
ordinary traditions. He always took hold of human nature poured forth into a fiery
atmosphere. And he was uninterested, unneedful of the human nature chilled down,
statically congealed. He was interested only by those split off, he loved the Russian
vagabond. He revealed within the Russian soul the source of eternal stirrings, of
wandering, seeking after the new City. As regards Dostoevsky, characteristic for the
Russian soul is not the soil, not the sailing to firm shores, but rather the coursing of the
soul beyond all the borders and limits. Dostoevsky displays an image of Russian man in
his boundlessness. The soil existence, however, is an existence within boundaries.

The creativity of Dostoevsky is in full not only a revelation about human nature in
general, but also particular revelations about the nature of Russian man, about the
Russian soul. And in this no one can compare with him. He penetrates into the
profoundest metaphysics of the Russian spirit. Dostoevsky revealed the polarity of the
Russian spirit as its profoundest peculiarity. What a distinctness there is in this Russian
spirit from the monism of the German spirit! When a German plunges himself into the
depths of his spirit, he finds Divineness in the depths, and all polarities and all
contradictions dissipate. And therein it transpires, that for the German in the depths man
is dissipated away, man exists merely on the periphery, only in appearance, and not in
essence. Russian man is more contradictory and antinomic, than is the Western, within us
is conjoined the soul of Asia and the soul of Europe, of East and West. This discloses
great possibilities for Russian man. Man is less open and less active in Russia, than in the
West, but he more complex and rich in his depths, in the inwardness of his life. The
nature of man, of the human soul ought most of all to reveal itself in Russia. In Russia is
possible a new religious anthropology. Separatism, the roving and wandering -- are
Russian traits. Western man is more of the soil, he is more faithful to traditions and more
subject to norms. Russian man is expansive. Vastness, unboundedness, unlimitedness --
is not only a material property of the Russian nature, but also its metaphysical and
spiritual property, its more inward dimension. Dostoevsky displayed a dreadsome and
fiery-passioned Russian element, which lay obscured for Tolstoy and the Populist writers.
He artfully revealed within the cultural intelligentsia stratum that selfsame terrifying
sensuous element, that among the people's stratum found its expression in the Khlysty.
This orgiastic ecstatic element lived within Dostoevsky himself, and to the depths he was
a Russian in this element. He investigated the metaphysical hysteria of the Russian spirit.
This hysteria is from the formlessness of the Russian spirit, a lack of subjection to limit
and norm. Dostoevsky revealed, that Russian man always is needful of mercy and is
himself sparing. In the order of Western life there is a mercilessness, connected with the
subjection of man to discipline and norm. And Russian man is more human than Western
man. With what Dostoevsky revealed about the nature of Russian man, is connected both
the greatest possibilities, and the greatest dangers. The spirit still has not attained mastery
over the soul element in Russian man. In Russian man the nature is less active, than in
West, but in Russia there is inherent a greater human wealth, greater human possibilities,
than in the measured-out and boundaried Europe. And in the Russian idea, Dostoevsky
saw the "all-humanness" of Russian man, his infinite expanse and infinite possibilities.
Dostoevsky constitutes everything from the contradictions, just like the soul of Russia.
The way out, which is sensed from the readings of Dostoevsky, is by way of an egress
through gnostic revelations about man. Dostoevsky created an extraordinary type of
artistic-gnostic anthropology, his method is one of drawing into the depths of the human
spirit through an ecstatic whirlwind. But the ecstatic whirlwinds of Dostoevsky are
spiritual and therefore they never shatter the image of man. Dostoevsky alone did not
fear, that in ecstasy and boundlessness man would disappear. The limits and forms of the
human person are always connected with Apollonism. With Dostoevsky alone the form
of ma, his eternal image remains also within spiritual Dionysianism. Even transgression
does not annihilate man for him. And death is not terrifying for him, since for him
eternity always is revealed in man. He -- is an artist not in that impersonal abyss, in
which there is no image of man, but of an human abyss, of human fathomlessness. In this
he is foremost in the world of writers, of world geniuses, one of the foremost minds, as is
seldom seen in history. This great mind was entirely in an active relationship to man, he
revealed other worlds through man. Dostoevsky was like Russia, with all its darkness and
light. And he -- is the greatest contribution of Russia to the spiritual life of the whole
world. Dostoevsky -- is a most Christian writer, since at the centre for him stands man,
stands human love and the disclosure of the human soul. He fully -- is the revelation of
the heart of the human being, the Heart of Jesus!

Nikolai Berdyaev

1918

Article subsequently reprinted and included by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in the
Berdyaev Collection: “Tipy religioznoi mysli v Rossii”, (Tom III), p. 68-98.
 SPIRITS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
(1918 - #299)

We are lost. What are we to do?

Into the field the devil evidently doth take us,
Spinning us round and round every which way.

Pushkin (Besy)

INTRODUCTION

A terrible catastrophe has happened with Russia. It has fallen into a dark abyss. And
for many it begins to seem, that the unified and great Russia was merely a phantasm, that
in it was not an authentic reality. Not easily is detected the connection of our present with
our past. The expression of face for Russian people has quite changed, in some few
months it has been rendered unrecognisable. At superficial a glance it would seem, that in
Russia has happened a turnabout unprecedented in its radicalism. But deeper and more
pervasive a perception would tend to discern in Russia the revolutionary spirit of old
Russia, of spirits, long since detected within the creativity of our great writers, of devils,
long since already having taken hold within Russian people. Much of the old, the long
since familiar appears merely under a new guise. The lengthy historical path leads to
revolutions, and in them are discernable national particulars even then, when they inflict
a grievous blow to the national might and the national dignity. Each people has its own
style of revolution, just as it has its own conservative style. The English Revolution was
national, just the same as the French Revolution was national. In them can be recognised
the past of England and of France. Each people makes its revolution with that spiritual
baggage, which accumulated in its past, it carries over into the revolution its own sins and
vices, but likewise also its own capacity for sacrifice and for enthusiasm. The Russian
Revolution is anti-national as regards its character, it has turned Russia into a breathless
corpse. But in this also its anti-national character is reflected national particulars of the
Russian people, and the style of our unhappy and ruinous revolution -- is Russian a style.
Our old national ills and sins have led to revolution and have defined its character. The
spirits of the Russian Revolution -- are Russian spirits, though used also by our enemy to
our doom. Its phantasmic aspect -- is characteristically Russian an obsession.
Revolutions, transpiring upon the surface plane of life, never essentially change nor alter
anything, they merely uncover the ills, hidden within the organism of the people, and
anew they rearrange all the same elements, and the old images appear in new dressings.
Revolution to a remarkable degree is always a masquerade, and if the masks be stripped
off, one can then meet up with the old recognisable faces. New souls are begotten only
later, after a profound regeneration and pondering of the experience of the revolution. On
the surface everything seems new in the Russian Revolution -- new expressions of face,
new gestures, new costumes, new formulas dominate life; those, who were below, have
come out on top, and those who were on top, have fallen below; holding power are those,
who were the persecuted, and persecuted are those, who held power; slaves have become
boundlessly free, and the free in spirit are subjected to violence. But try to penetrate
beneathe the surface coverings of revolutionary Russia into the depths. There you will
recognise the old Russia, you will meet with the old, the familiar faces. The immortal
images of Khlestakov [Gogol's "Revizor", alt. "Inspector General"], Peter Verkhovensky
[Dostoevsky's "Besy" -- "The Possessed", alt. "The Devils"] and Smerdyakov
[Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov"] at every step are to be met with in revolutionary
Russia and in it they play no small a role, they have vaulted to the very heights of power.
The metaphysical dialectics of Dostoevsky and the moral reflection of Tolstoy define the
inner course of the revolution. If one look deep into Russia, then behind the revolutionary
struggle and the revolutionary phraseology it is not difficult to discern the Gogolesque
snouts and mugs. Every people at whatever the moment of its existence is still living in
various times and in various centuries. But there is no people, in which have been
brought together such different ages, which have so combined the XX Century with the
XIV Century, as has the Russian people. And this contrast of differing ages is the source
of the unhealthiness and hindrance to wholeness in our national life.

To great writers are always revealed images of national life, images having
significance both essential and non-transitory. Russia, as discerned by its great writers,
the Russia of Gogol and Dostoevsky can be found also in the Russian Revolution, and in
it you run afoul of basic values, as foreordained by L. Tolstoy. In the images from Gogol
and Dostoevsky, in the moral evaluations of Tolstoy it is possible to seek for the enigmas
of those calamities and misfortunes, which revolution has brought to our native land, the
knowledge of the spirits, possessive within the revolution. With Gogol and Dostoevsky
there were literary perspicacious insights, ahead of their time. Russia revealed itself
variously to them, their literary efforts differed, but both with the one and with the other
there was something truly prophetic for Russia. Something pervasive in its very essence,
in the very innermost nature of Russian man. Tolstoy as artist is for our purposes not of
interest. Russia, as revealed in his great artistic ability, tends within the Russian
Revolution to decompose and die. He was a literary artist of the static aspects of the
Russian lifestyle, that of the nobility and the peasantry, whereas the eternal however
revealed itself to him, as an artist, only in the elementary national aspects. Tolstoy was
more cosmic, than anthropogenic. But in the Russian Revolution there was revealed, and
in its own way there triumphed, another Tolstoy -- the Tolstoy of moral values, with
Tolstoyism as characteristic for Russian world-concepts and world-views. Many are the
Russian devils, which revealed themself to Russian writers or obsessed them, -- the
demon of lies and substitution, the demon of equality, the demon of disgrace, the demon
of denial, the demon of non-resistance and many many another. All these -- these
nihilistic devils, have long since been tearing at and lacerating Russia. At the centre for
me stand the perspicacious insights of Dostoevsky, who prophetically revealed all the
spiritual groundings and moving principles of the Russian Revolution. I begin however
with Gogol, whose significance in this regard is less clear.
 I. GOGOL IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Gogol belongs to the most enigmatic of Russian writers, and still little has been
done for an understanding of him. He is more enigmatic than Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky
himself did much by way of revealing all the contraries and all the abysses of his spirit. It
is apparent, how the devil is at war with God in his soul and in his creativity. Gogol
however hid himself and took to the grave with him the whatever unsolved secret. There
truly in him is something vexing. Gogol -- is the sole Russian writer, in whom there was
a taste for the magical, -- he artistically bestows credence to the active workings of the
dark and evil magical powers. This, actually, came to him from the West, from Catholic
Poland. A "Terrible Vengeance" is replete with suchlike magical an aspect. But in more
subtle forms this magicism is there also within "Dead Souls" and "Revizor". Gogol was
quite exceptional in his powerful sensing of evil. And he did not find the consolations,
that Dostoevsky found in the image of Zosima and in the attachment to Mother-Earth.
With him there is not at all those glued leaflets, nowhere a salvation from all the demonic
grimaces surrounding him about. The old school of Russian critics failed totally to sense
the horrid aspect in Gogol's artistry. And indeed where could they have gotten a feel for
Gogol! Their rationalistic enlightenment guarded them from perceiving and
understanding such horrid aspects. Our critics were too "progressive" of an image of
thought, they did not believe in the unclean spirits of evil. They wanted to utilise Gogol
only for their own utilitarian-societal aims. They indeed always utilised the creativity of
the great writers for utilitarian-societal preaching. The first to have sensed the frightful
aspect of Gogol was a writer of different a school, of different sources and of different a
spirit -- V. V. Rozanov. He is not fond of Gogol and writes about him with evil a feeling,
but he understood, that Gogol was an artist of evil. And here is what first of all mustneeds
be ascertained -- the creativity of Gogol is a literary artistic revelation of evil as a
principle both metaphysical and inward, not of evil societal and outward, such as might
be ascribed to political backwardness and lack of enlightenment. Gogol was not given to
see images of good and artistically render them. In this was his tragedy. And he himself
was frightened by his exclusive seeing of images of evil and the monstrous. But that
which derived from his spiritual crippling tended to issue forth in the acute aspect of his
artistry of evil.

The problem of Gogol was addressed only by that religio-philosophic and artistic
current, which assumed significance among us at the beginning of the XX Century. It had
been the accepted thing to read Gogol as the founder of the realist trend in Russian
literature. The strangeness of Gogol's creativity was explained away exclusively, in that
he was being satirical and that he depicted the falseness of the old Russia under serfdom.
They tended to look at everything extraordinary in Gogol's artistic mannerisms. And yet
in Gogol's creativity they saw nothing problematic, because in general they tended to see
nothing as problematic. To the Russian critics all seemed clear and easy to explain, all
was rendered simple and cramped down towards an elementary utilitarian aim. It truly
can be said, that the critical school of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobroliubov and their
successors had in view the inner meaning of Russian great literature and they lacked the
ability to evaluate its artistic revelations. There had to happen a spiritual crisis, there had
to be shaken all the foundations of the traditional intelligentsia world-view, in order for
the creativity of the Russian great writers to be revealed anew. Then only was there
rendered possible an approach to Gogol. The old view on Gogol as a realist and satiricist
demands a radical review. Now already, after all the complexifying of our psyches and
our thought, it is quite clear, that the view of the literary old-believers on Gogol fails to
get atop the Gogol problem. To us it seems monstrous, how they could see realism within
"Dead Souls", a work incredible and unprecedented. The strange and enigmatic creativity
of Gogol cannot be relegated away as a social satire, exposing the times and transient
vices and sins of pre-Reform Russian society. Dead souls do not have an obligatory and
inseparable connection with the serf-era way of life, not the Revizor Inspector General --
with pre-Reform officialdom. And now at present, after all the reforms and revolutions,
Russia is full of dead souls and inspectors general, and the Gogolesque images have not
died, have not faded away into the past, as have the images from Turgenev and
Goncharov. The artistic modes of Gogol, which least of all can be termed realistic, and
which represent unique an experiment, dismembering and distorting apart the organic
wholeness of actuality, reveal something very essential for reforms and revolutions. That
inhuman boorishness, which Gogol espied, is not merely a product of the old order. not
explicable by reasons social and political, on the contrary, -- it tended rather to beget
everything, that was vile in the old order, it imprinted itself upon the political and social
forms.

Gogol as an artist was ahead of his time in anticipating the modern analytic trends
in art, evidenced in connection with the crisis in art. He was a predecessor to the art of A.
Bely and Picasso. In him were already those perceptions of actuality, which led to
Cubism. In his artistry is already the Cubist dismembering of the living being. Gogol
already saw those monstrosities, which Picasso artistically later caught sight of. But
Gogol introduced a deception, since he veiled over his demonic content with a laugh. Of
the newer Russian literary artists after Gogol, a most gifted one of them -- is Andrei Bely,
for whom ultimately the murkiness of the image of man has become submerged in the
cosmic whirlwind. A. Bely does not see an organic beauty within man, just as Gogol does
not see it. In much he tends to follow upon the literary artistic methods of Gogol, but he
does tend also to make quite new achievements in the area of forms. Gogol had already
subjected to analytic dismemberment the organically whole image of man. With Gogol
there are no human images, there is only snouts and grimaces, only the monstrosities,
similar to the habitual monstrosities of Cubism. In his creativity there is a killing off of
man. Gogol had not the ability to provide positive human images and he suffered much
over this. He tormentedly sought for the image of man and he did not find it. On all sides
formless and unhuman monstrosities surrounded him. In this was his tragedy. He
believed in man, he sought for the beauty of man and he did not find it in Russia. In this
was something unspeakably tormentive, this could lead to madness. In Gogol himself
there was a sort of spiritual disjointedness, and he bore within himself some sort of
unsolved secret. But it is impossible to fault him for this, that in place of the image of
man he instead saw in Russia Chichikov, Nozdrev, Sobakovich, Khlestakov, Skvoznik-
Dmukhanovsky and suchlike monstrosities. His great and implausible gift was to reveal
the negative sides of the Russian people, its dark spirits, all that which in it was inhuman,
distortive of the image and likeness of God. He was terrified and wounded by this
unrevealedness of the human person in Russia, this abundance of the elemental spirits of
nature, in place of people. Gogol -- was infernal the literary artist. Gogol's images -- are
shredded bits of people, and not people, they are the grimaces of people. It is not his
fault, that in Russia there were so few images human, genuine persons, so many lies and
pseudo-images, false substitutes, so much ugliness and more ugliness. Gogol suffered
terribly from this. His gift of insight into the spirit of triteness -- was woesome a gift, and
he fell victim to this gift. He discerned the intolerable evil of triteness, and this haunted
him. With A. Bely the image of man is also lacking. But he belongs already to a different
era, in which faith in the image of man has become uncertain. This faith was still there in
Gogol. Russian people, intent upon revolution and putting great hopes in it, tended to
believe, that the monstrous images from Gogol's Russia would disappear, when the
revolutionary storm would cleanse us from every defilement. In Khlestakov and
Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, in Chichikov and Nozdrev they saw only images of old
Russia, the results of autocracy and serfdom. In this was an error of the revolutionary
consciousness, incapable of penetrating into the depths of life. In the revolution has been
revealed all that selfsame old, eternally-Gogolesque Russia, the unhuman, semi-beastly
Russia of vile mugs and snouts. In the insufferable revolutionary triteness there is an
eternally Gogolesque aspect. In vain have proven the hopes, that the revolution would
reveal in Russia the human image, that the human person would rise up to his full stature,
with the collapse of the autocracy. Among us they were too accustomed to put the blame
on the autocracy, all the evil and darkness of our life they wanted to impute to this. But
by this they cast off from themself as Russian people the burden of responsibility, and
inclined themself to irresponsibility. There is no longer the autocracy, but the Russian
darkness and the Russian evil have remained. The darkness and evil are lodged down
deeper, not in the social externals of the people, but in its spiritual core. There is no
longer the old autocracy, but autocracy as before rules in Russia, as before there is no
respect for man, for human dignity, for human rights. There is no longer the old
autocracy, the old officialdom, the old police, but bribery as before is a basis of Russian
life, its underlying constitution. Bribery has become more widespread, than ever. A
grandiose profit is to be made off the revolution. The scenes from Gogol are being played
out at every step in revolutionary Russia. There is no longer the autocracy, but as before
Khlestakov pawns himself off as an important official, and as before all tremble before
him. There is no longer the autocracy, but Russia as before is full of dead souls, and as
before there is a marketing with them. Khlestakov's audacity at every step that he takes is
to be felt in the Russian revolution. But now Khlestakov has risen to the very summit of
power and has far more a basis, than of old, to say: "the minister of foreign affairs, the
French ambassador, the English, the German ambassador and I", or: "and curious a thing
how they happen to be looking for me in the vestibule, when I am not yet even awake:
counts and princes jostle and flutter about there, like bumblebees". The revolutionary
Khlestakovs with great plausibility could say: "who's in charge of this place? Many of the
general sort appear to be volunteers just starting out, but it depends, it could be, -- no, just
consider... There's no other way -- it's up to me. And at this very moment down on the
streets are couriers, couriers, couriers... imagine it for yourself, thirty-five thousand
couriers!" And the revolutionary Ivan Aleksandrovich then takes over the managing of
the department. And when he passes by, "tis simply an earthquake, all tremble and shake,
like leaves". The revolutionary Ivan Aleksandrovich grows irritated and shouts: "I have
no love for joking, and I'm warning all in the back about it... I mean it! There's no one I
won't see... I'm everywhere, everywhere". We hear these Khlestakov tantrums every day
and at every step. All tremble and shake. But, knowing the history of the old and eternal
Khlestakov, in the depths of their souls they expect, that the gendarme will come in and
say: "On orders just arrived from the Peterburg official, he demands to see you at once".
The fear of counter-revolution, pervading the Russian revolution, also bestows the
Khlestakov character a revolutionary impertinence. This constant expecting of the
gendarme exposes the illusory and fraudulent aspect of the revolutionary attainments. But
there is no mistaking the externals. The revolutionary Khlestakov appears but in a new
costume and calls himself otherwise by different a name. But he essentially remains the
same. The thirty-five thousand couriers can be the representatives of the "Soviet of
Workers and Soldiers Deputies". And this changes nothing. At its core rests the old
Russian lie and deception, long since espied by Gogol. Estrangement from the depths
renders all movements too facile. In the presently prevailing and ruling powers there is
little, just the same of the ontological, of the genuinely existing, as there was in Gogol's
Khlestakov. Nozdrev says: "This is the boundary! Everything, that you see along this
side, -- all this is mine, and even along the other side, all that forest out there of bluish a
tint, and everything that is beyond the forest, -- is all mine" ["Dead Souls", Ch. 4]. In
large part the adaption to the revolution has something of Nozdrev to it. The mask
replaces the person. Everywhere are the masks and the two-facedness, the grimaces and
the scraps of a man. An incorrigible falseness of being rules the revolution. All is
illusory. Phantasmic are all the parties, phantasmic all the authorities, phantasmic all the
heroes of the revolution.

Nowhere is it possible to sense a firm footing, nowhere is it possible to catch sight

of clear an human face. This phantasmic aspect, this non-ontological aspect is begotten of
falsehood. Gogol revealed it within the Russian element.

Chichikov as before rides the Russian land and deals in dead souls. But he rides
along not slowly in the carriage, instead, he dashes about in courier rail-cars and
everywhere dispatches telegrams. The selfsame element operates a new a tempo. The
revolutionary Chichikovs buy up and resell non-existent riches, they operate with fictions
and not realities, they transform into a fiction all the whole economic life of Russia.
Many of the degrees of the revolutionary authority are totally Gogolesque in their nature,
and in the enormous masses of ordinary people they meet with Gogolesque a response. In
the revolutionary element is detected a colossal swindling knavery, dishonesty as a
sickness of the Russian soul. Our whole revolution seems to represent an haggling over
the people's soul and the people's dignity. All our revolutionary agrarian reform, the SR
and the Bolshevistic, represents an official meddling and hindrance. It operates with dead
souls, it derives the people's wealth upon an illusory, unreal basis. Within it is the
Chichikov audacity. In our heroic summertime of an agrarian revolution there was
something truly Gogolesque. There was likewise no little of a Manilovschina [from
character Manilov, cf. "Dead souls", Ch. 2] during the first period of the revolution and
during the revolutionary provisional government. But "Dead Souls" possesses also a
profound symbolic meaning. All the ugly mugs and grimaces along the Gogol line are
manifest basically of a deadening numbness of Russian souls. The deadening numbness
of souls makes possible the Chichikov resemblances and encounters. This prolonged and
lengthy numbed deadening of souls is sensed also in the Russian revolution. And
therefore possible within it becomes this shameless haggling, this naked deception. The
revolution itself per se did not create this. The revolution -- is a great manifestor, and it
manifested merely that, which lay concealed in the depths of Russia. The form of the old
order held in check the manifestation of many Russian traits, kept them within the limits
of restraint. The downfall of these old time-worn forms has led to this, that Russian man
is ultimately proven to be unruly and stark nakedly shown to be so. The evil spirits,
which Gogol caught sight of in their static form, have broken free and are having an orgy.
Their grimaces evoke a shuddering in the body of suffering Russia. For the Khlestakovs
and Chichikovs there is now an even greater scope of opportunity, than there was in the
time of the autocracy. And a becoming free of them presupposes a spiritual regeneration
of the people, a turnabout within it. The revolution has not produced such a turnabout. A
true spiritual revolution in Russia would involve a liberation from that deceitful lying,
which Gogol saw within the Russian people, would involve a victory over that illusory
and substitutive aspect, begotten of the deceitful lie. Within the lie there is a facile
irresponsibility, it is not connected with anything substantial, and upon lies can be
constructed very bold revolutions. Gogol revealed dishonesty as an age-old Russian trait.
This dishonesty is connected with the failure of the developing and revealing of the
person within Russia, with the stifling of the image of man. With this also is connected
the inhuman triteness, with which Gogol overwhelms and smothers us and with which he
himself was overwhelmed. Gogol saw into Russia more deeply than did the Slavophils.
He had a strange sensing of evil, which the Slavophils lacked. In the eternally
Gogolesque Russia the tragic and the comic are interwoven and intermixed. The comic
appears as a result of confusion and substitution. This confusion and interweaving of the
tragic and the comic is there also in the Russian revolution. It is all based upon confusion
and substitution, and much in it therefore assumes the nature of a comedy. the Russian
revolution is a tragi-comedy. This - is the finale of the Gogol legacy. And, perhaps, the
most gloomy and hopeless thing in the Russian revolution -- is the Gogolesque aspect in
it. What there is in it from Dostoevsky bears more glimmerings of hope. But Russia
mustneeds get free from the grip of the Gogolesque ghoulishness.

II. DOSTOEVSKY IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

If Gogol set within the context of the Russian revolution is not at once directly
apparent and the very positing of this theme possibly evokes doubts, then in Dostoevsky
nevertheless it is impossible not to see a prophet of the Russian revolution. The Russian
revolution is impelled by those themes, which Dostoevsky had a premonition of and
which with genius he put in sharp contrast. Dostoevsky had the ability to reveal in depth
the dialectics of Russian revolutionary thought and to derive from it its final conclusions.
He did not stay merely at the surface level with the socio-political ideas and constructs,
he penetrated down into the depths and uncovered the metaphysics underlying the
Russian revolutionary aspect. Dostoevsky discovered, that the Russian revolutionary
aspect is a phenomenon both metaphysical and religious, not merely political and social.
And thus religiously he succeeded to grasp the nature of Russian socialism. Russian
socialism involves the question, does God exist or not. And Dostoevsky foresaw, how
bitter would be the fruits of Russian socialism. He laid bare the element of Russian
nihilism and Russian atheism, a thing quite unique, and dissimilar to that of the West.
There was with Dostoevsky a gift of genius in revealing the depths and discerning the
final limits. He never remains at the middle, never halts merely dwelling upon the
transitory conditions, but instead always pushes towards the finalative and the ultimate.
His creative artistic act is apocalyptic, and in this he is -- truly a Russian national genius.
The method of Dostoevsky is different, from that of Gogol. Gogol was more perfected
the literary artist. Dostoevsky was first of all a great psychologist and metaphysician. He
reveals the evil and the evil spirits inwardly within the soul-emotive life of man and
inwardly within his dialectics of thought. The whole entire creativity of Dostoevsky is an
anthropological revelation -- the revelation of the human depths, not only the soul-
emotive, but also the spiritual depths. To him are revealed those human thoughts and
those human passions, which represent not merely the psychology, but rather the
ontology of human nature. In Dostoevsky, as distinct from Gogol, there remains always
the image of man and there is revealed the inward fate of man. Evil does not ultimately
destroy the human image. Dostoevsky believes, that by way of inner catastrophe, evil can
make the transition over to good. And therefore his creativity is less frightful, than the
creativity of Gogol, which leaves almost no kind of hope.

In Dostoevsky, the greatest Russian genius, it is possible to study the nature of

human thinking, its positive and its negative polarities. The French -- are dogmatists or
sceptics, dogmatists at the positive polarity of their thought and sceptics at the negative
pole. The Germans -- are mystics or criticists, mystics at the positive pole and criticists at
the negative. The Russians however -- are apocalyptic or nihilistic, apocalyptic at the
positive pole and nihilist at the negative polarity. The Russian instance -- is very extreme
and very difficult. The French and the Germans can create culture, since culture can be
created both dogmatically and sceptically; it is possible to create it also mystically and
critically. But it is difficult, very difficult apocalyptically and nihilistically to create
culture. Culture can have at its depths the dogmatic and the mystical, but it presupposes,
that beyond the median vital process is admitted something of value, that it possesses a
significance not only absolute, but also relative. The apocalyptic and nihilistic self-
derived feeling casts aside all the average median vital process, all the historical steps,
has no wish to know of any sort of values of culture, it aspires towards the end, the limit.
These two opposites readily transfer each into the other. The apocalyptic easily
transitions into nihilism, can prove nihilistic in regard to the greatest values of earthly
historical life, to all culture. Nihilism however can undetectedly take on an apocalyptic
hue, can appear as a demanding of the end. And with Russian man, so shifting back and
forth and entangled are the apocalyptic and the nihilistic, that it becomes difficult to
distinguish these polarly opposed principles. It is not easy to determine, why Russian
man is wont to negate the state, culture, native land, normative morals, science and art,
why he demands an absolute impoverishment: whether from his apocalyptic or his
nihilistic aspect. Russian man can wage a nihilistic pogrom like an apocalyptic pogrom;
he can lay himself bare, tear away all the veilings and stand naked as it were, since he is a
nihilist and denies everything, and since also, because he is filled with apocalyptic
presentiments and anticipates the end of the world. In Russian sectarians the apocalyptic
is interwoven and compounded with nihilism. The same thing occurs with the Russian
intelligentsia. The Russian searchings for the truths of life always assumes an apocalyptic
or nihilistic character. This -- is a profoundly national trait. This creates the grounds for
confusion and substitutes, for pseudo-religion. In Russian atheism itself there is
something of the spirit of the apocalyptic, totally dissimilar to Western atheism. And in
Russian nihilism there are pseudo-religious features, a sort of religion in reverse. this
tempts and leads many into error. Dostoevsky revealed down deep the apocalypticism
and nihilism within the Russian soul. And therefore he also guessed, what sort of
character the Russian revolution would assume. He perceived, that revolution would not
at all signify for us, what it does in the West, and therefore it would be more terrible and
more extreme than Western revolutions. The Russian revolution -- is a phenomenon on
religious a basis, it is a deciding of the question about God. And this mustneeds be
understood in more profound a sense, than is conceived in the anti-religious character of
the French revolution or the religious character of the English revolution.

For Dostoevsky, the problem of the Russian revolution, of Russian nihilism and
socialism, as a religious problem essentially -- involves the question about God and about
immortality. "Socialism is not only the workers question, or of the so-called fourth estate,
but is predominantly an atheistic question, the question of the modern embodiment of
atheism, the question of the Babylonian Tower, constructed not in the name of God, not
for reaching heaven from earth, but rather for the contraction of heaven onto earth"
(Brothers Karamazov"). It can even possibly be said, that the question on Russian
socialism and nihilism -- is a question apocalyptic, oriented towards the all-destroying
end. Russian revolutionary socialism has never thought of itself as transitional a
condition, as a temporary and relative form in the building up of society, it has always
thought of itself as ultimate a condition, as the kingdom of God upon earth, as the solving
of the question of the fates of mankind. This -- is not an economic and not political a
question, but rather a question of spirit, a religious question. "And indeed the Russian
boys up til now, what about them? Here, for example, in a local wretched tavern, here
they tend to come, seated off in a corner...What are they deciding? The issues of the
world, no less: is there a God, is there immortality? And for those not believing in God,
well, these talk about socialism and about anarchism, about the redoing of the whole of
mankind along new a form, all indeed the same result, all the same questions, only with
different a conclusion". These Russian boys never have been capable of politics, of
constructing and building up societal life. Everything has gotten jumbled up in their
heads, and having repudiated God, they refashioned God out of socialism and anarchism,
they wanted to rework the whole of mankind into new a form and in this have seen not
relative, but rather absolute a task. Russian boys have been nihilistic-apocalyptic. They
started it, having the endless conversations in the wretched taverns. And it would have
been difficult to believe, that these conversations about replacing God by socialism and
anarchism and the reworking of the whole of mankind into new a form could become a
defining power in Russian history to shatter apart Great Russia. The Russian boys long
since already have proclaimed, that everything is permitted, if there is no God and no
immortality. Bliss upon earth would remain then as the goal. Upon this basis also has
emerged Russian nihilism, which to many naive and well-intentioned people has seemed
innocent and cute a phenomenon. Many even saw in it a moral truth, though distorted by
mental error. Even Vl. Solov'ev did not understand the dangers of Russian nihilism, when
he jokingly formulated the credo of the Russian boys in suchlike a manner: "Man is
descended from the ape, therefore, let us love one another". Dostoevsky tended to
penetrate deeper into the secret corners of Russian nihilism and he sensed the danger. He
revealed the dialectics of Russian nihilism, its hidden metaphysics.

Ivan Karamazov shews himself a philosopher of Russian nihilism and atheism. He

proclaims a revolt against God and against God's world out of very lofty motives -- he
cannot reconcile himself with the tears of a tormented innocent child. Ivan puts Alyosha a
question very acute and radically so: "Tell me straight out, I implore thee, answer:
imagine, that thou art building up the edifice of human fate with the aim at the final end
to bring happiness to people, to finally give them peace and tranquility, but for this it
would have to be needful and inevitable to torment of all only one tiny creature, this child
here beating itself with tiny fist upon the breast, and upon its unavenged tears set the
foundation of this edifice; would thou consent to be the architect upon these conditions?"
Ivan posits here the age-old problem as regards the price of history, about the
acceptability of those sacrifices and sufferings, by which are bought the creation of states
and cultures. This is preeminently a Russian question, an accursed question, which
Russian boys have brought out against world history. In this question has been lodged all
the Russian moral pathos, sundered off from its religious sources. Upon this question has
morally been based the Russian revolutionary-nihilistic revolt, which Ivan also
proclaims: "In the final result this world of God's -- I do not accept, and though also I
know, that it exists, I do not accept it at all. It is not God that I do not accept, it is the
world created by Him, God's world that I do not accept and cannot consent to accept".
"For what purpose is it to recognise this devilish good and evil, when it involves so
much? Indeed the whole world of knowledge cannot then stand up to those tears of a
child to dear-God". "I renounce entirely the higher harmony. It is not worth the tiny tears
of that one tortured child, beating its breast with its little fist and praying in its fetid hovel
with its unexpiated tears to dear-God... I don't want, that they should suffer more. And if
the suffering of children goes towards the filling up of that sum of sufferings, which be
necessary as the price for truth, then I declare beforehand, that all the truth be not worth
such a price... I don't want the harmony, out of love for mankind I do not want it... And
indeed they have valued the harmony too dearly, we cannot at all afford the price of
entry. And therefore I hasten to return back my ticket for entry... It is not God that I do
not accept, but rather only the ticket to Him that I most respectfully return back". The
theme, presented by Ivan Karamazov, is complex, and within it are interwoven several
motifs. Dostoevsky from the lips of Ivan Karamazov pronounces judgement upon the
positivist theories of progress and upon the utopias of a coming harmony, erected upon
the sufferings and tears of prior generations. All the progress of mankind and all its
perfect arrangement stand for nothing as regards the unhappy fate of each man, his final
death. In this is a Christian truth. But the acute question, posited by Ivan, nowise consists
in this. He presents his question not as a Christian, believing in a Divine meaning to life,
but rather as an atheist and nihilist, denying a Divine meaning to life, seeing only
absurdity and untruth from limited an human perspective. This -- is a revolt against the
Divine world-order, a non-acceptance of human fate, as determined by the design of God.
This -- is a dispute of man with God, a refusal to accept suffering and sacrifice, to grasp
the meaning of our life as atonement. The whole course of revolt in the thoughts of Ivan
Karamazov is a manifestation of extreme rationalism, is a denial of the mystery of human
fate, inscrutable within the bounds and limits of the estrangement within this earthly
empirical life. To rationally grasp within the limits of earthly life, why an innocent child
should be tormented, is impossible. The very positing of such a question -- is atheistic
and godless. Faith in God and in the Divine world-order is a faith in the deep and hidden
meaning of all the sufferings and tribulations, having fallen to the lot of every being in its
earthly wanderings. To wipe away the tiny tears of the child and ease its sufferings is a
deed of love. Yet the pathos of Ivan is not in love, but in revolt. In him there is a false
sentimentality, but not love. He is in revolt, because he does not believe in immortality,
because for him all consists in this meaningless empirical life, full of suffering and grief.
A typical Russian boy, he has mistaken the negative Western hypotheses for axioms and
has put his trust in atheism.

Ivan Karamazov -- is a thinker, a metaphysician and psychologist, and he provides a

deep philosophic grounding to the troubled experiences of an innumerable number of
Russian boys. the Russian nihilists and atheists, socialists and anarchists. At the core of
the question of Ivan Karamazov lies a sort of false Russian sensitivity and sentimentality,
a false sort of sympathy for mankind, leading to an hatred towards God and the Divine
purpose of worldly life. Russians all too readily become nihilistic rebels out of a false
moralism. The Russian takes God to task over history because of the tears of the child,
returns back the ticket, denies all values and sanctities, he will not tolerate the sufferings,
wants not the sacrifices. Yet he however does nothing really, in order to lessen the tears,
he adds to the quantity of flowing tears, he makes a revolution, which is all grounded
upon uncountable tears and sufferings. Within the nihilistic moralism of Russian man
there is no moral forging of character, no moral austerity in the face of the terrors of life,
no capacity for sacrifice nor disavowing of the arbitrary. The Russian nihilistic moralist
thinks, that he loves man and sympathises for man, moreso than does God, that he will
straighten out God's design for man and the world. An incredible pretentiousness is
characteristic of this emotional type of soul. From the history, over which the Russian
boys have taken God to task as a result of the tears of the child and the tears of the
people, and out of their excited conversations in the taverns was born the ideology of the
Russian revolution. At its core lies atheism and a disbelief in immortality. The disbelief
in immortality begets a false sensitivity and sense of sympathy. The endless declamations
about the sufferings of the people, about the evil of the state and culture, grounded upon
these sufferings, issued forth from this God-contending source. The desire itself to ease
the suffering of the people was proper, and in it can be discovered the spirit of Christian
love. But this also led many into error. They failed to notice the confusions and
substitutions, situated at the core of Russian revolutionary morals, with the Anti-Christ
temptations set within the revolutionary morals for the Russian intelligentsia. Dostoevsky
did take note of this, he revealed the spiritual substrate of the nihilism, preoccupied with
the welfare of the people, and he predicted, to what the triumph of this spirit would lead.
Dostoevsky understood, that the great question concerning the individual fate of each
man is decided completely otherwise in the light of religious awareness, and that in the
darkness of the revolutionary consciousness, is a pretension to become a pseudo-religion.

Dostoevsky revealed, that the nature of Russian man is favourable a soil for the
Anti-Christ temptations. And this was a genuine revelation, which also made of
Dostoevsky a seer and prophet of the Russian revolution. To him was given an inner
vision of the spiritual essence of the Russian revolution and Russian revolutionaries. The
Russian revolutionaries, the apocalypticists and nihilists by their nature have succumbed
to the temptations of the Anti-Christ, who wants to make people happy, and they thus had
to lead the people tempted by them to that revolution, which has inflicted a terrible
wound upon Russia and has transformed Russian life into a living hell. The Russian
revolutionaries wanted a worldwide turnabout, in which would be burnt away all the old
world with its evil and darkness with its sanctities and values, and upon the ash-heap
would be substituted a new and graceful life for all the people and for all peoples. Upon
lesser than worldwide an happiness, the Russian revolutionary could not reconcile
himself. His mindset is apocalyptic, he wants the end, he wants the finishing off of
history and the inception of a supra-historical process, in which will be realised a realm
of equality, freedom and bliss upon earth. And this allows for nothing transitional nor
relative, no sort of steps of developement of awareness. Russian revolutionary
maximalism is also an unique, and distorted apocalyptics. Its reverse side always
manifests itself as nihilism. The nihilistic destroying of all the manifold and relative
historical world inevitably spreads also to the absolute spiritual foundations of history.
Russian nihilism does not admit of the very source of the historical process, which is
lodged within the Divine actuality, it rebels against the Divine world-order, in which
history takes shape with its steps, with its unavoidable hierarchical aspect. In Dostoevsky
himself there were temptations of Russian maximalism and Russian religious populism.
But in him there was also a positive religious power, a power prophetic, helping him to
reveal the Russian temptations and unmask them. The "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor",
as related by the Russian atheist Ivan Karamazov, is in its power and depth comparable
only with sacred writings, and it reveals the inner dialectics of the Anti-Christ
temptations. The fact, that Dostoevsky gave Catholic a guise to the Anti-Christ
temptations, is inessential and has to be ascribed to its defects and weaknesses. The spirit
of the Grand Inquisitor can appear and can act in various guises and forms, is capable to
utmost a degree of re-embodiment. And Dostoevsky distinctly understood, that within
revolutionary socialism the spirit of the Grand Inquisitor is active. Revolutionary
socialism is not an economic and political teaching, is not a system of social reforms, -- it
has pretension to be a religion, it is a faith, in opposition to the Christian faith.

The religion of socialism in its following after the Grand Inquisitor consents to all
the three temptations, rejected by Christ in the wilderness, rejected in the name of the
freedom of the human spirit. The religion of socialism consents to the temptation to turn
stones into bread, the temptation of the social miracle, the temptation of the kingdom of
this world. The religion of socialism is not the religion of the free sons of God, it
renounces the birthright of man, it is a religion of the slaves of necessity, of the children
of dust. The religion of socialism speaks with the words of the Grand Inquisitor: "All will
be rendered happy, all the millions of people". "We shall compel them to work, but in the
hours free from toil we will arrange their life like child's play, with childish songs, a
chorus, with innocent dances. We shall absolve also the sin, for they are weak and
lacking in strength". "We shall give them the happiness of the weak-powered beings, as
also they were fashioned". The religion of socialism says to the religion of Christ: "Thou
art proud of Thine select ones, but Thou hast only the select, but we will comfort all...
With us all will be happy... We shall convince them, that only then also wilt they become
free, when they renounce their freedom". The religion of socialism, just like the Grand
Inquisitor, reproaches the religion of Christ for having insufficient love for people. In the
name of love for people and a sympathy for people, in the name of the happiness and
bliss of people upon earth, this religion rejects the free, the God-imaged nature of man.
The religion of heavenly bread -- is an aristocratic religion, -- is a religion of the select,
the religion of "the tens of thousands of the great and strong". The religion, though, of
"the remaining millions, numerous like the sands of the sea, the weak" -- is a religion of
earthly bread. This religion has inscribed upon its banners: "feed them, and then ask
virtues of them". Dostoevsky with genius foresaw the spiritual foundations of the
socialistic anthill. He religiously perceived, that the socialistic collectivism is a pseudo-
sobornost', a pseudo-communality, a pseudo-church, which conveys with it the death of
the human person, such as involves the image and likeness of God in man, and is thus a
killing of the freedom of the human spirit. Dostoevsky spoke very powerful and fiery
words against the religion of socialism. And he also sensed, that for Russians socialism is
a religion, not politics, not a matter of social reforms and upbuilding. That the dialectics
of the Grand Inquisitor can be applied to the religion of socialism, and were applied by
Dostoevsky himself, is evident from this, that many of the revolutionaries of his tend to
repeat the train of the thoughts of the Grand Inquisitor. The same was said also by Peter
Verkhovensky, and on the same basis was constructed the Shigalev aspect. These
thoughts were there already with the hero of "Notes from the Underground", when he
spoke about "the gentleman with a derisive and retrograde physiognomy", who would
topple over all the coming social felicity, all the well-constructed anthill of the future.
And the hero of "Notes from the Underground" sets in opposition to this socialistic anthill
rather instead the freedom of the human spirit. Dostoevsky -- is a religious foe of
socialism, he exposes the religious lie and the religious danger of socialism. He is one of
the first to have sensed within socialism the spirit of the Anti-Christ. He understood, that
in socialism the spirit of the Anti-Christ seduces man under the guise of good and of love
for mankind. And he understood, however, that it is easier for Russian man, than for
Western man, to succumb to this temptation, to be seduced by the twofold image of the
Anti-Christ as regards the apocalyptic aspect of its nature. The hostility of Dostoevsky
towards socialism nowise signifies, that he was an adherent and defender of whatever a
"bourgeois" order. He further on uniquely confessed an Orthodox socialism. But the spirit
of this Orthodox socialism has nothing in common with the spirit of revolutionary
socialism, is the opposite to it in everything. Grounded in the soil and unique as a
Slavophil, Dostoevsky saw in the Russian people an antidote against the temptations of
the revolutionary and atheistic socialism. He confessed a religious populism. I tend to
think, that all this religious-populistic, soil-Slavophil ideology of Dostoevsky was part of
his weak, rather than powerful side, and was in contradiction to his foresights of genius
as an artist and metaphysician. At present it can straight out be said, that Dostoevsky was
mistaken, that in the Russian people there has not proven an antidote against the Anti-
Christ temptations in that religion of socialism, which the intelligentsia has imparted to it.
The Russian revolution has ultimately shattered all the illusions of a religious populism,
as well as of every populism. But the illusions of Dostoevsky himself did not hinder him
from revealing the spiritual nature of Russian religious socialism and predicting the
consequences, to which it would lead. Within the "Brothers Karamazov" is provided the
inner dialectics, the metaphysics of the Russian revolution. In "The Possessed" is
provided an image of the realisation of this dialectics.

Dostoevsky revealed the obsessiveness, the element of demonic possession in the

Russian revolutionaries. He perceived, that within the revolutionary element what was
active was not man himself, that what impelled it was not human spirits. In these days
with the revolution having been realised, when one happens to read through "The
Possessed" ("Besy"), one then tends to shudder. It is almost incredible, how it could have
been possible to have foreseen and predicted all so much. In a smallish city, on outwardly
small a scale long since already the Russian revolution was played out and had its
spiritual primal-foundations revealed, its spiritual primal-images presented. The Nechaev
affair served as a source for the plot in "The Possessed". Our leftist circles have tended to
see in "The Possessed" a caricature, almost a lampoon on the revolutionary movement
and revolutionary figures. "The Possessed" was included on an index of [forbidden]
books, condemned by the "progressive" mindset. To grasp all the depth and truth in "The
Possessed" was possible only in the light of a different mindset, that of a religious
consciousness; this depth and this truth tend to elude the positivistic consciousness. If this
novel be viewed as realistic, then much in it is inaccurate and does not correspond to the
activity of that time. But all the novels of Dostoevsky are inaccurate, they were all
written via a depth, which it is impossible to catch sight of at the surface level of
actuality, they were all prophetic. And they mistook the prophetic for a lampoon. At
present, after the experiencing of the Russian revolution, even the foes of Dostoevsky
have to admit, that "The Possessed" -- was prophetic a book. Dostoevsky perceived with
spiritual a sight, that the Russian revolution would namely be such and could not be
otherwise. He foresaw the inevitability of the demonic-possession within the revolution.
The Russian nihilism, active within the Russian Khlysty element, could not but be a
devil-possession, a frenzied and circular whirling. This frenzied circular whirling is also
described in "The Possessed". There it occurs in a small town. Now it occurs throughout
all the vast Russian land. And there has begun this frenzied circular whirling from the
same spirit, from these same principles, from which it came into that same small town.
Now the purveyors of the Russian revolution have declared to the world a Russian
revolutionary messianism, that they will bring to the peoples of the West, dwelling in a
"bourgeois" darkness, light from the East. This Russian revolutionary messianism was
discerned by Dostoevsky and perceived by him as a negative variant of the positive, as a
distorted apocalyptics, as an upside-down and turned around variant of a positive Russian
messianism, not actually revolutionary, but the rather religious. All the heroes of "The
Possessed" in this or another form preach a Russian revolutionary messianism, all of
them are obsessed with this idea. With the vacillating and equivocating Shatov are
shiftings about between a Slavophil consciousness and a revolutionary consciousness.
And the Russian revolution is full of such Shatovs. All of them, just like the Shatov of
Dostoevsky, are deliriously ready to cry out, that the Russian revolutionary people -- is a
God-bearing people, but in God they do not believe. Certain of them would want to
believe in God -- and cannot; for the majority however it would suffice, that they believe
in a God-bearing revolutionary people. In Shatov as the typical populist there transposes
revolutionary elements with reactionary "Black Hundredist" elements. And this is
characteristic. Shatov can be both an extreme leftist and an extreme rightist, but both in
one and the other instance he remains a lover of the people, a democrat, believing first of
all in the people. The Russian revolution is full of such Shatovs; in all of them one cannot
figure out, where their extreme leftist and revolutionary aspect ends and where begins
their extreme rightist and reactionary aspect. they are always enemies of culture, and
always they destroy the freedom of the person. This however they assert, that Russia is
higher than civilisation and that no sort of law need be written for it. These people are
ready to destroy Russia in the name of Russian messianism. Dostoevsky had a weak spot
for Shatov, he sensed within himself the Shatov temptations. But by the power of his
artistic foresight he rendered the image of Shatov repulsive and negative.

At the centre of the revolutionary demon-possession stands the image of Peter

Verkhovensky. This also is a chief demon of the Russian revolution. Dostoevsky in the
image of Peter Verkhovensky uncovers a still deeper level of revolutionary devil-
possession, actually veiled over and invisible. Peter Verkhovensky could have had more
noble a look. But Dostoevsky tore away from him the veils and laid bare his soul. And
thereupon the image of revolutionary devil-possession was presented in all its ugliness.
He is all atremble in shuddering from demonic possession, which draws all into a frenzy
of circular whirling. He is everywhere at the centre, behind all and everything. He -- is a
devil, pushing everything and with his hand in everything. But he is also himself devil-
possessed. Peter Verkhovensky is first of all a man totally empty, in him there is no sort
of content. The demons ultimately have taken hold in him and have rendered him their
obedient tool. He ceases to be in the image and likeness of God, in him is lost already the
human visage. His obsession with a false idea has made of Peter Verkhovensky a moral
idiot. He has become obsessed with the idea of a worldwide restructuring, of a worldwide
revolution, he has fallen for a tempting lie, has allowed the demons to take hold his soul
and has lost the elementary distinction between good and evil, has become bereft of
spiritual a centre. In the figure of Peter Verkhovensky we meet with a person already
disintegrated, in which it is no longer possible to discern anything ontological. He is all
lie and deception, and he leads all into deception, wrought into a realm of falsehood. Evil
is a lying fraudulence of being, pseudo-being, non-being. Dostoevsky showed, how a
false idea, seizing hold the entire man and driving him into demonic-possession, leads to
non being, to the disintegration of person. Dostoevsky was a great master in exposing the
ontological consequences of false ideas, when they have taken complete hold upon a
man. What sort of an idea is it that has completely taken hold of Peter Verkhovensky and
brought him to the disintegration of person, transforming him into a liar and sower of
lies? This is all the selfsame basic idea of Russian nihilism, of Russian socialism, of
Russian maximalism, all the selfsame infernal passion for a worldwide leveling, all the
selfsame revolt against God in the name of a worldwide love for people, all the selfsame
replacement of the Kingdom of Christ by the kingdom of the Anti-Christ. There are many
suchlike demoniac Verkhovenskys in the Russian revolution, they everywhere attempt to
pull things into the demonic whirling motion, they feed the Russian people on lies and
drag it toward non-being. Not always do these Verkhovenskys get recognised, not
everyone has the ability to see at depth, behind the veilings. The Khlestakov revolutions
are more easy to distinguish, than the Verkhovensky ones, but these too not everyone
does distinguish, amidst the throngs exalting and crowning them with glory.

Dostoevsky foresaw, that the revolution in Russia would be joyless, frightening and
gloomy a thing, that there would be in it no rebirth for the people. He knew, that Fedka
the convict would play no small role within it and that the Shigalevschina, the Shigalev
aspect, would win out in it. Peter Verkhovensky has long since already revealed the value
of Fedka the convict for the doings of the Russian revolution. And the whole triumphant
ideology of the Russian revolution is the ideology of the Shigalevschina. It gets frightful
our days to reread the words of Verkhovensky: "Our teaching in essence is a negation of
honour, and the revelation of his right to be dishonourable is the easiest of all ways to win
over a Russian man". And the reply of Stavrogin: "The right to be dishonourable -- yes,
this will have everyone come running to us, none will hold back!" And the Russian
revolution has proclaimed "the right to be dishonourable", and all everyone has gone
running after it. And here no less important are the words: "Socialism among us is spread
primarily by means of sentimentality". Dishonour and sentimentality -- are the
fundamental principles of Russian socialism. These principles, discerned by Dostoevsky,
are also triumphant in the revolution. Peter Verkhovensky saw, what sort of role in the
revolution would be played by "pure swindlers". "Well, perhaps, this is a fine bunch of
people, at times very profitable, but on them much time gets wasted, and demands a
vigilant eye". And further on P. Verkhovensky ponders on the factours of the Russian
revolution: "The chiefmost force -- the cement, binding it all together, is shame at having
an opinion of one's own. How powerful this is! And this is with one who has worked, this
is one who is the "dear chap" so given to toil away, that he has not a single idea of his
own in his head! Aught else they would consider shameful". This was a very profound
and penetrating insight into revolutionary Russia. In Russian revolutionary thought there
was always "a shame at having one's own opinion". This shame among us was imputed to
the collective consciousness, a consciousness regarded higher, than the personal. In the
Russian revolution there has been ultimately extinguished every individual attempt at
thinking, the thinking was rendered completely impersonal, relegated to the masses. Read
the revolutionary newspapers, listen to the revolutionary speeches, and you will receive a
confirmation of the words of Peter Verkhovensky. Regarding someone who has so toiled
away over it, that "not a single idea remains in their head". Russian revolutionary
messianism leaves it to the bourgeois West to have one's own ideas and opinions. In
Russia all has to be collective, of the masses, impersonal. Russian revolutionary
messianism, is Shigalevschina. The Shigalev aspect impels and directs the Russian
revolution.

"Shigalev looked, as though he expected the destruction of the world, and not at
some indefinite when according to prophecies, but quite definitely, say the morning after
tomorrow, at exactly ten twenty-five". All the Russian revolutionary Marxists tend to
look, as Shigalev looked, all await the destruction of the old world the day after
tomorrow, in the morning. And that new world, which will arise upon the ruins of the old
world, is a world of Shigalevschina. "Starting from unlimited freedom, -- says Shigalev,
-- I conclude with a limited despotism. I adduce, moreover, that except for my decisive
societal formula, there can be no other". All the revolutionary Shigalevs speak thus and
act thus. Peter Verkhovensky formulates the essence of the Shigalevschina to Stavrogin:
"To level the mountains -- is a fine thought, not ludicrous. Education is not the needed
thing, enough of science! Even without science there is enough material for a thousand
years, but the needed thing is to build obedience... The thirst for learning is already an
aristocratic thirst. Just a bit of having a family or love, and here already is a wishing of
private property. We will kill off that desire; we will allow drunkenness, slander,
denunciation; we will permit unheard of depravity; we will extinguish all genius in its
infancy. All to a single denominator, total equality... Only necessary is the necessary --
herein is the catchword of the earthly globe henceforth. But necessary is a knuckling
under; about this we shall concern ourselves, as rulers. With slaves there have to be
rulers. Total obedience, total lack of person, but once in thirty years Shigalev allows also
for a convulsion, and all suddenly will begin to devour each other, up to a certain point,
naturally, so that things not become boring. Boredom is an aristocratic sensation". With
these stunning and prophetically forceful words Dostoevsky through the lips of P.
Verkhovensky reduces it all down to the course of thought of the Grand Inquisitor. This
demonstrates, that in "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" Dostoevsky to a remarkable
degree had socialism in view. Dostoevsky uncovers all the phantasmic aspect of
democracy within the revolution. No sort of a democracy exists, there rules instead a
tyrannical minority. But this tyranny, unprecedented in the history of the world, will be
based upon an overall compulsory leveling. Shigalevschina is also a frenzied passion for
equality, pushed to its end, to its limit, to non-being. Unchecked social dreaming leads to
a destruction of being with all its riches, in its fanatics it degenerates into evil. Social
dreaminess is nowise innocent a thing. Dostoevsky understood this. The Russian
revolutionary socialistic dreaming is also Shigalevschina. In the name of equality, this
dreaming would seek to destroy God and God's world. In this tyranny and this absolute
leveling, which will be the crowning point of "the developing and deepening" of the
Russian revolution, will be realised the golden dreams and visions of the Russian
revolutionary intelligentsia. These were dreams and visions about a Shigalevschina
realm, much prettier to imagine, than has proven in actuality. Many naive and simple of
soul Russian socialists, in dreaming about a social revolution, tend to get befuddled by
the triumphant shouts: "Each belongs to all, and all to each. All are slaves and equal in
slavery... The first step is a lowering of the level of education, of science and talents. The
high level of science and talents is permitted only to the higher in aptitude, and
unnecessary are the higher in aptitude!" Dostoevsky was more perspicacious, than were
the acknowledged teachers of the Russian intelligentsia, he knew, that the Russian
revolutionism, the Russian socialism in the hour of its triumph would have to end with
these Shigalev outbursts.

Dostoevsky foresaw not only the triumph of the Shigalev aspect, but also of the
Smerdyakovschina, the Smerdyakov aspect. He knew, that there would arise in Russia
the lackey who in the hour of great danger for our native land would say: "I detest all of
Russia", "I not only have no wish to be a military hussar, but I wish, on the contrary, the
abolition of all the soldiery". To the question: "And when the hostiles arrive, who will
defend us?", the revolting lackey replied: "In 1812 there was the great invasion of Russia
by the French emperor Napoleon I, and a good thing if then these same French had
subdued us: an intelligent nation would have subdued an extremely stupid one and
annexed it to itself. There would even have been an altogether different order of things".
Defeatism during wartime is also a manifestation of Smerdyakovschina. The Smerdyakov
effect has led also to this, that the "intelligent nation" of the Germans is subduing the now
"stupid" nation of the Russians. The lackey Smerdyakov among us was one of the first
internationalists, and all our internationalism has received a Smerdyakov engrafting.
Smerdyakov declared a right to be dishonourable, and behind him have flocked many.
How profound of Dostoevsky this was, that Smerdyakov should be the other half of Ivan
Karamazov, his reverse image. Ivan Karamazov and Smerdyakov -- are two
manifestations of Russian nihilism, two sides of one and the same essence. Ivan
Karamazov -- is the lofty, philosophic aspect of the nihilism; Smerdyakov -- is the lowly,
its lackey aspect. Ivan Karamazov at the summits of intellectual life had to go and beget
Smerdyakov at the base levels of life. Smerdyakov also brings to realisation all the
atheistic dialectics of Ivan Karamazov. Smerdyakov -- reflects the inner core of Ivan. In
all the masses of mankind, the masses of the people, there are more Smerdyakovs, than
Ivans. There triumphs in the revolution the atheistic dialectics of Ivan Karamazov, but
Smerdyakov brings it to realisation. This he did through a practical conclusion, that "all is
permissible". Ivan sins in his thought, in spirit, Smerdyakov accomplishes it in deed, he
embodies the idea of Ivan. Ivan commits parricide in his thoughts. Smerdyakov commits
the parricide physically, in actual fact. An atheistic revolution always commits parricide,
always denies the fatherly bond, always breaks the connection of son with father. And it
justifies this transgression on the basis, that the father was very bad and sinful. Such a
murderous attitude towards a father is always Smerdyakovschina. The Smerdyakov
aspect is always a final manifestation of boorishness. Having committed in fact, that
which Ivan committed in thought, Smerdyakov asks Ivan: "You yourself all the time then
said, that everything is permissible, so why are you now so anxious?" This question by
Smerdyakov to Ivan gets repeated in the Russian revolution. The Smerdyakovs of the
revolution, having realised in deed the principle of Ivan that "all is permissible", have the
basis to ask the Ivans of the revolution: "Now why are you so anxious?" Dostoevsky
foresaw, that Smerdyakov bears an hatred towards Ivan, while educated in his atheism
and nihilism. And this is playing itself out in our own day between the "people" and the
"intelligentsia". The whole tragedy between Ivan and Smerdyakov was unique as a
symbol in revealing the tragedy of the Russian revolution. The problem over the issue,
whether everything be permissible for the triumph of the good of mankind, stood already
before Raskol'nikov. The elder, starets Zosima, says: "Truly they have more of a dreamy
fantasy about them, than do we. They think justice will be set up, but having spurned
Christ, it will end with this, that the world will be drenched in blood, for blood calls for
blood, and he that taketh up the sword doth perish by the sword. And were it not for the
promise of Christ, they would then destroy each other even right down to the last two
men on earth". These words -- are prophetic.
 "People will join together, in order to take from life all, that it can give, but
assuredly for the joy and happiness of this one only present world. Man will exalt himself
in a spirit of a would-be godly and titanic pride and there will appear the man-god...
Everyone will recognise, that he is entirely mortal, without resurrection, and he will
accept death proudly and calmly, like a god. From pride he will understand, that it does
him no good to complain over this, that life is but a moment, and he will love his brother
without need of any reward. Love will suffice only for the moment of life, but already the
consciousness alone of its momentary aspect will stoke up the fire of it such, as before
previously it was spread on hopes beyond the grave and endless". It is the devil speaking
these words to Ivan, and in these words is revealed Dostoevsky's tormented thought, that
love for people can be godless and of the Anti-Christ. This love lies at the basis of
revolutionary socialism. An image of this godless socialism, grounded upon the Anti-
Christ type of love, is put forth by Versilov ["Podrostok"]: "I imagined for myself, that
the fighting will have ended and the struggling wound down. After the cursings, the mud-
slinging and jeers that will have settled in a calm, and people will have been left alone,
like they wanted: the great former idea has forsaken them; the great source of strength, up
til then having nourished and warmed them, has departed, but this was already as though
the final day of mankind. And people suddenly will have realised, that they have been left
altogether alone, and at once they will feel a great sense of being left orphaned... The
people thus orphaned will at once nestle closer and more fondly together; they will as it
were grasp hands, understanding, that now they alone only comprise all each for another!
There will have vanished the great idea of immortality, having to be replaced... They will
have become fond of the earth and life unrestrainedly and in that measure, in which
gradually they will have become aware of their own temporary and finite aspect, and
already with an especial, already not with the former love... They will awaken and hasten
to kiss greeting each other, in haste to love, conscious, that the days are short, that this --
is all, that remains for them. They would work each for the other, and each would bestow
his goods to all and by this alone be made happy". In this fantasy is revealed the
metaphysics and psychology of a godless socialism. Dostoevsky depicts the
manifestation of the Anti-Christ love. He understood, better than anyone, that the
spiritual basis of socialism -- is a denial of immortality, that the pathos of socialism -- is
the desire to set up the kingdom of God upon earth without God, to bring about love
between people without Christ -- the source of love. And he thus reveals the religious lie
of humanism in its limited forms. Humanistic socialism leads to a destroying of man in
the image and likeness of God. It is directed against the freedom of the human spirit, does
not tolerate the testing of freedom. Dostoevsky with an as yet unprecedented acuteness
posited the religious question concerning man and posited alongside it the question
concerning socialism, as regards the earthly unification and arrangement of people. He
discerned this as an encounter and a confusing of Christ and the Anti-Christ within the
soul of Russian man, of the Russian people. The apocalyptic aspect of the Russian people
also renders this encounter and this confusion particularly acrid and tragic. Dostoevsky
had presentiment, that were a revolution to happen in Russia, it would then occur via the
Anti-Christ dialectic. Russian socialism would prove apocalyptic, and contrary to
Christianity. Dostoevsky foresaw it farther and more profoundly than anyone. But he
himself was not free from the Russian populist illusions. In his Russian Christianity there
were sides, which provided a basis for K. Leont'ev to term his Christianity as rosy. This
rosy Christianity and rosy populism was most of all bespoken in the images of Zosima
and Alyosha, images impossible to be termed as fully successful. The great positive
revelations of Dostoevsky obtain by negative a path, by way of negative an artistic
dialectic. The truth, expressed by him concerning Russia, is not the sweet and rosy truth
of a love and worship of the people, this -- is instead a tragic truth, a truth concerning the
Anti-Christ seductions of an apocalyptic people in its spirit. Dostoevsky himself was
tempted by a churchly nationalism, which impeded the Russian people from emerging
out onto the world stage. Dostoevsky's worship of the people suffered its crash within the
Russian revolution. His positive prophecies did not transpire. But there do transpire his
prophetic foresights of the Russian temptations.

III. L. TOLSTOY WITHIN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

In Tolstoy there was nothing prophetic, he had presentiment of nothing and he

predicted nothing. As an artist, he was oriented towards a crystalised past. Within him
there was not that delicacy of perception for the dynamism of human nature, which to a
supreme degree Dostoevsky had. In the Russian revolution there triumph not the literary
insights of Tolstoy, but rather his moral values. L. Tolstoy, as a seeker after the truth of
life, as a moralist and religious teacher, is very characteristic of Russia and of Russians.
The Tolstoyans, in the narrow sense of the word, following the doctrine of Tolstoy, are
few, and they represent insignificant a phenomenon. But Tolstoyism in a broader, non
doctrinal sense of the word, are very characteristic of Russian man, and determinative of
Russian moral valuations. Tolstoy was not a direct teacher of the Russian leftist
intelligentsia, his religious teaching was foreign to it. But Tolstoy reflected and expressed
a peculiarity of the moral habits of a large part of the Russian intelligentsia, perhaps too,
even of Russian man in general. Yet the Russian revolution tends to manifest its own
unique triumph of Tolstoyism. Imprinted upon it is both a Tolstoy Russian moralism, and
Russian amorality. This Russian moralism and Russian amorality are interconnected and
are two sides of one and the same impairment of the moral consciousness. This
impairment of the Russian moral consciousness I view first of all as a denial of personal
moral responsibility and personal moral discipline, in a weak developement of the sense
of duty and the sense of honour, in the absence of awareness of the moral value of the
selection of personal qualities. Russian man does not sense himself to a sufficient degree
morally involvable, and he little esteems the qualitative aspect of person. This finds its
expression, in that the person senses himself submerged within the collective, the person
remains as yet insufficiently developed and conscious. Such a condition of moral
consciousness gives rise to a whole series of pretensions, in the orientation towards fate,
towards history, the rule of authority, cultural values, unadmissible for the given person.
The moral outlook of Russian man is characterised not by an healthy involvement, but
rather by sick pretension. Russian man fails to sense an inseparable connection between
rights and obligations, obscured for him is both the consciousness of rights, and the
consciousness of obligations, he flounders within an irresponsible collectivism, in the
pretension for all. For Russian man the most difficult thing of all is to sense, that he
himself -- is the blacksmith forging his own fate. He has no love for qualities, uplifting
the life of the person, and does not love power. Every sort of power, uplifting of life,
represents for Russian man something morally suspicious, moreso evil, than good. With
these peculiarities of the moral consciousness is connected also, that Russian man views
the values of culture as morally suspicious. Towards the entirety of higher culture he puts
forth a whole series of moral pretensions and fails to sense a moral obligation to create
culture. All these peculiarities and impediments of the Russian moral consciousness
present a favourable ground for the arising of the teachings of Tolstoy.

Tolstoy -- was an individualist, and very extreme an individualist. He was quite

anti-societal, and for him societal problems do not exist. Tolstoy's morality is also
individualistic. But from this it would be a mistake to conclude, that Tolstoy's morals rest
upon a clear and firm consciousness of the person. Tolstoy's individualism is decisively
hostile to the concept of the person, just as always transpires with individualism. Tolstoy
fails to see the human countenance, knows not its visage, he is all submerged within the
natural collectivism, which presents itself to him as life divine. The life of the person
does not seem to him to be the true and divine life, this -- is the false life of this world. A
true and divine life is a life impersonal, general life, in which have vanished all
qualitative distinctions, all hierarchical scales. The moral consciousness of Tolstoy
demands, that there should be nothing greater than man as an autonomous and qualitative
being, and there should be only an all-common unqualitative divinity, equalising all and
everything in the impersonal divinity. Only the total annihilating of every personal and
diversely-qualitative being into an impersonal unqualitative all-commonness represents
for Tolstoy a fulfilling of the law of the Master of life. The person, the qualitative is
already sin and evil. And Tolstoy ultimately would want to destroy all, everything that is
connected with the person and the qualitative. In him this was an Eastern and Buddhist
sort of outlook, hostile to that of the Christian West. Tolstoy renders himself a nihilist out
of moral zeal. His moralism is truly demonic and is destructive of all the richness of
being. The egalitarian and nihilistic passion in Tolstoy impels him to the destruction of
all the spiritual realities, of everything authentically ontological. The unrestrained moral
pretentiousness of Tolstoy renders everything illusory, it casts under suspicion and
subverts the reality of history, the reality of church, the reality of state, the reality of
nationality, the reality of the person and the reality of all supra-personal values, the
reality of all of spiritual life. Everything seems to Tolstoy as morally reprehensible and
impermissible, everything based upon sacrifices and sufferings, towards which he
exhibits a purely animal-like fear. I know of no other genius within world history, to
whom was so foreign the totality of spiritual life. He is totally immersed in the corporeal
-- the emotive, animate life. And the whole religion of Tolstoy is a demand for suchlike
an all-common mild beastliness, free from suffering and of contentment. I know of no
one in the Christian world, to whom was so foreign the very idea of redemption, so
uncomprehending of the mystery of Golgotha, as was Tolstoy. In the name of happy
animal-like a life he repudiated the person and repudiated every supra-personal value.
Truly however, the person and supra-personal value are inseparably connected. The
person only therefore also exists, because that in it is the supra-personal content of value,
in that it belongs to hierarchical a world, in which exist distinctions and a scale of the
qualitative. The nature of the person cannot put up with a jumbled confusion and
unqualitative leveling. And the love for people in Christ is least of all a matter of suchlike
a jumbled confusion and unqualitative leveling, it is infinitely deeper an affirmation of
every human countenance in God. Tolstoy failed to know this, and his morality was of a
lower sort morality, the pretentious morality of a nihilist. Nietzsche stands infinitely
higher, has more spiritual a morality than Tolstoy. The alleged loftiness of Tolstoy's
morality is a great misconception, which has to be exposed. Tolstoy in Russia hindered
the engendering and developing of the morally responsible person, he impeded the
selection of personal qualities, and therefore he proved an evil genius for Russia, a
seducer of it. In him occurred a fatal encounter of Russian moralism with Russian
nihilism and there obtained a religio-moral justification of Russian nihilism, which
seduced many. In him the Russian populism, so fateful for the destiny of Russia, received
a religious expression and moral justification. Almost all the Russian intelligentsia have
admitted Tolstoy's moral values as very lofty, to the far extent of which a man might
ascend. They have further reckoned these moral values as even too lofty and therefore
they reckoned themself unworthy of them and incapable to ascend to their lofty height.
There are but few who call into doubt the loftiness of Tolstoy's moral consciousness. And
simultaneously with the acceptance of this Tolstoy moral consciousness, it leads by it to
pogroms and the destruction of the greatest sanctities and values, of the greatest spiritual
realities, the death of the person and the death of God, inverted and converted into an
impersonal deity of the average sort. There has with us not yet been scrutinised with
sufficient seriousness and depth the tempting falsity of Tolstoyan morals. The antidote
against it would have to be the prophetic insights of Dostoevsky. The Tolstoyan morals
have emerged triumphant within the Russian revolution, but not by those idyllic and love-
abundant paths, proposed by Tolstoy himself. And Tolstoy himself, actually, would have
been horrified by this embodiment of his moral values. But he was desirous of much, too
much of that, which is happening now. He conjured up those spirits, which rule the
revolution, and was himself obsessed by them.

Tolstoy was a maximalist. He repudiated every historical precedent, he did not want
to allow for any sort of stages within historical developement. This Tolstoyan
maximalism exists within the Russian revolution -- it is impelled by the destructive
morals of maximalism, it breathes hatred towards everything historical, and in a spirit of
Tolstoyan maximalism the Russian revolution has wanted as though to rip each man out
of the world historical wholeness, to which he organically belongs, to transform him into
an atom, so as to plunge him abruptly into the impersonal collective. Tolstoy repudiated
history and historical tasks, he renounced the great historical past and did not want a great
historical future. The Russian revolution has been faithful to him in this, it represents a
cutting off from the historical legacies of the past and the historical tasks of the future,
seemingly intent, that the Russian people not live historical a life. And just the same as
with Tolstoy, in the Russian revolution this maximalist repudiation of the historical world
is begotten of a frenzied egalitarian passion. Let there be an absolute leveling, even if it
be a leveling right down to nothingness! The historical world -- is hierarchical, in it -- are
distinctions and distances, in it -- are qualitative variances and differentiation. All this is
so odious for the Russian revolution, just as it was for Tolstoy. It has wanted as though to
create a world dull and grey, all-alike, simplified, bereft of all qualities and all beauties.
And Tolstoy taught this as an higher truth. The historical world is disintegrating into its
atoms, and the atoms compulsively unite into an impersonal collective. "Without
annexations and indemnities" is also an abstract negative of all positive historical tasks.
Yet truly indeed all historical tasks presuppose "annexations and indemnities", they
presuppose the struggle of concrete historical individualities, they presuppose the
composing and dissolution of historical entities, the flourishing and decay of historical
bodies.

Tolstoy managed to engraft into the Russian revolution an hatred towards

everything historically individual and historically manifold. He was an expression of that
side of the Russian nature, which sustained an abhorrence towards historical power and
historical glory. In an elementary and simplistic manner regarding this, he was
accustomed to moralise about history and to transpose upon historical life the moral
categories of individual life. By this he morally subverted the possibility for the Russian
people to live historical a life, to fulfill its historical destiny and historical mission. He
morally prepared the historical suicide of the Russian people. He clipped the wings of the
Russian people as regards being historical a people, he morally poisoned the wellsprings
of every impulse towards historical creativity. The world war played itself out lost for
Russia, because in it took hold the Tolstoyan moral attitude towards war. Tolstoy's
morals disarmed Russia and betrayed it into the hands of the enemy. And this Tolstoyan
non-resistance, this Tolstoyan passivity enchants and attracts those, who sing hymns to
the accomplishing by revolution of the historical suicide of the Russian people. Tolstoy
was also an expresser of the non resisting and passive side in the character of the Russian
people. The Tolstoyan morals has debilitated the Russian people, deprived it of valour
within a severe historical conflict, but also has left it remaining with an untransfigured
animal-like nature of man with merely the most elemental of instincts. It has killed in the
Russian brood the instinct for power and glory, but has left remaining the instinct for
egoism, envy and malice. This morality is powerless to transform human nature, but it
can weaken human nature, bring it into decline, sap it of the creative instincts.

Tolstoy was an extreme anarchist, an enemy of anything to do with the state on

moral-idealist grounds. He repudiated the state, as based upon sacrifices and sufferings,
and he saw in it a source of evil, which for him led to coercive force. The Tolstoyan
anarchism, the Tolstoyan hostility towards the state likewise has prevailed among the
Russian people. Tolstoy proved an expresser of the anti-state, anarchistic instincts of the
Russian people. He provided those instincts with a moral-religious sanction. And he is
one of the culprits in the destruction of the Russian state. Tolstoy likewise was hostile to
all culture. Culture for him was based upon untruth and violence, in it the source of all
evils in our life. Man by his nature is essentially good and decent and is inclined to live
according to the law of the Master of life. The arising of culture, just like the state, was a
downfall, a falling away from the natural divine order, and hence a start of evil, of
violence. Totally foreign to Tolstoy was a sense of Original Sin, of radical evil for human
nature, and therefore he felt unneeded was a religion of redemption, and he did not
understand it. He was lacking in a sense of evil, since he was also lacking in a sense of
freedom and the autonomy of human nature, he lacked a sense of the significance of the
person. He was immersed in an impersonal and non-human nature and within it he sought
for the sources of Divine truth. And in this Tolstoy proved to be a wellspring source for
all the philosophy of the Russian revolution. The Russian revolution is hostile to culture,
it seeks to revert the life of the people back to a natural condition, in which it sees an
unmediated truth and bliss. The Russian revolution seeks as it were to destroy the whole
of our cultural segment, to drown it within the natural darkness of the people. And
Tolstoy is one of the culprits in the destruction of Russian culture. He has morally
subverted the possibility for cultural creativity, has poisoned the wellsprings of creativity.
He poisoned Russian man by a moral reflection, which has rendered him powerless and
incapable for historical and cultural activity. Tolstoy -- is a genuine poisoner of the
wellsprings of life. The Tolstoyan moral reflection is a genuine poison, toxic, destructive
to every creative energy, and undermining as regards life. This moral reflection has
nothing in common with the Christian sense of sin and the Christian demand for
repentance. For Tolstoy there is neither sin, nor repentance, for the regenerating of human
nature. For him there is only a debilitating and graceless reflection, which is an obverse
side of the revolt against the Divine world-order. Tolstoy idealised the common people,
saw therein the source of truth and he deified physical toil, in which he sought salvation
from the meaninglessness of life. But in him there was a disdainful and contemptuous
attitude towards all spiritual toil and creativity. All the acrid Tolstoyan criticism was
always directed against the cultural segment. These Tolstoyan values likewise have won
out in the Russian revolution, which extols to the heights the representatives of physical
toil and disdains representatives of spiritual a toiling. The Tolstoyan populism, Tolstoy's
denial of a division of labour is posited as a basis of the moral judgements of the
revolution, if one can speak about its moral judgements. Tolstoy has indeed no less a
significance for the Russian revolution, than Russo had for the French revolution. True,
the violence and bloodshed would have horrified Tolstoy, he presented the realisation of
his ideas by other paths. But Russo also indeed would have been horrified by the doings
of Robespierre and the revolutionary terror. But Russo nevertheless bears responsibility
for the French revolution, as does Tolstoy for the Russian revolution. I even tend to think,
that the teachings of Tolstoy were more destructive, than were the teachings of Russo.
Tolstoy did this by rendering morally impossible the existence of Great Russia. He
caused much in the destroying of Russia. But in this suicidal deed he was a Russian, in
him was expressed fatal and woesome Russian features. Tolstoy was one of the Russian
seductions.

Tolstoyanism in the broad sense of the word -- is an inward Russian danger,

assuming the guise of a lofty good. Only but inwardly destructive of Russian strength can
be this seductive and false good, a pseudo-good, this idea of a graceless sanctity, a
pseudo-holiness. The tempting aspect in the Tolstoyan teaching is a radical impulse for
perfection, for a perfect fulfilling of the law of the good. But this Tolstoyan perfection is
so thus destructive, so nihilistic, so hostile to all values, so incompatible with whatever
the creativity, because this perfection -- is graceless. In the sanctity, to which Tolstoy
aspired, there was a terrible gracelessness, a God-forsakenness, and therefore this -- is a
false, an evil holiness. A grace-endowed sanctity cannot commit such acts of destruction,
cannot be nihilistic. In genuine saints there was a blessed aspect of life, there was mercy.
This blessed aspect of life and this mercy were there first of all in Christ. In the spirit of
Tolstoy, however, there was nothing of the spirit of Christ. Tolstoy demands an
instantaneous and total realisation of the absolute, of the absolute good in this earthly life,
subject as it is to the laws of sinful nature, and it fails to take into account the relative, is
destructive of everything relative. He thus sought to tear away every human being from
the world totality and plunge it into the void, into the nothingness of a negative absolute.
And absolute life is rendered into but an elementary beast-like life, transpiring in physical
toil and the satisfying of the most simple needs. In such a negative absolute, desolate and
nihilistic, the Russian revolution also seeks to plunge all Russia and all the Russian
people. The ideal of a graceless perfection leads to nihilism. The denial of the rights of
the relative, i.e. of all the manifold aspects of life, of all the steps of history, causes in the
final end a separation from the sources of absolute life, from the absolute spirit. As a
religious genius, the Apostle Paul once perceived the whole danger of allowing
Christianity to become transformed into an apocalyptic Jewish sect and he instead led
Christianity into the currents of world history, having acknowledged and religiously
sanctioned the right of relative steps. Tolstoy first of all was in revolt against the work of
the Apostle Paul. All the falsity and phantasmic aspect of Tolstoyanism tended with an
inevitable dialectic to unfold within the Russian revolution. In the revolution, the people
is living out its seduction, its errors, its false values. This is much instructive, but this
instruction is bought at too dear a price. It is necessary to get free from Tolstoy as moral
an instructor. The overcoming of Tolstoyism as such represents a recovery of spiritual
health for Russia, its return from death to life, to the possibility of creativity, the
possibility of fulfilling its mission in the world.

IV. CONCLUSION

Russian man is inclined to experience everything transcendentally, and not

immanently. And this can easily become slave-like a condition of spirit. But in any event,
this -- is an indicator of insufficient spiritual courage. The Russian intelligentsia in its
enormous masses never conceived for itself as immanent -- the state, the church, the
fatherland, the higher spiritual life. All these values seemed to it transcendentally remote
and evoked in it hostile a feeling, as something foreign and threatening. The Russian
intelligentsia never experienced history and historical destiny as immanent to itself, as its
own particular affair and therefore it led the process against history as against an act of
violence being committed upon it. The transcendent experiences in the masses of the
people was accompanied by a feeling of religious blessing and submissiveness. And
thereupon was possible the existence of Great Russia. But this transcendent experiencing
has not passed over into an immanent experiencing of sanctity and value. All has
remained transcendent, but it evokes towards itself no longer a reverent and submissive
attitude, rather instead an attitude nihilistic and rebellious. The revolution is also a
debilitatingly catastrophic transition from a reverent veneration of the transcendent, over
to a nihilistic revolt against the transcendent. An immanent spiritual maturity and
liberation via the revolution is not attained. Too many have tended to see in the immanent
morals and the immanent religion of L. Tolstoy the onset of a spiritual maturity. But this
has been a terrible error. In actuality, the immanent mindset of Tolstoy was a nihilistic
negation of all those sanctities and values, which earlier had been venerated as
transcendent. But this is merely a return to the initial slavery. Suchlike a revolt is always
a slave's revolt, in it is no freedom nor sonship to God. Russian nihilism is also an
incapacity immanently and freely to experience all the riches and values of God's world,
an inability to sense oneself in a filial relationship to God and possessing all the legacy of
world history and of kindred history. The Russian apocalyptic aspect frequently involves
the fervent expectation of a miracle, which somehow should halt life of this alienation
from all the riches and surmount the debilitating transcendent rift. Whereof the creative
immanent developement becomes so difficult for Russians, since their sense of historical
succession is so weak. There is a sort of inner sickness to the Russian soul. This sickness
has terrible negative consequences, but in it is revealed also something positive,
inaccessible to Western peoples of more immanent a tendency. To Russian great writers
were revealed abysses and limits, the likes of which remain hidden for Western people,
moreso restricted and restrained by their immanent emotive discipline of soul. The
Russian soul is more delicately sensitive to mystical wisps, it meets up with spirits, which
stay hidden from the staid Western soul. And the Russian soul succumbs to temptations,
readily falls into confusion and gets taken in by substitutes. It is no accident that the
forebodings of the Anti-Christ -- is a Russian foreboding chiefly. A feel of the Anti-
Christ and the terror over the Anti-Christ has been there in the Russian people, down at
the bottom and with Russian writers, at the very summit of spiritual life. And the spirit of
the Anti-Christ has tempted Russians such, as never it has tended to tempt Western
peoples. In Catholicism there has always been a strong sensing of evil, of the devil, but
almost no sensing of the Anti-Christ. The Catholic soul has tended to represent a sort of
fortification, defending against the Anti-Christ waftings and seductions. Orthodoxy has
not transformed its soul into such a sort of fortification, it has left it more openly
vulnerable. But the apocalyptic aspect is experienced by the Russian soul passively, and
not actively. Active weapons for struggle against the spirits of the Anti-Christ there are
not, these weapons have not been made ready. There has been no armour, no shield and
sword, no knight's forging of the soul. The Russian struggle against the Anti-Christ is
always a withdrawal, an experience of terror. And too many, not having withdrawn from
the seductions, have instead succumbed to the seductions, have gotten mixed up, have
been taken in by the substitute. Russian man is situated in the grip of a false morals, a
false ideal of the righteous, perfect and holy life, which has weakened him in the struggle
with temptations. Dostoevsky revealed this false morality and false sanctity and predicted
their consequences. Tolstoy however preached them.

Russian revolutionary morals represents quite unique a phenomenon. It was formed

and crystalised among the leftist Russian intelligentsia over the course of a series of
decades and happened to gain prestige and allure among broad circles of Russian society.
The average man of the Russian intelligentsia was accustomed to bow before the moral
image of the revolutionaries and their revolutionary morals. He was ready to admit
himself unworthy of the moral heights of this revolutionary type. In Russia there took
form a special cult of revolutionary sanctity. This cult has its saints, its sacred tradition,
its dogmas. And for a long time every doubting of this sacred tradition, every criticism of
these dogmas, every non-reverential attitude towards these saints led to an
excommunication, as exclusion not only on the part of the revolutionary societal opinion,
but also from the side of the radical and liberal societal opinion. Dostoevsky fell victim to
this ostracisation, since he first saw into the lie and substitution in revolutionary sanctity.
He perceived, that revolutionary moralism has as its reverse side a revolutionary
amoralism and that the seeming semblance of revolutionary sanctity with that of the
Christian is a deceptive resemblance of the Anti-Christ to Christ. The moral degeneracy,
with which the 1905 revolution ended, inflicted somewhat a blow to the prestige of
revolutionary morals, and the halo of revolutionary sanctity became tarnished. But the
actual healing, on which some had hoped, did not occur. The sickness of the Russian
moral consciousness was too prolonged and serious. The healing can ensue only after the
terrible crisis, when the whole organism of the Russian people will come close to death.
We live during days of this almost mortal crisis. Now even for people half-blind much is
more apparent, than after 1905. Now "Vekhi" would not be met with in so hostile a
manner in the broad circles of the Russian intelligentsia, as happened in the time, when it
appeared. Now even those begin to admit the truth of "Vekhi", those who formerly
reviled it. After the demonic coursing of the revolution, the sanctity of the Russian
revolutionary intelligentsia does not come off so canonically indisputable. The spiritual
recovery of Russia mustneeds be sought in an inward exposing of this revolutionary
pseudo-sanctity and getting free of its bewitchment. Revolutionary sanctity is not a
genuine sanctity, this -- is a fraudulent sanctity, a deceptive semblance of sanctity, a mere
substitute. The outward persecutions, instigated by the old powers against the
revolutionaries, the outward sufferings, which they happened to undergo, much enabled
this deceptive and seeming appearance of sanctity. But in the revolutionary sanctity there
has never occurred a true transformation of human nature, a second spiritual rebirth, a
victory over inward evil and sin; never within it have been set tasks of the transformation
of human nature. Human nature has remained the same old thing, it has dwelt in slavery
to sin and wicked passions and has sought to attain to a new and higher life purely by
external and material means. But a man, deluded with a false idea, is capable of enduring
outward deprivations, want and sufferings, he can be ascetic in this not because, that by
the power of his spirit he overcomes his sinful and servile nature, but rather because, that
obsessed with a single idea and a single purpose it crowds out for him all the richness and
multiplicity of existence and renders him impoverished in nature. This -- is a graceless
asceticism and a graceless poverty, a nihilistic asceticism and a nihilistic poverty. The
traditional revolutionary sanctity -- is a godless sanctity. It is a godless pretension to
attain sanctity via the human alone and in the name of the human alone. Upon this path
becomes crippled and stumbles the image of man, since the image of man -- is the image
and likeness of God. The revolutionary morality, the revolutionary sanctity -- is
profoundly the opposite of Christianity. This morality and this sanctity make pretense to
substitute in for and to replace Christianity, a Christianity having its faith in the filial
sonship of man to God and in graced gifts, gotten for man through Christ the Redeemer.
Revolutionary morality is hostile to Christianity the same, just like the Tolstoyan
morality, -- one and the same lie and switching poisons and saps the strength in both. The
deceptive externals of the revolutionary guise of sanctity has been sent the Russian
people as a temptation and a testing of its spiritual powers. And Russian people herein
have not held up under this testing. Honestly attracted by the revolutionary spirit, they do
not see the realities, they fail to discern the spirits. the deceptive, fraudulent and twofold
images tempt and entice. The Anti-Christ allures, the Anti-Christ morals, the Anti-Christ
sanctity all influence and entice Russian man. For Russian people, spiritually captivated
by the revolutionary maximalism, there are peculiar experiences, very akin to Jewish
apocalypticism, that apocalyptic aspect which was surmounted and overcome by the
Apostle Paul and the Christian Church. The victory over this Judaic apocalyptic aspect
also rendered Christianity a world historical force. Russian apocalypticism includes
within it the greatest of dangers and temptations, it can direct all the energy of the
Russian people onto a false path, it can hinder the Russian people from fulfilling its
vocation in the world, it can render the Russian people into a people non-historical. The
revolutionary apocalyptics sidetracks Russian people from the realities and precipitates
them into a realm of phantasms. Getting free from this false and unhealthy apocalyptics
does not mean the destroying of all the apocalyptic consciousness. In Russian
apocalyptics lie concealed also positive possibilities. In the Russian revolution are being
extirpated the Russian sins and the Russian temptations, things discerned by the Russian
great writers. But great sins and great temptations can only be with a people great in its
possibilities. The negative is a caricature of the positive. The Russian people has fallen
low, but in it lie concealed great possibilities and to it can be revealed great distances.
The idea of a people, the intent of God concerning it remains there even after the failing
and fall of the people, having betrayed its aims and subjecting its national and state
dignity to utmost humiliations. A minority can remain faithful to the positive and creative
idea of the people, and from it can begin a renewal. But the path to renewal lies through
repentance, through an awareness of sins, through a cleansing of the spirit of the people
from spirits demonic. And the thing first of all necessary is to begin to discern spirits. Old
Russia, in which there was much evil and ugliness, but likewise also much good and
beauty, is dying away. The new Russia, born of its death pangs, is still enigmatic. It will
not be such, as the figures and the ideologues of the revolution imagine it to themself. It
will not be uniform in its spiritual visage. In it will be more harshly divided and opposed
the Christian and the anti-Christian principles. The Anti-Christ spirits of the revolution
will beget their dark domain. But the Christian spirit of Russia also has to manifest its
strength. The power of this spirit can operate in the minority even if the majority falls
away from it.

N. A. Berdyaev

1918

Article originally published in periodical "Russkaya mysl'", jul. 1918, p. 39-73

(Berdyaev's last article in this Moscow-Peterburg journal); (Klep.# 299). Simultaneously
included the same year in the anthology by various authors of articles concerning the
Russian Revolution, entitled "Iz glubiny. De profundis", Moscow-Peterburg, Russkaya
mysl', 1918, 273 p.; text subsequently reprinted by YMCA Press, Paris, 1967, 333 p.;
(Klep. # 57,1). Article recently republished in the Berdyaev anthology tome of articles
entitled, "Padenie svyaschennogo russkogo tsarstva: publitsistika 1914-1922", Astrel',
Moscow, 2007, c. 775-807.
 The Pre-Death Thoughts of Faust
(1922 - #59)

The fate of Faust -- is the fate of European culture. The soul of Faust -- is the soul
of Western Europe. This soul was full of stormy, of endless strivings. In it there was an
exceptional dynamism, unknown to the soul of antiquity, to the Greek soul. In its youth,
in the era of the Renaissance, and still earlier, in the Renaissance of the Middle Ages, the
soul of Faust sought passionately for truth, they fell in love with Gretchen and for the
realisation of his endless human aspirations it entered into a pact with Mephistopheles,
with the evil spirit of the earth. And the Faustian soul was gradually corroded by the
Mephistophelean principle. Its powers began to wane. What ended the endless strivings
of the Faustian soul, to what did they lead? The Faustian soul led to the draining of
swamps, to the engineering art, to a material arranging of the earth and to a material
mastery over the world. Thus we find spoken towards the conclusion of the second part
of Faust:

Nigh the mountain a swamp doth stretch,

Pollutes there every advancement;
To drain off the foul pool,
Would be the utmost highest achievement,
I'd open up space for many a million,
Not indeed secure, but active-free to be.

And thus do end during the XIX-XX Centuries the searchings of the man of modern
history. With genius Goethe foresaw this. But the final word for him belongs with the
mystic chorus:

All the Transitory

Is but a Symbol Image
The Insufficient
Here doth transpire;
The Ineffable
Here doth act;
The Eternal-Feminine
Upward doth draw us.

And draining the swamp is but a symbol of the spiritual path of Faust, merely a sign
of spiritual activity. Upon his path, Faust passes from a religious culture over to an
irreligious civilisation. And in this irreligious civilisation the creative energy of Faust
becomes drained, his endless aspirations die. Goethe gave expression to the soul of
Western European culture and its fate. Spengler, in his challenging book, "Der Untergang
des Abendslandes" ["The Decline of the West"], announces the end of European culture,
its ultimate transition over into civilisation, which is the beginning of the death-process.
"Civilisation -- is the irreversible fate of a culture". The book of Spengler bears within it
an enormous symptomatic significance. It conveys the feeling of crisis, of sudden
impending change, that of the end of an entire historical era. It speaks about the great
sorry affair of things in Western Europe. We, as Russians, have been split off from
Western Europe already for many a long year, from its spiritual life. And since our access
to it has been blocked, it has seemed to us to be more fortunate, more orderly, more
happy, than it is in actuality. Even prior to the World War, I very acutely sensed the crisis
of European culture, the impending end of an entire world era, and I expressed this in my
book, "The Meaning of Creativity". During wartime also I wrote an article, "The End of
Europe", in which I expressed the thought, that the twilight period of Europe has begun,
that Europe is at an end as a monopolist of culture, that the emergence of culture out
beyond the bounds of Europe has been inevitable, for other continents and other races.
Moreover, two years back I wrote an etude, "The End of the Renaissance", and a book,
"The Meaning of History: Attempt at a Philosophy of Human Fate", in both which I
definitely expressed the idea, that we are experiencing the end of modern history, that we
are living out the final remnants of the Renaissance period of history, that the culture of
old Europe has tended towards deterioration. And therefore I read the book of Spengler
with an especial tremulation. In our era, with its historical disintegration, thought is
focused upon the problems of the philosophy of history. It was the same in the epoch,
when Bl. Augustine conceived of his first rendering of a Christian philosophy of history.
It is possible to foresee, that philosophic thought henceforth will be concerned not so
much with problems of gnosseology, as rather by problems of the philosophy of history.
In the "Bhagavad Gita" revelations occur during a time of warfare. During a time of war
there can be resolved ultimate problems about God and the meaning of life, but it is
difficult to get concerned over analytic gnosseology. And in out time is at work the
thinking during a time of war. We live in an epoch inwardly akin to the Hellenistic epoch,
the epoch of the collapse of the ancient world. The book of Spengler -- is a remarkable
book, in places almost of genius, it stimulates and makes for thought. But it cannot be too
much a surprise for those Russian people, who long since already have sensed the crisis,
about which Spengler speaks.
***
Spengler can convey the impression of being an extreme relativist and sceptic. Even
mathematics for him is something relative. There exists the ancient Apollonian
mathematics, -- a finite mathematics, and there exists the European Faustian
mathematics, -- an infinite mathematics. Science is not unconditional, not absolute, but is
rather the expression of the souls of various cultures, of various races. But still, in
essence, it is impossible to classify Spengler under any sort of current. Academic
philosophy is quite alien to him, and he holds it in contempt. He is first of all his own
unique individualist. And in this he is akin to the Goethean spirit of contemplation.
Goethe intuitively contemplated the primal phenomena of nature. Spengler intuitively
contemplates the history of the primal phenomena of culture. He, just also as with
Goethe, is a symbolist as regards world-concept. He refuses to think employing abstract
concepts, he does not believe in the fruitfulness of such thinking. All abstract
metaphysics is foreign to him. From the morbid methodologism and gnosseologism, in
which German great thought emerged, from the sick and futile reflection, Spengler has
instead turned away towards living intuition. He casts himself into the dark ocean of the
historical existence of peoples and penetrates into the soul of races and cultures, into the
styles of the various epochs. He makes a break with the epoch of gnosseologism in the
philosophy of thought, but he does not pass over to ontologism, he does not construct any
sort of ontology and does not believe in the possibility of ontology. He knows only of
being, as manifest in cultures, as reflected in cultures. The primal grounds of being and
the meaning of existence remain for him hidden. The morphology of history for him -- is
the solely possible philosophy. With him there is not even a philosophy of history,
exclusively it is rather -- a morphology of history. All the truths, the truths of science, of
philosophy, religion, -- are for Spengler merely the truths of culture, of cultural types, of
cultured souls. The truths of mathematics -- are the symbols of various styles of cultured
souls. Such an attitude towards cognition and being is characteristic to a man of a late and
waning culture. The soul of a man set within an epoch of cultural decline tends to ponder
over the fate of cultures, over the historical fate of mankind. It has always been so. Such a
soul has no interest either in the abstract knowledge of nature, nor in the abstract
knowledge of the essence and meaning of being. Of interest to it is the culture itself, and
everything -- is merely reflected in the culture. It is struck by the dying off of once
flourishing cultures. It is wounded by the inevitability of fate. Spengler is very capricious,
he does not consider himself bound by anything in general obligatory. He is, first of all --
a paradoxicalist. For him, just as for Nietzsche, paradox is a means of cognition. In the
book of Spengler there is a sort of affinity with the book of the youthful genius [Otto]
Weininger, "Sex and Character", and despite all the different themes and spiritual
outlook, the book of Spengler -- is just as remarkable a phenomenon in the spiritual
culture of Germany, as is the book of Weininger. In breadth of intent, in scope, in its
unique intuitive insights into the history of cultures, the book of Spengler can take its
place alongside the remarkable book of [Houston Stewart] Chamberlain ("Die
Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts" ["The Foundations of the Nineteen-
Hundreds"]). After Nietzsche -- comes Weininger, Chamberlain and Spengler -- the sole
genuinely original and remarkable figures in German spiritual culture. Just like
Schopenhauer, Spengler has contempt for professors of philosophy. He offers a very
arbitrary list of writers and thinkers, and in his opinion of the remarkable books,
esteemed by him. These people are of a quite various a spirit. But they all bear some
relationship to the principle of the will to live and the will to power, all have bearing on
the crisis of culture. These are -- Schopenhauer, Proudhon, Marx, R. Wagner, Duhring,
Ibsen, Nietzsche, Strindberg, Weininger. Is Spengler a pessimist? For many, his book has
to produce the impression of a very boundless pessimism. But this is not a metaphysical
pessimism. Spengler does not desire the quenching of the will to live. On the contrary, he
desires the affirmation of the will to live and the will to power. In this he is closer to
Nietzsche, than to Schopenhauer. All cultures are doomed to a withering away and death.
Our European culture is also doomed. But it is necessary to accept fate, not oppose it, and
to live it out to the end, and to the end manifesting the will to power. With Spengler there
is the amor fati. The pessimism of Spengler, if such a term be properly applicable to him,
is a pessimism culturo-historical, and is neither a pessimism individually-metaphysical
nor individually-ethical. He -- is a pessimist on civilisation. He denies the idea of
progress, and he returns to the teaching about cyclical returns. But with him there is no
pessimistic balance of suffering and pleasure, of a pessimistic understanding of the very
essence of life. He admits of an inexhaustible creative wellspring of life, lodged within
the primal impulse, begetting culture all ever new and anew. He is fond of this will to
cultural flourishing. And he perceives the death of a culture as a law of life, as an
inevitable moment within the vital fate of a culture itself. Surprisingly strong with
Spengler is a correlation of phenomena in various spheres of a culture and the discerning
from them of an unique symbol, such as signifies that selfsame culture, that selfsame
cultural style. He transfers concepts from mathematics and physics over into painting and
music, from art into politics, from politics into religion. Thus, he speaks about an
Apollonian and a Faustian mathematics. He discerns one and the same primary
phenomenon within various epochs, within various cultures. And he regards it possible to
admit of one and the same sort of such phenomena, as Buddhism, Stoicism and
Socialism, belonging to various epochs and cultures. His most remarkable thoughts are
about art and about mathematics and physics. And with him there are truly intuitions of
genius.

Spengler -- is of an areligious nature. In this is his tragedy. With him there is as it

were an atrophied religious sense. Whereas both Weininger and Chamberlain -- are of a
religious nature, Spengler -- is areligious. He is not only himself non-religious, but he
also does not understand the religious life of mankind. Yet he examined the role of
Christianity within the fate of European culture. This -- is the most striking side of his
book. In this is its spiritual deformity, almost its monstrous defect. It is not necessary to
be a Christian, in order to understand the significance of Christianity within the history of
European culture. The pathos of objectivity ought to be brought to bear on this. But
Spengler does not sense himself under the compulsion of any such objectivity. He does
not ponder on Christianity within history, he does not see a religious meaning. He knows,
that culture is religious by its nature and by this it is distinct from civilisation, which is
irreligious. But he has been able to express very noble thoughts, such as only can be
expressed by a non-believing soul in our epoch. Behind his civilised self-feeling and self-
awareness can be sense the imprint of a culture, which has lost its faith and is tending
towards decline.

***
Spengler understands and senses the world foremost of all as history. This he
regards as the modern perception of the world. It is only to such an attitude towards the
world that there belongs a future. Dynamism is characteristic to our times. And only a
perceiving the world as history is a dynamic perception. The world as nature is static.
Spengler contrasts nature and history, as two methods of viewing the world. Nature is
expanse. History is time. The world presents itself to us as nature, when we view it from
the perspective of causality, and it presents itself to us as history, when we view it from
the perspective of fate. That history is a matter of fate, is all very well and good with
Spengler. Fate cannot be conceived of by means of a causal explanation. Only the
perspective of fate gives us a grasp upon the concrete. Spengler's assertion is quite
correct, that for ancient man there was no history. The Greek perceived the world as
static, for him it was from nature, from the cosmos, and not from history. He did not
know historical remoteness. Spengler's thoughts on antiquity are very insightful. And it
mustneeds be admitted, that Greek thought did not know of a philosophy of history. It
was not a matter of either Plato, or of Aristotle. The point of view of a philosophy of
history is contrary to the aesthetic ponderings of the Hellene. The world for him was a
completed cosmos. Hellenic thought created the Hellenic metaphysics, so inconducive for
conceiving the world as an historical process. Spengler senses himself as an European
man with a Faustian soul, with its infinite aspirations. He not only sets himself distinct
from ancient man, he moreover asserts, that the ancient soul for him is inconceivable, is
impenetrable. This however does not prevent him from drawing upon its understanding
and insights. But does history exist for Spengler himself, is he one for whom there is a
world, as history, and not as nature? I think, that for Spengler history does not exist and
for him a philosophy of history is impossible. Not by chance did he call his book a
morphology of world history. The morphological perspective derives from nature-
knowledge. Historical fate, the fate of culture exists for Spengler only in that sense, that
fate exists for a flower. The historical fate of mankind does not exist. There does not exist
a single mankind, a single subject of history. Christianity was the first to have rendered
possible a philosophy of history, in that it revealed the existence of a single mankind with
a single historical fate, having its own beginning and end. Thus first for the Christian
consciousness is revealed the tragedy of world history, the fate of mankind. Spengler
however turns back to the pagan particularism. For him there is no mankind, no
worldwide history. Cultures, races -- are isolated monads with an isolated fate. For him
the varied types of culture experience a cyclical turning of their own fate. He returns to
the Hellenic perspective, which was surpassed by the Christian consciousness. With
Spengler the Baptismal water as it were was missing. He abjures his own Christian blood.
And for him, just as for the Hellene, there does not exist the perspective of an historical
remoteness. The historically remote distance exists only in this instance, if there exists an
historical fate of mankind, a worldwide history, if each type of culture is but a moment of
a worldwide fate.

The Faustian soul with its endless aspirations, with the distance opening up before it,
is the soul of the Christian period of history. This Christianity shatters the boundaries of
the ancient world, with its delimited and narrowed horizons. After the appearance of
Christianity in the world, an infinity opened up. Christianity rendered possible the
Faustian mathematics, the mathematics of the endless. Of this Spengler is not at all
aware. He does not posit the appearance of the Faustian soul in any sort of connection
with Christianity. He has made an examination of the significance of Christianity for
European culture, for the fate of European culture. This fate however -- is a Christian
fate. He wants to push Christianity back exclusively to the sense of a magical soul, to a
type of Hebrew and Arabic culture, to the east. And he thus dooms himself to a lack of
understanding of the meaning of European culture. For Spengler generally there does not
exist a meaning to history. The meaning of history also cannot exist amidst such a denial
of the subject of the historical process. The cyclical turnings of the various types of
culture, lacking connections between them of a single fate, is totally meaningless.
Moreover, the denial of a meaning to history makes impossible a philosophy of history.
There remains but the morphology of history. But for the morphology of history there is
merely the manifestation of nature, in it there is no unique historical process, no fate, as a
manifestation of meaning. In Spengler the Faustian soul ultimately loses its connection
with Christianity, which gave it birth, and in the hour of the waning of the Faustian
culture it attempts to return to the ancient sense of life, tacking on it also the theme of
history. In Spengler, despite his distasteful civilisation pathos, there is sensed also the
exhaustion of a trans-cultural man. This weariness of a man of an era of decline quenches
any sense of the meaning of history and its connections to historical fates. There remains
only the possibility of an intuitive-aesthetic insight into the types and styles of the souls
of cultures. Faust does not bear up under a time of historical fate, he does not want to
experience it to the final end. He, weary and exhausted by the modern history, agrees it
the better to die, having experienced a short moment of civilisation, set at the summit of
culture. He is captivated by the thought, that he is to be given this final mitigation and
consolation of death. But there is no death. Fate continues on even beyond this side of
what the Faustian soul had acknowledged as the sole life. And the burden of this fate has
to be carried across into the remote eternity. For Spengler's Faustian soul the remote
eternity is hidden, the historical fate beyond the bounds of this life, of this culture and
civilisation; to the end of his days he wants to restrict himself to the cycle of a dying
civilisation. He foresees the rise of new cultures, which likewise will pass over into a
civilisation and die. But these new souls of cultures are foreign to him and he regards
them for himself as impenetrable. These new cultures which, perhaps, will arise in the
East, will not have any sort of inward connection with the dying European culture. Faust
loses the perspective of history, of historical fate. Culture for him -- is merely a springing
forth, a blossoming and fading flower. Faust ceases to understand the meaning and the
bond of fate, since for him the light of the Logos has grown dim, there has grown dark
the sun of Christianity. And the appearance of Spengler, a man exceptionally gifted, at
times close to genius in certain of his intuitions, is very remarkable for the fate of
European culture, for the fate of the Faustian soul. There is nowhere further to go. After
Spengler -- there is already the plunge into the abyss. With Spengler there is a great
intuitive gift, but this -- is but the giftedness of a blindman. As a blindman, no longer still
seeing the light, he throws himself off into the murky ocean of culturo-historical being.
With Hegel there was still a Christian philosophy of history, in its sort no less Christian,
than the philosophy of history of Bl. Augustine. It knows of an unified subject of history
and meaning to history. It shines through everything with the rays of the Christian sun.
With Spengler there are no longer these rays. Hegel belongs to a culture, possessing a
religious basis; Spengler senses himself as already having passed over into a civilisation,
bereft of religious basis. One might moreover still note, that the point of view of Spengler
unexpectedly reminds one of the perspective of N. Danilevsky, as developed in his book,
"Russia and Europe". The culturo-historical types of Danilevsky are very similar to the
souls of the cultures of Spengler, but with this difference, that Danilevsky is quite lacking
in the enormous intuitive gift of Spengler. Vl. Solov'ev criticised N. Danilevsky from the
Christian point of view. For Spengler the fate of the history of the world remains
unsolved, since for him history is but an aspect of nature, a phenomenon of nature, and it
is not in that nature -- is an aspect of history, as it is for historical metaphysics.

***
Every culture inevitably passes over into civilisation. Civilisation is the fate, the
doomed lot of culture. Civilisation however ends up by death, it is already the beginning
of death, the exhaustion of the creative powers of a culture. This -- is a central thought of
Spengler's book. "We are civilised people, and not people of the Gothic or Rococco".
What differentiates civilisation from culture? A culture -- is religious as to its basis,
civilisation -- is irreligious. For Spengler -- this is a fundamental distinction. And he
regards himself as a man of civilisation, since he is irreligious. A culture derives from a
cult, it is bound up with a cult of ancestors, it is impossible without sacred traditions.
Civilisation is the will to worldwide might, to an ordering of the surface of the earth. A
culture -- is national. Civilisation -- is international. Civilisation is the worldwide city.
Imperialism and socialism alike -- are civilisation, and not culture. Philosophy and art
exist only in a culture, in a civilisation they are impossible and unnecessary. Possible and
necessary within civilisation is only the engineering art. And Spengler gives the
appearances, that he understands the pathos of the engineering art. Culture -- is organic.
Civilisation -- is mechanical. Culture is grounded upon inequality, upon qualities.
Civilisation in contrast is pervaded by the aspiration for equality, it seeks to be based
upon quantities. Culture -- is something aristocratic. Civilisation -- is something
democratic. The distinction of culture in contrast to civilisation is of something
extraordinarily fruitful. With Spengler there is a very acute sense of an inexorable process
of the victory of civilisation over culture. The decline of Western Europe for him is first
of all the decline of the old European culture, the exhaustion within it of the creative
powers, the end of art, of philosophy, of religion. Civilisation has still not reached its
finish. Civilisation will still celebrate its victory. But after civilisation will come the onset
of death for the Western European cultural race. And after this, culture can blossom forth
only in other races, only in other souls.

These thoughts are expressed by Spengler with an astounding brilliance. But are
these thoughts something new? For us, as Russians, it is impossible to be taken aback by
these thoughts. We long since already know of the difference of culture from civilisation.
All the Russian religious thinkers have asserted this difference. they all sensed a certain
sacred terror at the perishing of culture and the ensuing triumph of civilisation. The
struggle against the spirit of philistinism, which so wounded Hertsen and K. Leont'ev,
people of quite varied tendencies and outlook, was grounded upon this motif. Civilisation
by its nature is pervaded by a spiritual philistinism, by a spiritual bourgeoisness.
Capitalism and socialism entirely alike are infected by this spirit. Beneathe the hostility
towards the West of many a Russian writer and thinker lies concealed not hostility
towards Western culture, but rather hostility towards Western civilisation. Konstantin
Leont'ev, one of the most insightful of Russian thinkers, loved the great culture of the
West, he loved the colourful culture of the Renaissance, he loved the Catholic great
culture of the Middle Ages, he loved the spirit of chivalry, he loved the genius of the
West, he loved the mighty manifestation of the sense of person within this great cultural
world. But he abominated the civilisation of the West, the fruition of the liberal-
egalitarian process, the extinguishing of spirit and the death of creativity within
civilisation. He comprehended already the law of the transition of culture over into
civilisation. For him this was an inexorable law within the life of societies. Culture for
him corresponded to that period in the developing of societies, which he termed as the
period of the "blossoming of complexity", civilisation however corresponded to a period
of "simplistic confusion". The problem of Spengler was quite clearly posited by K.
Leont'ev. He likewise denied progress, he confessed a theory of cycles, he asserted, that
after the complex blossoming forth of culture there ensues decline, decay, death. The
process of "liberal-egalitarian" civilisation is the onset of death, of disintegration. For
Western European culture he regarded this death as irreversible. He saw the perishing of
the flourishing culture in the West. But he wanted to believe, that a flourishing culture
was still possible in the East, in Russia. Though towards the end of his life he lost also
this faith, he saw, that also in Russia civilisation was triumphing, that in Russia matters
were going towards a "simplistic confusion". And then he came to be imbued with a dark
apocalyptic outlook. So also Vl. Solov'ev towards the end lost faith of a possibility within
the world of a religious culture and he had an anguished sense of the onset of the
kingdom of the Anti-Christ. Culture is possessed of a religious basis, there is in it a
sacred symbolism. Civilisation however is of the kingdom of this world. It is the triumph
of the "bourgeois" spirit, of a spiritual "bourgeoisness". And it makes totally no
difference, whether it be a civilisation capitalistic or socialistic, it is alike -- a godless
philistine civilisation. Indeed even Dostoevsky was not an enemy of Western culture.
Remarkable in this regard are the thoughts of Versilov in "The Adolescent". "They are
not free, -- says Versilov, -- but we are free". "Only I alone in Europe with my Russian
melancholy then was free... To the Russian, Europe is precious the same, as is Russia:
each stone in it is dear and precious. Europe has been our fatherland the same, as also is
Russia... O, to the Russian, dear are these old foreign stones, these miracles of God's old
world, these bits of sacred wonders: and to us this is even more dear, than it is to them
themselves. They have now other thoughts and other feelings, and they have ceased to
appreciate the old stones". Dostoevsky loved these "old stones" of Western Europe,
"these miracles of God's old world". But he, just as with K. Leont'ev, denounces the
people of the West for this, that they have ceased to revere their "old stones", they have
forsaken their own great culture and have surrendered themselves completely to the spirit
of civilisation. Dostoevsky loathed not the West, not the Western culture, but rather the
irreligious, the godless civilisation of the West. Russian Easternism, Russian
Slavophilism was merely a veiled struggle of the spirit of a religious culture against the
spirit of an irreligious civilisation. The struggle of these two spirits, of these two types, is
innate to Russia itself. This is not a struggle of East and West, of Russia and Europe. And
many Western people too have felt anguish, almost to the point of agony, at the triumph
of the irreligious and monstrous civilisation over a great and sacred culture. Suchlike
have been the romantics of the West. Suchlike were the French Catholics and symbolists
-- Barbey d'Aurevilly, [Paul] Verlaine, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Huysmans, Leon Bloy.
Suchlike was Nietzsche, with his anguish over the tragic Dionysian culture. Not only
remarkable Russian people, but also the most refined and perceptive Western people with
anguish felt, that the great and holy culture of the west was perishing, that it was dying,
that coming to it was a civilisation alien to it, a worldwide city, irreligious and
international, that a new sort of man was coming, a parvenue, obsessed with a will to
world power and taking possession of all the earth. In this victorious march of civilisation
was dying the soul of Europe, the soul of European culture.

The originality of Spengler was not in the positing of this theme. This theme had
already been posited with an extraordinary alacrity by Russian thought. The originality of
Spengler lies however in this, that he has no desire to be a romantic, he does not wish to
anguish over the dying great culture of the past. He wants to live in the present, he wants
to accept the pathos of civilisation. He wants to be a citizen of the worldwide city of
civilisation. He preaches a civilisation's will to world power. He is consentual to trading
off religion, philosophy, art for technology, for the draining of swamps and the erecting
of bridges, for the invention of machines. The uniqueness of Spengler lies in this, that
there has not been yet a man of civilisation, a drainer of swamps, endowed with such an
awareness as with Spengler, a sad awareness of the inexorable decline of the old culture,
endowed with such a keenness and such a gift of penetration into the culture of the past.
Spengler's self-feeling for civilisation and his self-awareness are at the root contradictory
and ambiguous. In him there is not civilisation's arbitrary sense of value and self-
smugness, there is not that faith in the absolute excellence of its own epoch, of its own
generation over all the epochs and generations that went before. It is impossible to
construct a civilisation, to defend the interests of a civilisation, to dry up swamps with
such a mindset as Spengler has. For these deeds what is necessary is a dulling of
consciousness, becoming thick-skinned, with a naive faith in the endless progress of
civilisation. Spengler tends to understand everything too well. He is not the new man of
civilisation, he is rather, the dying Faust -- the man of the old European culture. He -- is a
romantic in an era of civilisation. He wants to give the appearance, that he is interested by
the engineering art, by the draining of swamps, by the erection of the world city. In
actuality, he writes instead a remarkable book about the decline of European culture and
by this he works a deed of culture, rather than of civilisation. He is as such unusual a
cultural man, overwhelmingly a cultural man. Such people tend poorly to build the world
city of civilisation. They are better at writing books. Faust hardly can be called a fine
engineer, a fine maker of civilisation. He is dying at the very moment, when he decides to
set about the draining of swamps. Spengler is not a man of civilisation, as he wants both
himself and us to believe, - he is a man of a late and declining culture. And therefore in
his book is discerned the evidence of grief, foreign to a man of civilisation. Spengler -- is
a German patriot, a German nationalist and imperialist. This is clearly expressed in his
booklet, "Preussentum und Sozialismus" ["The Prussian and Socialism"]. In him there is
the will to world power for Germany, there is the faith, that during the period of
civilisation, such as still remains for Western Europe, this world power of Germany will
be realised. He combines with civilisation this will and this faith for himself, he finds for
himself a place within it. But the history of recent years has inflicted such a blow to the
imperialistic mindset of Spengler. If imperialism and socialism -- be not one and the
same thing, then -- certainly, Spengler is moreso the imperialist, than a socialist. The
civilisation of a world city however is beginning to move more rapidly in the direction of
realisation of a world power and world kingdom, the kingdom of this world, through
socialism, rather than through imperialism.

***
Our era has features of affinity with the Hellenistic era. The Hellenistic era brought
to an end the culture of antiquity. And, according to the thought of Spengler, this was a
transition of the culture of antiquity over into civilisation. Suchlike is the doomed lot of
every culture. And for both our era and for the Hellenistic era alike there is characteristic
the mutual interaction of East and West, the meeting and coming together of all cultures
and all races, a syncretism, the universalism of civilisation, the feeling of an end-time, the
demise of an historical era. And in our era too the civilisation of the West turns towards
the East and the trans-cultural people of this civilisation seek for light from the East. And
in our era too within the various theosophic and mystical currents there occurs the
jumbling together and combining of various systems of beliefs and cults. And in our era
too there is the will towards a worldwide uniting in imperialism and the selfsame will
finds expression also in socialism. Cultures and states cease to be nationally isolated. The
individuality of the cultures passes over into the universality of civilisation. And in our
era too there is the thirst to believe and a powerlessness to believe, a thirst to create and a
powerlessness to create. And in our era too there predominates an Alexandrianism both in
thought and in creativity. Within history daylike and nightlike eras follow in succession.
The Hellenistic era was a transition from the daylight of the Hellenic world over to the
night of the Medieval Dark Ages. And we stand at the threshhold of a new night era. The
daytime of modern history is at an end. Its rational light is dying down. Evening ensues.
And it is not Spengler alone who sees the signs of the encroaching twilight. Our time in
many of its portents is reminiscent of the beginning of the early Middle Ages. The have
begun the processes of drawing back and consolidation, similar to the processes of
drawing back and consolidation during the time of the emperor Diocletian. And it is not
so improbable an opinion, to imagine that there is beginning a feudalisation of Europe.
The process of the collapse of states is transpiring parallel to an universalistic uniting.
There are occurring enormous transmigrations and displacements of masses of mankind.
And there will perhaps ensue a new chaos of peoples, from which nowise quickly will a
new orderly cosmos take shape.

The World War has drawn Western Europe out of its customary, its established
boundaries. Central Europe lies inwardly devastated. Its powers not only materially, but
also spiritually, have become overstrained. Civilisation through imperialism and through
socialism has to pour forth across the surface of all the earth, has to move even towards
the East. Into the civilisation will be brought ever new masses of mankind, new
segments. But the new Middle Ages will be a civilised barbarism, a barbarism amidst
machines, and not amidst forests and fields. The great and sacred traditions of culture will
turn inward. The true spiritual culture, perhaps, will happen to experience a catacomb
period. The true spiritual culture, having survived its Renaissance period, having gone
through its humanistic pathos, will happen to return to certain principles of a religious
medieval culture, not a barbarian Middle Ages, but rather a cultural Middle Ages. Upon
the pathways of the modern, the humanistic, the renaissance history, everything is already
exhausted. Faust upon the paths of an outward endlessness of aspirations exhausted his
powers, he wore down his spiritual energy. Still, there remains for him movement
towards an inner infinity. In one of his aspects, Faust has had to totally surrender himself
over to the external material civilisation, a civilised barbarism. Though in another of his
aspects he has to be faithful to the eternal spiritual culture, the symbolic existence of
which was expressed by the mystical chorus at the finish of the second part of "Faust".
Suchlike is the fate of the Faustian soul, the fate of European culture. The future is
twofold. With Spengler, the preeminence of spiritual culture is sundered. It passes as it
were over totally into civilisation and dies. Spengler does not believe in an abiding
meaning to world life, he does not believe in the eternal aspect of a spiritual reality. But
even if spiritual culture should perish amidst the quantities, it then still will be preserved
and abide amidst the qualities. It was carried forth both through the barbarity and night of
the old Middle Ages. It will be carried forth also through the barbarity and night of the
new Middle Ages, prior to the dawn of a new day, to a coming Christian Renaissance,
when there will appear the St. Francis and the Dante of the new epoch.
 ***
The truths of science for Spengler are not independent truths, but are rather truths
relevant of the culture, of cultural styles. And the truths of physics are connected with the
souls of a culture. There is a very remarkable chapter about the Faustian and Apollonian
nature-knowledge. Mighty strides in physics have been characteristic of our era. Within
physics there is occurring a genuine revolution. But the discoveries, which the physics of
our era is uncovering, are characteristic of the decline of a culture. Entropy, connected
with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, radioactivity and the decaying apart of atoms
of matter, the Law of Relativity -- all this tends to shake the solidity and stability of the
physico-mathematical world-perception, and it undermines faith in the lasting existence
of our world. I might say, that all this -- represents a physical apocalypsis, a teaching
about the inevitability of the physical end of the world, the death of the world. Only
during the era of the waning of European culture does there arise such an "apocalyptic"
disposition within physics. What a difference it is from the physics of Newton. Newton in
his physics did not give his own interpretation of the Apocalypsis. The physics of our day
can be termed the pre-death thoughts of Faust. It has become impossible to seek for
stability in the physical world order. Physics posits a death sentence for the world. The
world is perishing in its proportionate discharge of warm energy into the universe, of
energy, unreturnable into other forms of energy. The creating energies at work in forming
the manifold of the cosmos, are subsiding. The world is perishing from an irreversible
and insurmountable striving towards physical equilibrium. And is not the striving towards
equilibrium, towards equality, in the social world that same sort of entropy, that same
ruination of the social cosmos and culture in a proportionate discharge of warm energy,
unreturnable in any sort of energy as is creative of culture? A pondering over the themes,
posited by Spengler, leads to these bitter thoughts. But the bitterness of these thoughts
ought not to be inescapable and gloomy. Not only physics, but also sociology, do not
have belonging to them the final word in deciding the fates of the world and of man. The
loss of a physical stability is not an irreversible loss. It is in the spiritual world that it is
necessary to seek for stability. It is in the depths that it is necessary to seek for points of
support. The world as external lacks infinite perspectives. The absurdity within it has
been shown over the ages. But there is apparent an infinite inner world. And it is with it
that there ought to be connected our hopes.
***
In the large book of Spengler nothing is said about Russia. Only in the table of
contents of the projected second volume is there a final chapter entitled -- "Das
Russentum und die Zukunft" ["The Russian and the Future"]. There are grounds to think,
that Spengler sees in the Russian East that new world, which will come to replace the
dying world of the West: in his booklet "Preussentum und Sozialismus" several pages are
devoted to Russia. Russia for him -- is a mysterious world, incomprehensible for the
world of the West. The soul of Russia is still more remote and ungraspable for Western
man, than is the soul of Greece or of Egypt. Russia is an apocalyptic revolt against
antiquity. Russia -- is religious and nihilistic. In Dostoevsky is revealed the mystery of
Russia. In the East can be expected the appearance of a new type of culture, of a new soul
of culture. Yet this too contradicts the suggestions about Russia as a land nihilistic and
hostile to culture. In the thoughts of Spengler, ultimately not followed out to the end,
there is a sort of something turned backwards, where its opposite end seems an assertion
of Slavophilism. And for us these thoughts are of interest, this turning of the West
towards Russia, these expectations, connected with Russia. We are situated in more
propitious a position, than is Spengler and the people of the West. For us the Western
culture is attainable and graspable. The soul of Europe does not represent for us a soul
remote and incomprehensible. We are in an inner communion with it, we sense in
ourselves its energy. And yet at the same time we are the Russian East. Therefore the
scope of Russian thought has to be broader, from its apparent remoteness. The
philosophy of history, towards which the thought of our era turns, with great success has
to be worked out in Russia. The philosophy of history always was of a basic interest
within Russian thought, beginning with Chaadayev. That, which we are experiencing at
present, ought ultimately to lead us out of our isolated existence. Granted that at present
we are still moreso pushed back eastwards, but at the end of this process we shall cease to
be the isolated East. Whatever happens with us, we inevitably have to emerge onto the
world stage. Russia -- is at the middle between East and West. In it clash two torrents of
world history, the Eastern and the Western. In Russia is hidden a mystery, which we
ourselves cannot fully fathom. But this mystery is connected with a resolving of whatever
the themes of world history. Our hour has still not come. It will be connected with the
crisis of European culture. And therefore such books, as the book of Spengler, cannot but
excite us. Such books are closer to us, than to the European peoples. This -- is our style of
book.
Nikolai Berdyaev.

1922

PREDSMERTNYE MYSLI FAUSTA. Berdyaev's article is the 3rd of a four part

anthology, "Osval'd Shpengler i Zakat Evropy", first published by book-publisher
"Bereg" 1922, Moscow, p. 55-72. This entire 1922 Oswald Spengler anthology has been
included in the V. V. Sapov edited Berdyaev-reprint under the partially inclusive title,
"Smysl Istorii; Novoe Srednevekov'e", Publisher "Kanon", 2002 Moscow, p. 312-404;
the Berdyaev title p. 364-381. (The other three selections included in this Spengler
anthology are: F. Stepun -- "Osval'd Shpengler i 'Zakat Evropy'", S. Frank -- "Krizis
zapadnoi kul'tury", Ya. Bukshpan -- "Nepreodolennyi ratsionalizm".

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

AND THE KINGDOM OF CAESAR1
I.

“Render the things of Caesar unto Caesar, and the things of God unto God”. This
eternal Gospel truth ought to be understood dynamically, and not statically. The
difference and the delimitation of the two kingdoms remains eternal, but the relationships
between the two kingdoms within the history of Christianity do not remain inalterable,
they change at various stages of Christianity. Christianity does not know petrified forms,
which might define for always the Christian ordering of the kingdom of Caesar. One only
doth dwell unshakable. Christianity does not deny the kingdom of Caesar whether it be
mechanical or revolutionary, it recognises it as a particular sphere of being, distinct from
the kingdom of God, but necessary too for the ends of the Kingdom of God. The Church
of Christ has its own particular foundation, independent of the elements of this world, it
lives according to its own particular law of spiritual being. But the Church of Christ at the
moment of its appearance was surrounded by the elements of this world and was
compelled to live in a pagan state, which fiercely persecuted Christians. The “kingdom of
Caesar” does not signify a monarchy, it is a figure designating the kingdom of this world,
the order of sinful nature. A democratic or socialistic republic in the same degree is the
kingdom of Caesar, just like a monarchy. And the question about the relationship of the
Kingdom of God to the kingdom of Caesar is at the same time a question about the
relationship both to the monarchic state and to revolution. This is a question about the
relationship of the Kingdom of God to the “world”. This theme is properly considered in
an atmosphere detached and free from passions and special interests. But in our day there
has as it were finally gone extinct the non-avaricious aristocratic attitude towards truth.
Spiritual plebianism, egoistic greed and utilitarianism distort not only the resolution, but
even the very setting of the theme. And in an especially less than healthy atmosphere
there occur considerations on principle of the attitude of Christianity towards monarchy
and towards revolution, towards the old “this world” and the new “this world”. But it is
impossible to treat upon this theme for one, who is in the grip of political passions and
special interests, who finds oneself in a condition of malice and hate. In this theme there
is much that is problematic, and it has not yet received a binding church-dogmatic
resolution. Least of all proper for the Christian is to maintain merely an outward attitude
towards the important and catastrophic events in life. When a man lives through some
sort of misfortune, a grievous illness, some trying situation, the death of someone close,
then the religious attitude towards these events excludes the possibility of merely
ascribing them to outward chance, the injustice of fate, blows received mechanically from
without. In life there is nothing by chance and completely external. Everything has
meaning, everything means something, i.e. is manifest as a sign from the other world.
Religiously to live through some sort of event means to live through its inner meaning, to
comprehend it from within, from the depths of spiritual experience, to survive it as one’s
own destiny, as something sent down by the Providence of God. And if it be necessary
thus to live through and survive the events of personal life, then all the moreso is it
necessary to live through and survive the events of historical life. With Russia has
happened a terrible historical catastrophe. And all the world finds itself in an
unprecedented crisis. We live amidst splintered fragments of societies and states of the
modern new history. Everything has come to be in a condition of unstable and chaotic
motions. The societal order, which seemed not only firm, but also eternal, has broken
down and collapsed. The relationships of church and state have changed radically and the
interrelationships of the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar are redefined
completely anew. It is a new kingdom of Caesar that stands before the eternal Church of
Christ. And all the old categories in the resolving of this theme have been rendered
useless and outmoded. They are out of their minds, wretched and helpless before the face
of the world crisis, those with reactionary thoughts of a restoration, those who hope on
bringing back the old relationships between church and the kingdom of Caesar, those
who long for that kingdom of Caesar, in which the Church of Christ was stifled and
enslaved. A mindset, which sees in the revolution, in the Russian and the world crisis,
only an outward scandal and an outward disorder, which continues to think, that nothing
especial has happened, is neither a Christian nor a religious mindset, it is instead a
mindset smothered by trite positivism.

Christianity cannot only outwardly relate to historical crises, cataclysms and

collapses, it cannot look upon them as upon movements of dead matter merely, having no
sort of relationship to the life of spirit, to the movement of spirit. Christianity has an
universal spirit, it encompasses everything, and everything happening in the world is
connected with it and subject to it. The Revolution, the historical crisis ought to demote
something within the inward destiny of Christianity. All the outward historical events
possess a secondary, and not a primary nature as such, they are determined by events that
transpire within the inner spiritual world. For the external, the religiously unenlightened
view it would seem, that the Revolution takes place only within the elements of the
world, and the Church of Christ only passively suffers the events coming from the
outside and impacting upon it. This is an aberration of the non-religious mindset. It
presupposes, that the Church is totally passive within the Russian Revolution, that within
it nothing transpires, that Christianity plays merely a role of sufferance. In actuality,
however, the crisis and revolution occurs within the spiritual world, and in the historical
world it only symbolically is reflected. The Revolution is not an external event for each
of us and for all the Christian world, rather it is an inward event, a spiritual sickness in
Christian mankind, in Christian people. The Church is a living organism, a Divine-human
organism, in which there occurs an uninterrupted interaction of the Divinity and mankind.
Just like with every organism, the Church can undergo crisis, can become ill, and can
revive and develope. What is taken sick and undergoes crisis in the Church is not God, is
not the Divine truth of the Church, but rather mankind. We have ceased to understand the
churchly meaning of historical events, because we have lost the internal, cosmic idea of
the Church. The rationalistic and nominalistic consciousness has transformed the Church
into an institution, existing and differentiated alongside everything else. Christianity, just
like everything organic, is in the highest degree dynamic, it has its own periods of
growth, its own historical fate. The original Christianity denotes an altogether different
epoch of Christianity, in contrast to that of the Christianity from the time of Constantine
the Great. The Christianity from the period of the martyrs is quite distinct from the
Christianity of the Oecumenical Councils. The medieval Christianity is altogether a
different epoch within Christianity, than the Christianity of modern times. The very style
of Christianity becomes quite changed, and this relates not to the ontology of
Christianity, but to its psychology and its history. Here and now Christianity enters upon
a period of crisis, it suffers a growth of sickness. There ends not only the Christianity of
recent history, but perhaps also the whole historical period of Christianity from the time
of Constantine the Great. And this inner crisis of Christianity defines all the external
historical catastrophes. There are determined anew the relationships between the Church
and the elements of this world. And radically changed is the relationship of the kingdom
of Caesar, in which stormy processes have occurred, towards the eternal ends of the
Kingdom of God. These relationships are determined in he spiritual world, and in the
historical world they are but projected and reflected. The recovery of health from
sickness, the surmounting of the spiritual crisis can signify a new period within
Christianity, the emergence of a new style within Christianity, a change in the Christian
manner of life, which never ought to be considered identical with a particular lifestyle.
But does this indeed mean, that Christianity can get itself bound up with revolution, as
earlier it was bound up with the monarchy, does this mean, that there will be formed a
kingdom of Caesar, which Christianity can acknowledge its own? Great temptation
consists in the identification of Christianity with whatever the sort of the kingdom of
Caesar, i.e. in the enslavement of the infinite to the finite.

II

Christianity is not revolutionary in the outward sense of the word. It has entered into
the world not as a revolutionary social force, calling for a violent altering of the order of
life. It is impossible even to call Christianity a force of social reform. The nature of
Christianity is altogether inexpressible in the social categories of this world. Christianity
has come into the world, as the good news about salvation and about the Kingdom of
God, which is not of this world. "Seek ye first of all the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all this wilt be added unto ye". "Be ye perfect, even as your Heavenly
Father is perfect". "What doth it profit a man, if he gain all the entire world, but harm
therein his soul". "For the Kingdom of God cometh not in perceived form, wherefore say
not: lo, here be it, or lo, there be it. For the Kingdom of God is within ye". "My Kingdom
is not of this world". A social revolution is all contrary to the words of Christ. Social
revolution seeks first of all that which is "to be added unto ye", and not the Kingdom of
God; the makers of social revolution do not seek a perfection, like to the perfection of the
Heavenly Father; they want to gain all the entire world and by this corrupt therein their
soul; the social revolution seeks for an order of life, which will come in perceptible form,
about which can be said, that lo here it is, or lo there it is; the kingdom, to which the
social revolution strives, is of this world. The same also can be said about the spirit
opposite the revolution, about imperialism. Imperialism possesses a pagan nature.
Christianity was the greatest spiritual turnabout in the history of mankind, the greatest
inward revolution, experienced by mankind. With the appearance of Christ begins not
only a new historical epoch, but also a new cosmic epoch, which altered the inner
composition of the world. And together with this, Christianity does not believe, that it is
possible to change the world for the better via an external and violent pathway, it regards
merely outward revolution as the basis for a false spiritual frame of reference. At the
basis of all mere outward revolutions lies a spiritual frame of reference directly opposite
the Christian. Such external revolutions are motivated by envy, malice, hatred, by
revenge and not by love, by the instinct for destruction and not creativity, and they bear
with them death, and not resurrection. A genuinely new, more perfect and better life
comes from within, and not from without, it comes from a spiritual rebirth, and not from
a mere change of social conditions, of social means. The annihilation of slavery in the
world was a spiritual deed of Christianity. The pre-Christian world, even among the
greatest of its thinkers, could not conceive of the surmounting of slavery. But Christianity
never called for slaves to revolt against their masters. Only imperceptibly was there
discovered the fruition of the Christian idea of the brotherhood of people. Christianity no
wise denies the processes, operative in the natural world, the processes of natural
developement in the world. But it is not upon these processes that it relies for the
attainment of the Kingdom of God, for the utmost perfection of life. Christianity relates
towards revolution such as it does to every outward event in life, to every external
structure of life, i.e. in a non-revolutionary manner. Every outward event in life, every
external ordering of life is not accidentally by chance, it signifies something for the inner
life of man, for his spiritual experience. Nothing can be viewed exclusively as by external
force, there is nothing not connected with my inward fate. Whether upon some stable
order of governance, upon monarchy or upon revolution, Christianity all the same looks
at it inwardly, from the depths. The Kingdom of God cometh unperceived, its comes
neither through monarchy nor through revolution. But both an outwardly stable order of
life and an outward upheaval of life always denote events of the inner spiritual world,
they are not situated outside my own particular destiny, as merely something begotten of
the lower material world. Christianity is not dualistic, or more precisely: Christianity
acknowledges a religio-ethical dualism, but not at all an ontological dualism.

Christianity does not deny the state and the rule of authority. From the lips of the
Apostle Paul, the Christian Church has recognised, that the rule of authority issues from
God and that rulers bear not the sword in vain. The rule of authority has an ontological
source, it possesses a positive mission within the sinful world, it averts the chaotic
disintegration of the world, and prevents the ultimate triumph of anarchy within it. The
ontological principle of the rule of authority plays within society the same role, that
conformity to law plays within nature, -- it upholds the cosmic order within the sinful
chaos. The words of the Apostle Paul were spoken not about a Christian rule of authority.
There was back then no Christian state. The state was pagan and it persecuted Christians.
These words were spoken about every rule of authority, about the principle of power in
general, they relate to the pagan authority, and to the modern democratic republic, and
even to the Soviet Communist power, through which, despite its anti-Christian character,
there partially operates the eternal ontological principle of authority. Human society has
to be subject to a condition, preventing its ultimate chaotic and anarchic dissolution. Thus
also are the laws of nature, which are given us, as an inexorable necessity, and they
uphold the elementary cosmic order of the world, through them is reflected the eternal
Divine cosmos within the sinful element of the world. Such is the truth of power, the
truth of the state. This is a truth of law, Old Testament like, and not a New Testament
truth. The state possesses a pre-Christian, Old Testament, pagan nature. The state power
of authority is something that carried over by force from the pagan world into the
Christian world. The power of authority of the emperor, which in Byzantium assumed a
Christian and sacred character, is the old pagan might of Rome and the great Eastern
empires, -- Egypt, Persia, Assyria and Babylon. The might of authority of emperor and
tsar does not possess any sort of uniquely Christian, nor New Testament an origin, it was
received as an inheritance from the ancient world, and was merely adopted and blessed
by Christianity, since Christianity is non-anarchic and recognises the mission of the
power of authority amongst sinful mankind. Such an attitude towards the might of
authority and the state does not signify within Christianity any sort of unique, purely
Christian ideal of society, any sort of ideal of the Christian state, which in the original
Christianity did not exist. A. S. Khomyakov says: "The imperium was, evidently, unable
to encompass all the trappings of the ancient Roman idea of a legitimate governance for
the new Christian era: it did not contain within itself the principle of something self-
sacred, which Christian thought demanded; the west therefore did not yet understand the
impossibility of mixing up together the concept of Christianity and the concept of the
state, i.e. of the embodiment of Christianity in a state form".2 But that which Khomyakov
imputes to the West, ought also to be imputed to the East. Already with the spilling of the
first drop of blood of the Christian martyrs, there was forever set a limit to the absolutism
and autocracy of the state, and imperialism censured.

The original Christianity was of an eschatological mindset. It awaited the

impending end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. They had before them no
perspective of a lengthy historical process, in which the Church of Christ would come to
be a wielder of power. The first Christians did not revolt against the pagan rule of
authority, they did not call for a social upheaval, and totally unnecessary to them was
their own Christian state. Within the early Christian consciousness, theocracy co-incided
completely with the Gospel Kingdom of God. The first Christians consented to render
unto Caesar what was Caesar's, but the state was for them of "the world", of the kingdom
of this world. The kingdom of Caesar, the kingdom of this world, could not be the
Christian, the sacred kingdom. If by a Christian theocracy there be understood a sacred
and Christian kingdom of Caesar, then the theocratic idea would be completely foreign to
the original Christianity. It lived exclusively by the idea of the Kingdom of God, which in
essence and on principle is distinct from the kingdom of Caesar. The first Christians did
not strive for, and as regards the condition of their mindset, they could not strive towards
the creation of a Christian state. The state is the "world", "paganism". 3 The Christian
Church stands opposite the "world", opposite paganism, the pagan state. The first
Christians lived by charisms, by spiritual gifts, which defined all the order of their life, all
the organisation of the Christian Church and Christian society. It would be impossible to
live thus for any long period of historical life. And when in the Christian consciousness it
as discerned, that there stood ahead still a long historical path, everything began to
change. The charismatic gifts weakened. The Kingdom of God receded into a
transcendent remoteness, to the far end of history. Christianity had to act and live within
history. Christianity lost all semblance of being a Jewish apocalyptic sect. It conceived of
itself as a worldwide historical power. The falsehood of Montanism consisted in this, in
that Montanism wanted to hold on to that stage of the original Christianity, it wanted to
live by direct and unmediated charisms, and when the charisms began to desiccate away,
they opposed the world historical role of Christianity. And upon this same basis there
formed all sorts of religio-sectarian movements, which usually possessed a reactionary
nature. In its first centuries, Christianity lived amongst the hostile pagan elements of this
world. It acted within them not as an outwardly destructive power, but as a power
inwardly transfigurative. The Christian Church possesses an ability to survive surrounded
by whatever the chance hostile power. In the catacombs it was endowed with the greatest
of inner strength, and from the catacombs the Church conquered the world. But
Christianity was fated to enter into a new historical period, into a second period of the
relationship between church and state, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of
Caesar. This period began with Constantine the Great.
 It happened otherwise, than what the first Christians expected. The pagan state
yielded before the spiritual power of Christianity. This was a tremendous turnabout not
only within the "world", in the state, but also within Christianity, in the Church.
Christianity ceased to be eschatological, Christians no longer awaited a quite immanent
end of the world and Second Coming of Christ. Christianity became historical,
reorganising itself, and preparing itself for an active role in world history. Christianity
then enters into "the world", into history, having adapted itself for activity in "the world",
for its conquests within history. This victory had been bought at a dear price. The early
Christianity with its charismatic and eschatological aspects remains in the history of
Christianity as a distant past, like a lost paradise. Christianity had to dirty itself in the dust
and grime of earthly history. It lowered itself into the base life of "the world", and it
worked out for itself new organs for suchlike a life. It lost much, but it also gained much.
We cannot, like those rationalist and Protestant historians, look upon this new period of
Christianity, as being the downfall of Christianity, as a great misfortune in the history of
Christianity. This view is not at all an Orthodox Christian view. The period of early
Christianity had to end. The Kingdom of God could not ensue as a result of its brief
history. The deed of Constantine the Great was a providential deed and it possessed a
positive significance both in the history of Christianity and in the history of the world.
The rise of a "Christian state", the creation of Christian theocracies was not an
unfortunate accident in the history of Christianity and the world, it had an inwardly
inevitable moment in the destiny of Christianity. But thus arose, however, the
inadmissible view which for a long time prevailed within the churchly consciousness,
that the kingdom of Caesar had become a genuinely holy, Christian state, that a theocratic
state had indeed been created and should govern until the end of time. The second period
in the relationships between the Church and the state, between the Kingdom of God and
the kingdom of Caesar, is not an ultimate and eternal period. In the history of Christianity
there had to ensue, and has already ensued, another, a third period. And the onset of the
third period likewise is not an unfortunate matter of chance, just as he onset of the second
period was not. The Church consciousness does not know any sort of dogma about a
sacred kingdom of Caesar, nor does it know any sort of sacramental mystery of a sacred
imperial power. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar have been jumbled and
intertwined within history. The Kingdom of God has been accorded features akin to the
kingdom of Caesar, just as the kingdom of Caesar has appropriated to itself features of
the Kingdom of God.

From the times of Constantine the Great the Church was wont to consecrate the
power of authority, not so that it should justify the pagan power, it consecrates it as a
Christian power. The world became a Christian world, the peoples became Christian
peoples, there was formed an universum or oecumene, which received the name
chretiente. The Christian peoples lived by a single faith and a single truth. To this
oneness in faith and truth there corresponded also an oneness, an integral wholeness in
the structure of state and society, in the character of culture. Monarchies most adequately
express this integrality and this oneness. And they are sacred for as long as peoples
believe in their sacredness. The composition of the state and society is entirely
determined by the religious beliefs of the people. Forms of state authority collapse, when
the beliefs of the people collapse, when there is no longer the sanctioning of the power
within the religious consciousness of the people. The sovereignty of the people in this
sense remains an eternal truth, and it existed even in ancient Egypt. No state power can
continue to exist by naked force. It is always sustained by the faith of the people in the
sacredness of this power. When they cease to believe in the sacred significance of a
monarchy, it is transformed into a tyranny and begins to decay. The oneness and integral
wholeness cannot be compulsory. The outward structuring of life, the historical flesh of
the state merely but symbolises the inner spiritual life of the people. And when in the
inner spiritual life of the people there occur substantial changes, then the old symbolism
falls and necessitates a new symbolism. The kingdom of Caesar is always a sphere of
conditional and relative symbolism, and not of unconditional and unalterable realities.
That fatal process of modern history, termed secularisation, is merely a correct outward
expression of that which has occurred within the inner life of Christian mankind.
Secularisation has all kinds of different names. If the state, the law, economy, science,
art, morality, all be not Christian in the deepest, most real sense of this word, then it does
not follow to call them Christian. The kingdom of Caesar ought not to be called a sacred
and Christian state, a theocracy, if in actuality it is worldly, pagan, non-Christian and
even anti-Christian in its nature. Christians cannot strive towards secularisation,
Christians ought to strive with all their being towards this, that everything should become
Christian and sacred, to strive for the transfiguration and enlightenment of all the whole
of life, but still they can recognise the truth in secularisation, since they ought not to
desire the conditional lie, the acknowledgement by force of something as Christian,
which is not Christian. The tragedy of the second, the Constantine period in the history of
Christianity is in this, that it inevitably ends with secularisation, as demanded by truth
and freedom, as the expression of the failure of every theocracy.

III

It is impossible to realise the Kingdom of God by force. Not only man, but even God
would say, that one cannot force grace. The freedom of man enters into the design of God
for the Kingdom of God. In the historical Christian theocracies, Eastern and Western,
imperial and papist, there was not yet to a sufficient degree expressed the consent of the
freedom of man to the realisation of the Kingdom of God, i.e. there was not a sufficiently
real transformation of life. The theocracies possessed a conditional and symbolic
character. In the flesh of history, in the kingdom of Caesar there obtained signs and
symbols and impressions of the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom of God itself was not
attained, a real enlightenment and transfiguration did not occur. The Church only
symbolically consecrates the imperial power of authority, it sets a Christian seal upon the
state and upon everything so as to be rendered Christian in this world. The sacred
kingdom of Caesar, the Christian state, remained something in nature, a natural kingdom
of this world, neither enlightened nor transfigured, not having conquered the sin, being
Old Testament and pagan like, but as it were besprinkled with holy water, in the intent of
submission to a religious end, full of signs of another world, of symbolic archetypes of
the Kingdom of God. Historical theocracies decayed and perished because they were not
real theocracies, they did not realise the authentic Kingdom of God. There has ensued a
time, when the will for realism has won out over the symbolic theocracy. In the post-
Constantine period with the falling apart into two halves of the Christian world there was
worked out two types of theocracy, -- in the East the imperial, and in the West the papal.
These -- were two forms of the uniting of the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of
Caesar, two forms of designation of the Kingdom of God within the kingdom of Caesar.
The kingdom of Caesar therein becomes a sacred and theocratic kingdom either through
its recognition as emperor, as an imperial authority delegated by God, anointed by the
Church to reign, for the realisation of a sacred and churchly service, or else through its
recognition as pope, as Roman high-priest, imbued with a kingly and imperial power of
authority in the world and the source of all rule of power upon the earth. The exceptional
state significance of the pope in the West and the exceptional churchly significance of the
emperor in the East was determined by the unique aspects of the historical paths of the
West and the East. 4 But it was one and the same idea of a Roman compulsory
universalism, of a pagan imperialism, that lay at the basis of both the Western and
Eastern theocracy. In Byzantium, theocracy sustained in itself a tradition not only of
Roman imperialism, but also of the Eastern imperialism. Theocracy conceptually is
always universal, a national theocracy is inwardly a contradiction. The emperor, imbued
with a sacred power, is the same as is the pope. The Middle Ages recognised this and
created the idea of a worldwide Holy Roman empire. But modern times created national
states and by this destroyed the theocratic idea. The sacred Byzantine realm and the
sacred Russian realm contained within them the potential for universality. The tsar
emperor, as a churchly rank, endowed with a churchly power of authority, cannot be
merely a national tsar emperor. Constantine the Great was also an universal tsar emperor.
And if the power of authority of the Russian tsar had an exceptional significance for the
Orthodox Church, then in its potentiality it might be thought of as an universal power of
authority. Without this universality, the Orthodox tsar would have had no greater a
significance, than the English king in the Anglican Church. Theocracy is an universalist
utopia, the same as is Communism.

Theocracy strives towards the discovery and the affirmation of the sacred historical
flesh in the kingdom of Caesar, towards an holy corporeality. It thus desires to contain
the infinite spirit within finite flesh, it desires to enslave the infinite to the finite. The
Kingdom of God is rendered into a semblance of the kingdom of this world. And it is
difficult to reconcile historical theocracies with the Gospel saying: "The princes of the
peoples lord it over them, and dignitaries hold power over them; but amidst ye let it be
thus: whosoever amidst ye would be greatest,, let him be to ye the servant". By this is
affirmed the radical inconsistency and non-affinity between the Kingdom of God and the
kingdom of Caesar. In theocracy however there is essentially an assertion of such a
consistency and affinity, reaching almost the point of identity. There are two temptations
in the history of Christianity connected with the theocratic state, two variations and splits
-- Papocaesarism and Caesaropapism. In an ultimate and pure form these two temptations
have never triumphed in the Christian world -- both Catholicism and Orthodoxy were
always immeasurably deeper and broader than these two tendencies. But all the same, the
principles of Papocaesarism and Caesaropapism were deeply rooted in the historical flesh
of Catholicism and the historical flesh of Orthodoxy. A greater advantage of Orthodoxy
was in this, that Caesaropapism was never an object of churchly dogmatics, at a time
when Papocaesarism was an object of such great dogmatisation within Catholicism. But
in the Eastern, the Orthodox, the Byzantine and Russian theocracies, the tendency
towards Caesaropapism in fact did play a great role in the life of the Church. And
therefore the Russian Revolution appears an enormous, and as yet not fully gauged in all
its depths, ultimate catastrophe in the Orthodox Church, inwardly, and not only externally
an upheaval. Khomyakov with indignation spurned the accusation of Caesaropapism in
the Russian Church. In an absolute and final sense he was correct. But he understated the
importance and the unsettling aspect of this question. It is not by chance that during the
reign of Paul I there was sneaked into our basic laws the title of the tsar as head of the
Church. 5 Such a consciousness could not be dogmatically justified and could not be
regarded in accord with the nature of the Orthodox Church, but it is a natural result of
historical theocracies. The Orthodox Church does not know a visible head, as its sole
head it acknowledges only Christ. But when the kingdom of Caesar is considered an holy
kingdom, when there is seen in it a reflection of the Kingdom of God upon the earth, then
the striving for oneness and integral wholeness in the life of the Church is nudged onto
the path of acknowledging a single visible head. Caesaropapism is the final boundary of
the Constantine period in Christianity. In it the historical mindset of Christianity
ultimately overshadows its eschatological mindset. The Kingdom of God is not
something still yet sought for, it is not attained for real, but rather becomes a matter of
signs and symbols within the kingdom of Caesar. This is the historical process of a
replacement of apocalyptic prophecies about the Kingdom of God, -- in it the kingdom of
Caesar is substituted for the Kingdom of God. In the Catholic mindset the Kingdom of
God ultimately becomes identified with the historical life of the Church, and through this
there is extinguished the eschatological searching for the Kingdom of God. Bu even a
most radical rejection of Caesaropapism and Papocaesarism, as religious temptations,
does not mean a denial of the positive significance of monarchy and the significance of
the papacy in the history of Christian peoples. Monarchy in the past played a positive,
creative, and often progressive, even at times a revolutionary role in Russian history. We
admit even, that monarchy, in its modern form, may still be called to play a positive role
in the renewal of Russia. But this does not at all resolve the religious question about a
theocratic monarchy. The old, the sacred Russian monarchy cannot be reborn. Monarchy
is a natural historical fact in the developement of peoples and in this capacity it ought to
be considered, it belongs totally to this world, to the kingdom of Caesar and its features
are not transferable to the Kingdom of God. Khomyakov and the Slavophils based the
autocratic monarchy upon national-historical, not religio-mystical grounds, and
essentially foreign to them was the Judaic theocratic idea. Monarchic states for them were
distinct from democratic states, since in their fundamentals customarily there lay
principles, oriented towards the other world, and not to earthly eudaemonism. Therefore
monarchy was more religious than democracy. 6 The exceptions consist only of the
Calvinist democracies. But this does not mean, that such religiously justified monarchies
were in actuality theocracies. And indeed, is theocracy actually possible in the Christian
world, a New Testament theocracy? The theocratic idea is an Old Testament idea, an
ancient Hebrew idea. From the Christian point of view, is there applicable to God the
category of the rule of might, lacking credibility here when approached by way of
negative theology? Christian theocracy is but a signification and symbolisation of the
Kingdom of God, whereas in reality the Kingdom of God is a transfiguration of the
world. Christian theocracy knows only one Tsar -- Christ. And this means, that the
theocracies in Christianity represent a false transferal of Jewish Old Testament categories
into Christian life. And the result of this is but the justification of a pagan natural
kingdom. 7

IV

The question about the relationship between Christianity and monarchy is an

historical question, and it mustneeds be posited dynamically. And that which is unique to
a certain historical epoch within Christianity, cannot be considered dogmatically a truth.
Monarchies decay and fall, just like everything earthly and of nature. The Church
however will exist invincible to the very end of time and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. The kingdom of Caesar appertains to time. The Kingdom of God appertains to
eternity. Christianity can exist in the most diverse historical conditions. And it is
impossible to consider that which is transitory and mutable as essentially belonging to the
nature of the Church. Extreme advocates of an inseparable connection between
Orthodoxy and autocracy, for whom the power of the autocrat is sacred and churchly, are
prepared to admit the anointing of the tsar to rule, -- as an eighth sacrament. 8 And it
mustneeds be said, that the rite of crowning as tsar provides grounds for such an opinion.
Amidst the myrh-chrism anointing of the tsar are pronounced the words: -- "the seal of
the gift of the Holy Spirit". 9 One is tempted to think, that the tsar receives a special sort
of charism, a special sort of grace to reign, that reigning is a churchly service analogous
to the priesthood. 10 The anointing of the tsar installs the kingdom of Caesar into the
Kingdom of God. The pagan Caesar, in all his origins derivative of the pagan world,
receives anointing and is rendered an Orthodox tsar. In the Orthodox tsar they see a
theophany, a manifestation of God. And how might this transpire? The Church leaves
nothing in life unconsecrated, it consecrates the whole of human life from birth to death,
the whole of human existence, and it consecrates also the governing power. But in the life
of the Church, chiefly the Orthodox Church (in the West it was otherwise), there occurred
a moment, when it was no longer still limited to an acknowledging of the religious
meaning of the power of authority with a symbolic consecration of the state, when it
beheld the Orthodox tsar as it were a sacred flesh, an expression of the Kingdom of God
upon earth. This already was a great historical temptation for churchly mankind, a mixing
up of the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of Caesar. The fatal fact of the separation of
the Churches, which was the greatest failing of Christianity in history, enabled the
strengthening of the two tendencies and temptations, in the East of Caesaropapism, and in
the West of Papocaesarism. The presupposition can even be made, that if the separation
of Churches had not happened, then there would never have reached such proportions of
the imperial theocracy in the East and the papal theocracy in the West. But these
theocracies were not judged to be of an eternal historical existence. The pope has
remained and has even proclaimed in the XIX Century his infallibility in matters of faith,
but the pope has lost his might over the world, over the secular states, he has ceased to be
a monarch. Papal theocracy no longer exists. The Western world has become secularised
and the Catholic Church exists on the outside, as but one organisation alongside other
organisations in the Western states. At best the Church recourses to concordances, at
worst it is barely tolerated or is even persecuted by atheistic governments. The Byzantine
theocratic imperium fell long ago. The Greek Church over the course of centuries existed
under the Turks. There has likewise finally collapsed the greatest of the theocracies of the
East -- the sacred Russian tsardom. And it fell not only from outward blows, but also
from an inward disintegration. Its decline in aesthetic style was symptomatic of its decay.
The theocracies ceased to symbolise the spiritual condition of the various peoples, they
ceased to reflect the religious beliefs of the peoples. The unity and integral wholeness of
the beliefs of the peoples ended, and there ensued times of division. It was impossible to
hold on to the old principles by force. The old symbolism ceased to be sacred, just as in
Europe, so also in Russia. Revolution also is a change of symbolism in the inner life of
peoples. Monarchies in the West either ceased to exist or they lost all their real
significance (England, Italy). Towards such political forms the interest has all more and
more waned. In Russia the monarchy from the time of Peter the Great became humanistic
and was secularised all the more and more. The subordination of church to state, the
forming of the Church-synodal structure reflected a process of the secularisation of the
Russian state and its coming nigh to the type of the Western enlightenment absolutism. 11
The Slavophils had long since already declared, that in the Peterburg period of Russian
history there was not existent then an autocracy in Russia, there existed but absolutism
with a bureaucracy developed to the extreme. Absolutism however per the Slavophil
understanding is not a Russian and Orthodox form of state power, but rather is the
developement of the pagan Roman imperialistic idea. Autocracy is likewise contrasted to
absolutism by L. Tikhomirov in his book, "Monarkhicheskaya Gosudarstvennost'" ("The
Monarchic State"), which unjustly is little known and which mustneeds be acknowledged
as the best formulation of grounds for an autocratic monarchy. 12

In what, however, is the essence of the religious idea of autocracy and by what is it
distinct from absolutism? According to the ideology of autocracy, the tsar's might of rule
is delegated not by the people, but by God. There does not exist the right to power, there
exists but the obligation of power. The power of the tsar is altogether not an absolute,
unlimited might of power. It is autocratic since that it does not derive from the will of the
people and is not limited by the people. But it is limited by the Church and by Christian
truth, spiritually it is subordinated to the Church, it is a service not in accord with its own
will, but rather the will of God. The tsar ought not to seek his own will, he ought to serve
the will of God. The tsar and the people have a common bond between them with one and
the same faith, with one and the same submission to the Church and God's righteous
truth. Autocracy presupposes a broad basis of the people's social support, but living its
life independently, meaning that it is not bestown by the life of the people. Autocracy is
justified in only this instance, if the people have evident a faith, sanctioning the power of
the tsar. It cannot be an external coercion by force over the people. Peter the Great was
insufficiently Orthodox, and his inclinations towards Protestantism rendered him an
absolute, and not autocratic, monarch. Absolute monarchy is a by-product of humanism.
In absolutism, in imperialism, the tsar is a delegate of the people, supreme power does
not belong to the tsar, although there does belong to him an absolute and unlimited power
of governance. But the people can also take away the power of the tsar. Suchlike is the
idea of the absolute monarchy, as worked out in the West. 13 In absolutism the tsar is not
manifestly a servant of the Church. The subordination of church to state is a characteristic
mark of the absolute monarchy. And thus also it was with the Catholic Church under
Louis XIV. Absolutism likewise always developes a bureaucracy and chokes the social
life of the people. L. Tikhomirov has thus expressed for us in purest form the idea of the
religious grounds of autocracy. But Khomyakov and the Slavophils viewed it otherwise.
For them the supreme power belonged to the people, but the people refused power, in
order to devote themselves to spiritual life, and they imposed upon the tsar the burden of
ruling as tsar, having left themselves only the Duma, only an advisory opinion. But has
here existed at some time in history the religious autocracy in its pure, its idealistic form?
L. Tikhomirov himself is compelled to acknowledge, that there was not. In Byzantium
the religious idea of autocracy was always distorted by the pagan Roman absolutism and
in it the imperial power did not possess a popular social basis. All the Peterburg period of
Russian history is the triumph of absolutism and bureaucratism, the stifling of the
independence of the Church and the independence of the life of the people. The closest to
the religious idea of autocracy was in pre-Petrine Rus'. But even there it is impossible to
find those features, which are sketched out in the religious idea of autocracy. Ivan the
Terrible was of a very prominent and consistent expression of the Russian idea of
autocracy, but this at once evokes also distress and doubts. In the West ultimately there
was nothing similar to autocracy, nor indeed could it be begotten upon a Catholic soil.
Instead, a struggle between the spiritual and secular powers transpired there. It is clear,
that the religious and Orthodox idea of autocracy, of a sacred monarchy, is purely an
utopia of a perfect and ideal civil and social order, the same sort of utopia, as is a papal
theocracy, as is any perfect ideal socialist order. A beautiful utopia, perhaps the finest of
utopias! But in fact autocracy always transformed itself into absolutism, and was
absolutism. Both Byzantium and Russia, two great Orthodox monarchies, did not
manifest themselves as types of a religious autocracy. Imperialism triumphs in every
great monarchy, it is the destiny of the monarchy, which draws it both to greatness and to
ruin. Of the pagan imperialistic idea no monarchy lacks for, since monarchy by its very
nature is of a pagan origin. In but the short instant that monarchy becomes Orthodox, it
then quickly developes the pagan principle of a world ruler, of the earthly kingdom of
Caesar.

We arrive at a conclusion, which can seem paradoxical. They tend usually to defend
autocracy and monarchy in that human nature is sinful, and that a monarchic form of
governance is more capable to deal with sinful human nature, than is the democratic
form. Democracy, socialism et al. is defended by those, who do not believe in Original
Sin. But just as easily this position can be turned around the other way. Namely that
because human nature is sinful, it can the more fully realise the democratic and socialist
order, it can be the expression of this sinfulness. Democracy least of all presupposes the
perfection of human nature, it was created for the imperfect and sinful condition.
Autocratic monarchy however devolves into the utopia of a perfect and sinless condition.
A religious autocratic monarchy as such is a very lofty idea, but totally utopian,
presupposing such a condition of peoples, scarcely to be attained in our sinful world.
Autocracy now is being dreamt about and will be dreamt about, as earlier socialism was
dreamt about. But there are no grounds to believe, that people will arrive at a spiritual
condition capable to beget a religious autocracy, which presupposes an exceptional
spiritual integrality and oneness of faith. Th world is going to pieces, and it was foretold
by Christian prophecies. Not only for the future, but also for the past, the religious
autocratic monarchy was an utopia, and in reality what was possible was but an absolute
monarchy, to a greater or lesser degree subject to Orthodoxy. Autocracy there never was
nor ever will be. This -- is an utopian, dream-fantasy of an idea, based upon a jumbling
together of the kingdom of Caesar with the Kingdom of God. Some sort of an eighth
sacrament of an anointing of a tsar to his tsardom is unknown to the dogmatic
consciousness of the Church, it relates wholly to the historical, and not mystical side of
the Church. And indeed something that is nationally Russian and particular, rather than
universal, cannot be a sacramental-mystery of the Church. Every application of the
categories of the Kingdom of God to the naturo-historical kingdom of Caesar is an utopia
or romanticism. Within such sorts of constructs there is absent a religious realism, the
sober vision of reality. Religious autocracy is impossible, since generally impossible is
any perfect social order in the sinful world, since within the relative is impossible the
absolute. And in the very idea of religious autocracy there is insufficient humility, there is
pride, there is the transforming of "Caesar" into "God", the earthly into the heavenly, the
relative into the absolute, the natural into the spiritual. This idea impedes the search for
the Kingdom of God, it obstructs the path of a real transfiguration of life. Theocratic
utopia is the wellspring of all the social utopias.

V.

Christianity does not possess a requisite connection, in the dogmatic sense of a

requisite connection, with monarchy nor with any other sort of form of political order. A
monarchy can be Christian, and it can be anti-Christian in its spirit. A republic too can be
anti-Christian, but it can also be Christian in its spirit. Everything is determined not by
the formal signs, but by spiritual content. We can no longer still believe in an absolute
significance of juridical and political forms. We are exiting an epoch of absolutised
forms. But it is impossible to seek salvation in mere forms, salvation is only in the
spiritual content of life. And the crisis, which is taking place both in Russia and in the
world, is not the crisis of some sort of political form, this is a crisis of every political
form, with democracy in the same measure as with monarchy. And the place, which
Christianity occupies within life, defines the spiritual content of life, rather than mere
political forms and the outward order of life. The collapse of delusions and idols, the
imperialistic as well as the socialistic, is a very favourable thing for Christianity.
Christianity, and especially Russian Christianity, has returned to the state of affairs prior
to Constantine the Great. In Russia, in Orthodoxy, this crisis is catastrophic, in the West,
in Catholicism, it is evolutionary and gradual. We are present at the liquidation of all the
post-Constantine period of Christian history. Those relationships, which built up between
the Church and the state, between Christianity and the world after Constantine the Great,
-- were not eternal nor absolute relationships. They were but ephemoral and transitory
relationships. Christianity can enter into a completely new period, into a third period, and
it has already entered into it. This finally must be recognised. There has ended the period
of the symbolic consecration of state power. The outwardly-compulsive and
conditionally-symbolic unity of the Christian world has disintegrated. It has disintegrated
from within, and this has found expression on the outside in the processes of
secularisation and in the revolutions. The world is coming apart. The realisation by force
of the Kingdom of God within the kingdom of Caesar is shown to be impossible. The
kingdom of Caesar lives according to its own laws. And this catastrophic process,
finishing off the modern era, is not only a matter of woe for the Church of Christ, but also
of rejoicing, since Christianity loses in quantity, but wins out in quality. There triumphs
truthfulness and sincerity, and struck down is the lie and insincerity. In Russia there has
begun a persecution against the Church from the side of the godless and anti-Christian
state, but there has ended the enslavement of the Church to the state, the captivity of the
Church, which brought it into the condition about which Dostoevsky spoke, saying that
the Church since the time of Peter the Great has been in paralysis. The false and vile
protection, the official state position in which the Church found itself, was worse than a
persecution. It is possible to frighten Christians with persecutions, though in them it will
build up a religious fortitude, but the official protection, depriving the Church of its
independence, can only enervate and paralyse the energy of Christians. Yet all the same
we have to admit, if we look religiously at the catastrophe that is happening, that the
Church is not only passively suffering the blows from without, from the Revolution, but
that also in the Church itself spiritual changes are occurring, with a passage over into
another historical epoch. And a return to the old era, to the old relationships of church
and state, to the old consecration of the kingdom of Caesar, cannot obtain nor can it be
wished for. It is necessary to look ahead, and not backwards. The Church of Christ stands
anew before the raging elements of the world, it encounters anew the hostility of the
kingdom of Caesar. But inwardly it is already all different, than it was prior to
Constantine, during the first centuries of Christianity. Rising up in opposition to
Christianity is now not the pre-Christian pagan world, but rather a significant portion of
the world which is anti-Christian, revealing in itself principles of hostility to Christ. And
the persecutions on the part of the anti-Christian world are more terrible, than were the
persecutions on the part of the pre-Christian world. The kingdom of Caesar inwardly is
breaking apart. In the world there is no peace. The sword is chopping the world to pieces.
There has ended the period of a mixed-up condition, of an outward unity or a seeming
neutrality. We are passing over to the realities, to the primal realities of life and we ought
to call everything by its own name. It is already impossible to call Christian that, which in
itself contains nothing Christian. The world in reality is divided into he kingdoms of
Christ and of the Anti-Christ. The power of authority to the end of time will have a
positive mission and the Church will consecrate the principle of the power of authority.
But whether the power of authority will be found in the hands of Christians, this is more
than problematic. And indeed whether a Christian power of authority can uphold the
oneness of the world, which is divided into two kingdoms and in which quantitatively
there prevails, and actually, will prevail the Anti-Christ's kingdom. The kingdom of
Caesar only at times consents to call itself Christian. But it has not become Christian at
its most real and ontological roots and fundamentals, it has remained a pagan and natural
kingdom, receptive to anti-Christian currents and influences. And in the old Christian, the
theocratic kingdom of Caesar, the anti-Christian principles had mightily breached their
way through, with the lust for power of the kingdom of this world. And now at present
these principles ultimately triumph within the kingdom of Caesar. The sacred and strong
monarchies can exist only up until the time, when the natural kingdom of Caesar ceases
to be neutral, up until the time of its fracturing and the revealing of its anti-Christian
principles. But when this has occurred, then the sacred monarchy is rendered an utopia.
And the position of Christianity becomes tragic afront the face of the elements raging in
the world: it cannot be wholly either with the "rightist" camp, nor with the "leftist" camp,
nor with the centrist camp, since in all these camps there can all the same triumph the
godless kingdom of Caesar. Christians can and ought to render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's, but the things of God they cannot render to Caesar, in such things the image
of Caesar should not appear upon. And in this is the meaning of the events of our time.

In the current historical period, in this latest hour of history, Christians ought to enter
upon the path of not merely a symbolic, but rather of a real realisation of Christianity in
life, the realisation of the truth of Christ. The Kingdom of God is conceivable in each
instant of our life. The truth of Christ can and ought to be realisable amidst all historical
conditions, in every setting. We cannot remain still satisfied with the conditions of
Christian signs and symbolic sealings. In the outward there ought also to be the same,
what also is within. We ultimately have entered into a period of life, when the realities
ought to be laid bare and when only the realities should concern us. We want to stand
face to face before the final realities. Ontological sincerity and honesty ought to be our
pathos. If we are Christian, then we cannot not want, but that society should be
maximally Christian, yet as such really Christian and not merely illusory as Christian.
Within Christianity there remains eternally the eschatological hope, in it there cannot be
bypassed the seeking of the Kingdom of God, which ought to conquer the world. The
meaning of the ensuing epoch in Christianity consists also in this, that within it anew
Christianity will be eschatological, and not exclusively historical. And he idea of the
Kingdom of God ought to be explored not merely historically, but also eschatologically.
This also was undertaken in Russian religious thought. Or epoch possesses an outward
and formal affinity with the first centuries of Christianity, but inwardly and materially
everything is quite different, everything is infinitely more complex and difficult. Yet
history has not happened in vain. The Kingdom of God has not been realisable nor found
its place in either our historical flesh, nor in our expanse and times, it is not there and it is
not here, it does not possess outwardly discernable signs, it cannot be conceived of by
any sort of historical process of evolution and cannot be built up by any sort of guarding
over, it likewise is not in the "right" just as it not in the "left", in it likewise there is
nothing of the "reactionary", just as there is nothing of the "revolutionary". Only at the
end of time, in the miraculous transfiguration of the world can there be fully manifest the
Kingdom of God, it is ahead, but it likewise is in eternity, it approaches imperceptibly
and in each moment it ought actively to come to realisation for us. Inapplicable are any
sort of the categories, taken from the kingdom of Caesar, it has not the slightest affinity
with the kingdom of Caesar, in it everything is different and transpires otherwise. The
Kingdom of God has nothing in common with the fatal ordering of life, upon which all
monarchies are based. The Kingdom of God is not a symbolic sanctification of the
kingdom of Caesar, it is not in the historical life of the Church, as the Catholics tend to
think in following Bl. Augustine, -- in the Kingdom of God there is the everything in all,
it is a real and not symbolic kingdom. And it originates in everything, everything that
attains to a genuine ontological reality, everything that finds itself in God. The Kingdom
of God cannot be conceived of by human activity alone, but it also cannot be conceived
of without human activity.

VI
 Can the idea of a sacred and Christian monarchy, the idea of a Christian and
Orthodox tsar, as an anointed one of God, can it be carried over from the historical
perspective to the eschatological perspective? The eschatological idea of a
Christian tsar and a Christian tsardom is a final recourse to an utopia, a final attempt to
transfer the kingdom of Caesar into the Kingdom of God. Monarchy belongs wholly to
the historical path, it is bound up with the workings of Christianity within the naturo-
historical world. Monarchies had a positive vocation in the historical destinies of
Christian peoples and they had their own advantage over democracies, which are
fictitious and transitory in nature. One can at present still desire the historical path of
monarchy and the new type of social monarchies that can still yet appear. 14 But the idea
of a Christian tsar is entirely an historical non-eschatological category, it belongs entirely
to the symbolic kingdom of Caesar, and not to the real Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom
of God, which is a transfiguration of the world, there will be no sort of kingdom of
Caesar. The kingdom of Caesar exists only in the natural, the non-transfigured world.
Inapplicable to the Kingdom of God are those categories of might of authority, which
derive entirely from the natural kingdom of Caesar. In it everything is otherwise and
dissimilar to our world and its laws. A theocratic and sacred autocratic monarchy will
nevermore yet be in the world. The holy Russian tsardom was the last of its type. This
period in the history of Christianity has irreparably ended. And the visionary dream about
its return is an harmful utopian and romantic dream, it is the lack of desire or the
incapacity to stand afront the ultimate religious realities. The Church knows only one
Bridegroom -- Christ. The Kingdom of God knows only one King -- Christ. The
eschatological idea of kingdom is the idea of the Kingdom of Christ, the non-mediated
Kingdom itself of Christ, King and HighPriest. Within Christianity lies hidden the
expectation for an universal royal priesthood. The Apostle Paul says: "Ye -- art a chosen
people, a royal priesthood". St. Makarios of Egypt says about the anointing of all
Christians to a royal kingship: "Just as with the prophets all the worthier was the one
anointed; wherefore being anointed were kings and prophets: thus now also spiritual
people, anointed with an heavenly anointing, are rendered Christians by grace, so that
they may be kings and prophets of the heavenly mysteries". 15 "Know thou art of a noble
descent, and namely, that thou art called to a royal dignity". 16 The Kingdom of God also
will be an universal royal priesthood. This nowise signifies a denial of the hierarchical
principle within the historical path, as various sorts of sectarians would suppose. Towards
the universal royal priesthood it is possible only to go by the hierarchical churchly path.
And indeed the very Kingdom of God itself -- is hierarchical. And an universal royal
priesthood is not a denial of the hierarchical structure of being. But the eschatological
idea of a royal priesthood is contrary to the theocratic idea of a tsar. The Christian king-
tsar was necessitated upon the historical path, not because that by this was realised the
Kingdom of Christ, but namely because that the Kingdom of Christ had not been realised,
and he was needed in the world of the unrealised Kingdom of Christ. Suchlike also a
view was in the Biblical understanding of the origin of royal power of authority. The
eschatological and apocalyptic epoch will be connected with suchlike manifestations of
the Holy Spirit, about which we are unable to speak or know anything. We know only,
that in this epoch there will not be carried over categories of our historical being, and to it
are not applicable concepts, taken from the kingdom of Caesar. We are compelled to
recognise, that in the churchly consciousness this is not something disclosed before the
end-time. Movement towards the Kingdom of God, towards the Second Coming of Christ
signifies an epoch that is pneumatological and spirit-bearing.

The third period in the history of Christianity will stand beneathe the banner of an
intensified religious struggle, of the clash of Christian and anti-Christian principles. In
this period a Christian renewal is possible, a qualitative strengthening of Christianity. But
only with difficulty could it set itself the task of the re-creation of a confessional
Christian state in the old sense of the word. The Christian Church ought finally to cease
relying upon the state power and it ought to direct its own particular energy inwards.
Inside the Church will be brought together a genuine Christian community of people, a
social brotherhood in Christ, which in the "Christian state" there was not. In this period
they would cease ascribing that exceptional significance to government power and
politics, which they had ascribed in the preceding period. People would unite under a
religious standard, inwardly spiritual, and not the external and political standard. The
difference between good and evil in people has hardly any relationship to the political
inclinations of people. To morally judge people dependent upon whether they be of the
"right" or of the "left" is quite great a spiritual perversion. The "right" or the "left",
monarchism or republicanism are in essence totally insignificant and pitiful things, things
third-rate before the face of God, before the face of authentic spiritual life. People
become spiritually close and united or spiritually distant and divided not at all because
they are "rightists" or "leftists", not because they are for monarchy or for republic, it is
not at all in these external spheres that the relationships of people are determined. Hardly
can it be presupposed and even less can it be desired, that anew there should be a return
to a realising of the work of Christ in the world, of the Kingdom of God, by the forceful
methods of the kingdom of Caesar. This jumble and confusion would already be
impossible in the coming period of Christianity. And if there should be a coercive
confessional state, then this would be a socialist or communist state, based on a contrary
atheistic religion, a state which would persecute Christians and the Church of Christ. In
Russian Communism is given a prime example of such a Satan-ocratic state. The Church
of Christ in this world always was and will be oppressed, -- either by a false protection,
converting it into tools of the state, to Caesar's ends, or by persecution. The third period
of Christian history brings with it a final freeing of Christianity from the temptations of a
pagan Roman imperialism, from utopian visionary dreams about the universal might of
tsar or pope, i.e. from the idea of a coercive and quantitative universalism. The Christian
world is being freed from those pagan and anti-Christian temptations, is being cleansed,
is being rendered more spiritual and deeply profound. The pretensions to a coercive
quantitative universalism ultimately has passed over to Communism, to the godless
kingdom of Caesar. Communism shows itself by force to be a compulsory theocracy, it
exists as an utopia. The Christian world, however, strives ultimately towards the
Kingdom of God, which is not of this world and which comes imperceptibly. But that,
which is "not of this world", can be manifest in this world and it ought to be manifest.
The new epoch within Christianity signifies a passing over from the symbolic
significations of the truth of Christ and the Kingdom of Christ within the kingdom of
Caesar, a passing over instead towards a real transfiguration, towards a real realisation of
the truth of Christ and the Kingdom of Christ, without pretension to an outward state. The
old "Christian state" did not try even to realise Christianity within social life. Having
been set free from the pagan temptations, from the regarding of Caesar's principles as
divine, it will enable the reapproachement of the Eastern and Western Christian world.
Their divisions were primarily temptations of the kingdom of Caesar. In the Kingdom of
Christ, in the Kingdom of God, there cannot be divisions. The divisions occurred within
the kingdom of Caesar, and were construed as sacred, as being of the Kingdom of God.
We ought to recognise, that there transpires not only an outward, a political, social
revolution, but that there transpires also an inward and spiritual upheaval, opening up a
new period for Christianity. The mixed-up kingdom, in which " the things of God" and
"the things of Caesar" were not sufficiently separated wherein one substituted for the
other, has ended. The Christian state also was a jumbled half-Christian state. An half-fast
Christianity is already an impossibility. A time of choosing has begun. Christianity can
be only a qualitatively inward, spiritual power in the world, and not a quantitative,
outwardly coercive power. Christianity can but be really a power realising the truth of
Christ. The new wine is being brought forth in the Christian world and it is impossible to
pour it into the old wine-skins. In the "world" itself there are being discovered creative
religious processes, which ought to be recognised as churchly. But the third period, into
which we enter, is not yet the final period. We live with the great hope, that there will
begin a yet conclusive period, in which will be manifest the miraculous power of the truth
of Christ in the world, a power resuscitating to life eternal, and that the Kingdom of God
will come. The Church is not yet the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God comes
imperceptibly not only within the visible protective-walls of the Church, but also into the
world, into social and cosmic life, as yet not perceived as churchly life. In the Kingdom
of God there will be nothing of a resemblance to the kingdom of Caesar, to the present
order of the natural world, it will be a real transfiguration of the cosmos, a new heaven
and a new earth.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1925

1
My theme does not include consideration of the problem of the relationship of
Christianity to the social question.
2
Vide "Collected Works of Khomyakov", tome VII, p. 424.
3
Much of interest on this question can be found in E. Troeltsch's "Die Sozial-lehrender
Christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen", 1919. Vide Chapter I, "Die Grundlagen in der alten
Kirche".
4
Papism assumed such an exceptional significance in the West, because for a long time
the Roman Church had to fill in as a substitute for the state and assume the functions of
governing.
5
K. P. Pobedonostsev regarded this as a result of ignorance.
 6
The medieval consciousness never recognised the absoluteness of the state nor the
absoluteness of monarchic rule. Only in the modern period has there been a returning to
this attitude, to the ancient pagan principles. Medieval teachings set natural law higher
than the state, made the state subject to justice, and recognised the law in opposition to
such authorities as transgressed the law. Vide the interesting book of Otto von Dierke,
"Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht" (the section, "Die publizistischen Lehren des
Mittelalters").
7
An interesting and accurate critique of theocracy can be found with Pr. E. N.
Trubetskoy in his book, "Mirosozertsanie Vl. Solov'eva" ("The World-Concept of Vl.
Solov'ev").
8
Vide the book of M. Zyzykin, "Tsarskaya vlast' i zakon o prestolonasledii v Rossii"
("The Power of the Tsar and the Law of Assuming the Throne in Russia"), 1924.
9
[trans. note: the same words are used in the anointing with myrh-chrism in the
sacrament of Chrismation (Myropomazanie)].
10
Vl. Solov'ev thought thus, when he constructed his concept of theocracy.
11
Much of interest in this regard can be found in the investigations of P. Verkhovsky's
"Uchrezhdenie dukhovnoi kollegii i dukhovnyi reglament" ("Foundations of the Clerical
Collegium and the Religious Regulation").
12
The book, "Monarkhicheskaya Gosudarstvennost'", was republished abroad and
enjoys, evidently, great popularity in the rightist monarchic circles. It is necessary
moreover to mention, that for the court-bureaucratic reactionaries the ideas of L.
Tikhomirov are ill suited, in that his monarchism is sharply populist and in the social
regard bears a democratic character. Tikhomirov is an opponent of the bureaucratic
absolutism.
13
Actually in the West also, monarchy was avowedly sacred and the king of France was
regarded a king verymost-Christian.
14
The old sort of monarchies cannot be revived. The monarch can only be some sort of
president of the republic with a strong and independent power.
15
Vide "Prepodobnago Ottsa nashego Makariya Egipetskago dukhovniya besedy,
poslaniya i slova" ("Spiritual Discourses, Letters and Sermons of our Father Makarios of
Egypt"), p. 148.
16
Ibid., p. 209.

NEOTHOMISM
 (1925 - # 304)

(Garigou-Lagrance, O.P., “Le sens commun. La philosophie de l’etre et les formules

dogmatiques”, and Jacques Maritain, “Reflexions sur l’intelligence et sur sa vie propre”).

_________________________

Catholicism, despite the apparent static aspect of its dogmatic system and its
stubborn resistance to all the intellectual movements of modern times, is endowed with a
great mental energy, by which it all ever and again creates in its bosom in an intellectual
renewal. Not so very long ago there was a sensation created in the Catholic world by the
modernism movement, which wanted to reconcile the Catholic world with modern
science and modern society, and in struggling against the Scholastic rationalism it
attempted to push forward, based on the irrational philosophy of Bergson. Blondel,
Labertonier, LeRoy were the chief representatives of philosophic modernism in France
and they remained faithful to Catholicism even after the censure of modernism by the
Vatican, in contrast to A. Loisy, who gave up on Christianity altogether. But the
modernist movement, in which there were also positive elements, distressed not only the
Vatican and evoked reaction against itself by not only the official churchly powers, -- it
distressed also the Catholic philosophic mindset and it evoked against itself the whole
intellectual movement, which can be called NeoThomism. This movement is represented
in France by such adept thinkers, as the Dominican Garigou-Lagrange and Jacques
Maritain. Catholic thought responded to the danger of modernism by an attempt to create
something on the order of a Thomistic renaissance, -- a renovation and developing of the
classical Catholicism. And this classical Catholicism is first of all Latin in its spirit.
German Catholicism, which at present is likewise very much on the upswing, bears a
different character and reflects a different spiritual-cultural type. St. Thomas Aquinas is
the greatest genius and the mightiest expression of the classical spirit of the Latin
Catholic orthodoxy. The Latin genius loves clarity and subtlety of thought, it is repulsed
by Germanic and Slavic mistiness and formless mystification, it believes in the natural
reason, in the natural light of day of the world-edifice, and it is classical in its thinking, it
dislikes any irrational romanticism of thought and is by nature inclined towards realism,
being ready to believe in the reality of things. Why has modernism evoked such an
upheaval, why has the Latin Catholic thought made such intense creative efforts to topple
modernism, to defeat it on the philosophic field of battle? The books of Maritain and
Garigou-Lagrange do quite much for an understanding of the meaning of Thomism, the
significance of the philosophy of St. Thomas for the Catholic Church, for the fate of
religion. These are very interesting books, putting forth the problems quite acutely. In
reading them, one sense quite strongly, how dissimilar our spirit is to the Latin spirit.
“Modernism” in the broad sense is but one of the manifestations of that spirit of
modernity, which evokes the energetic reaction of NeoThomism. Latin Catholic thought
in the visage of NeoThomism was frightened of the destruction of religious realities, it
was frightened of a break with classical antiquity, so helpful everywhere to establish
forms and differences and boundaries, it was frightened of the perishing of natural reason
and the plunge into irrational chaos. They intellectually and subtly came out in defense of
a philosophy of healthy significance (le sens commun), for an eternal philosophy of the
natural reason, cognating the natural world. Both Maritain and Garigou-Lagrange see in
modern philosophy, whether it be in Descartes, Kant, Hegel or Bergson, a progressive
destruction of the intellect, of the natural reason. But why for them is the intellect so
precious, so precious not only philosophically but also religiously, why is the denial of
intellectualism of St. Thomas Aquinas an heresy, condemned by the Vatican Council?
Intellect for St. Thomas Aquinas was a natural organ, which perceives and knows
objective realities, and through which there occurs the contiguous contacts with being.
The intellect in Thomistic philosophy has ultimately a different meaning, than in modern
philosophy. And the pretensions of contemporary Kantians or Bergsonians to be less so
the rationalists, than the great saint and medieval thinker, is ultimately ludicrous. The
denial and the destruction of the intellect for the Thomists is a denial and destruction of
being, the denial and destruction of religious realities, an exceptional collapse within the
subjective world. Intellectualism signifies ontologism. Anti-intellectualism, irrationalism
is a denial of religious realities, their replacement by religious experiences. This also is
the path, along which went Descartes, transferring the centre of gravity from being to
consciousness, and with Luther everything was turned into a subjective faith.
Intellectualism grounds itself upon the law of identity. The struggle for intellectualism,
for the philosophy of the natural reason and intact meaning is transformed into a struggle
for being, for the objective reality of God and the natural world. But one mustneeds stop
only a moment to remember, that in the epoch of St. Thomas Aquinas the Aristotelian
philosophy, which then assumed the form of Averroeism, was considered destructive to
religion and was condemned by the Catholic Church, and St. Thomas himself was
considered an extreme innovator, a modernist and even a precursor of the Anti-Christ.
(Vide Petitot, O.P., “Saint Thomas d’Aquin. La vocation. L’oeuvre. La vie spirituelle”).

Suchlike is the pathos of one side of the pathos of Thomism, the pathos of a
religious realism, objectivism and ontologism. But there is also another side, no less
important. St. Thomas Aquinas in classical form established the distinction between the
natural and the supernatural, between the creature and the Creator, between the world and
God. Contemporary Thomists consider this the greatest of his accomplishments. By this
St. Thomas defined and delimited the sphere of natural philosophy, whereof the natural
world is known by the natural reason. Philosophy herein ought not to be a religious
mystical philosophy, it ought to be a rational and natural philosophy. Gilson considers St.
Thomas Aquinas to have had the first authentic pure philosophy after the decline of
Greek philosophy, since in the Medieval period there was only a religious and mystical
philosophy, i.e. a theosophy (Vide his book, “Le thomisme”). Alongside with the natural
philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas establishes the disciplining of theology, which has as its
subject matter the supernatural revelation and the action of grace, and the disciplining of
mysticism, which is a contemplation of God and union with God. Everything is
distributed and assigned its own place, giving a structured hierarchical system, in which
is permitted nothing mixed up out of place. St. Thomas is a genius of balanced measure,
of equilibrium, in him truly there is something of the spirit of the ancients, in him there is
nothing stretching to infinity. In the mindset of the Thomists, the strict division between
the natural and the supernatural is a cornerstone of Christianity. Every deviation of this
opposition between the natural and the supernatural leads to pantheism with the
considering of this world as divine. And the Thomists suspect Platonism in this regard.
For Platonism the empirical and natural world is rooted in the world of ideas, and the
ideas dwell within God, and between the world and God there is no sort of chasm. This is
the Platonic ontologism, which is present in the modern philosophy of Malebranche and
Rozmini. The ontologism of Rozmini was condemned by the Vatican. Eastern
Christianity, Orthodox thought is likewise in view a Platonic ontologism, and not
Aristotelian. Thomism asserts, that Aristotle once and forever established the
fundamentals of natural philosophy, which knows reality and is connected with being, not
allowing of any sort of confusion between God and the world. St. Thomas Aquinas
moreover developed and harmonised this eternal philosophy with the Christian
revelation. This is a singularly sound, stable equilibrium, not permitting of extremes or
fractures, a classical philosophy. Every philosophic mysticism appears to the Thomists as
dangerous and susceptible of heresy. They fear the gnosticism, towards which inclined
the Eastern teachers of the Church, St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Gregory of
Nyssa, -- all Platonists in their tradition. Gnosticism, mysticism, ontologism of the
Platonic type is likewise hostile to the Thomists, just as also is the modernist
irrationalism and agnosticism. The NeoThomists connect their hope in a Catholic Latin
renewal not only with a consolidation of supernatural revelation and its erudite theology,
but also with an unique acceptance of the natural world, of natural reason, natural
cognition, of a natural justice and with this “naturalness” is the connection of civilisation.
The NeoThomists are simultaneously both “supernaturalists” and “naturalists”. For them
the natural world is not only the by-product of sin and the falling away from God, in its
“naturalness” and externality to the Divine it possesses an eternal right to existence, it is
justified in its contrast opposition to the “supernatural”, although too it is subject to the
organised efficacy of grace. With Maritain there is a genuine philosophic pathos, a love
for an unselfish natural-reason knowledge, there is a faith in the justice and rationality of
the natural order. The NeoThomists -- are optimists. This is a characteristic feature for
them. Their world-outlook is not tragic. They are saved from the tragic by their classical
ideal. To this trend is alien the apocalyptic and eschatological mindset. Its representatives
little sense any world-wide catastrophe. They are little interested in problems of history.
With them there is no yearning for the transfiguration of the world. And this is very
characteristic of Catholic thought.

But the Neo-Thomists do not want simply to be restorers of the Middle Ages, they
want to exist as their own contemporary people, though hostile to everything, that is
“modern”. Maritain asserts, that St. Thomas Aquinas is an apostle for the modern times,
since the modern times are first of all ill with a break-down of intellect, a sickness of
consciousness, and thus the intellectualism of St. Thomas Aquinas would best of all help
fight this sickness (vide his “Saint Thomas d’Aquin apotre des temps modernes”).
NeoThomism is perhaps the sole philosophic current in modern France, which believes in
being and knows, for what sort of reality it is fighting. French academic philosophy
ultimately has become insensitive to its object, i.e. towards reality, and apparently it is
proud of its apathetic indifference, its inability to relate its cognition to being. In France
there is undoubtedly a Catholic movement afoot, it has taken hold with the youth, and it
bears a different character form the romantic Catholicism of the late XIX Century, it is
more realistic, active, more classical in its ideals, connected with naturalism, it wants an
order to life. Neo-Thomism expresses this current. J. Maritain is very popular in Catholic
circles, especially amongst the youth. But it is very characteristic, that he was an
anarchist and Bergsonian, and was converted to Catholicism by the greatest Catholic
writer of France in modern times, -- L. Bloy. But L. Bloy himself, an artist, and not a
philosopher in his thinking, was a man of an apocalyptic and prophetic spirit, which no
wise could be comprised in any Thomistic settings. It is necessary for us to be familiar
with this serious current of Western religious thought, although our own particular
religious thought goes along entirely different paths. Foreign to us is both Aristotle and
St. Thomas Aquinas, we are Platonists by tradition and there is for us no such split
between the natural and the supernatural. We believe moreover, that the world and man
and all authentic being is rooted in God, that Divine energy pervades the natural world,
and that external to God is only sin and evil. After the appearance of Christ there has
been a transformation of man and the world, and Creator and creature have become
united.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1925

NEOTOMIZM’. Journal Put’, Sept. 1925, No. 1, p. 169-171.

SALVATION AND CREATIVITY

(1926 - #308)

(Two Understandings of Christianity)

_____________________

(Dedicated to the Memory of Vladimir Solov’ev)

“Serve ye one another, each by such gift,

as he hath received, as good stewards of
the manifold graces of God”.
(1 Pet. -- Ch. 4: 10.)

The correlation between the ways of human salvation and the ways of human
creativity is very central, very tormenting and very acute a problem of our age. Man
perishes and he has a thirst for salvation. But man is also by his nature a maker, a creator,
a builder of life, and the thirst for creativity cannot be extinguished within him. Can man
be saved and at the same time create, can he create and at the same time be saved? And
how to perceive Christianity: is Christianity exclusively the religion of the salvation of
the soul for life eternal, or is creativity of an higher life also justified by the Christian
consciousness? All these questions torment the contemporary soul, though not always is
perceived their depth. Wanting to set right their life vocation, their creative act of life,
Christians do not always realise, that there is discourse about the very concept of
Christianity, about the assimilation of its fullness. The torment of the problem of
salvation and creativity reflects the schisms betwixt Church and world, the spiritual and
the mundane, the sacral and the secular. The Church is concerned with salvation, the
secular world however is concerned with creativity. The creative act, which the secular
world is concerned with, is not given justification, is not sanctified by the Church. There
is a profound disdain, almost a contempt of the churchly world towards those creative
deeds in the life of culture, in the life of society, which fully are processes, transpiring
within the world. At best creativity is admitted, it is tolerated, one peeks at it through the
fingers, not granting it profound a justification. Salvation is a matter of the first sort, the
one thing necessary, creativity however is a matter of the second or third sort, applicable
to life, but not the very essence of it. We live beneathe the sign of a deepest religious
dualism. Hiero craticism, clericalism in the understanding of the Church is the expression
and justifying excuse of this dualism. The Church hierarchy in its essence is an hierarchy
which is angelic, and not human. In the human world the heavenly angelic hierarchy is
only symbolised. The system of hierocratism, the exclusive sovereignty of the priesthood
in the life of the Church, and through the Church in the life of the world also, is a
suppression of the human principle by the angelic, a subordination of the human principle
to the angelic principle, as a calling with which to guide life. It is always a sovereignty of
a conditional symbolism. [trans. note: the Russian euphemistic idiom for becoming a
monastic is to take on the angelic garb and life, an image of useage to which the modern
Western mind is not sensitive to, but here also betraying the dualistic schism alluded to
above.] But the suppression of the human principle, the non-allowance of its unique
creative expression, is an impairment of Christianity, as being the religion of God-
manhood. Christ was the God man, and not a God-angel, in Him perfectly was united in
one person the Divine nature with the human nature and by this human nature was
transported to Life Divine. And Christ the God-man was the foundation principle of the
new spiritual human race, a life of God-manhood, and not of God-angelhood. The Church
of Christ is God-manhood. The angelic principle is a principle intermediary betwixt God
and the human, a principle passively-intermediary, transmissive of Divine energy,
conductive of Divine grace, but not an active-creative principle. The active-creative
principle was bestown to mankind. But the sinful limitedness of mankind does not permit
of the fullness of Christian truth. And the suppressive sovereignty of the angelic
hierocratic principle is an indicator of the impotence of sinful mankind to express its
creative nature, to accept Christianity in its fullness and wholeness. The way of salvation
for sinful mankind obviates its necessity first of all in the angelic hierocratic principle.
The way of creativity remains however as an autonomous human way, not sanctified and
not justified, and man is left on his own.

The religious non-expression of the human principle, as an organic part of the life of
God-manhood, the religious non-disclosure of the free vocation of man creates the
dualism of Church and world, of Church and culture, the acute dualism of the sacral and
the profane. For the believing Christian two lives are created, a life that is of a first and a
second sort. And this dualism, this two-sidedness of life attains to an especial acuteness
in the Christianity of the present time. In medieval Christianity there was its theocratic,
hierocratic culture, to which all creativity of life was self-subordinated to the religious
principle, conceived as the sovereignty of the angelic hierarchy over the human. In
medieval culture and society there was the sacral, but the religious justification was
conditionally-symbolic. Culture by its concept was angelic, and not human. The
sovereignty of the angelic principle always leads to symbolism, to the conditional, sign
reflection within the human world of the heavenly life without its real attainment, without
the real transfiguration of human life. The present time has cast down the symbolic and
completed the break. Man rebelled in the name of his freedom and went upon his own
autonomous way. The nook of the soul remained for religion. They began to think of the
Church differently. The Christian of the present time lives in two incongruent rhythms --
in the Church and in the world, upon the pathways of salvation and upon the pathways of
creativity. In the theocratic societies, in the theocratic cultures the human principle was
subordinated, the freedom of man was not yet granted its consent to the existence of the
Kingdom of God. In the humanistic societies and cultures of the present time the human
principle has been torn asunder from God and from the efficacy of Divine grace. The
conjoining of the Divine and the human has not been attained. The ways of creativity of
the humanistic world were without God and against God. The drama of the present
humanistic history is the drama of a deep tearing asunder of the way of creativity of life
apart from the way of salvation, apart from God and from Divine grace. The dualism of
Church and world realises suchlike forms of expression, which former sacral organic
epochs did not know of. In the world has occurred tremendous creative developement in
science, in philosophy, in art, in state and social life, in the advances of the technical, in
the moral attitudes of people, even in religious thought, in mystical frames of mind. All
of us, not only non-believers, but also believing Christians, we all participate in this
developement of the world, this developement of culture, and we devote to it a significant
part of our time and effort. On Sunday we come into Church. Six days in the week we
devote to our creative, constructive work. And our creative attitude towards life remains
non-justified, non-sanctified, not co-dependent upon the religious principle of life. The
old, the medieval theocratic hierocratic justification and sanctification of all the processes
of life has already no power over us, it is deadened. The very believers, the selfsame
Orthodox people participate in the non-justified and the non-sanctified life of the world,
they subordinate themselves to the profane, the non-sacral science, to the profane non
sacral economy, to the profane non-sacral law, to a lifestyle long since already bereft of
sacral character. The believers, the Orthodox people live the church life in Church, they
go on Sundays and feastdays to the temple, they fast during Great Lent, they pray to God
morning and evening, but they do not live church life in the world, in culture, in society.
Their creativity, in political and economic life, in the sciences and the arts, in the
inventions and the discoveries, in the everyday morality, it remains external to the
Church and external to religiosity, it remains profane and worldly. This is altogether an
other rhythm of life. A tempestuous creative developement has transpired within the
world, in culture. In the Church for a long time however a comparative staticism has set
in, as though petrified and ossified. The Church began to live exclusively as a guardian, a
link with the past, i.e. it expressed but one side of churchly life. The Church hierarchy
became hostile towards creativity, suspicious towards spiritual culture, it restrains man
and fears his freedom, the ways of salvation are put opposite the ways of creativity. We
are saved on one plane of existence and we fashion life on altogether an other plane of
existence. And there remains always the danger, that on that plane on which we create,
we shall perish and not be saved. And there is not any hope in this, that the unsustainable
further dualism can be overcome through the subordination of all our life and all the
creative impulses to the hierocratic principle, through a restoration of the theocratic in the
old sense of the word. To the conditional symbolism of an hierocratic society, there is no
turning back. This would be but a temporary reaction, rejecting creativity. The religious
problem about man, about his freedom and creative vocation, has been posited in all its
acuteness. And this is not only a problem of the world, a burdensome and irksome
problem in contemporary culture, this is also a problem of the Church, a problem of
Christianity, as the religion of God-manhood.

Thought at the present time has become subject to the dissective influence of
nominalism. In the consciousness of mankind, the ontological reality is decomposed and
pulverised. This process also affects Church consciousness. And how often the most
reactionary tendencies of Church thought have appropriated to themselves a nominalistic
understanding of the Church. They have ceased to comprehend the Church integrally, as
an universal spiritual organism, as ontologic reality, as the Christified cosmos. There has
prevailed a differentialised understanding of the Church, whether as institution, as
community of believers, or as hierarchy and temple. The Church was transformed into a
curative establishment, in which they deal with individual souls for healing. Thus is
affirmed a Christian individualism, indifferent to the fate of human society and the world.
The Church exists for the salvation of individual souls, but has no concern for the
creative aspects of life, for the transfiguration of social and cosmic life. Suchlike a kind
of exclusively monastic-ascetic Orthodoxy in Russia was only possible, because that the
Church entrusted all the organisation of life to the state. Only the existence of the
autocratic monarchy consecrated by the Church made possible such Orthodox
individualism, such a separateness of Christianity from the life of the world. The
Orthodox monarchy upheld and guarded the world, and churchly order was also
maintained by it. The Church was indifferent not only to the arrangement of cultural and
social life, but also to the arrangement of churchly life, to the life of the parishes, to the
organisation of a non dependent churchly authority. The existence of an Orthodox
autocratic monarchy is the obverse side of monastic-ascetic Orthodoxy, of perceiving
Orthodoxy exclusively as a religion of personal salvation. And therefore the collapse of
autocratic monarchy, of the Russian Orthodox tsardom, implies substantial modification
in Church consciousness. Orthodoxy cannot remain predominantly monastic-ascetic.
Christianity cannot be reduced to the individual salvation of separate souls. The Church
inevitably turns itself to the life of society and the world, and inevitably it needs to
participate in the formation of life. In the autocratic monarchy, as a type of Orthodox
theocracy, it was the angelic, and not the human principle, that reigned. The tsar, in
accord with this concept is in essence of the angelic, and not of the human order. The
collapse of Orthodox theocracy ought to lead to the awakening of creative activism of a
very Christian nation, an human activism, for the formation of a Christian society. This
turnabout should begin first of all with this, that Orthodox people make themselves
responsible for the fate of the Church in the world, in an historical actuality, that they be
obliged to take upon themselves churchly formation, the life of the parishes, a concern
about the temple, and organisation of churchly life, brotherhoods, etc. But this change of
Orthodox psychology cannot be restricted to formation of churchly life, it extends also to
all aspects of life. All of life ought to be thought of, as churchly life. In the Church all
aspects of life enter in. A turnabout is inevitable for an integral comprehension of the
Church, i.e. for the surmounting of Church nominalism and individualism. The
understanding of Christianity exclusively as a religion of personal salvation, the
constriction of the scope of the Church to something existing alongside with everything
else, -- when the Church is the posited fullness of being, would be also the source of the
greatest disorders and catastrophes in the Christian world. The abasement of man, of his
freedom and creative vocation, the inculcation of suchlike an understanding of
Christianity, would also evoke the revolt and rebellion of man in the name of his freedom
and his creativity. Upon that desolate spot, which would remain in the world to
Christianity, the Anti-Christ would begin to build his own Babylonian tower and go far in
its construction. Seducing the freedom of the human spirit, the freedom of human
creativity would ultimately perish upon this path. The Church ought to guard itself from
the evil elements of the world and the evil developements in it. But the genuine guarding
of things holy is possible only under the admission of Christian creativity.

II.

Upon what spiritual basis does Orthodox individualism base itself, by what is its
understanding of Christianity justified, as a religion of personal salvation, indifferent to
the fate of society and the world? Christianity in the past was extraordinarily magnificent,
manifold and many-sided. In the Gospel, in the Apostolic Epistles, in the Patristic
literature and in Church tradition it is possible to find the basis for varied comprehensions
of Christianity. The understanding of Christianity, as a religion of personal salvation,
mistrustful towards any creativity, rests itself exclusively upon the Patristic ascetic
literature, which neither is the whole of Christianity nor is it the whole even of Patristic
literature. The “Dobrotoliubie-Philokalia” would as it were screen out for itself
everything remaining. In the ascetic is expressed eternal truth, which enters into the inner
spiritual pathway, as an inevitable moment. But it is not the fullness of Christian truth.
The heroic struggle with the nature of the old Adam, with the sinful passions, promoted a
certain aspect of Christian truth and exaggerated it to all-encompassing dimensions. The
truths, revealed in the Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles, were set aside onto a secondary
plane, and were stifled. At the basis of all Christianity, at the basis of all the spiritual
pathway of man, the pathway of salvation for life eternal, was put humility. Man needs to
be humbled, and all the rest then happens by itself. Humility is the sole method of inner
spiritual activity. Humility screens out and stifles love, which reveals itself in the Gospel
and manifests itself as the foundational basis of the New Testament God with man. The
ontological concept of humility consists in a real victory over the self-affirming human
self-centredness, over the sinful disposition of man to situate the centre of gravity for life
and the source of life in himself alone, -- this is the meaning of the overcoming of pride.
The concept of humility is in the real change and transfiguration of human nature, in the
mastery of spiritual man over the man of soul and flesh. But humility ought not to stifle
and snuff out the spirit. Humility is not external obedience, submission and
subordination. Man can be very disciplined, very obedient and submissive, and yet have
humility not at all. We see this by way of example in the Communist Party. Humility is
an efficacious change of the nature of the soul, and not external subordination, leaving
nature unchanged, its own inner working over itself, its deliverance from the power of the
passions, from the lower nature, which man is wont to accept as his true “I”. In humility
is affirmed the true hierarchy of being, spiritual man takes precedence over soulful man,
God receives precedence over the world. Humility is the pathway of self-cleansing and
self definition. Humility is not the annihilation of the human will, but rather the
illumination of the human will, the free submission of it to Truth. Christianity cannot
negate humility, as a moment of the inner spiritual pathway. But humility is not the
whole of spiritual life. Humility is a genuine means. Yet humility is not the sole means, it
is not the sole pathway of spiritual life. Inner spiritual life is immeasurably more complex
and multi-facetted. And it is impossible to give answer to all the inquiries of spirit by the
preaching of humility. And humility can be conceived of falsely and too externally. To
the inner spiritual life and the inner way there applies an absolute primacy, it is more
primary, more profound, more primordial than all our relations to the life of society and
the world. In the spiritual world, from the depths of the spiritual world is defined all our
relationship towards life. This -- is a religious axiom, an axiom of the mystic. But a
concept of humility is possible, distorting all our spiritual life, not accommodating the
Divine truth of Christianity, the Divine fullness. And in this is all the complexity of the
question.

The construction of life upon the sole spirit of humility creates also an external
authoritative-hierocratic system. All questions of social form and cultural creativity are
decided in conformity to humility. This would be a fine arrangement of a society, in
which people humble themselves the most, and be obedient the most. It would censure
every array of life, in which is given expression to the creative instincts of man. Thus in
essence there is resolved not a single question, but is merely as regards to this, whether it
promotes the humility of man. Deterioration of humility leads to this, that it ceases to be
understood inwardly, to be secretly-treasured as a mystical act, as a manifestation of
inner spiritual life. Humility is transformed into an external system of life-arrangement,
repressing man. Humility in its mystical essence is altogether not contrary to freedom, it
is an act of freedom and presupposes freedom. Only free humility, the free subordination
of soulful man to spiritual man has religious significance and value. Compulsory
humility, imposed humility, is determined by the external structure of life and possesses
no significance for spiritual life. Slavery and humility -- are variant spiritual conditions.
Humbling myself in my inner spiritual pathway, in a free act I posit the source of life to
be in God, and not in my own selfness. For phenomenological analysis there is disclosed,
that my freedom precedes my humility. Humility is more inner, secretly-treasurative a
spiritual condition. But having decayed, a degradated humility, an humility become
deteriorated transforms itself into an external compulsively imposed system of life,
negating the freedom of man, coercing man. In soil humility readily sprouts forth
hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness. At that selfsame moment when the ontological concept
of humility would consist in the liberation of spiritual man, a deteriorated humility holds
man in a condition of restraint and oppression, it chains down his creative powers. The
great ascetics and saints accomplished an heroic act of spiritual liberation of man, of
opposition to the lower nature, to the power of the passions. Corrupters of humility
negate the heroic act of the spiritual liberation of man and hold man in subjection to an
authoritative system of life. When I humble myself before the will of God, when I
conquer in myself the slave’s revolt of selfness, I come from out of freedom and I go
towards freedom. Selfness enslaves me, and I want to be liberated from it. Humility is
one of the methods of transition from a condition, in which the lower nature governs, to a
condition, in which the higher nature governs, i.e. it signifies the growth of man, his
spiritual ascent. Deteriorative humility desires however a system of life, in which
liberation never enters, in which spiritual ascent is never to be attained, in which the
higher nature never shews itself. The liberation of spirit, spiritual ascent, the
manifestation of the higher nature would be declared a non-humble condition, a
deficiency of humility. Humility is transformed from being a means and a way into an
end in itself.

They begin to set humility in opposition to love. The way of love is considered as
the not-humble, as the audacious way. The Gospel is ultimately replaced by the
“Dobrotoliubie-Philokalia”. Where then is it for me, a sinner and unworthy, to pretend to
love for neighbour, to brotherhood. My love will be infected by sin. First I should humble
myself, and love should appear, as the fruition of humility. But I could be humble all my
life yet never attain a sinless condition. Therefore also love would never appear. Where
then is it for me a sinner to dare to spiritual perfection, to valour and sublimity of spirit,
to the attainment of utmost spiritual life. At first it is necessary to vanquish sin by
humility. But this takes up all of life and there remains neither time nor strength for
creative spiritual life. It is possible only in this world, indeed here also unlikely, if in this
world however only humility be possible. The degenerated humility creates a system of
life, in which life that is everyday and commonplace and of bourgeois-manner, is more
honoured than the humble, than the Christian, than the moral, than the attainment of a
still higher spiritual life, and love, contemplation, perception, creativity, always there is
the suspicion of a deficiency of humility and of pride. To haggle at the shop-counter, to
live in a very egoistic familial life, to serve in the ranks of the police or excise-duty office
-- humbly, not presumptuously, not boldly. And here then otherwise is the aspiration
towards the Christian brotherhood of people, of the realisation of the truth of Christ in
life, or to be philosopher or poet, Christian philosopher or Christian poet -- not humbly,
proudly, presumptuously, boldly. The shopkeeper may be not only covetous of gain, but
also dishonourable, yet less subject to the peril of eternal perishing, than that one, who his
entire life seeks after truth and verity, who thirsts for a life of beauty, than for example
Vl. Solov’ev the Gnostic, 1 the poet of life, the seeker of true life and the brotherhood of
people who is subject to the danger of eternal perishing, since he is insufficiently
humbled, he is proud. It becomes an hopeless, and a vicious circle. The yearning for the
realisation of the Truth of God, the Kingdom of God, of the spiritual heights and spiritual
perfection, is proclaimed a spiritual imperfection, a lack of humility. In what then is the
basic defect of deteriorated humility and its system of life? The basic defect lurks in the
false concept of the correlation between sin and the pathways of liberation from sin or the
attainment of higher spiritual life. I cannot reason thus -- the world lies in evil, I am a
sinful man and because my yearning towards the realisation of the Truth of Christ and
towards brotherly love amidst mankind is a proud pretension, a deficiency of humility, --
therefore every authentic impulse in the direction of the realisation of love and truth is a
victory over evil, is a deliverance from sin. I cannot speak thus -- the yearning for
spiritual perfection and the spiritual heights is pride and an insufficiency of humility, an
insufficient consciousness of the sinfulness of man, -- therefore every advance towards
spiritual perfection and the spiritual heights is the way of victory over sin. I cannot speak
thus -- I am a sinful man and therefore my audacity to apprehend the mystery of being
and to create beauty is already a victory over sin, a transfiguration of life. It is impossible
to say: sin distorts and perverts both love, and spiritual perfectivity, and cognition and
everything, and therefore there is no victory over sin along these pathways. Therefore it is
completely possible to say likewise: the way of humility is distorted and perverted by
human sin and greed and is a distorted, degenerate, perverted humility, an humility,
transformed into slavery, into egoism, into cowardice. Humility is no more a guarantee
from distortion, and degeneration, than love or cognition.

Sin is conquered with great difficulty and it is conquered only by the power of
grace. But the pathways of this victory, the pathways of the acquisition of grace are
manifold, and they encompass all the plenitude of being. Our love towards neighbour, our
cognition, our creativity, is ultimately distorted by sin and bears within itself the seal of
imperfection, but indeed so too the way of humility is distorted by sin and bears within
itself the seal of imperfection. Christ commanded first of all to love God and to love
neighbour, to first of all seek after the Kingdom of God, and a perfection in likeness to
the perfection of the Heavenly Father. The “Dobrotoliubie-Philokalia”, -- into which
were not included the most remarkable mystical works of St. Maximos the Confessor, nor
of St. Simeon the New Theologian among others, -- is first of all a collection of moral-
ascetic directives for monks, and not the expression of the full plenitude of Christianity
and its pathways. Not only the spirit of the Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles, but also the
spirit of the Greek Patristic fathers in the most profound of their currents, -- is otherwise
than this, than for example the one-sided spirit of the Orthodoxy of Theophan the Hermit.
Ultimately, in Theophan the Hermit there is much that is true and eternal, particularly in
his finest book “The Way to Salvation”, but its attitude towards the life of the world -- is
depressingly-timid, its Christianity withered and impaired. The central idea of the Eastern
Patristic fathers was the idea of “theosis”, of deification (“obozhenie”) of the creature, of
the transfiguration of the world, of the cosmos, and not the idea of personal salvation. Not
by chance were the greatest Eastern teachers of the Church inclined towards the idea of
“apokatastasis” [trans. note: cosmic restorative return], not only St. Clement of
Alexandria and Origen, but also St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St.
Maximos the Confessor. The juridical conception of the world process, the juridical
conception of expiation, the building up of hell, the salvation of the chosen and the
eternal perdition of all the rest of mankind is expressed mainly in Western Patristics, in
Blessed Augustine, and then in Western Scholasticism. For the classical Greek Patristic
fathers, Christianity was not only the religion of personal salvation. It was directed
towards a cosmic apprehension of Christianity, it proposed the idea of the illumination
and the transfiguration of the world, the deification of the created. Only later did the
Christian consciousness hold in greater esteem the idea of hell, rather than the
transfiguration and theosis of the world. This occurred, perhaps, as the result of the
prevalence of barbaric nations with their fierce instincts. These nations needed to be
subjected to severe discipline and intimidation, since their flesh and blood, their passions
threatened ruin to Christianity and to every form of order in the world. Christianity, taken
as a religion of a personal salvation from eternal perdition through humility, led to panic
and terror. 2 Man lived under the horrible stress of terror of eternal perdition and would
consent to anything, if only he might avoid it. The authoritarian system of obedience and
submission created an affective emotion of the dread of perdition, a panicked dread of the
eternal torments of hell. 3 Under suchlike a spiritual arrangement, under suchlike a state
of mind, a creative attitude towards life is very difficult. There is no time for creativity,
when destruction threatens. The whole of life is put beneathe the sign of terror, of fear.
When pestilence rages, and every second -- death threatens, man has no time for
creativity, he is exclusively occupied by measures of salvation of the pestilence.
Sometimes Christianity is also conceived of, as salvation from a raging pestilence.
Creativity and the building up of life were rendered possible only thanks to a system of
dualism, which granted moments of oblivion about salvation from perdition. Man
devoted himself to science and art or to the social order, having forgotten at the time
about the threatening destruction, revealing for himself another sphere of being, separate
from that sphere in which perdition and salvation are accomplished, and with these two
spheres being not at all connected. The understanding of Christianity, as a religion of
personal salvation from perdition, is a system of transcendental egoism, or transcendental
utilitarianism and eudaimonism. K. Leont’ev, with a boldness typical for him, professed
such a religion of transcendental egoism. But this is particularly because his attitude
towards the life of the world was fully pagan, and he dualistically conjoined within
himself the man of Athos and the Optina ascetic-monastic Orthodoxy, together with the
man of the Italian Renaissance of the XVI Century. With a transcendental consciousness,
man is preoccupied not by the attainment of higher perfection in life, but by concern
about the salvation of his own soul, by thought about his own eternal receiving of bliss.
Transcendental egoism and eudaimonism innately negates the way of love and cannot be
faithful to the Gospel command, which bid us to perish one’s own soul for the sake of
finding it, 4 to give it up for one’s neighbour, to teach first of all love, unconditional love
for God and neighbour. But to posit Christianity as a religion of transcendental egoism,
not knowing the unconditional love towards Divine perfection, means to blaspheme
Christianity. This is either a barbaric Christianity, a Christianity humbling the wildness of
the passions and distorted by these passions, or it is a Christianity degenerate, and
impaired, and impoverished. Christianity always was, is and will be not only a religion of
personal salvation and fear of perdition, but it is likewise a religion of the transfiguration
of the world, 5 the deification of the creature, a religion cosmic and social, a religion of
unconditional love, a love for God and for man, the covenant-promise of the Kingdom of
God. Under the individualistic-ascetic understanding of Christianity, as a religion of
personal salvation, of concern only about one’s own soul, the revelation about the
resurrection of all creatures is unintelligible and unnecessary. For a religion of personal
salvation there is no world eschatological perspective, there is no connection with
personness, nor of the individual human soul with the world, with the cosmos, with all
creation. An hierarchical order of being is negated by this, in which all is bound up with
all, and from which the individual destiny cannot be detached. An individualistic
understanding of salvation is more proper to Protestant pietism, than to a Christianity as
Church. I cannot be saved by myself, in solitude, I can be saved only with my brethren,
together with all of God’s creation, and I cannot think only about my own salvation, I
ought to think also about the salvation of others, about the salvation of all the world. And
indeed salvation is but an exoteric expression for the attainment of the spiritual heights,
of perfection, of like-to-God, as the supreme value of worldly life.
 III.

All the greatest of Christian mystics put a faith-confessed love towards God and
union with God higher than personal salvation. A more externalised Christianity often
faults the mystics on this, that for them the centre of gravity of spiritual life lies
altogether not in the ways of personal salvation, and that they go the perilous ways of
mystical love. The mystic is indeed of altogether different a degree of spiritual life, than
is the ascetic. The mystics characteristically might study, reading the “Hymns” of St.
Simeon the New Theologian. The Christian mystic also understands salvation, as
illumination and transfiguration, the deification of creature, as an overcoming of the
isolation of creatureliness, i.e. as separateness from God. The idea of theosis holds sway
over the idea of salvation. This is beautifully expressed by St. Simeon the New
Theologian: “”I am imbued with His love and beauty, and filled with Divine delight and
sweetness. I become a partaker of radiance and glory: my face, as also of my Beloved,
doth shine, and all my limbs become bearers of radiance. I thereupon co-become more
beautiful than the beauteous, more godly than the gods, I become most powerful of all
the powerful, more than the great kings and far more venerable than anything, that might
be seen, not only of the earth and that upon the earth, but also of the heavens and all, that
is in the heavens.” I quote the greatest mystic of the Orthodox East. It would be possible
to produce an innumerable number of fragments from Western mystics, Latin Catholics
or German mystics, which substantiate this thought, that at the mystical centre of gravity
there never lies the yearning for salvation. The Catholic mystic has overcome the
juridicism of Catholic theology, the legalistic understanding betwixt God and man. The
dispute of Bossuet with Fenelon was also the dispute of a theologian with a mystic. On
the mystical pathway there is always an unconditional displacement oblivious about the
self, a disclosure of immeasurable love towards God. But love for God is a creative
condition of spirit, in it is the overcoming of every restraint, a liberation, an affirmative
revealing of spiritual man. Humility is only a means, it is still negative. Love for God is
an end, it is already positive. Love for God is already a creative transfiguration of human
nature. But love for God is likewise a love for the spiritual heights, for the Divine in life.
Divine eros is spiritual ascent, spiritual growth, a victory of the creative condition of
spirit over the condition of restraint, that sprouting of the wings of the soul, that Plato
speaks of in the “Phaedrus”. The affirmative content of being is live, creative,
transfigurative love. Love is not something particular, a separate side of life, love is the
whole of life, the fullness of life. Cognition is likewise a disclosure of love, cognitive
love, cognitively an union of the loving with his theme, with being, with God. Creativity
of the beautiful is likewise a disclosure of the harmony of love in being. Love is the
affirmation of the countenance of the beloved in eternity and in God, i.e. it is the
affirmation of being. Love is an ontological first-principle. But love for God is
inseparable from love for neighbour, love for God’s creation. Christianity also is a
revealing of Divine-human love. It saves me, i.e. not only love for God but also love for
man transfigures my nature. Love for those near, for brothers, the acts of love enter upon
the path of my salvation, of my transfiguration. On the way of my salvation enters in love
for animals and plants, for each thing close by, for stones, for rivers and seas, for hills
and fields. By this too I am saved, all the world too is saved, it attains to illumination.
Deathly indifference towards man and nature, towards every living thing in the name of
self-salvation is an hideous manifestation of religious egoism, it is a desiccation of human
nature, it is a readying “in heart of impotent eunuchs”. Christian love ought not to be
“glass-transparent love” (an expression of V. V. Rozanov). Abstractly-spiritual love is
also “glass-transparent love”. Only love that is spiritually of soul, in which the soul is
transfigured in spirit, is a living and Divine-human love. The sometimes encountered
monastic-ascetic disdain towards people and the world, a chilling of the heart, and the
mortification towards everything alive, is a degeneration of Christianity, an impairment
within Christianity. The substitution in place of the commandment of love for God and
love for neighbour, given by Christ himself, by a commandment of external humility and
obedience, the chilling of any love, is also a degeneration of Christianity, an incapacity to
accommodate the truth of Christianity. It is necessary to note, that in particular the idea of
cosmic transfiguration and illumination is most near to the Orthodox East. For Western
Christianity the juridical idea of justification is more near. And the idea of justification is
central for the consciousness of the Catholic and the consciousness of the Protestant.
Hence in the West disputes about freedom and grace, about faith and good works, acquire
particular significance. Hence the seeking of authority and external criteria of religious
truth. 6 Only the mystics rise above the stifling idea of God’s judgement, God’s demand
of justification from man, and they understood, that for God is necessary not the
justification of man, but rather the love of man, the transfiguration of his nature. This is
the central problem of the Christian consciousness. Whether in justification and
judgement, in God’s inexorable justice is the essence of Christianity, or whether this
essence is in transfiguration and illumination, in God’s infinite love. The juridical
understanding of Christianity, producing the present spiritual terror, is a severe method,
by which Christianity parented the nations, that were full of bloody instincts, cruelty and
barbarism. But to this understanding is opposed a more profound understanding of
Christianity, as the revelation of love and freedom. Man is called to be a creator and co-
participant in the deed of God’s creation. It is God’s call, directed to man, and to which
man ought freely to give answer. For God submissive and obedient slaves are altogether
not needful, eternally trembling and egoistically concerned with themselves. For God
sons are needful, free and creating, loving and daring. Man has terribly distorted the
image of God, and has attributed to Him his own perverse and sinful psychology. But it is
needful always to remember the truth of apophatic theology. 7 If to God might also be
ascribed an emotive life, then it does not follow as consequence to present it in the form
of the most vile of human emotions. Spiritual terror indeed and spiritual panic, begetting
the juridical understanding of the relationship between God and man, and the placing of
justification and salvation at the centre of Christian faith, issues forth from an
understanding of an emotive life of God, in everything like to the most vile emotive life
in man. But God revealed Himself in the Son, as the Father, as infinite love. And by this
is forever surmounted the understanding of God as fierce Lord and vindictively wrathful
Master. “God did not send His Son into the world, so as to judge the world, but so that
through Him the world might be saved”. “This is the will of the Father Who hath sent
Me, so that of all which He hath given to Me, no one should perish, but instead resurrect
on the last day”.. [Jn. 3: 13, 6: 39-40]. Man is called to perfection, to the like perfection
of the Heavenly Father. The Christian revelation is first of all the good news about the
onset of the Kingdom of God, which to seek is commanded us, first of all. The seeking of
the Kingdom of God is however not a seeking merely of personal salvation. The
Kingdom of God is the transfiguration of the world, the universal resurrection, a new
heaven and a new earth.

IV.

The Christian world-concept not only does not oblige, but also it does not permit us
to think, that the real is only the individual souls of people, that only they constitute the
creation of God. Society and nature are indeed reality and are created by God. Society is
not an human invention. Thus initially however, thus it has ontological roots, as also does
the human person. And it is impossible to tear asunder the human person from society,
just as it is impossible to separate society from the human person. The person and society
are situated in interdependent life, they presuppose a single concrete purpose. The
spiritual life of the person is reflected in the life of society. And society is a sort of
spiritual organism, which is nourished by the life of persons and it nourishes them. The
negation of the reality of society is nominalism. And in such form nominalism has a fatal
consequence for Church consciousness, for an understanding of the nature of the Church.
The Church is spiritual society and this society is imbued with ontologic reality, it cannot
be limited to a co operative of individual souls being saved. In the churchly society is
realised the Kingdom of God, and not only individual souls are saved. When I say, that to
be saved is possible only in the Church, I affirm the Sobornost’ [collective universality]
of salvation, salvation in spiritual society and through spiritual society, salvation with my
brethren in Christ and with all God’s creation, and I negate the individualistic
understanding of salvation, salvation in isolation (save thyself, whosoever be able, force a
way into the Heavenly Kingdom, as said a certain Orthodox), and I repudiate the egoism
of salvation. Many think, that the interpretation of Christianity, as a religion of personal
salvation, is primarily a churchly interpretation. But in actuality it collides headlong with
the very idea of the Church and it subjects the reality of the Church to a nomialistic
degradation. If some of the more externalised opinions hold sway in the Orthodox world
and certain hierarchs are esteemed as particularly churchly, then this does not signify
however, that they are more churchly in depth, in the ontologic sense of the word. At one
time its was Arianism that held sway amongst the hierarchs of the East. Possibly, these
opinions reflect an impairment of Christianity, an ossification within Christianity. In the
world there would not have been such terrible catastrophes and upheavals, there would
not have been such godlessness and belittling of spirit, had not Christianity become so
unsoaring, dull, uncreative, if it had not ceased to inspire and direct the life of human
society and culture, if it had not fenced in the human soul into a small corner, if
conventional and external dogmatism and ritualism had not replaced the real existence of
Christianity within life. And the future of human societies and cultures is dependent on
this, whether Christianity receives the signification of creative and transfigurative life,
and whether again within Christianity is the spiritual energy, capable to generate
enthusiasm, and to summon us from decay to ascent.

The official people of the Church, the professionals of religion, tell us, that the matter
of personal salvation is alone necessary, that creativity for this purpose is unnecessary
and even harmful. Why then knowledge, why then science and art, why then inventions
and discoveries, why then should there be societal truth, the creativity of a new and better
life, when eternal destruction threatens me and eternal salvation is solely necessary for
me. Such a sort of suppressive and even downright panicky religious consciousness and
self-feelings cannot give justification for creativity. Nothing is needful for the matter of
personal salvation of the soul. Knowledge by suchlike measure is unnecessary, just as art
is unnecessary, economics is unnecessary, political sovereignty is unnecessary, and
unnecessary is even the existence of nature, of God’s world. True, sometimes they tell us,
that there is necessary the existence of sovereignty and under this in the form of
autocratic monarchy, such that the whole of this is a religious system that was possible
only thanks to the existence of an Orthodox monarchy, to which also was entrusted all the
arrangement of life. But in the final analysis, it is necessary to acknowledge, that the
sovereign realm was not only not necessary for my salvation, but quite harmful. Such a
sort of religious consciousness is unable to give justification to any sort of matter in the
world, or is able to do so only through inconsistency and by sufferance. There is a
Buddhist tendency within Christianity. There remains only to go into the monastery. But
the very existence of monasteries presupposes their being guarded by the civil order. This
sort of consciousness is inclined to justify a petty bourgeois existence, humble and
dispassionate, and to conjoin it in one system with a few monastic feats, but it can never
justify creativity. The question needs to be put otherwise and Christianity not only
permits, but also dictates for us to put the question otherwise. A simple baba, they tell us,
is saved better, than is the philosopher, and for her salvation there is no need for learning,
there is no need of culture, etc. But one might presumably doubt, that for God only the
simple baba is needful, that by this is exhausted God’s plan about the world, God’s idea
about the world. And indeed at present the simple baba is a myth, she has become
nihilistic and atheistic. The philosopher and man of culture have become the believers.
The crude, and fools, and even idiots can be saved in their own way, but presumably one
might doubt, that in God’s idea about the world, that in the schema of God’s Kingdom,
that it will be peopled exclusively by the crude, by fools and by idiots. Presumably one
might think, no less transgressing humility for us, that God’s plan about the world is
more lofty, more manifold and resplendid, that into it enters the positive plenitude of
being, ontological perfection. The Apostle recommends us to be children at heart, but not
in mind. And here the creativity of man, and learning, art, discoveries, the betterment of
society, etc., etc., is necessary not for personal salvation, but for the realisation of God’s
intent for the world and for mankind, for the transfiguration of the cosmos, for the
Kingdom of God, into which enters all the fullness of being. Man is called to be a creator,
a co-participant in God’s deed of world-creation and world-arrangement, and not only to
be saved. And sometimes man is able in the name of creativity, to which he is vocationed
by God, to forego thinking about himself and his soul. Various gifts are given by God to
people, and no one possesses the right to bury them in the ground, for these talents all
need to be creatively fulfilled, manifest in the objective vocations of man. With great
forcefulness about this speak both the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 12: 28) and the Apostle Peter
(1 Pet. 4: 10). Such is God’s plan about man, that the nature of the human person is
creative. The person is saved. But for this, that the personness be saved, it is necessary
that it be affirmed in its authentic nature. The authentic indeed nature of the person is in
this, that it is the centre of creative energy. Outside of creativity there is no personness.
The creative person is saved for eternity. The affirmation in opposition to creativity is an
affirmation of the salvation of emptiness, of non-being. There is inherent to man in his
positive being a creative psychology. It can be suppressed and hidden, it can be revealed,
but it ontologically inherent to man. The creative instinct in man is an unselfish instinct,
and in it man forgets about himself, he emerges from himself. Scientific discoveries,
technical inventions, artistic creativity, societal creativity can be needful for others and
useful for utilitarian ends, but the creating itself is both unselfish and a renouncing of
self. In this is the essence of the creative psychology. The psychology of creativity is very
distinct from the psychology of humility and cannot be constructed upon it. Humility is
more external a spiritual action, in which man is preoccupied about his soul, about self-
overcoming, self-perfection, self-salvation. Creativity is a spiritual action, in which man
forgets about himself, foregoes himself in the creative act, is absorbed by his subject. In
creativity man tests out the condition of the extraordinary ascent of all his being.
Creativity is always a tremour-shock, in which the everyday egoism of human life is
surmounted. And man consents to perish his own soul in the name of creative activity.
One is unable to make scientific discoveries, to philosophically contemplate the mysteries
of being, to form artistic insights, to create social reforms merely in a condition of
humility. Creativity presupposes another spiritual condition, not in opposition to
humility, but qualitatively distinct from it, an other moment of spiritual life. St.
Athanasias the Great
disclosed the truth of “homo-ousia” 8 not in a condition of humility, but in a condition of
creative ascent and illumination, although too humility preceded this. Creativity
presupposes the characteristic spiritual ascesis, creativity is a not-allowing of its passions.
Creativity presupposes self-denial and sacrifice, a victory over the power “of the world”.
Creativity is a disclosure of love for God and for the Divine, and not for this world. And
therefore the way of creativity is also a way of surmounting “the world”. But creativity is
a different quality of spiritual life than humility and ascesis, it is a disclosing of the God
imaged nature of man. Sometimes they reason it out thus: at first man needs to be saved,
to conquer sin, and then to create. But such an understanding of a chronological
relationship betwixt salvation and creativity is in contradiction to the laws of life. Such
has never occurred nor will occur. I require all my life to be saved and until the end of my
life there is no succeeding ultimately to conquer sin. Therefore never will there onset a
time, when I shall be able to begin to create life. But thus still, just as man needs all his
lifetime to be saved, man needs all his lifetime to create, participating in the creative
process in accord with his gifts and his vocation. The relationship between salvation and
creativity is ideational and inward a relation, but it is not the relation of a real
chronological bodily sequence. Creativity assists in and does not impede salvation, since
creativity is a fulfillment of the will of God, an obeying of God’s call, a co-participation
in the acting by God in the world. Whether I be a carpenter or a philosopher, I am called
by God to create constructively. My creativity can be distorted by sin, but a complete
lack of creativity is an expression of the ultimate stifling of man by Original Sin. It is not
true, that only ascetics and saints are saved, -- they likewise created, and were artists of
human souls. The Apostle Paul in his own spiritual type was to a greater degree by
religious genius moreso a creator, than saint.

V.
 Not all creativity is good. There can be an evil creativity. It is possible to create not
only in the name of God, but also in the name of the devil. But therein particularly it
should be impossible to give up creativity to the devil, to the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ
with great energy shews forth his pseudo-creativity. And if there will not be a Christian
creativity and a Christian organisation of life, then the anti-Christian and the Anti-
Christ’s creativity and organsation will usurp all more and more territory, to triumph in
all the spheres of life. But for the work of Christ in the world it is necessary to battle
outwards as much as possible for greater territories of being, it is necessary to cede as
little as possible to the Anti-Christ and his work in the world. Withdrawing from the
world, negating creativity in the world, ye hand over the fate of the world to the Anti-
Christ. If we as Christians will not create life in true freedom and brotherhood of peoples
and nations, then the Anti-Christ by falsehood will do this. The dualistic divide between a
personal spiritual disposition with its morality, for which Christianity demands
asceticism, denial, sacrifice and love, -- and the disposition and morality of a societal,
creative governance, economy, etc., for which Christianity permits of attachments to
material goods, the cult of ownership and the thirst for wealth, of rivalry and competition,
of the will to power, etc. -- can no longer exist. Christian consciousness cannot permit,
that society should be left on its own, which it acknowledges as defective and sinful.
Christian renewal presupposes a new spiritual-societal creativity, the creation of a real
Christian society, and not a conventionally-symbolic governance. It is impossible to
tolerate further the conventional lie within Christianity. Anti-Christian socialism
triumphs, because Christianity does not resolve the social question. Anti-Christian
gnosticism triumphs, because Christianity does not reveal its own Christian gnosis. And
so on in everything. We draw nigh to the final frontier. A secular, humanistic, balanced
culture becomes all less and less possible. No one believes anymore in abstract culture.
Everywhere man stands afront a choice. The world is divided up into opposing principles.
It is impossible for everything to transpire further such, as has transpired in recent
history. And together with this is the impossibility to return to the old medievalism. The
problem of creativity, the problem of Christian culture and society is insoluble by the
churchly-hierocratic. This is a problem of a religious sanctification of the human
principle, and not the restoration of governance of the angelic principle. Creativity is a
sphere of human freedom, full of copiously-abundant love towards God, the world and
man. To lead a way out from the crisis of the world and the crisis of Christianity is
possible neither by the principles of recent history, nor by the principles of the old Middle
Ages, but only by the principles of a new Middle Ages. Christian creativity will be a deed
of monasticism in the world. 9 The religious crisis of our epoch is bound up with this,
that the churchly consciousness is impaired, it has not the comprehension of fullness.
And sooner or later this fullness ought to be conceived of and ought to be revealed, that
there is a positive creative developement in the world, and in culture it would be a
revealing of human freedom in the Church, it would be a disclosure of the life of
mankind in the Church, i.e. it would be subconsciously churchly. The creativity of man in
the world would be the life of the very Church, as God-manhood. This does not at all
mean, that all creativity and creating by man in the new history would be subconsciously
churchly. This process would be twofold, in it would be readied the kingdom of this
world, the kingdom of Anti-Christ. In humanism also there was a great lie, a revolt
against God, it readied the destruction of man and the extinction of being. But it was also
a positive searching out of human freedom, it was a disclosure of the creative powers of
man. The further creative process in mankind cannot remain neutral, it ought to become
positive-churchly, to be conscious of itself, or ultimately it will become anti churchly,
anti-Christian, satanic. In the world, in culture there ought to be effected a real-ontologic
separation, not formal and external-churchly, but innerly-spiritual and ontologically-
churchly. In this is the meaning of our times. Divine energies are efficacious everywhere
in the world through manifold and frequently undiscerned pathways. And it does not
make sense to tempt “these little ones” of our time, the prodigal sons returning to the
Church, by denying every positive religious sense of the creative processes, transpiring in
the world.

In recent times all the spiritually significant people were spiritually isolated.
Terribly alone, tragically alone was the genius, the creative innovator. There was no
religious awareness, that the genius -- was a messenger from Heaven. And but rarely
would be heard suchlike voices, as with the voices of some Catholics, calling for the
canonisation of Christopher Columbus. His isolation as a genius gave rise to dualism,
about which all the time there is discussion. Only a Christian renewal, which would be
creative, would be able to overcome it [i.e. the dualism]. But creative Church renewal is
impossible to conceive of in the hierocratic categories, it is impossible to squeeze it into
the framework of churchly professionalism, it is impossible to think of it, as exclusively a
“sacral” process, in contrast to “profane” processes. Creative Church renewal will come
about from stirrings in the world, from culture, from the creative religious energies
accumulated in the world. We need the more to believe, that Christ acts within the
spiritual human race itself, that He does not forsake it, although for us this activity would
be invisible. Christians stand before the task of the Churchification (‘otserkovlenie”) of
the whole of life. But the Churchification does not mean the invariable subordination of
all sides of life to the Church, it should be understood differently, i.e. it does not mean the
resumption of theocracy and the hierocratic. Churchification would inevitably have to
have on its side the acknowledgement by the Church of that spiritual creativity, which a
differentiated and hierocratic churchly consciousness would posit external to the Church.
The Church in a profound sense of the word has lived also in the world, and in the world
have been subconscious churchly processes. The fulfillment of the Church, as Divine
human life, the disclosing of an integral Church consciousness signifies deification by a
new spiritual experience of mankind. It is impossible that this spiritual experience should
remain unjustified and unsanctified. Man is immeasurably anxious and thirsts for the
sanctification of his creative aspirations. The Church is life, and life is movement,
creativity. It is impossible to endure any longer, that creative movement should remain
outside the Church and in opposition to the Church, and that the Church should be
unmoving and deprived of creative life. Certain forms of Church consciousness have
readily acknowledged a theophany [“manifestation of God”] in ossified forms of being,
in unstirring historical bodies (e.g. monarchic rule). But the times ensue, when Church
consciousness mustneeds recognise the theophany in creativity. The outside the churchly,
the secular, humanistic creativity is become withered, everywhere it rests upon an
impasse. Culture has become insipid. A thirst for eternity torments the best people. And
this means, that there ought to ensue an epoch of creativity that is of the Church, and is
Christian, and Divine-human. The Church cannot remain a facet of life, a facet of the
soul. We hope, that all the creative, the transfigurative attitudes towards life pass over
from the world into the Church. Only within the Church can there be preserved and
revealed the image of man and the freedom of man, which suffer destruction by the
processes occurring in the world. In the godless civilisation there perish the image of man
and the freedom of spirit, creativity withers, and already there ensues barbarity. The
Church ought still once more to save the spiritual culture, the spiritual freedom of man.
This I term the onset of a new Middle Ages. The will for a real transfiguration of life
awakens, not merely personal, but also societal and worldly. And this good will cannot be
dismissed by the perception, that the Kingdom of God upon the earth is not possible. The
Kingdom of God exists in eternity and in each instant of life and is not dependent on this,
that in the world the power of evil is externally victorious. Our task is to devote all our
will and all our life to the victory of the power of good, to the truth of Christ in all and
everywhere.

Human life is splintered and fragmented by two tragedies -- the tragedy of the
Church and the tragedy of culture. These tragedies are caused by a dualistic impairment,
by an impoverishment of the Church through a differentiated and hierarchic
understanding of it, always setting the Church in opposition to the world. We Christians
ought not to love “the world”, we ought to vanquish “the world”. But this “world” to be
overcome, for the holy fathers, it is the passions to overcome, it is sin and evil, but not
God’s creation, not the cosmos. The Church is set in opposition to suchlike a “world”, but
it is not set in opposition to the cosmos, to God’s creation, the positive fullness of being.
The resolution of the two tragedies -- is in life, and not in a theoretical-only perception of
Christianity; it is as a religion not only of salvation, but also of creativity, a religion of the
transfiguration of the world, of the universal resurrection, of love for God and man, i.e. in
a total heeding of the Christian truth about God-manhood, about the Kingdom of God.
And the positive resolution is located this side of the old opposition between heteronomy
and autonomy. Creativity is not heteronomous and it is not autonomous, it is altogether
not “nomic”, it is Divine-human, it is a disclosure of the profuse love of man for God, the
response of man to God’s call, to God’s expectation. We believe, that in Christianity are
contained inexhaustible creative powers. And the disclosure of these powers would save
the world from decay and decline. The question of our times consists not in the struggle
of churchly and outside-churchly Christianity, but about a spiritual struggle within the
Church, of Church currents internally, -- of a current exclusively preservative and a
current creative. And a monopoly of churchliness cannot belong exclusively to the
preservative currents hostile to creativity. On this depends the future of the Church upon
the earth, the future of the world and mankind. In the Church is an eternal conservative
principle, and it ought immutably to protect the sacred and the tradition. But in the
Church ought to be also an eternal creative principle, a principle transfigurative, oriented
towards the Second Coming of Christ, towards the triumphing of the Kingdom of God.
At the foundation of the Christian faith lies not only the priestly, but also the prophetic.
“And how in accord with the grace given us, we have differing gifts, if then thou hast
prophecy, prophesy according to the measure of faith” (Rom. 12: 6). Creativity, the
creative discovering of the genius of man is at present a secular prophecy, to which ought
to be restored its sacred significance.
 NIKOLAI BERDYAEV

© 1999 by translator Fr. Stephen Janos.

(1926 - 308 - en)

SPASENIE I TVORCHESTVO. Dva ponimaniya khristianstva. Posvyaschaetsa

pamyati Vladimira Solov’eva. -- Journal “Put’”, jan. 1926, No. 2, p. 26-46.

1
The word Gnostic I utilise here not in the sense of the heretical gnosis of Valentinus or
Basilides, but in the sense of religious cognition, in the sense of free theosophy, as with
St. Clement of Alexandria and Origen, Frz. Baader and Vl. Solov’ev.
2
By way of a vivid example of a panicky disposition is Alphonse de Liguri, who elevated
over-scrupulousness into a principle, he lived in eternal terror of sin, he asked permission
of a priest, so that he might drink a glass of water and he did not have in himself the
strength to give absolution of sins. Vide his excellent characterisation in the book of
Heiler: “Der Katolismus”, pp. 153-157.
3
In the charming book, “Revelatory Narratives of a Wanderer to his Spiritual Father”, it
says: “The fear of torment -- is the way of a slave, and the desire of reward is the way of
the hireling. But God desires, that we come to Him by way of sonship”,
p. 35.
4
trans. note: cf. Mk. 8: 35 ff. and cognate x-ref’s. The Slavonic is faithful to the Greek
and the Latin in the use of the term “soul” which perishes or is lost “for the sake of Christ
and the Gospel” -- with far deeper and more profound an inner dynamic -- rather than the
term “life”, found in nearly all English Gospel translations, which tend willy-nilly to
follow each the other about pell-mell.
5
trans. note: the Slavonic term “Preobrazhenie” is more profoundly theologically
accurate than the now-generic Greek term “Metamorphosis”, -- regarding the Mt. Tabor
pre-creative Glory of Christ shared with the Father, cf. Jn. 17:5.
6
In a certain sense the dogma of papal infallibility and the gnosseology of Kant rest upon
one and the same principle of an external, and juridical justifying criterion of Truth.
7
trans. note: “negative”, as contrast to “kataphatic” or “positive” theology.
8
trans. note: i.e. “of one selfsame essence” of Christ with the Father, in contrast to the
“homoi-ousia” (“of similar essence”) in the heretical Arianism’s definition, which
“homoi ousia” ultimately denies the full Divinity by nature in Christ, and therein negating
the salvific effect of the Incarnation. The famous aphorism of St. Athanasias in his work,
“On the Incarnation”, declares: “God became man so that man might become God” (i.e.
in the sense of “theosis”, not pantheism).
9
By this however, I certainly no wise deny the eternal and fundamental significance of
monasticism in the precise sense of the word.

THE METAPHYSICAL PROBLEM

OF FREEDOM 1

1. The problem of freedom can be approached from various angles and it is bound up
with all the philosophical disciplines. 2 I am compelled to limit my theme to a
consideration of fundamental aporia-difficulties, to which the positing of the problem of
freedom leads. But first of all it is necessary to establish the relationship of my theme to
the traditional-school question about freedom of will. When the question about the
freedom of will is dealt with, primarily psychologically and ethically, then the question
about freedom is not posited in all its depth and its very settings presuppose the decision,
that freedom is a choosing of the will. The teachings about freedom of the will,
theological and philosophical, were searchings in an utilitarian regard to the problem, and
with a practical intent to demonstrate the moral responsibility and chastisement of man.
The freedom of will was quite necessary for criminal law, just as it was necessary for the
foundation of retribution beyond the grave. It is worthy of note, that extreme adherents of
the freedom of will frequently have been enemies of the freedom of spirit, the freedom of
conscience. Luther however based religious freedom upon a radical denial of freedom of
will. The problem of freedom is of interest to me outside of these utilitarian vexations, --
it is the problem of the freedom of spirit, as a principle, inherent in the primal-basis of
being. We shall see, that it is impossible to derive freedom from being, or to base it upon
being. And least of all will my theme be a psychological theme. The problem of freedom
is impossible to be dealt with statically, -- it can be dealt with only dynamically,
investigating the various conditions and stages of freedom. Thus did Bl[essed] Augustine,
who speaks about libertas minor and libertas major, and he teaches about the three
conditions of Adam in regard to freedom -- posse non peccare, non posse non peccare,
and non posse peccare. From Bl. Augustine comes then the teaching about the freedom of
man, which acknowledges for man a freedom for evil, but which denies for him a
freedom for good. Freedom possesses its own inner dialectic, its own fate, which also
mustneeds be explored.

Freedom is understood in two various meanings, both in everyday speech and

philosophic cognition. In everyday speech this distinction is even more pronounced, than
it is in philosophy. There are two freedoms. There is a first freedom, irrational, a freedom
of choice of good and evil, freedom, as a path, freedom, which conquers and which they
conquer not, a freedom, by which they accept the Truth and God, but it is not that, which
they receive from the Truth and God. This also is a freedom, as indeterminism, as
groundlessness. There is a second freedom, a rational freedom, a freedom in truth and
good, a freedom as a goal and highest attainment, a freedom in God and received from
God. When we say, that such and such a man has attained to freedom, since that in him
the higher nature has conquered the lower nature, since that in him reason has won out
over the passions, wherein the spiritual principle has subordinated the soul-emotive
element to itself, then we are speaking about this second freedom. And it is about this
second freedom that the words of the Gospel speak: “know ye the Truth and the Truth
will set you free”. Freedom herein is given by the Truth, it is not the primordial freedom.
This is not that freedom, through which man comes to the Truth. But when we say, that
man freely has chosen for himself the path of life and freely goes along this path, we are
speaking about the first freedom.

The Greeks did not know the first freedom, the freedom inherent in the primal-basis of
the path of life, a freedom antecedent to reason and the cognition of truth, they knew only
the second freedom, a rational freedom, a freedom, which grants the cognition of truth.
And thus it is that Socrates understands freedom. The understanding of freedom, as
indeterminism, was foreign to the Greek consciousness. The whole mind-set of the
ancient Greeks drew them to the understanding of freedom, as reason, as a victory over
chaos. The Dionysiac principle is not a principle of freedom. The Greeks feared
infinitude, and in the freedom which is unfathomable, as an irrational and indeterminate
principle, there is a terrifying infinitude, the possibility of the triumph of chaos. For the
Greeks such a freedom was material, of matter. True freedom for them was a triumph of
form. The Greek mind-set was static, it was an aesthetic contemplation of the world
harmony. The Greeks did not know the dynamics, connected with freedom. This was a
boundary-line of their consciousness. It is interesting, that only Epicurus acknowledged
freedom, as an indeterminism, and he connected it with chance. Greek idealism was
inpropitious to freedom. The Greek consciousness was struck by the dependence of man
on God or the gods, and on fate, to which even the gods were subject. Only within the
Christian epoch of world history was there authentically revealed also the first freedom,
the irrational freedom, connected not with form, but with the primordial matter of life.
And with this understanding of freedom is connected the idea of the Fall into sin. The
acceptance of the idea of the Fall is an acceptance of that truth, that at the basis of the
world process lies primal irrational freedom.

The difficulty for philosophic cognition, basing itself upon the categories of Greek
thought, the difficulty to know this primal irrational freedom, this complete
indeterminism, consists in this, that it is impossible to work out a rational concept
concerning it. Every rational concept about freedom is a rationalisation of it, but in the
rationalisation is its going-dead, as Bergson says truly. The primordial mystery of
freedom is a boundary for rational cognition. But the setting of suchlike boundaries is not
a forsaking of cognition, it is not an agnosticism, -- it is an attaining to cognition. That
what Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, one of the greatest thinkers of Europe, calls the docta
ignorantia, the study of unknowing, is a conquest of cognition. There is possible a
knowledge about the irrational, but knowledge about the irrational possesses a different
structure from knowledge about the rational. This was something new that German
philosophic thought introduced in contrast to Greek philosophic thought, and it was a
positing of the problem of cognition of the irrational, as primordial being. This indeed
was rooted in German mysticism, in which German philosophy had its conception.
Freedom cannot be apperceived through the static concept. Freedom is dynamic and can
only be apperceived dynamically. And we come nigh the mystery of freedom only by an
investigation of the dynamics of freedom, its inner dialectic.

2. The dynamics of freedom leads to the tragedy of its self-destruction. The primal
irrational freedom can beget evil from its loins. In it there are no sort of guarantees, that it
will make good, that it will lead to God, that it will safeguard itself. The primal, the
irrational freedom possesses a fatal trait of self-destruction, to pass over into its opposite,
to beget necessity. When freedom enters upon the path of evil, it loses itself, it falls under
the domination of the necessity created by it. Man is rendered into a slave of nature, a
slave of the baser passions. The primal, the irrational freedom has hidden within it the
possibility of anarchy both in the life of the individual soul and in the life of society.
Formal freedom, purposeless, itself choosing nothing, indifferent to truth and good, leads
to a falling-apart of man and the world, to a slavery to the elements and the passions.
Natural necessity is already a secondary form, at the basis of which lies the primal
freedom. Necessity is a child of freedom, but of a freedom falsely directed, in which the
self-affirmation of parts of the world leads to their mutual enslavement. The primal
freedom, in its own regard, is powerless to preserve and affirm freedom, it is always
subject to the threat of destruction. This also led Bl. Augustine into a denial of it, and to
its suppression by St. Thomas Aquinas, for whom freedom, not subordinated to truth nor
determinate towards the good, is imperfect, defective. The second freedom, rational
freedom, freedom in truth and good, leads to an identifying of freedom with truth and
good, with reason, inclining thus towards a compulsory virtue, towards a determinism of
the good and the begetting of a religious or social organisation, in which freedom is
rendered a child of necessity. If the first freedom leads to anarchy, then the second
freedom leads to a theocratic or communistic despotism. The second freedom becomes a
freedom that is coercive, purposive, and subordinative to truth and good. But as regards
itself, it denies freedom of choice, it denies freedom of conscience, and it leads to a
compulsory organisation of life. And in such manner freedom becomes identified either
with a Divine necessity (in theocracies) or with a social necessity (in Communism). If
freedom in the first meaning bears within it the danger of the destruction of freedom by
man himself, by his volition, then freedom in the second sense bears within it the danger
of a denial altogether of the freedom of man. The second freedom in essence is the
freedom of God, or of the world spirit, or of the world reason, the freedom of an
organised society, but it is not the freedom of man. Truth (or whatever they esteem as
truth) is what organises freedom, but it lacks freedom in acceptance of the Truth. The
second freedom does not know that which Dostoevsky with genius expressed within the
words of the Grand Inquisitor to Christ: “Thou didst desire the free love of man, that he
freely follow after Thee, allured and captivated by Thee”. I can receive the higher, the
ultimate freedom only from the Truth, but the Truth cannot be coercive and compulsory
for me, -- the acceptance of the Truth presupposes my freedom, my free movement
towards it. Freedom is not only an end, but also a path. The German idealism of the
beginning XIX Century (Fichte, Hegel), monistic as regards its type, was inspired by the
pathos of freedom, but essentially it did not know the freedom of man, it knew only the
freedom of the Divinity, of the world I, of the world Spirit. The first freedom of itself
leads to the self-destruction of freedom. The second freedom however, as regards itself, is
from the start a denial of the freedom of man. And in this is the tragedy of freedom, from
which as it were is apparent no exit. Freedom is vanquished either by an anarchy of
elements and passions, or by necessity, or by grace.

Philosophers ordinarily set at the centre of the problem of freedom the relationship
between freedom and necessity, and this they see as the chief difficulty of the problem.
But in actuality quite the greatest difficulty in the problem of freedom appears to be the
relationship between freedom and grace, between the freedom of man and an almighty
God, a free God. The history of the religious and theological thought of the West is filled
with disputes, connected with the problem of the relationship between freedom and grace.
The question often is presented thus: if God is, and if God is almighty and free, if the
grace of God acts upon the world and man, then what place remains for human freedom?
Man can still hide himself away from the necessity of nature, but whither can he hide
himself away from the might of the Divinity, from the active energies of God upon
mankind? This problem, tormenting Bl. Augustine, reaches its utmost acuteness in the
treatise of Luther, “De servo arbitrio”, directed against Erasmus. Luther not only denies
the freedom of man, but he also regards as impious the very thought about such a
freedom. Does there exist a freedom of man, not only in the sense of freedom from the
nature surrounding him and from his own particular nature, but also in the sense of
freedom from God? If the first freedom is swallowed up by the unfettered elements and
impassioned nature, then the second freedom is swallowed up by grace, by the might of
the Divinity. There is not the freedom of man in the one instance, if it be dependent upon
the almightiness of nature, nor in the other instance, if it be dependent upon the almighty
Divinity. And we see, that there is no freedom of man even in this instance, if it depends
upon man himself, upon his own unique nature, since the nature of man is part of the
natural world. Human freedom is as it were crushed from above, from the middle and
from below, by nature. Theologians say, that man is rendered free, that he discovers
freedom by the action of grace. Only the human nature in grace can be called free. And in
this instance the speaking is about the second understanding of freedom. This is freedom,
which the Truth gives. The Truth is also an energy, acting upon man and liberating him.
But is man free in relation to the Truth, in relation to grace, is the freedom anterior to the
acting of grace, is it a freedom of accepting the Truth and grace? Is there a spiritual life,
determining the fate of man, -- with the interaction of freedom and grace? Christian
theology in its predominant forms teaches about the influence of freedom and grace. But
freedom is asserted here, in order to affix the responsibility of man and the meriting of
man. Freedom does not appear here as a creative power, it is but in the reception of grace.
If this problem be posited objectively and not from the side of man, then it is
incomprehensible in what manner there can be justified the freedom of man. The freedom
of man would have its well-spring in God and in resolution the problem would seem to
go away. But if God Himself puts the freedom in man and man therein has to
acknowledge the dependence of his freedom on God, then in essence it is only the
freedom of God and not freedom of man. Likewise in the genuine sense of the word there
is no freedom of man, if it be dependent upon social or natural mediaries, if it be imposed
by orderings externally from the outside. And so we are faced with the question: is it
possible to ground the freedom of man upon man himself, upon his human nature, upon
an inward source, which remains human? If the depths of man recede into the Divinity
and therein it be necessary to search for freedom, then this freedom would be Divine and
not human. But is there some depth of the human nature, upon which there can be
grounded the human, an uniquely human freedom?

3. There have been attempts to ground the freedom of man upon the substantiality of the
human soul. Thus, the human soul is a substance and freedom is that, what determines the
substance from within, from a creative substantial power, and not from the outside. Such
a kind of grounding of freedom is characteristic of spiritualism. And the most remarkable
teaching about freedom, spiritually grounded upon the idea of substance, belongs to the
Russian philosopher L. M. Lopatin, and it was developed by him in his 2 volume work,
“The Positive Tasks of Philosophy”. To this type of philosophic resolution of the problem
belongs also Maine de Biran. Such a sort of spiritualism defends the freedom of man,
inferring it from the inner spiritual energy of human nature, and in this as it were it
possesses the advantage over idealistic monism, which always affirms either the freedom
of God or that of the world spirit, but not of man. When Hegel defines freedom in the
words: “Freiheit ist bei sich selbst zu sein” [“Freedom is by it itself to be”], then
essentially for him in such a condition (bei sich selbst zu sein) there can be found only
the world spirit, but not man. For spiritualism of the Lopatin type, which is a pluralism,
and not monism, freedom is a personally singular form of inward causality, a causation
from a substantial power. Freedom however is ultimately determinism, but a determinism
from within, from the substances themselves, and not from their correlation. But this
pluralistic spiritualism likewise fails to resolve the problem of freedom, just like monistic
idealism. The teaching about substances is altogether inpropitious for freedom. If
freedom is to be determined by my nature, by my substance, then it is determined by this
substantial nature. If I am to be defined by my nature, this then however is a like form of
determinism, just as if I were to be defined by nature situated outside myself. To be the
slave of one’s own nature is no wise greater a freedom, than to be the slave of some sort
of foreign nature. Similarly within the substantial nature they situate a bottom point, a
grounding of freedom, while at the same time they have it that freedom is unfathomable
and groundless. Freedom, which does not possess a bottom point or grund, which is not
rooted in anything, cannot then be rooted in substances, within the substantial nature of
man. This teaching negates the irrational mystery of freedom. Freedom is not determined
by nature, freedom itself determines nature. Substance is a naturalistic category, but it has
been worked out not by the natural sciences, which have no need for substance, but rather
by naturalistic metaphysics.

The teaching of Kant about a mentally-posited character, about freedom lying

outside the world of appearances, contains within it this grain of truth, that freedom in it
does not depend on any sort of nature. But this teaching suffers under a dualism, amidst
which freedom is relegated to the thing-in-itself and does not have any sort of place in
our world of appearances. Herein precisely is the basic opposition of the order of freedom
and the order of nature. To freedom there is not applicable any sort of definition, relating
to nature, to substances. Freedom cannot have any sort of roots within being. The
freedom of man also cannot exclusively be defined by Divine grace. The freedom of man
also cannot possess its well-spring within human nature, in the human substance, and
even less so in the nature of the world. But then, is it possible for freedom to be
conceived of in thought? The problem of freedom is rendered extraordinarily difficult,
and the aporia-difficulties appear insurmountable. Reason faces the temptation to deny
the freedom of man. And when it thinks about the freedom of God, it then is inclined to
consider it identical with Divine necessity. In being there is as it were no place for
freedom. And the most consequential of philosophic ontologies were systems of
determinism. Monism is always deterministic and finds no place for freedom. The pathos
of freedom presupposes a certain dualism, though not in any ontologic character of
dualism. The pondering and grounding of freedom is possible only through a distinction
between spirit and nature, through the setting of a different qualification of the spiritual
world, differing from the qualification of the natural world. Traditional spiritualistic
metaphysics cannot be regarded as a teaching about spirit, the spiritual world and
spiritual life, it is a form of naturalism, the understanding of spirit as nature, as a
substance. But spirit is not nature, it is not substance, it is not a reality in that sense, in
which there is the reality of the natural world. The problem of freedom is a problem of
spirit, and it is not resolvable in any naturalistic metaphysics of being.

4. If freedom cannot be rooted in any sort of being, nor in any sort of nature, nor in any
sort of substance, then there remains only one path for the affirmation of freedom -- the
acknowledgement, that the well-spring of freedom is the nothing, from out of which God
created the world. Freedom is manifest prior to being and it determines for itself the path
of being. It is of a different order, a different plane, than is the order, than is the plane of
being. Freedom is altogether real not in any sense, in which the world is real. Freedom
reveals itself only in the experience of the spiritual life, it does not at all reveal itself in
the experience of the world. Freedom not only is not an external experience, but also it is
not in soul-emotive experience, it is not in the experience of any sort of nature. The
natural world is always determinate, and the soul-emotive natural world is also
determinate. Only within the unique capacity of spiritual experience is discerned the
mystery of freedom. The spiritual world, distinct qualitatively from the natural world,
into which enter in also our bodies and our souls, is not at all a world of Kantian things-
in-themselves. It would be altogether inaccurate to say, that the life of body and soul is
appearance, whereas the life of spirit is the thing-in-itself. This is a fruitless dualism,
which leads to a denial of the very possibility of spiritual experience, which also we see
in Kant, and which does not permit of the possibility of spiritual experience. Amidst this,
as freedom there is revealed within spiritual experience not only the second, the higher
freedom in Truth, but also the first, the irrational and groundless freedom. Only spiritual
experience reveals to us this, that it is manifest prior to the being of the natural world, it
leads us into contact with the unfathomable and ungrounded, having its basis not in any
sort of being, nor in us ourselves, nor in the world, nor in God. All the insurmountable
aporia-difficulties of freedom are connected with the thinking, directed exclusively upon
the natural world, the basic sign of which is manifest as determinism. But in the spiritual
world there is not any sort of natural determinism. The spiritual world is not some highest
degree of the natural world, it does not enter into the hierarchy of the natural world, it is a
different qualitative condition, within which the natural world is interfused in all its
degrees.

And herein within spiritual experience is discerned, that if freedom be rooted in

something, then it is rooted in the nothing, manifest prior to all being, prior to the world-
creation. This means also, that freedom is unfathomable and ungrounded. The
unfathomableness and groundlessness recede away into nothingness. This is the Ungrund
of J. Boehme. This signifies, that freedom is connected with potentiality, which is deeper
than any formation and actualisation of being. The potentiality of the being of the world
comes prior to the being of the world itself. According to the teaching of Christian
theology, God created the world from out of nothing. This signifies also, that God created
the world from out of freedom. They otherwise express this thus, that God created the
world freely and free. This does not mean, that God created the world from out of matter,
as the ancient Greeks thought, since nothing is not matter, but rather is freedom. And if
instead freedom were rooted in being, then freedom would be only in God and from God,
i.e. the freedom of man, the freedom of the creation would not have existed. But outside
of God is the nothing, from which He creates the world, and in the nothing is the source.
The free nothingness -- is outside of God the Creator for kataphatic-positive theology, but
it is inward of the unutterable Divinity for apophatic-negative theology. From this
freedom the nothing issues forth consent to the very world-creation, it blossoms forth
from the mysteried loins of potentiality. The first, the irrational freedom, is pure
potentiality, lodged within the nothing. And we sense within ourselves this free
nothingness. The second freedom however, freedom in the Truth and freedom received
from the Truth, is different. The second, the higher freedom, is the transfiguration and
enlightening of this dark freedom and this irrational nothing through God’s creative idea
about man and about the cosmos, through the light of the Logos, through the acting of the
grace of God. This transfiguration and enlightening obtains by the mutual interaction of
God’s creative power and God’s grace and the primordial freedom itself, it is the result of
the action of grace upon freedom within, without violence and coercion. The first
freedom is a freedom of the potential, it is the possibility of opposition. The second
freedom is a freedom of the actual, it is realisation of the Truth, the enlightening of the
darkness. The second freedom does not exist without the first freedom. We have seen
already, that the second freedom, as regards itself alone, results in tyranny and fails to
surmount the tragedy of freedom. The higher freedom of man is not of the nature of man,
is not of the substance of man, but is rather God’s idea about man, the image and likeness
of God within man. 3 The person is not a natural individuality of man, but rather God’s
idea. The realisation of God’s idea about man however presupposes the acting of freedom
lodged within the nothingness. And only Christianity knows the mystery of the
reconciling of the two freedoms and the surmounting of the tragedy of freedom. This is
the acting of grace upon our freedom, its enlightening from within.

5. With freedom, as potentiality, prior to all being, as that which is lodged within the
abyss of the nothing, is connected the possibility of the new in the world, the possibility
of creativity. The possibility of change and developement in the world arises from
freedom. Only on the surface, on the flat plane of the natural world, do we see the
developement. But evolutionary theory is completely ineffectual to conceive of the
sources of developement in the world. The understanding of this is possible only by a
passing over from an horizontal movement to a vertical movement. In the measure of
depth, along the vertical is where occurs the creativity from out of freedom, from the
unfathomable potentiality, and thereupon it is projected upon the surface, as
developement. Beyond every developement in the world there are concealed creative
acts, yet the creative acts presuppose freedom, and freedom however presupposes
unfathomable potentiality set upon the nothing. Without the potentiality, without the
nothing in the world there would be no change, there would be no developement, there
would not be creativity. The teaching of Aristotle about potentiality and act includes
within it a great truth, but it is readily distorted and narrowly interpreted. The Greeks
feared infinity (apeiron) and often therefore inaccurately interpreted the significance of
potentiality, which then passed on to the Scholastics. In potentiality there is more, than
there is in act, in potentiality there is infinitude, whereas in act there is always
limitedness. The infinitude of potentiality is the well-spring of freedom and of creative
change, of that which is new in the world. The actualised being of the world is a final and
limited sphere in comparison with the unlimitedness and unfathomableness of
potentiality, of the abyss, lying beneathe being, and deeper than it. Evolution within the
world presents itself to us as a determinate and delimited interplay of worldly forces and
their re-distribution. But creativity is not determinate, creativity in a certain sense always
is a creativity from out of nothing, i.e. from out of freedom. Free creativity is also a non-
determined freedom, cutting its way through to the worldly forces and altering them, and
not being determined by them. Therein only is it possible to say, that in the life of man
and in the life of the world there is the great possibility, the possibility of new life and a
new world. Deterministic evolutionism is a conservative world-view. Darwinism is
conservative, Marxism is conservative, though they also present revolutionary teachings,
toppling the traditional religious world-view. Only the possibility of creative freedom
probes a breach into the closed-in conservative system of the world, in which is possible
only the re-distribution of matter and energy. Naturalism also affirms suchlike a
conservatively closed-in system of the world and this naturalism sometimes assumes the
form of a theological naturalism. For the world not to present such a closed-in
conservative system, there mustneeds be an unfathomable well-spring, an infinite
potentiality, i.e. the free nothing, as prior to being and determining being.

In the beginning was the Word, the Logos. This is an eternal truth in regard to all
positive being. The world cannot have been created, it cannot have had a beginning
without the Logos. But in the beginning there was likewise the nothing, potentiality, there
was freedom and this freedom, this nothing, lay outside of being and therefore herein was
no contradiction to that, in the beginning was the Logos. The Logos descended into the
nothing and from this created the world, the sun rose over the abyss, which is deeper than
being. The Divine Logos interacts with freedom. Here then is why the problem of
freedom is not a psychological or moral problem of the freedom of the will, but rather a
metaphysical problem about the beginning of things. There occurred the encounter of two
infinitudes -- the infinitude of the potential, the infinitude of the nothing, and the
infinitude of the actual, the infinitude of God. And hence also there are two freedoms --
the freedom which is from the infinitude of potentiality, and the freedom which is from
the infinitude of the grace of God, from the light of God.
6. We have seen, that the second freedom can be falsely understood and that then it
degenerates into violence and coercion. But in its true understanding, not negating the
first freedom but rather inevitably presupposing it, the second freedom is the higher, the
ultimate freedom, the authentic liberation of man and the world. Genuine liberation is
given by cognition and realisation of the Truth, which includes within itself freedom. The
attainment of the higher freedom, as a goal of life, is the attainment of authentic
spirituality. Spirit is freedom and in spirituality, in the spiritual life, there is no
determination from without, there is no compulsion, there is no situatedness on the
outside. Externality of position with coercion of one part over another is characteristic of
the natural world. Spiritual life is free life, in this is its constitutive sign. In the attainment
of spirituality there is overcome the tragedy of freedom, its contradictions are undone,
which seemed insurmountable. Authentic spirituality is the enlightening of the irrational,
of the as yet dark freedom, without its annihilation, without having force over it. The
problem of freedom is irresolvable within the bounds of rational philosophy. The
dialectic does not find its completion, the aporia-difficulties remain. But philosophic
cognition can approach its limits and emerge beyond its limits, rendering ultimate
resolution of still another area. I am further inclined to think, that in this is the task of
philosophy in all the areas of cognition. The philosophic uncovering of the dialectics of
freedom leads us to Christianity, as a positive resolution of the tragedy of freedom, the
tragedy of freedom and necessity. The problem of the freedom of man, so difficult for
philosophic thought, is resolvable only in the idea of God-manhood and Divine-
humanity, which passes already beyond the bounds of pure philosophy. Only in the God-
Man is revealed an egress beyond the bounds of the evil of freedom and the good of
necessity, of freedom begetting evil and necessity compelling to goodness, and there is
attained the enlightening and transfiguration of freedom, a freedom filled with love, not
the freedom of the first Adam, still esteeming the freedom of evil, but rather the freedom
of the second Adam, already by free love having conquered the dark principles in
freedom. This certainly does not mean, that in Christian philosophy and in Christian
theology, just as in Christian practice, that the problem of freedom has been accurately
posed and accurately resolved. On the contrary, herein there have become quite great
rifts. Freedom and grace often are set into opposition, and grace is understood as a force
over freedom. But the Christian in its ideal purity includes within itself the resolution of
the problem of freedom. Outside of Christianity, determinism is essentially inevitable.
Every naturalistic philosophy is deterministic. And if spiritualistic philosophy attempts to
ground a basis for freedom, then it does so weakly and with contradiction, in identifying
freedom with substance, i.e. with a naturalistic category. A most difficult question in
Christian metaphysics is that about the reconciling of the freedom of man with God’s
almightiness, with God’s all-knowingness. Upon this ground was begotten the teaching
about predestination, reaching its extreme expression in Calvin. Even Bl. Augustine
encountered here an insurmountable difficulty. A more credible path of thought here is
that in which there would be acknowledgement, that freedom is a boundary-line to God’s
fore-knowledge, God’s praescientia, that God Himself puts a limit to His prescience,
since He desires freedom and sees in freedom the meaning of creativity. Towards this
view inclines Secretan in his work, “La Philosophie de la Liberte”, one of the finest
philosophical investigations on freedom.
7. Freedom lies at the basis of God’s design concerning the world and man. Freedom
begets evil, but without freedom there is also no good. Compulsory goodness would not
be good. In this is the fundamental contradiction on freedom. The freedom for evil is,
evidently, a condition for the freedom for good. Forcefully abolish evil without a trace
and there remains nothing of a freedom for good. Here is why God tolerates the existence
of evil. Freedom begets the tragedy of life and the suffering of life. Therefore freedom is
something difficult and harsh. Freedom is least of all an easy thing and a life in freedom
is least of all an easy life. It is easier to live within necessity. Dostoevsky, who had very
profound thoughts about freedom, suggested, that it is a most difficult thing for man to
bear up under the freedom of spirit, the freedom of choice. Man readily abdicates
freedom in the name of mitigating the suffering of life through a compulsory organising
of the good (as in compulsory theocracies and the Communist system). It would be a
mistake to think, that man especially values freedom. On the contrary, he ever and again
regards the gift of freedom as something fatal and no wise defends freedom. I am not at
all speaking here about freedom in the political sense, but exclusively about freedom in
the metaphysical sense. But metaphysical freedom has its own living and practical
consequences, it possesses its own social projection. There does not exist any sort of
adequate expression of metaphysical freedom in social life. Here the correlations are very
complex and tangled. Freedom in the political projection usually is understood, as the
rights of man, as the pretensions of man. But if freedom be taken in its metaphysical
depths, then it mustneeds be acknowledged, that freedom is altogether not the matter of
the rights and the pretensions of man, but is rather his obligation. Man ought to be free in
spirit, he ought to bear the burden of freedom to the end, since in freedom is included
God’s idea about him, his God-likeness. God demands, that man be free, He expects of
man the act of freedom. God has need of the freedom of man moreso, than does man
himself. Man readily renounces freedom in the name of the easing of life, but God does
not renounce the freedom of man, since with this is bound up His design for the world-
creation. The teaching about the freedom of the will, traditionally defended by Christian
theology, is a vulgarisation of the problem of freedom and the adaptation of it for
utilitarian ends. The teaching about freedom ought to be connected with the teaching
about spirit, to which I have had possibility only to lead up to. 4

The problem of freedom is a central philosophic problem. In it there dovetail not only
all the philosophic disciplines (metaphysics, the theory of cognition, ethics, the
philosophy of history), but philosophy also becomes contiguous with theology. The
history of the teaching about freedom is to a remarkable degree the history of religious
and theological teachings about freedom. Bl. Augustine and Luther have greater a
significance for the problematics of freedom, than do the academic philosophers. And I
make use not only of philosophy, but also of theology, since otherwise it is impossible to
consider this problem in all its depth. The problem of freedom is the central and ultimate
metaphysical problem and upon it can be oriented all the basic philosophic trends. There
is possible a classification of the types of philosophic world-concept in accord with this
or that approach to the problem of freedom. For the problem of freedom the most vivid
difference is between the philosophy of antiquity, of the Greeks, in contrast to the
philosophy of the Christian period in the history of human self-consciousness. Here the
problem of freedom becomes involved with the problem of the finite and the infinite. The
Greeks considered perfection to be finite. The finite is deterministic. The infinite was for
them imperfect and it was not deterministic. Perfection was a positing of limits, of
definition, i.e. determined. A similar understanding passed over to the medieval
Scholastics, when Aristotle became prescribed, i.e. chiefly with the system of St. Thomas
Aquinas. But in the Christian world, within the essence of Christianity there was
disclosed infinitude, not only in the negative, but also in its positive significance. And
with infinitude there was disclosed freedom, as indeterminism. With Origen we find one
of the first teachings about freedom. German philosophy moreover is distinct from the
ancient and the medieval, in that it views irrationality to be at the basis of being and by
this furthers the investigation of the problem of freedom. But German idealism tends
towards idealist monism, in which the problem of freedom again fades out and the
freedom of man vanishes. Rather moreso remarkable remains Schelling’s
“Philosophische Untersuchungen ?ber das Wesen der menschlichen Freicheit”.5
Authentic Christian philosophy is a philosophy of freedom and an authentic resolution of
the problem of freedom is possible to construct, only by proceeding from the idea of
God-manhood. And Russian religious philosophy best of all understands this problem of
freedom, as indeterminism and as infinitude.

NIKOLAI BERDYAEV

1928

© 2000 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1928 - 329 - en)

METAPHIZICHESKAYA PROBLEMA CVOBODY. Journal Put’, Jan. 1928, No. 9,

p. 41-53.

1
Report, presented in French at the Philosophic Congress in Varshava-Warsaw, in
September 1927.
2
I have dealt with the problem of freedom in various of my books: “The Philosophy of
Freedom”, “The Meaning of Creativity”, “The World-View of Dostoevsky”, “The
Meaning of History”, and the recently released book, “The Philosophy of the Free
Spirit” [published in English under title “Freedom and the Spirit”].
3
About this, N. Lossky speaks quite well in his book, “The Freedom of the Will”
(“Svoboda voli”).
4
The teaching about spirit is developed in my newest book, “Philosophy of the Free
Spirit” [published in English under title, “Freedom and the Spirit”].
5
During the XIX Century much also was done for the investigation of the problem of
freedom by French Philosophy -- Maine de Biran, Renouvier, Boutroux, Fonsegrive,
Fouill?e, Bergson et al.

The Scientific Discipline of Religion

and Christian Apologetics
I

Our Orthodox apologetics has always been rather backwards and less worked
through, than the apologetics of the Christian confessions of the West. Our apologetics
lacked an alertness to the mental and spiritual temptations of their times. They were
refuting materialism, when it was that Kantianism held sway with minds, they refuted
Kantianism, when theosophy and pseudo-mystical currents had begun to take hold upon
minds, they thundered at L. Tolstoy, when the moral consciousness was enthralled
instead with Nietzsche. The Russian Orthodox, protected by the state and the bundled-up
in the flesh of a stable lifestyle, were not wont to show any great sensitivity to the
intellectual movements in the world, they did not have to engage in the fights, which
Western Christianity had to deal with. The weaponry was not hammered out, since it was
needless to fight. But now Russian Orthodoxy enters into a completely new era, when
Russian Orthodox people in all regards would do best to arm and prepare themself for
battle. They happen now to live amidst an hostile Christian world, amidst refined
intellectual currents, which strive to abase and cast down Christianity. New methods of
apologetics are necessary, which will not leave the Christian faith defenseless against the
assaults upon its past limited competency in scientific knowledge. And the most acute
issue here is not the clash of the Christian world-concept with the sciences concerning
nature, with the natural sciences, but rather the clash with the historical sciences, with the
scientific discipline concerning religion, with the history of religion. It is not so difficult
to refute the objections against the possibility of miracles and revelation, it is not so
difficult to defend on principle the existence of an other, a supernatural world and the
spiritual experience bound up with it. It is not science that pounces upon religion, only
rather a poor philosophy. But there is a sphere, in which science and religion meet and
clash on one and the same territory -- this is the sphere of history. Christianity is the
revelation of God within history. At a certain historical time, at a certain point in the
historical process the Son of God appeared upon the earth. They saw Him with their eyes,
they touched Him with their hands. Herein is where history itself takes on a metaphysical
meaning. Two planes of being become contiguous and intersect. Through scientific
investigations regarding the origin and history of Christianity one is wont to say, that this
is an holy place, and it issues forth from the customary natural order of being. The old
methods of apologetics, governing the seminaries and spiritual academies, both the
Orthodox as well as the Catholic, tend to hit here upon difficulties, not only of a scientific
order, but also a religious. Only those Christian apologetics can be fruitful, which get out
beyond the differences and delimitations of the two orders of being, of the two worlds,
our earthly natural world and the heavenly spiritual world. The Bible includes not only
the religious revelation, but also an ancient scientific encyclopedia of mankind, of
astronomy, geology, biology, archeology, the history of the childhood of mankind. And it
is necessary to separate apart decisively the absolute character of the religious revelation
of the Bible from the relative conditional science of the Bible. The Book of Genesis
(Bytie) brings into focus the consciousness of mankind on two planes -- the heavenly and
the earthly, the eternal and the temporal, the spiritual and the natural, -- all these things
were mixed together thus, that what happened in the other world, was presented as
happening in this world. Our natural world as it were had still not solidified and its
boundaries had not been defined legibly. The example of the Fall into sin further
elucidates, what I want to say. In the Book of Genesis the Fall into sin of the first man
Adam is described as an event, transpiring within our expanse of space and time, upon
our earth, at some definite geographic locale. This event is explained naturalistically, as
an original initial moment within the history of our natural world. In such manner a direct
natural line connects the event in Paradise -- the Sin-Fall, with the present-day world
history. Suchlike a naive realism and naturalism creates, certainly, innumerable
difficulties not only from a scientific, but also from a religious point of view. It remains
totally inconceivable, how the Original Sin with its inescapable consequences could
poison all the whole human race and all the whole world. The Original Sin is likened to a
fatal naturally inherited trait. But the whole of mankind could not have had a share in it.
Adam was only one single man, from whom the human race descended through natural
birth. Amidst such a point of view clearly the two planes are jumbled together. The
Biblical account can be conceived more at depth only as a symbolisation upon the plane
of this natural world, a symbolisation of what occurred pre-worldly, in the spiritual plane
of being, in heaven. And this primal spiritual event has determined the course of our
world process. Our time, our spatial expanse, resulting in the materiality of our natural
world is begotten of the pre-worldly Fall into sin, not of one man alone, but of all
mankind, and of all the world, comprised within Adam Kadmon. The new methods of
Christian apologetics ought radically to surmount the naive realism and naturalism, to
strive to grasp the symbolism in the Bible and delimit the two planes. We shall see, how
this will also be important amidst a possible clash of the historical science of religion and
the Christian faith. The historical exegesis, the scientific investigation of the origins of
Christianity tempts more the modern consciousness, than it does the natural sciences, or
philosophy. A vivid example of this is Alfred Loisey, whose faith the historical
investigations put an end to.

Religious science has always in essence found itself under very unfavourable
conditions for objective investigation. For a long time the scientific investigation of the
religious life of mankind, Christianity especially, was forbidden. Concerning the religious
past of mankind they want to know only about that, which Church tradition taught.
Scientific knowledge seemed impossible in regard to sacred things. The fundamentals of
a Biblical critique were laid down by Spinoza in his "Theologo-Political Tractate", which
aroused indignation. When the Catholic monk Richard Simon in XVII Century France
attempted to posit the basis of an historical investigation of the Bible, it met with sharp
resistance on the part of Bossuet, who as it were had a presentiment, that this would
finish off the Renaissance. And historical science indeed is a creation of the XIX
Century. The XVIII Century had not yet penetrated into the historical mystery and had
not worked out the methods of historical criticism. While Christian mankind lived still in
a direct organic condition and in accord with tradition, when there had not yet arisen a
cognitive reflection, the time for a religious science still had not yet come. And indeed
the rise of a science concerning religion had external hindrances upon its path. Freedom
of investigation was acceptable neither in the Catholic world, nor in the Orthodox world.
There prevailed very naive forms of the old apologetics, as a substitute for science. But
there then ensued a new epoch, an era of free critique and free investigation, when the
tempting sphere of the prohibited became accessible for free cognition, when cognitive
reflection became limitless. One might imagine, that the time had ensued for the rise of
an objective science concerning religion. But this view is superficial and inaccurate. The
science concerning religion in the XIX Century was neither objective nor dispassionate, it
came under the grip of a negative apologetics, an apologetics of non-belief. Bursting
forth to freedom for scientific investigation of religion and Christianity were quite
extreme forms of negative criticism. The investigations upon the origins and history of
Christianity on principle would not admit of the possibility of revelation or miracle, nor
of the activity of the Holy Spirit within history, and they were prepared to go to the most
unbelievable mental contortions, they devised the most implausible explanations, in order
to render intelligible the mystery of Christianity and its role in history, as a mere natural
fact. It is perfectly clear, that the denial of the fact of revelation or the possibility of
miracles cannot be the result of scientific-historical investigation. This denial precedes
the investigation process itself and is the result of a false and negative faith, of a false and
negative philosophy. The historical science concerning religion tended to arrogate to
itself to decide not only the scientific question, but also the religious question, to decide
the question, Who is Christ. After this, when historical criticism opened up the issue of
interpolations, a genuine craze over it ensued. Everywhere they began to see things as
later insertions and by this path they laid waste the Holy Scriptures. The degree of
scientificness they began to measure by the degree of negativeness. They wanted to push
to the limit the freedom of criticism, the freedom of the denial of sanctity and tradition.
And apparently the human mind had to pass through this experience, this testing.
Freedom had to be put to the test. Negative apologetics defined itself not only by
investigation into the history of Christianity, but also by investigation into the history of
religion in general.

With the scientific investigation of religion there occurred an astonishing thing.

They began scientifically to investigate the religious life only after this, only after they
had already ceased to believe in its reality. The science concerning religion does not
believe in the reality of its subject-matter, it considers it illusory. The investigators of the
religious experience of mankind during the XIX and XX Centuries do not believe in its
relevance to real being, do not believe in its authenticity. The tasks of the science
concerning religion have come to seem but investigations into the principles of the rise of
religious illusions, of the self-deceptions of man. True, the teachings of the XIX and XX
Centuries no longer think in the terms, that the "enlighteners" of the XVIII Century
thought in, that religion was devised by the priests for their own greedy ends, they do not
think at present such teachings, as that "religion is the opium of the people". The
representatives of the science concerning religion are prepared even to admit, that
religious illusions were very fruitful and played a positive social role in the history of
peoples, that the myth-creating process helped them to live and made for spiritual
developement. But all the same, the historians of religion, -- relativists principally, made
their work a negative apologetics, they wrought an "unmasking" and uncovered an abyss
of emptiness within the history of the human spirit. Initially they thought it naive, that
mankind was living a real and authentic spiritual life. Then they began to think, that the
spiritual life of mankind is illusory, that it is not some sort of primal-reality, but rather an
epiphenomenon, a reflection of some sort of vital processes, qualitatively distinct from
spirituality. At the far end of such a sort of unmasking, toppling over the spiritual life of
mankind into the abyss of the void, there appears the theory of economic materialism. At
any rate the fundamental and principal question confronting the science of religion,
appears to be the question: is religion some sort of primal qualitative reality or is it an
epiphenomenon of other things, non-religious processes, regardless of whether they be
but legitimate illusions or delusions of consciousness? Certain historians of religion are
distressed by the question about making a non-reality, of apparitions, the object of their
investigation. Durkheim thus concludes his remarkable and valuable book, devoted to
investigation of the elementary forms of the religious life, with an expression of such a
sort of disquiet.1 Is it possible that no sort of reality corresponds to religious beliefs and
representations, is it possible for all this to be an empty void to be covered over? In the
character of sociology not only as a specialty, but also as a world-outlook (sociology
herein for it substitutes for theology), it acknowledges as the primal-reality, which is
revered in the various beliefs and the totemic cult, -- to be society. From society derives
the life of people, it is the source of nourishment, the source of power, it bestows its own
blessing upon people. The individuum ought to subordinate itself to society, to
acknowledge its sacredness. Without this, the life of the human race cannot develope. But
Durkheim as it were fails to note, that amidst this the object of the science concerning
religion remains non-real, it is merely an epiphenomenon of the life of society, and that
all this conception is in principle identical to economic materialism. It becomes perfectly
clear, that the science concerning religion is of a period of negative criticism bearing
upon itself the imprint of "enlightenment", and that the negative apologetics, having
permitted itself to be based upon false premises, is a false methodology. The science
concerning religion has done much, it has frighteningly expended the sphere of our
knowledge, it has dug up and classified an enormous quantity of material, but the
mysteries of the religious inner life have eluded it. The extremely interesting book of
Levy-Bruhl, "Les fonctions mentales dans le societes inferieures", is likewise instructive
in this regard. The world-outlook of Levy-Bruhl himself stands much lower than the
world-outlook of the savages investigated by him. But his merit is in this, that he
perceived the foreignness and incomprensibility of the mindset of the primitives for the
modern logico-rationalist consciousness, which Taylor and Frazer failed to understand.
Levy-Bruhl considers the mindset of the savage as rooted in the mystical and grounded
upon loi de participation, i.e. in a participation in the object, in a communing with it.

We believe, that Christianity is absolute truth and absolute power, and that the
Meaning revealed within Christianity, appertains as the ultimate word within being. But
because of this namely we ought not to be afraid of freedom of investigation and critique.
Every external limiting of this freedom, which characterises the Christianity of the past,
was undignified and it has produced consequences directly counter-productive. It is
necessary not to place limits to the freedom of investigation, not outwardly to limit it, but
the rather to inwardly comprehend amidst whatever the conditions that an investigation
should be something fruitful and actively be a mastery of its object, with a penetration
into its mystery and mystical aspects. And here first of all it mustneeds be realised, that
an investigation is more likely to be fruitful, if it acknowledges the reality of its object.
For a long time it was thought, that for the knowledge of a religious object especially
conducive and a guarantee of objectivity would be the complete absence of religious
experience on the part of the knowing subject; yet this is a complete insensitivity to the
mystery of religious life, a non-acceptance towards the especial quality of religious life.
And in such a sort of mental framework and spiritual disposition was written the
notorious quasi-scientific history of religion, the "Orpheus" of Salomon Reinach, which
is intended as a pamphlet against Christianity and against religion in general. Not by
chance is this flippant booklet strewn with citations from Voltaire.2 Serious teachings
and philosophers especially do not entertain such a sort of flippant understanding of the
necessary premises for the investigation of religion. And in any case they acknowledge
the necessity of a sympathetic feel for one's subject. Max Mueller, one of the founders of
the science concerning religion, was able to do much work in this area, only because he
had an instinctive feel for the religious life of mankind, an empathy for it. And indeed no
one in their right mind would recommend matters of aesthetics and the history of art to a
man, bereft of aesthetic sensitivity and incapable of distinguishing beauty. Such a sort of
aesthetic idiotism would be, certainly, very inconducive for knowledge in this area. It
would likewise be impossible to recommend concerns of the investigation of the moral
life to a man, bereft of the ability to distinguish between good and evil, and insensitive to
moral experiences and moral valuations. But why then the religious idiotism, i.e. the
inability to discern and recognise the religious object, the religious reality, for a long time
considered the conducive premise for its objective investigation? This has to be
recognised, since the science concerning religion posits itself the aims of an apologetics
of non-belief. In regard to religion there cannot be a perfect neutrality. And beneathe the
guise of a scientific objectivity there is customarily cloaked a militant struggle against
Christianity. In essence and on principle it remains inconceivable, why someone having
religious experience should be less capable to judge about it, than someone not
possessing it, why someone having a spiritual life should be less capable to know of it,
than someone not having it? It is necessary to have a spiritual sense of sight, in order to
catch sight of and recognise the spiritual object. For someone lacking the spiritual sense
of sight is the same thing, as being doomed to flit about on the surface and on
superficialities, to see only the facade of an house, and not its inward life. This is
elementary and clear for everyone, except for those whose aim is to show, that the
religious object is not real, that the spiritual life is only an epiphenomenon. But the
negative apologetics tends to employ everything for its own ends. Even the sphere of the
uncovering of the subconscious, so important for the expansion of our knowledge and for
the surmounting of rationalism, is employed for negative apologetics. For investigators
on the type of Delacroix it seems clear, that when they denigrate mystical and religious
experience to subconscious and magical desires, they attain to a psychological
explanation of mystical and religious life, rendering unnecessary any admission of the
reality of the mystico-religious object.3 But an objective philosophy ought to
acknowledge, that the religiosity of the cognitive subject, its participation in religious
experience, is conducive for the cognition of the religious object. And it ought to admit,
that the singular quality of a religious experiencing of the Divine is prior to any totemism,
fetishism etc, i.e. that what is religious is a priori.

___________________________

I want to dwell here on two problems of the science concerning religion, which
present difficult tasks for Christian apologetics, -- the problem of the relationship of
pagan religions to Christianity, and the problem of the life of Jesus Christ. The history of
religion, both as to its origins and also culture, has made tremendous gains in the last few
decades. It suffices but to mention such names, as Max Mueller, Robertson Smit
[William Robertson Smith], [Edward] Taylor, Frazer, E. Rhode, in order to understand,
how much has been done in this area. The history of the pre-Christian religions has been
revealed in a new light. And the old seminary point of view on paganism, as a darkness
into which penetrates not a single beam of Divine light, as a demonic proclivity, has
become untenable. The Providence of God was active not only in the Hebrew people, but
also in all the peoples. Even within paganism there was a revelation of the Divine, though
dimly and of the natural element. The first Christian apologists were already struck by the
similarity of the mysteries of Mithras, a religion concurrent with Christianity [during the
late Roman Empire], with that of the Christian mysteries, the Christian liturgy. Certain of
these apologists attempted to get out of the difficulty by suggesting, that the demons had
inspired within the religion of Mithras an imitation of Christianity, in order to muddle the
meaning and forestall the acceptance of the purity of Christianity. But the history of the
pre-Christian religions has shown, that in paganism there was a suffering god, a redeemer
god, a god torn asunder by the powers of this world, which after dying and being
resurrected grants life to those, who commune in his mysteries. Suchlike suffering gods
were Osiris, Adonis, Attis, Dionysos. The similarities of the mysteries of Osiris with the
Christian liturgy is striking.4 That which had seemed the exclusive merit of Christianity,
was shown instead to be present in the pagan religions. The history of religion at first
impression as to origins diminishes the originality of Christianity. Already the pre-
civilised knew the concept of grace -- as mana. Already in the primordial religion of
totemism there was a sort of totemistic eucharist, a communing of the flesh and blood of
the totemic animal. And this communion bestowed a graced power. The ancient
Mexicans already knew of a transubstantiation and the transforming of bread into body.5
The brilliant works of Frazer in particular make for the tempting undermining of the
originality of Christianity. Frazer loves to point out, that in the pre-Christian religions
there was already present all the elements, later to be borrowed by Christianity. The idea
of a god incarnated into a man was an idea familiar to the savages. Osiris, Adonis, Attis
were all personifications of a perishing and rebirth of life in a god, who dies and is
resurrected. The striving for a spiritual rebirth is connected with the yearning to promote
the vegetative process, the productive harvest. Adonis -- is the spirit of bread. The pagan
religions knew their own version of Christmas-like nativities and Pascha-like
resurrections. They would kill the divine animal and by this they enhanced its totemic
power. The ancient pagan world was filled with a thirst for redemption and eucharist,
with a thirst for a resurrection through death. All the pagan cults were full of this. I have
come across pious and strongly Orthodox people, who were left in the greatest perplexity
in having read some book or other on totemism, and they were unable to find the
wherewithal to defend the originality of Christianity. A large portion of the books on the
history of religion, besides the elements of an objective-scientific nature, secretly contain
in them or even openly wish to show, that Christianity is not original and that everything
in it is a borrowing from the pagan religions. At one point in time there was a strong
enthusiasm for Pan-Babylonianism and everything was considered a borrowing from
Babylon. The myth about Christ the Redeemer was thought to be but a reworking of the
pre-Christian solar myth. Krishna was already of a type with the Son of God. In the
Persian eschatology, which had a defining influence upon Jewish eschatology and
apocalyptics, there was already given all the fundamentals of Christian eschatology. The
Revelation of St. John is very reminiscent of Persian apocalyptics, in which likewise was
depicted a final battle between a good and an evil god. The very idea of the devil,
evidently, is of Persian origin. In the higher forms of the Greek religion, in Orphism, in
the Orphic Mysteries, to a remarkable degree it seems to have excelled over Christianity.
The principles, which had been put forward as exclusively Christian, are thus shown to be
universal and cosmic, everywhere present. But there mustneeds be a new point of view, a
new perspective, in order to turn about the results of the science of religion to the defense
of Christianity and its glorification. It is first of all necessary to acknowledge the
absoluteness and universality of Christianity. Christianity is not merely one of many
religions, perchance the highest, alongside with which there exists a whole series of other
religions. Christianity does not exist alongside with other religions, with the pagan
religions, with Buddhism, with the Jewish religion, with Mahometanism, not merely one
of many all-concurrent. Christianity is the religion of religions, as Schleiermacher
expressed it, the universal religion, including within it all the fullness of religious
revelations. There exists nothing besides Christianity, everything else is its inferior. All
the pre-Christian religious revelations external to Christianity within the history of
mankind -- are but subordinate parts of the Christian revelation, only separate rays of that
solar light, which ultimately poured forth in Christianity. There are theosophic truths,
when they speak about the existence of a single world religion and seeing light in all
religions, but they vulgarise this truth and bestow upon it a false syncretic meaning. The
single world religion is the Christian religion, taken in all its concrete fullness. All else is
inferior to the Christian light. Everything in the religious life of mankind is but a
preparation or foreshadowing of the Christian revelation. The pagan world was filled
with these preparations and presentiments. People thirsted for redemption and salvation
and they expressed this in their cults. In paganism there was light, there was a thirst for
the divine and for immortality. And in a certain sense it can be said, that paganism was
likewise an Old Testament of sorts for mankind. In the views of Schelling and Vl.
Solov'ev it is not, that they have become partially outmoded and no longer correspond to
our present level of knowledge as regards the history of religion, but rather that they had
in them an undying religio-philosophic truth. The position, which asserts an history of
religion hostile to Christianity, can be turned round and become a source of glory for
Christianity. Christianity is not a mere borrowing from paganism of its basic principles --
redemption, eucharist, grace, but rather that the pagan religions were a searching and
presentiment of that, which ultimately was revealed and realised within Christianity. The
myth about redemption, about a suffering god, about dying and a resurrection, finds its
ultimate realisation in the appearance of Christ -- the redeemer and Saviour. Christ also is
the ultimate realisation of the solar myth, the appearance of the son to the world, the
realisation of that which the pagan peoples mythologically sought for and had
presentiment of -- is what we should say, as Christians. The fundamental truths of
Christianity were revealed already to paganism, but dimly, distortedly, naturalistically,
pervaded by the natural elements. The pagan mysteries of antiquity remained however
but naturalistic mysteries, they could not break out from the immanent cycle of nature. In
Dionysianism, a religion of deliverance, man sought for salvation, becoming divine in his
nature and with the attaining of immortality through an orgiast ecstasy and communion
with an impersonal and elemental nature. The boundary limits of individuality are thus
removed and in the perishing of the person man sought for deliverance from the
limitedness and grief of this world. The salvation of the person, the discovering of eternal
life was not attained for it. The becoming divine was at the price of the complete loss of
the person. And in the natural order of being nothing else could possibly be attained. But
in Dionysianism there was a genuine thirst for deliverance, there was a seeking of life
both divine and immortal. Dionysianism, the source of mystical religiosity in Greece, was
full of presentiments and foretypes. In Orphism, the barbaric elements of Dionysianism
were ennobled by the Hellenic genius for form, it attains to an high degree of spirituality
and provides a breakthrough for spirituality. And upon this basis is begotten the greatest
manifestation of the Greek genius -- the philosophy of Plato, penetrated throughout by
the Orphic Mysteries.6

But only in Christianity does the supernatural and spiritual power conquer the
endlessly inescapable cycle of elemental nature and free man from demonolatreia, devil
worship, afflicting the ancient world. The Christian religion sets man free from the grip
of the spirits and demons of nature, it saves the person for eternal life. Christianity
realised that for which the ancient world sought in its mysteries. The pagan mysteries of a
suffering god were akin to the natural dying-off and spring-time resuscitation of life, they
wanted to realise within the natural order that, which Christianity realises by the graced
power of God. Already within totemism there dawns a light, which ultimately shines
forth in Christianity. The universality of an eucharist, which did exist in the pagan world
at the dawn of the religious life of mankind, does not refute the truth of Christianity, and
indeed but the rather supports it. The whole world was making its way towards Christ,
towards the authentic Eucharist revealed within Christianity, it sought Christ and the
Redemption by Christ already back in the mysteries of Osiris and Adonis, not perceiving
whereof it was going. In paganism there was a genuine piety. And it was not only the
demons that revealed themselves to the pagan peoples and lacerated them, there was also
a Divine light revealed to them, the Divinity was revealed in nature and in the fatal
course of national life. But only to the Hebrew nation, through the prophets, was there
given a direct foreseeing of the appearance of Christ and a straight-forward movement
towards Him. But in all the peoples there was a prophetic presentiment and foresight, that
there had to be a Redemption and Salvation of the world. and actually the results,
garnered by the science of religion, serve to affirm the absoluteness and universality of
Christianity. But in order to comprehend this, it is necessary to transform the methods of
Christian apologetics, it is necessary to free oneself of the limiting provincialism
characteristic of the old apologetics, it is necessary to have the perspective of world
horizons. Christianity had to be something maximally repulsed by paganism, it had to
manifest an heroic struggle against nature, against the dominion of the cosmic forces, of
the cosmic infinity over the human soul. And in that period it was natural to see in
paganism only the workings of demons. But that period has expired, and we long since
already live in an atmosphere of the decay of the once formerly heroic mindset.
Completely inevitable is the rise within Christianity of a different attitude towards
paganism, i.e. in an ultimately different attitude towards the cosmos and its secrets. The
science concerning religion helps in transforming this attitude. But it bears upon it the
imprint of the limitedness of the evolutionism of the XIX Century. Hidden from it
remains the truth about the primordial revelations of mankind, about the ancient wisdom.
The evolutionary science concerning religion considers the savage state, its beliefs and
forms, as the point of emergence of the spiritual life of mankind, which has its
antecedents in the darkness of the bestial world. But the savage state is that of fallen man,
a distortion of the image and likeness of God. In the depths of time, time itself intersects
with eternity, our world intersects with another world. In the history of the world there
were two processes -- a diminishing of revelation, a weakening of the Divine light in the
measure that this fallen world grew hardened in its callousness, but there is also an
exiting from the darkness, an intensification of the Divine light, a growth of revelation.
This remains hidden a perspective as regards evolutionary science. But in principle there
was light also, and not only darkness, and it was by the glimmerings of this light that
people lived.

II.

I shall move on now to another problem, and for the Christian consciousness
immeasurably more vexing. The investigations about the life of Jesus Christ, which
generated an enormous literature in the last century as to the origins of Christianity,
presents very difficult tasks for Christian apologetics, with which it is not always capable
of dealing with, while employing false methods. We do not see any direct progress in this
area of investigation. Herein there all the time occurs a movement forwards and
backwards, there are revisions of points of view and almost no sort of firm and stable
scientific gains. The consciousness of European man from the XIX and XX Centuries,
having lost his Christian faith, is very tormented by the problem of Jesus, the mystery of
Jesus. The workings of thought over this problem is with an extraordinary intensity. And
the unbelieving man of the Christian world remains deeply agitated by the question, Who
is Christ? And this agitation nowise resembles the agitation over other scientific
problems. The issue is in this, that in the investigations about Jesus Christ there are
combined and uncritically jumbled together the scientific-knowledge interests with the
religious interests. They thus try to decide scientifically a religious question. And since
scientifically to decide a religious question is in principle impossible, then in these sort of
investigations there is always the feeling of hopelessness and impotence. The scientific
investigations about Jesus Christ and about the origins of Christianity sprouted up upon
the soil of liberal and rationalistic Protestantism. These investigations, which have led to
extreme forms of negativity, all had still nonetheless a religious wellspring. The
Protestants, who have done the most for these investigations, do not hide their religious
and not only scientific interest regarding this problem.7 Harnack, one of the
choreographers of liberal Protestantism, seeks to try to define the very essence of
Christianity, with which he is unable to break himself free, with the help of a scientifico-
historical investigation. Suchlike positings of the question have also rendered liberal
Protestantism into a religion of the professors. Protestantism in its origins repudiated the
Holy Tradition of the Church, leaving only the Holy Scripture. With this it cleared the
way for a critique of tradition, for a free investigation. But by this path it led also to a
devastating of Holy Scripture, which is only but a part of Holy Tradition. And by this,
Protestantism has deprived itself of the possibility to posit religiously the question about
Jesus Christ, about its mystery, about the mystery of the origin of Christianity.

It is possible to ascertain two totally opposite currents in the investigations of the

problem of Jesus Christ. Both these currents arise from the denial of the integral
wholeness of the mystery of the God-Manhood of Jesus Christ, but they arrive at results
completely opposite. And these clever paths of investigation teach nothing more, go
nowhere, gain nothing more. With the God-Man -- Jesus Christ, there occurs no meeting
on either of these paths. The one path led to a denial of the reality of Christ, i.e. of the
Divine Nature, with a readiness to admit only the diminished reality of the man Jesus.
The other path led to a denial of the reality of Jesus, i.e. of the human nature, with a
readiness to admit Christ as the Logos, as a God never having lived upon the earth. The
original investigators of the life of Jesus Christ, smothered with the rationalistic
enlightenment of the XVIII Century, wanted to free the Gospel history from the elements
of the miraculous, they gave ridiculous rationalistic explanations for the miracles, they
tried to harmonise the history of the life of Jesus Christ in accord with their own
rationalistic mindset. From this shallow rationalism D[avid] Strauss set free the Leben
Jesu-Forschung, the life of Jesus-Research, having introduced the concept of the myth-
creating process. This was his tremendous merit. But he already represents an altogether
different line. The Protestant critique, not having altogether broken with Christianity,
attempted to salvage the remnants of the historical reality of Jesus, of Jesus as a great
religious teacher, and upon this shaky foundation they wanted to base their own
rationalistic and moralistic Christianity. In suchlike manner they arrived at the reality of
Jesus, while having completely become torn asunder from the reality of Christ. Such is
the Christianity of Harnack, a remarkable historian, but a weak thinker. In Germany there
was written an enormous literature, devoted to the riddle of the mystery of Jesus. But it
failed to face the riddle of this mystery, since the rationalism from the start repudiated the
God-Manhood of Jesus Christ, it repudiated the hypostatic union of the two natures
within the single Person, i.e. the sole path towards resolving the enigma of this mystery.
Everything is shaky and unreliable in the investigation of the earthly life of Jesus.
Nowhere is it possible to find a firm footing. They have lost hold of the very paths for
catching sight of the historical reality of Jesus Christ, since these paths lay not in the
objective sphere, not in the outwardly perceptive historical plane. The very origins of
Christianity, the very rise of the faith in Christ the Redeemer and Saviour, is inexplicable
via the pathways of historical investigation. And so the keen of thought have attempted to
go by other paths. If the one path has led to a denial of the reality of Christ, then the other
path has led to a denial of the reality of Jesus. And this involves the ballyhooed
mythologic method.
 The denial of the historical reality of Jesus Christ does not present anything
especially new. This thought was already expressed in the XVIII Century by the historian
of religion Dupuy, asserting that Christ is the solar myth. They answered him in objection
at the time, by defending the no less brilliant hypothesis, that Napoleon -- is the solar
myth. And more than once later on there was a return to thoughts about the mythological
character of Christ. The most serious in significance is D. Strauss, who attempted to
reconstruct the life of Jesus, starting out with the premise, that within the Christian
community there occurred a myth-creating process. But he did not derive thence the
radical conclusions. The mythological theory always starts out from the premise, that the
Gospel itself represents not historical accounts about the life of Jesus Christ, but rather
theological and mystical tracts, expressions of the beliefs of the Christian community,
accounts about the God the community lived for. This point of view represents an
indisputable step forward in comparison with the rationalistic theories. It turns attention
upon the creative religious process within the religious collective. The mythological
theory became very popular with those, who wanted to inflict a blow upon the Christian
faith. This seemed the most radical and most irrefutable objection against Christianity, in
comparison with which all the other remaining objections seemed weak and ineffectual.
There began a concurrent radical denial of the historicity of Jesus Christ. There appeared
the works of Robertson Smith and others. The life of Jesus in the style of Renan receded
into the past, a belletristic fiction. But the greatest sensation was caused by Drews in
radically denying the existence of Jesus Christ, and seeing in Him only an ancient myth.8
Drews was neither an historian nor an original researcher, he relies chiefly upon the
works of Smith. Drews -- is a philosopher of the Hartmann school. In his capacity as an
Hartmannist, he preaches a religion of pure spirit. And he fights against the historicity of
Jesus Christ in the name of a religion of spirit, he contends against the religious
materialism which he detests. He is prepared to admit the existence of Christ, as the
Logos. But for him the Logos never could have been incarnated into a man upon the
earth, within earthly history. The religious materialism of Christianity is a legacy
inherited from Judaism, it is a Semitic graft, and Drews in his capacity as a religious anti-
Semite, struggles against this materialistic Semitic graft for the religious life of
Aryanism, expressing itself in its purest guise in India. Drews, just like E. Hartmann, is a
resolute antagonist against Protestantism and the religion of Jesus. For him Jesus was not
real, in the metaphysical sense that Christ is real. He is the opposite antipode to Harnack,
a result of the splitting apart of the God-Man -- the polar opposite to the Jesusism of the
Protestants. He himself is steeped in the Christian mythology.9 A final expression of the
denial of the historical reality of Jesus Christ appears in a brilliant book by Couchoud.10
Couchoud is even less the historical researcher, than Drews. He is moreso the artist,
employing very vivid expression for a most extreme denial of the historical reality of
Jesus. Having denied the reality of Jesus, he is prepared in a certain sense to admit the
reality of Christ, as a god, as a spiritual existent. For him the Gospel is not an historical
book, but rather a mystical book. There exists the pre-Christian Christ. Christ is not solar
myth, but rather a spiritual existent, a god, by which ecstatically lived the early Christian
community. The perspective of Couchoud is peculiar to the gnosticism and docetism of
modern man. Couchoud regards Christianity with great esteem, almost enthusiasm, he is
not hostile to it as is Drews, and he is ready to see in Christianity the greatest thing,
created in the history of mankind. The early Christian community lived in its spiritual
mystery and only later everything began gradually to decline into the merely human and
material. The basic thought of Couchoud is very sharply expressed in the words: "Jesus
n'est pas un homme progressivement divinise, c'est un Dieu progressivement humanise".
This modern form of the euhemeristic11 within antiquity customarily has felt, that the
great religious teacher Jesus was gradually regarded as Divine by the Christian
community, believing in Him, and it transformed Him into the God-Christ. An analogous
process occurred with Buddha. But Couchoud expresses a thought directly the opposite to
this. The man Jesus never existed, and there are no sort of historical facts, substantiating
his existence, for all the facts are mythological. But the spiritual existent, dwelling in
Heaven, the god ecstatically experienced by the early Christian religious community, was
gradually humanised, and came to seem a living being upon the earth acting within
history. Couchoud also suggests that Christians not abandon their faith, but instead have
the bravery to admit, that God does not depend upon the material world, upon the
historically empirical, that he is spiritual and heavenly, i.e. he proposes a return to the
unique gnostic docetism, which unexpectedly was revived as a result of the historical
investigations into the life of Jesus Christ. A certain Protestant exegete, Goguel, made a
whole series of fundamental historical objections against Couchoud and tried to defend
scientifically the historical reality of Jesus.12

The apologeticists of Christianity are quite afraid of the mythological theory,

denying as it does the historical reality of Jesus Christ. I want to defend the completely
opposite point of view. The denial of the reality of Jesus Christ, derived as a result of
scientific-historical researches, has also its own positive significance. through this there is
discovered the helplessness of historical science in resolving "the riddle of Jesus". A
biography of Jesus Christ by means of historical science cannot be written, as there are no
historical materials for it which can be acknowledged as indisputable, from the point of
view of the customary methods of historical criticism. All the materials for the life of
Jesus Christ can readily be suggested as the product of the myth-creating process,
transpiring within the Christian community, the result of the theological thought of this
community. The non-Christian sources, whether Jewish or Roman, are completely
inconsequential, and there are moreover almost none. A customary argument in use for
the non-historicity of Jesus Christ is the at first glance strange fact, that Josephus Flavius,
a competent contemporary, who quite well knew both the Jewish world and the Roman
world, says nothing about Jesus Christ, assuming we disregard a small fragment,
irrelevantly inserted and producing the impression of an evident textual interpolation.
There are no sort of any non-Christian testimonies concerning Jesus Christ, which would
allow for the possibility of reconstructing his life, and it is impossible to find any such
among the Roman writers. This is thus very tempting. And the objections, which usually
are made by Christian apologists, by Christianity's Christian historians against these
historical issues, produces a quite strained impression scientifically unimpressive. As
regards method, it is impossible to conduct an historical investigation, if beforehand there
are imposed obligatory results for the investigation. Historical research can only be a free
research. But the freedom of this investigation does not of itself yet guarantee the
veracity of the results, since this freedom can be impelled by a false spiritual mindset
underlying it. The historical researching of Christianity has also been a trial of probity for
the human freedom of investigation, through which it was necessary to undergo. But
there was a jumbling together of the two planes of being and the two methodologies of
research, it was both among the apologists of belief and the apologists of non-belief. The
truthfulness of faith cannot be dependent upon either the positive or the negative results
of historical research, it has its own absolute wellspring. This is not with the intent to
assert a system of twofold truth, which ought to be overcome, but it ought to be overcome
by another path, than has happened up to now. When historical science approaches the
"riddle of Jesus", then it is requisite upon it to say: this is an hallowed place. And indeed
science itself senses this and expresses this in its helplessness, in its tossing about from
one extreme to the other.

A great accomplishment of the science of religion was in the establishing of the

position, that within the religious collective there transpires a myth-creative process. This
is a positive step forward for both the history of pre-Christian religion and the history of
the Christian religion. The myth-creative process has occurred both in the primitive clan
worshipping its totem, and within the Christian community. This objective scientific
position by no means pre-decides nor prejudices the question, whether the myth-creating
process is bound up with realities, or is illusory and unreal. I think, that the philosophy of
religion ought first of all to acknowledge, that myth is reality, that mythologic thought is
more in touch with being, than thinking via the conceptual. Science possesses no sort of
grounds nor rights to regard myth as fictitious, as contrary to reality. Science fails to
understand the ultimate meaning of its accomplishment, when it says, that within the
religious collective there occurs a myth-creating process. What does this mean, if it be
carried over into a religious language, into the language of Christian faith? For us, as
Christians, the religious collective is the Church, and the myth-creative process within it
is the dynamic life of churchly tradition, in which we come into touch with the
profoundest realities, hidden from the sensory sight directed at the empirical, i.e. hidden
from historical science. The absolute reality of the God-Man Jesus Christ is a given
within the Holy Tradition of the Church, within the spiritual experience of the Church.
Only within the Church is seen the integral wholeness of the visage of Jesus Christ, in
which Jesus and Christ, man and God cannot be divided apart. The absolute reality, the
integrally whole visage of Jesus Christ is not seen in the outward empirical actuality, in
the historically empirical. And herein is why the problem of Jesus Christ cannot be
decided by means of historical science. It is remarkable, that about the great historical
personages, and sometimes also about the not great, the second rate, there does not arise
doubts as to their actual historical reality. No one writes investigations, about whether
Socrates or Alexander of Macedonia actually existed or not. About many an historical
figure, nowhere near having made the absolute turnaround in world history, made by the
appearance of Christ, there are far greater historical witnessings, than about Christ. One
need not be a Christian, in order to admit, that the appearance of Christ turned things
around in the world, it began a new world era. Mankind continues to calculate its years
from the Birth of Christ, even while having lost its faith in Christ. But the appearance of
the Son of God in world history was not accompanied by such an outward persuasiveness
of His historical reality, as has obtained with the appearance of whatever other historical
figures. It is impossible to write the earthly biography of the Son of God and the Son of
Man in accord with a single objective-scientific historical fact, whereas it is possible to
pen the biography of an innumerable host of historical figures, none of whom so turned
things around in the world. But this historical, sense-empirical unpersuasiveness of the
earthly life of Jesus Christ is also the greatest witness to the benefit of the Christian, a
witness to its miraculous aspect. For historical science, the rise of Christianity and its role
in the life of the world remains a wonder, at the very borderline of scientific knowledge.
And even the denial of the historical reality of Jesus Christ indirectly witnesses to this. It
is inconceivable, how from the historically elusive, from the unreal or not-existing, how
there could have arisen the greatest reality of world life? The appearance of Christ was
marked by no outwardly obligatory historical persuasiveness, no readily sense-empirical
visual aspect. The absolute reality of Jesus Christ and His integrally whole visage reveals
itself in a different order of being, not the naturo-historical, but rather the supernaturo-
historical spiritual order. With the appearance of Christ in history the boundary-lines,
separating the two worlds, is broken asunder, and the one order of being enters into the
other order of being. Christ appeared within history, but the dimensions of His
appearance were not visible within history, within its outward process. The dimensions of
His appearance are evident only in the Church, which also is a mysteried dwelling of the
other order of being within our order of being. In this inconspicuousness of Christ the
Saviour, the non-persuasiveness and unprovenness of His reality, there can be seen the
"extreme humility" of the kenosis or emptying, the indeed God-forsakenness, -- the
source of our freedom. The Saviour of the world did not appear at Rome, the then centre
of world civilisation, where there occurred great visible events of world history. The
appearance of the Saviour was not accompanied by any outward brilliance or grandeur.
The Saviour of the world was born amidst a second-rate Eastern people, the significance
of which was null, if not regarded from a religious point of view, from the point of view
of the fulfillment of prophesies. The Son of God came into the world, coercing no one,
forcing no one to accept Him, not imposing by any brilliance of His appearance. The
manger, into which was placed the Saviour of the world, went unnoticed by the world.
And there is a great religious significance, in that there are almost no sort of historical
witnessings about Christ. For the proud Roman world there was nothing especially
remarkable in the earthly life of Jesus Christ, a religious teacher of the despised Jewish
nation, having perished by a shameful execution. The folly of the Cross at first failed to
even be noticed and accepted by the people of the Graeco-Roman civilisation. Only in the
newly arisen world, the other world within this world, within the Church of Christ,
mysteried for the world spiritual organism, was there revealed a different manner of sight
wherein became evident absolute reality, imperceptible for the sight of the world. In this
also was included the mystery of Jesus, over which strains the modern consciousness of
this world, in having fallen away from the mysteried reality of the Church of Christ. The
encounter of two worlds, the union of two natures in one Person is unacceptable for
those immersed in this world, where everything is fragmented and alienated. Here is why
it is improper to demand historical persuasiveness and proof of the reality of Jesus Christ,
here is why the denial of the reality of Jesus Christ fails to frighten us.

Of principal significance for the science of religion is the philosophic problem

concerning the character and criterion of reality. There are certain who might suspect me
of docetism and monophysitism. This would be, certainly, a misunderstanding, the
product of a naturalistic understanding of reality, which has penetrated into Christian
theology and Christian metaphysics. Docetism within the confines of the naturalistic
understanding of reality regards as illusory the humanity of Jesus Christ and all His
earthly life. Monophysitism admits the reality of only one nature in Christ [the Divine]
and denies the mystery of God-manhood. But the question about the two natures and the
authentic reality of the human nature of Christ ought not to be mixed up with the question
about the two orders of being -- spiritual being which is primary, and naturo-natural
being which is secondary. In primary being also there are the two natures [of Christ], and
the human nature is real. Only the spiritual world is authentic and primal being. The
world in contrast is symbolically natural, reflectedly a reality. The naturo-historical
earthly life if Jesus Christ is just as much symbolistic, as is all the flesh of the world, just
as also is the life of Alexander of Macedon or Napoleon, just as is all of history and all
our world, but it is no less real, it is altogether not illusory, as Docetism would tend to
think it. But in this naturo-historical earthly life of Jesus Christ there is symbolised13 the
primal-reality of the spiritual world, of spiritual life. And in this world there is a spiritual
order of being, in which there occurs encounter with the primal-realities of authentic life,
-- this also is the order of being involving the Church. With the appearance of Christ
there occurred a singular and unrepeatable encounter and mutual interaction of one order
of being with the other, of reality and symbol. But the acknowledging of reality cannot be
grounded upon the acknowledging of symbol, it is impossible to become convinced in the
being of primal life from proofs, drawn forth from being in reflective life. All the relict
historical world we know about we know of its reality through reflected symbol, through
the empirical, but in regard to it without spiritual memory, i.e. without any sort of
intimate tradition the recognition becomes impossible. In regard however to Christ we
make an act of recognition of reality directly within the tradition, within the pathways of
primal life. And it would seem, that Christian apologetics ought not to be so dependent
upon proofs and the corroborative empiricism of historical science. They might, perhaps,
say to me: you are indifferent to the historical reality of Jesus Christ. This again would be
a mistake, a misunderstood point of view. I acknowledge the absolute and singular
historical reality of Jesus Christ, the earthly life of the Saviour of the world. But this
historical reality, symbolic just like all historical reality, is evidenced from the reality of
the spiritual world, from the experience of the Church. There is absolutely a precise
biography of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, but it cannot be written upon the basis of the
historical materials, externally received, it can only be perviewed by spiritual sight, by a
mystical sort of contemplation.14 Such was, for example, the contemplation of Catherine
Emerich. The churchly consciousness rises above the disputes of historical schools and it
cannot base itself upon whatever the sort of trend of historical science. The significance
of historical criticism in the pathways of human cognition has to be admitted, and it is
impossible to oppose it with any sort of falsifying pseudo-science, or apologetic history,
based upon contortions and upon shreds of the empirical. Our faith is shaky, if it has to be
based upon the historically empirical. And indeed within genuine ontologic history itself,
the actually existent is known about through a transcending of the outwardly given
empirical.15 The empirical itself as regards itself is still not yet history. History is at first
given only within discovered meaning. Meaning however is discovered, is discerned by
spiritual insight. The meaning of the Gospel history, the meaning of the earthly fate of
Jesus Christ is given not within the historically empirical, not in the raw material, which
historical science critically reworks, but in spiritual insight, in tradition, in the inner
connections of my spiritual depths together with the spiritual depths, hidden beyond the
historically empirical. Herein we collide with the philosophic problem of history.
Historians usually adopt a naive realism in regard to the historical actuality. But naive
realism in regard to history is nowise more sustainable, than it is in regard to all the
natural world. The naive realism ought to be replaced by a symbolic realism. The
philosophy of history is the uncovering of meaning of the genuinely existent within
history, of the existent and its essence. And only herein is history first revealed. Such a
phenomenology of history has still not been created. But the phenomenology of Gospel
history is in principle and qualitatively distinct from the phenomenology of every other
history. It is possible only through the insight, discoverable within the Church, it remains
hidden for other forms of view.

Christian theology has been too much infected by naturalism, it naturalises the
spiritual reality and in general it has been inclined to conceive of reality naturalistically.
The very idea of God was naturalised, and it was conceived of by analogy with the
realities of natural objects. This is especially evident within Thomism, which so esteems
its analogies with the physical world. The creative developing of theological knowledge
ought the more to distinguish the different planes, not confusing them, and thereby
overcome naturalism and naive realism. Naturalistic apologetics has had its last gasp and
is done for. It is necessary to re-arm with more precise and more powerfully effective
weaponry. In a certain sense it can be said, that the theological naturalism gave birth to
the naturalism of positivism and materialism. And now there ought to begin and there has
already begun a movement against naturalism both in the scientific and in the religious
consciousness. When we overcome the naive naturalism in religious thought, we then
have no need to fear whether it be the history of religion, or Drews, or Couchoud, or any
sort of mythological theory. Christianity draws its assurance in its veracity from an
absolute source, from the supernatural and spiritual plane of being, and not from the
plane of the natural, not from the historically empirical, which of itself is not even
genuinely history. And for Christianity nothing ought to terrify. We religiously know,
that the appearance of the Son of God in the world, within earthly history, cannot be
imbued with that historical persuasiveness, which the appearance of other people both
great and small within history has had. In this appearance there has been discovered
heaven upon earth, and heaven proves otherwise different in its reality, is perceived
otherwise, than does the earth and all that which doth transpire upon it.

NIKOLAI BERDYAEV

1927

NAUKA O RELIGII I KHRISTIANSKAYA APOLOGETIKA. Journal Put’, Sept.

1925, No. 1, p. 169-171.

1
Vide Emile Durkheim, "Les formes elementaires de la vie religieuse. Le systeme
totemique en Australie".
2
The Catholic history of religion "Christus", compiled primarily by the Jesuits, was
written seemingly as it were against S. Reinach and others like him. This book stands
quite much higher than Reinach's, but all the same still wants for freedom.
3
Vide Delacroix, "La religion et la foi".
4
Vide Moret: "Mysteres egyptiens".
5
Vide Frazer: "Le rameau d'or" ["The Golden Bough"], p. 460-1.
6
Concerning the Greek religion, vide the remarkable book of E. Rhode, "Psyche".
7
Vide the detailed book, expounding the whole historical legacy of Jesus Christ, by
Albert Schweitzer, "Geschichte der Leben -- Jesu -- Forschang", 1921. Vide likewise the
book of Otto Pfleider: "Die Entwicklung der Protestantischen Theologie in Deutschland
seit Kant und in Grossbritanien seit 1825".
8
Vide Arthur Drews, "Die Christusmythe".
9
With the Christian mythology was connected the teaching of Drews and E. Hartmann
about the unconscious Divinity, which in a fit of madness created the vale of being and
comes to consciousness through man. Vide the book of Drews: "Die Religion als
Selbstbewustsein Gottes".
10
Vide Couchoud: "Le mystere de Jesus".
11
[Translator note: from Euhemeros, an ancient Greek who viewed the gods mythically.]
12
Vide Maurice Goguel: "Jesus de Nazareth. Mythe ou histoire?", 1925. An analogous
objection on the part of the Catholics regarding C. Reinan was made by Mgr. Batiffol,
"Orpheus et l'Evangile", 1910.
13
[Translator note: "symbolised" as in the real-symbolism of the eikonic, as with the
religious icon for the Eastern Church, the symbolic of an at-depth greater reality than
obtains with the sense-empirical world. Religious "myth" too is eikonic, in a real-
symbolist sense. One might even suggest that Berdyaev's philosophy of spirit is a
metaphysics of the "icon", carried beyond its non-specifically religious utilisation.]
14
This is analogous to what the theosophists call "akasha-chronika".
15
Vide my book, "The Meaning of History".

A CONSIDERATION CONCERNING THEODICY

 European Christian mankind has been involved here already for half a millennium in
a peculiar process with God. Inside the Christian world there has been scepticism,
agnosticism, unbelief, atheism, all core symptoms of an inner justifying process with
God. This process is the torment over the problem of theodicy. But if this justifying trial-
court process be conducted, then there ought to be that one with whom this process deals
with. An absolute, an ontologically reasoned-out atheism is impossible. Atheism is a
struggle with God, an opposition to God, an anti-theism, the impossibility to be
reconciled with deistic theology. Only at the surface would it seem, that atheism is the
outcome of mental efforts, preventing faith in God, that it is the product of either
philosophy or science. If however it be viewed at depth, then it mustneeds be
acknowledged, that atheism can never be begotten by theoretico-cognitive doubts nor
grounded upon logical arguments. Man arrives at atheism practical-vital grounds, and
atheism is the manifestation from a spiritual and moral order. The phenomenon of
atheism signifies either a debasement of spirituality or a false direction of spirituality.
People serious and profound, pondering over the meaning of life and seeking truth,
sometimes become atheists; but this is so because they cannot resolve the problem of
theodicy, they cannot become reconciled with theism. The crushing fact of the boundless
evil and innumerable sufferings of the world -- is a singularly serious objection against
faith in God. Against God there have risen up not only people bereft of spirituality, but
also people with a delicate conscience have sometimes risen up against God in the name
of good, in the name of a thirst for justice.

An Almighty, All-Blessed, All-Knowing God cannot have created such an evil world
filled with sufferings. It would be unjust, immoral, and one might venture to say godless,
to have created such a world, as ours, and to find man weak, wanting for knowledge, in
grief and unwonted suffering. True, they will tell us, that the perfect creation of God, in
which everything was “exceedingly good”, was distorted by the freedom of man. But
indeed the fatal quality of the freedom of man was given by the Creator, Who distinctly
knew, how man would misuse his freedom and to what bitter results it would lead. Hence
there was begotten the teaching about predestination in its quite gruesome forms. Calvin
was prepared to see a glorification of God in the very thing of a predestination to eternal
perdition and the eternal torments of hell. Let us continue this deliberation. One can allow
that evil and suffering -- are from freedom, but indeed freedom is from God. God in His
fore-thought about the world and man knew all the consequences of the freedom of the
creature, all the evil and suffering, right down to the eternal torments of hell. And the
hand of the Creator did not tremble, it did not hold back before the completion of its
creative deed with the perspective opening up before Him of the temporal and eternal
torments of hell, begotten in His fore-thought. In the fore-thought of God about the
world-creation, the eternal torments of hell were included within the power of God’s
Omniscience. But the average man himself typically would halt before such a creative
deed, threatening the eternal torments of hell to even one single being. Such a kind of
simplistic, and it would seem, entirely intellectual pondering, bespeaks some sort of
strange human distortion of the idea of God. It speaks likewise about the impotence and
sterility of rational metaphysics, in dealing with the ultimate mysteries of being. Being is
life, life is mystery, and not a metaphysical category.
 The man of the XIX and XX Centuries is little original in his protests against the
Creator of the world in the name of good, in the name of co-suffering sympathy, on moral
motifs. Marcion with great moral pathos and nobility revolted against the concept of the
Demiurge, the fashioner of the world, as an evil god. God in the Old Testament, as
revealed to Israel, was for him not the Father of Jesus Christ, but rather the evil
Demiurge, the creator of evil and woe in the world. Jesus Christ -- is the son of the
Unknown God, the Deliverer from the evil of creation. The doubts of Marcion, as
connected with the problem of theodicy, enter in also into all the doubtings of people of
modern times, but in a majority of instances in more superficial a form. Harnack in his
excellent book about Marcion says, that Marcion ought to be especially intimate for
Russian religious thought. All the Gnostics, and also the Manichaeans, had deep doubts
in the qualitative aspects of the world-creation. The evil world had to have been made by
an evil god. This does not lead yet to atheism, but it does lead to a metaphysical dualism.
God is good, God is righteous and just, God is love, God is utmost spirituality, He was
revealed in Christ the Saviour, but this God is not the creator-fashioner of the world,
since the world is full of evil and suffering. The Old Testament, the Biblical aspect of the
Divinity, as creative might, was repudiated. Only the New Testament aspect of the
Divinity, as love and salvation, seems acceptable. The problem, posited by Marcion, and
certain of the Gnostics, is unfathomably deep. The Gnostics did not know how to answer
the posited problem and they got entangled, they attempted to see the source of evil in
matter. But a fully satisfactory answer to this problem was not given even by the churchly
opponents of the Gnostics, despite their inherent correctness. This explains the possibility
of so widespread a falling-away from Christianity by European mankind. The human
conscience finds unbearable the inhuman, the unspiritual and immoral traits, almost
beastly traits, ascribed to God, the Creator of the world. Only an obligatory fear, a
transcendent terror, can swallow up the questioning of conscience and consciousness. But
the time of religious terror is expiring. In former times it was possible to maintain order
in the Church by the frightenings of the eternal torments of hell. This frightening was
quite in accord with the pedagogic method of the times, it raised up a barbaric mankind.
But now the scaring with the eternal torments of hell hinders people from coming into the
Church. Pedagogic teaching methods change, they cannot always remain one and the
same. Against some sides of the Christian faith at present there are in revolt qualitative
aspects of man, as wrought by Christianity itself, -- the Christian softening of soul, the
Christian delicacy of conscience.

*
* *

My meditation concerning theodicy -- is not theological, but rather philosophical, or

religio-philosophic a pondering. It is a desire to bring to the Christian faith the free gift of
cognition. The very setting of the problem of theodicy is of a dispute with God. But who
art thou, O man, that thou wouldst dispute with God? This was a question Luther loved to
put to Erasmus in his dispute with him over freedom and the slavery of the will. Can man
indeed arrogate to himself the question about a justification of God in the face of the evil
and suffering of the world? My faith in God and in the positive significance of the world
presupposes, that this question is inwardly to be resolved. I am a Christian and therefore I
believe, that the problem of theodicy is decided by the manifestation of Christ and the
deed of redemption and salvation wrought by Him. But I am no slave, I am a free man, a
free spirit, I am called to love God and by all my intellection, and in the pondering and
cognition I see the sign of my God-likeness. My faith has passed through the crucible of
doubt. Man can dispute with God, since that God expects and demands the freedom of
man, his free love, his free knowledge. An automaton-robot would have no need nor
interest for God. One might initially assert an agnosticism and sway away from any
pondering about theodicy, as impermissible on principle and even sinful. Thus also think
many of the exclusively tradition and authoritarianly disposed Christians. But then
consequently it would be needful to decline all the rational theological teachings, which
always include within them aspects of theodicy, and then too it would be necessary to
acknowledge as bereft of meaning all the traditional theological theories about the world-
creation and about the relationship between the Creator and the creation.

Every profound pondering, every at depth cognition of things Divine ought to lead
to mystery. God is inexplicable Mystery. And this is indeed the most profound definition
of God. Thus it is that apophatic (negative) theology defines it and its definition is more
profound than all the definitions of kataphatic (positive) theology. The great Christian
mystics and the most profound of Christian thinkers always thought this to be so --
Dionysios the Areopagite, Eckhardt, Nicolas of Cusa and many others. Plotinos was the
source of these thoughts. It is impossible even to call God being, since He is beyond
being and He is no thing. But the pathway to the ultimate Divine Mystery lies through
knowledge, and not through a primordial agnosticism, not through a forbidding of
knowledge. There exists a knowledge about unknowing, the docta ignoranta, as Nicolas
of Cusa declared it. The apophatic-negative theology is also a God-knowing, and not an
agnosticism. The boundaries of God-knowing take their definition from cognition itself
and through the setting of these boundaries it is expanded, rather than a narrowing down
of cognition. There is an endless cognitive motion towards the ultimate Mystery. And the
recognition of the Mystery, not penetrable by any concept, the reverent esteeming of the
Mystery, is a qualitative aspect of cognition itself, of its depth and loftiness. Apophatic-
negative theology is more mystical than kataphatic-positive theology, which always
includes within itself a strong dose of rationalism. And when the school courses of
dogmatics, smothered by the rationalism of kataphatic-positive theologising, investigate
the crux of the matter in the resolution of the problem of theodicy, they love to refer to
the Mystery and call for obedience to the Mystery. But they do this either too late, having
constructed already many a rational theory, or too early, hastily having posited the
forbiddance of agnosticism. The fear of Gnosticism has had a more defining significance
for kataphatic theology. Reverence before Mystery does not make man a slave and an
idol-worshipper, on the contrary, it then but makes man spiritually free. Man is rendered
a slave and idol-worshipper by many of the positive doctrines about God, abasing,
distorting and diminishing the infinite and mysteried nature of the Divinity. And indeed
there is an attitude towards God, which is an ultimate form of idolatry within the world.
Not only towards false gods, but also towards the true God is there possible an idolatrous
attitude. It is possible to transform for oneself the existing God into an idol and bestow
Him worship, such as is appropriate only in regard to idols. About this one can glean
much from the Old Testament prophets. Idolatry likewise creates a very great difficulty
for the problem of theodicy. A servile worship to God, as absolute power and might,
similar to the might of the despots of the ancient East, renders theodicy impossible.
Heavenly imperialism and Caesarism present quite insurmountable difficulties towards
the resolution of the problem tormenting us. The ultimate eschatological mystery can
serve by way of example of the contrary pretensions of theological rationalism. They
purport to accept the eternal torments of hell, while yet having yielded before the
unconfessable Mystery, out of obedience to the Mystery. But this means, that it is
impossible to construct a teaching about the eternal torments of hell, it is impossible to
rationalise the Mystery, it is impossible to justify the eternal torments of hell with Divine
justice, predestination, etc.

When the problem of theodicy is posited, the problem concerning God and His
justification before the face of evil and suffering in the world, then first of all it is proper
to ask: does there exist at all some sort of commensurability and similarity between man
and God? It would seem, that for the Christian such a question is irrelevant -- Christianity
teaches, that man is in the image and likeness of God, that the Son of God was incarnated
and became Man. But within the history of Christianity this truth was always stifled by
other truths. Together with this posited question is connected a fundamental religious
process in the world. The history of religion teaches us, that God’s becoming Man, and
having as its obverse side the spiritising of man, is a central phenomenon of the religious
revelation. The surmounting of the idea of an inhuman god, having as its obverse side the
beast-likeness of man, is a basic advance of religious consciousness and religious
developement in the world. The tremendous significance of Greece is not only in the
history of culture, but also in the religious history of the world -- such as was lodged
within Greek anthropomorphism: the human image was extracted from an image of the
beastly world, with which it was confused in the East, and the gods were conceived of as
human-like. True, this human-likeness was still insufficiently cleansed and spiritualised,
and it included within itself that completely irrational element, which so embarressed
subsequent mythology (M. Mueller has attempted to escape the difficulty by a
philological theory of the emergence of myth from language). But the anthropomorphism
of the gods was a tremendous step forward within the religious consciousness. Greece
created the great Aryan myth about Prometheus. It is not Zeus, but rather Prometheus
who loves mankind, offering himself in sacrifice for it and undergoing terrible torments
in the name of man, he is the founder of human culture. Certain Western teachers of the
Church even thought, that the myth about Prometheus was a pagan transforming of the
idea of the creation of the world by the true God. The distinction between Zeus and
Prometheus can be compared with the distinction in Marcion between the Demiurge -- as
the creator of the world, and Christ -- the Saviour of the world. The process of the
humanisation and spiritualisation of the idea of God found very strong expression in the
mind-set of the prophets.

The process of the humanisation of the idea of God finds completion in the Christian
revelation, in the manifestation of the God-Man, in the religion of God-manhood. It is
impossible to construct a theodicy, if it starts out from God, just as it is impossible to
construct it, if it starts out from man. The meaning of the world is incomprehensible
whether from the abstract idea of God, or from the abstract idea of man. If God and man
be divided and separated, then everything is plunged into darkness and evokes terror.
Only in the union of the Divine nature and the human nature is there revealed the
meaning of the world and the light that doth illumine life. And to theologise one
mustneeds begin, not from God and not from man, but rather -- from the God-Man, and a
theodicy can only be built upon the God-Man. If there were not the God-Man, there
would not be manifest the perfect humanisation of God and the perfect deification-theosis
of man, and impossible then would be both the justification of God and also the
justification of man. Wherein truly it is a matter both of theodicy and anthropodicy --
they are two sides of one and the same thing. Christ as the God-Man is both the sole
possible theodicy and the sole possible anthropodicy. The sacrifice of Christ on Golgotha,
made by God and by man, is a theodicy not merely intellectual, but rather in life, and in
deed. The Lamb is given in ransom from the very foundation of the world. The sacrifice
of God primordially has entered into the plane of the world-creation. God Himself shares
in the tragedy of the world, in the sufferings of the world, and takes upon Himself the
sufferings of mankind. The God of an abstract montheism cannot be justified. This
abstract monotheism is moreso Mahometan a trait, than it is Christian, it has entered into
Christian theology and distorted it. Abstract monotheism, heavenly monarchic-despotism,
has screened over the living Mystery if the Tri-une God, the Holy Trinity, which is
Divine Love. Only in an abstract monotheism, in an heavenly monarchic-despotism as a
reflection of the earthly kingdom of Caesar, is God immobile and self-sufficient, the God
Who by His might demands the fulfilling of His formal will and chastises for its
transgression. But the Father, revealing Himself through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, is
not the God of an abstract monotheism. Without the Son, the Father remains foreign, far
off and terrorsome, and without the Holy Spirit He does not act within us and we in turn
remain unable to enter into His life. Atheism is correct in regard to an abstract
monotheism, to an heavenly despotic-monarchism. Atheism is refuted only by the
revelation of the Holy Trinity, as Divine Love. Static theism, circulating under the idea of
a perfectly unstirring and untragic Creator, has no need for the creation and shares not in
its fate, and it is the product of Hellenic categories of thought, lodged within the insights
of the Eleatics and Aristotelianism. Not such is the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, not such is the God, revealed through the Son in the New
Testament. The Holy Scripture reveals to us the tragedy of God, it discloses His inward
tragic life. The Crucifixion torment of the Only-Begotten Son of God is a suffering
within the bosom of the Holy Trinity. And the acknowledgement of this mystical fact
does not unfailingly signify Patripassionism [trans. note: i.e. “Suffering of the Father” -- a
Modalist heresy, which in emphasising the Oneness of God, de-emphasises and confuses
the Persons of the MostHoly Trinity as mere modalities or transient aspects of the One
Godhead, and the interpretation of “Person” is that of “persona-mask” rather than of the
Greek “hypostasis”, as “subsistent reality”]. This also is the sole possible path of
theodicy, a theodicy which will not be that of a slave. Within the bosom of the Divine
Trinity Itself there is suffering from evil and darkness, there is a sharing in the fate of all
creation, of the world and of mankind. And this suffering is not an imperfection and
impairment of the Divinity, on the contrary, it is a sign of Its perfection. It is impossible
to think of God as being like a stone. God unsuffering would be an imperfect and
impaired God. He would Himself remain in bliss, and the creation in suffering. Love
presupposes sacrifice and suffering. But the Divine Trinity is infinite Love. Only through
love is discerned the inner, hidden, esoteric life of the Trinity. Only through love is
possible for us not only the non-kataphatic, the apophatic, but also kataphatic theology.
Amidst all this kataphatic-positive theology has been built not upon sacrificial love, as
the hidden life of the Trinity, but exclusively rather upon might, and glory, justice,
judgement, etc., i.e. upon the exoteric revealing of the Divinity to the sinful nature of
man. God, as sacrificial love, cannot reveal Himself but through man. He can reveal
Himself only through the Son of God, through the God-Man. And for this there had to be
a kenosis, an extreme-humility, a diminishing and exhaustion of Divinity.

In the cognition of God and the understanding of God, analogy has always had a fatal
significance. This is especially apparent in the system of St. Thomas Aquinas. God is
known through analogy with the natural world, with natural objects, and He is as it were
the highest natural object, possessing all qualities in the supreme degree. God herein is
“super-natural”, but the “super-natural” is demonstrated to be but the utmost degree of
the “natural” (and here the “natural” is moreso emphasised, than is the aspect of the
“super”). The analogy of God to a power of the natural world is not a Christian analogy.
Upon this foundation is created a theological naturalism, which is an inheritance of the
pagan theologising. Even the Church is conceived of through analogy with the state,
through analogy with the kingdom of Caesar. But God can be known only through
analogy with spiritual life, revealed within the depths of man, which on principle is
distinct from the objective natural world. God is Spirit, and not nature, He is Life, and not
congealed substance, He is Love, and not a power, on the order of the powers of nature.
Apophatic theology likewise affirms the impossibility of transferring concepts, worked
out in regard to the natural world, to God. To God is inapplicable even the concept of
being. Only in the life of spirit is there revealed analogy with the life of God. Therefore a
naturalistic understanding of the world-creation is insulting both for the Creator and for
the creation, and it evokes a deficient setting for the problem of theodicy. The world-
creation and the relationship between the Creator and the creation can be understood only
spiritually, and not naturalistically, i.e. in accord with the New Testament and Christian,
and not with the Old Testament and pagan. Naturalistic and rationalistic theology has led
to an understanding of God, the world-creation and the meaning of the world process,
which also has brought about the falling-away from Christianity and processes acting
against God.

God absolutely unstirring, having need of nothing, self-sufficient, created the world
from out of His will, without need, for self-glorification, and having provided the weak
and insignificant creature with freedom, established the law by His will, the transgression
of which draws fatal consequences both in time and in eternity. Man has made bad use of
his freedom, he transgressed the will of God, he fell and in consequence of his fall there
have been torments and sufferings in the life of the world. God, Who in accord with His
Omniscience can foresee everything, fiercely punishes the transgression of His will, not
only with torments in time, but also torments in eternity. God instigates a process against
man who has outraged Him, He demands a recompense. The recompense, quelling the
Divine wrath, is the sacrifice, offered by the Son of God. God loves the sufferings of
people, they make satisfaction for His sense of justice and ameliorate His righteous
wrath. Salvation is a justification and a propitiation. For the guilty within time, in the
brief flickering of life from birth to death, there awaits punishment in eternity. The
eternal torment of sinners in hell, foreseen by God at the world-creation, and therefore
their predestination, affords God blessedness through the triumph of justice. Thomas
Aquinas suggests further that the righteous in paradise take delight at the torments of
sinners in hell, take delight in the triumph of justice. This is the mind-set conception of
naturalistic rationalistic theology, which I lay out in its extreme form, but which in all its
particulars is present in the theological systems, especially the Catholic, and it evokes a
protest of conscience and reason, not of “enlightened” reason, but of lucidly-clear reason.
In reply to this protest they make pretense to bow before the Mystery, before the
inscrutable judgements of God. But in this mind-set conception there is no mystery, in it
everything is rationalised, everything is exoteric, everything is constructed upon analogy
with the natural world, with the kingdom of this world, with the kingdom of Caesar. I am
prepared from the very start to bow before the Mystery, before the inscrutable
judgements of God, but without the mind-set of rationalising the Mystery and degrading
it to the lowest levels of this world. This conceptual mind-set is an outrage insulting to
God, in it there is an element of sacrilegious mockery and blaspheming of God. It leads to
thought of an evil and inhuman god. Not such is God, as revealed through the Son, the
God of Love. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, so that
all believing on Him might not perish, but rather have life eternal. For God hath not sent
His Son into the world, to judge the world, but the rather that the world through Him
might be saved” [Jn. 3: 16-17]. It is impossible not to accept the Love, not to accept the
salvation. How then could there arise the revolting theological concepts from out of the
New Testament revelation? Truly and verily, God without man, without the God-Man,
without the Son and without the Holy Spirit -- is not God, but is rather the devil, Satan,
the Demiurge of the Gnostics, from which the Saviour came to free the world. Without
God man is a mere beast, but without man God is Leviathan. In this is the mystery of
God-manhood, the mystery of Christ and Christianity. They do not allow to be attributed
to God either suffering, the tragedy or anguish concerning an other, but they are quite
content to attribute instead quite ugly human emotions -- wrath, vengefulness, zealotry,
readiness to take offense, fierce cruelty, etc. To God they attribute the desire to abase
man, created by Him, and to hold him in fear and terror.

Christian theodicy is possible only through the freedom of man, the freedom of the
creature. But from whence is freedom and what does freedom mean? If man was created
free by nature, if freedom was imposed by a creative act of God, then the difficulty is
insurmountable. Then one struggling with God might say, that the question about
responsibility is merely shifted. Freedom is bound up with man as regards his creaturely
nature. But freedom cannot be bound up with nature, with substance. Everything, that is
rooted within nature -- is deterministic, not free. Freedom is rooted in spirit, and not in
nature, and it is grounded in the abyss, in the nothing. Freedom is not being, freedom is
outside of being and antecedent to being. God created the world not from out of His own
nature and not from some primal-matter, as the ancients thought, but from out of nothing.
The nothing also is freedom. This means also, that God created the world from out of
freedom. Otherwise they express this thus: God in freedom and freely created the world.
But the freedom, giving rise to evil, arises from the nothing, which is pure potentiality.
We ought to recognise, that this freedom is altogether not the nature, created by God,
since in this instance it would be determinised. By God however, nature would be
determinised exclusively towards the good. The freedom, capable of begetting evil, is
likewise a pure potentiality, lodged within the nothing, within the abyss, to which is
inapplicable the categories of being. Outside of God there is not any sort of being, but
outside of God there is the nothing, from which the world is created. This also is the
freedom, anterior to the world-creation. To think about this mystery can only be done
antinomically.

Within the history of religious thought quite acute was the positing of the question,
whether God is free, or whether He is bound by the good, that is, whether the good is
only that which God desires, or whether God can only desire, that which is the good. Dun
Scotus, as is known, made his specialty the defense of the freedom of God and he
resolutely affirmed, that the good also is that, what God desires, that God is not bound up
nor limited by the good. This was still more radically affirmed by Occam. The point of
view of Dun Scotus was opposed to the tradition of Platonism, which asserts, that God is
bound up and limited by the good, and that He cannot desire that which is not good. It
would seem, that the question was incorrectly posited. It cannot be said, that God is
bound up and limited by the good and that the good is more archaically-
definitive a principle than is God, and it cannot be said, that the good is that, which God
desires, and that therein God is free to desire the opposite to the good. It is impossible
separate God and the good. The good is not more archaically-definitive a principle than
God, but God is the Good, just as He is the Truth and Beauty. And after all this, in accord
with the method of apophatic-negative theology, it mustneeds be said, that God is the
supra-good, is beyond-goodness, and that the concept of the good likewise is inapplicable
to God, just as all concepts are. One might say: if one adjudge God from the point of
view of the good and then one were to repudiate the God, Which corresponds not to our
ideas of the good, then one would set man higher than God. Therein God would have
different morals, than man would have, and therefore what from an human point of view
would be evil, might from a Divine point of view be good. This judgement is based on a
separating apart of the Divine and the human. If in Christ the God-Man it was revealed,
that God is Love, then I not only from the human, but also from the Divine point of view,
I cannot admit, that God is hatred and malevolence. That God is Love, this was revealed
to me by God Himself. The good, by which I adjudge God, has been revealed to me by
God. I render judgement not concerning God, but of a false human idea of God [trans.
note: Vide Jn. 7: 24]. Our judgement over an evil god is a judgement over the human
distortion of the image of God. And theodicy is in essence a justification of God from the
slander, which is raised against Him by human imaginings. The idea of an evil god,
which tormented Marcion and the Gnostics, in the XIX Century has taken on new forms.
The metaphysical pessimism of Schopenhauer and Hartmann is a transposition of that
selfsame idea, which earlier was expressed in the assertion, that the Demiurge -- the
fashioner of the world, is an evil god. But it was replaced by an unconscious, dark world
will, which in a fit of madness created woesome being. And it is impossible to deny, that
within pessimism there is its own profundity and even its own partial truth. And yet
materialistic metaphysics, despite its light-minded optimistic bustling about, is one of the
extreme transformations of the idea of an evil god creating a world, bereft of meaning,
absolutely by chance, and indifferent towards good and evil. In a certain sense it would
be easier to accept materialism, than to accept God, if He be not Love, Who Himself
suffers not, but obliges the creature to suffer, Who is liable to take offense and is capable
of vengefulness. Taken to an extreme, if materialism were true, then at least the torments
would be only in time, and not eternal.

*
* *

Essential for Christian theodicy is this, that its obverse side should manifest an
anthropodicy. Christian consciousness and mentality dare not separate apart and divide
God and man, for it there is already no God without man. To the Christian consciousness
is revealed the God, Who desires, that man should be, Who has need of man, as His own
other. Amidst all this and at the core of Christian thought and at the summits of Christian
mysticism and sanctity it remains unclear, how it should be with man, with the purely
human, how ought the human nature to affirm itself? It is impossible to deny, that in the
dominant theological doctrines human nature is abased and stifled, -- it is here not the
sinfulness of human nature only, but human nature itself. Too often they tend to see in the
degradation of the creature the pathos of religious life. There is affirmed the metaphysical
insignificance of the creature. But in a more profound and mystical form the insignificant
nothingness of the creature is expressed in the understanding of deification, as the
grinding down and mortification of the human, in order to give place to God. And it
remains inconceivable, why the Creator should have created man, if man ought to quench
himself out and there ought to be left God alone? Thereupon the world-creation becomes
bereft of all meaning. God is eternally existing, He eternally dwells in fullness and self-
sufficiency. Why then the creation, why man, why the tragedy of the world? If the
creation of man and the world do not signify any sort of stirring within God, if man and
the world are needless to God, if God should desire to remain within Himself and demand
from the created world and man, that they should fade out, become as nothing within
God, cease to exist, then everything is deprived of all meaning. They will say, that this is
inscrutable Mystery and that it is impious to infringe upon this Mystery. Yes, indeed,
Mystery it is and one mustneeds be reverent afront the Mystery. But reverence is needful
afront the Mystery, and not afront the constructed doctrine, which itself infringes upon
the Mystery. I criticise not the Mystery, I criticise the rational doctrine. It is likewise
inconceivable, why the creation of a great Creator can be regarded as an insignificant and
wretched creation? The picture from a great artist is a great creation, bearing the imprint
of his creative genius. All the moreso great then ought to be the creation of the Creator.

But deification (theosis) is not at all the vanishing of man, deification is the
perfective transfiguration of man within God, his penultimate birth within God. The
world-creation involves God’s sacrifice and in response to God’s sacrifice there ought to
be the sacrifice of man and the world. The mystery is translatable only in the language of
sacrificial love. The teachings of the great mystics about the surmounting of
creatureliness, about the dying away of the human nature, about life in God, about
theosis, are not at all subject to rationalisation and are not at all expressible within the
categories of theological thought. Many of the mystics taught also about this, how that
when man ends, then there ends also God, and man disappears, when God disappears.
God is born, when man is born. The one who loves cannot live without the beloved. This
has always disquieted the theologians. But the mystics actually do enter into the life of
the Mystery, whereas the theologians remain at the periphery, on the surface, outside the
Mystery, and they cite it only then, when they run into difficulties. There ought verily to
be done a cleansing of our theological and metaphysical ideas about God, a cleansing of
our idea of God from the unworthy and degrading things attributed to Him, which lead to
thoughts about the existence of an evil god, which created man and the world in order to
humiliate them and cause them to suffer, so as to show off his own power and might. The
ugly, the evil and unworthy characterisations of God are but the product and reflection of
our own sin, our own darkness. The fear before God is fear afront ourselves and afront
the devil.

Theodicy is possible only for a theology that is spiritualistic, and not naturalistic, for
a theology, which will think about God not in an analogy with the objects of the natural
world nor with the traits of the kingdom of Caesar, but in revelations of the spiritual
world, of spiritual experience, of the spiritual pathway. In spirit everything is revealed
otherwise, than it is within objectivised nature. Within spirit there is revealed the
“nothing” with the as yet dark freedom and potentiality lodged within it, there is revealed
the evil of the natural world, the sin is exposed, but there is no evil god, there is only the
God of love and freedom, the God of grace. In spirit there is revealed the tragedy of God
Himself, the sacrifice of God, the suffering of God, the compassion of the Lord, the
anguish of God as regards His other, as regards His friend [trans. note: Vide Jn. 15: 15],
as regards man and the world, and there is revealed the infinitude of God’s love and
sacrifice. Within objectivised nature, within naturalistic theology, God is transformed
into an ossified object, into an unstirring substance, and His life is thought of in accord
with the forms of life in the kingdom of Caesar. Upon this path also was created the
system of an heavenly despotic-monarchism with its terroristic methods of rule. A
spiritual theology, rising above the analogies between God and the natural world and the
kingdom of Caesar, does not at all signify an optimistic and rosy Christianity. On the
contrary, for spiritual theology and for its theodicy, Christianity reveals itself as a religion
of tragedy. The religion of love and freedom is a religion of tragedy. Love is sacrifice,
freedom is suffering. But the sacrifice and suffering cease to be that by slaves, abased and
without meaning. The tragedy carries over into the Divine life itself, into the very primal
mystery of life. Religious slavery, which is but a reflection of earthly slavery within the
kingdom of Caesar, is not tragedy. Within tragedy the free are active, and not slaves.
Tragedy also is begotten of freedom. Slavery already does not know tragedy. Freedom
has been quite abused within traditional theology, in trying to resolve the problem of
theodicy, just like the bad useage that freedom has been put to in criminal law. Freedom
is esteemed as a basis for punishment and chastisement, but in this there is an
utilitarianism both heavenly and earthly, there is no genuine worth for freedom of spirit.
*)

Christian theodicy is manifest in life and in experience, and it is lodged within the
Holy Scripture, it is proven at the heights of Christian mysticism and sanctity. But in
cognition, within intellection there was constructed an as yet unsatisfactory Christian
theodicy, and it was constructed with much that is insultive both to the dignity of worth
of God and to the dignity of worth of man, and there was much in the way of false
enroachments upon the Divine Mystery. The Divine Mystery is revealed least of all
through analogy with the judgemental acts of this world or with the actions of the
physical powers of nature. Only within the depths of spirit, in spiritual life, within the
mystery of primal-life, within mystery only can there be a communion, a touching to the
Mystery. Only through love, through sacrifice, through freedom, through the
experiencing of grace can there be given experience concerning the Mystery. No sort of
rational concept is possible here. God is Spirit, is Life, is Love, is Sacrifice, is Freedom,
God is the Holy Trinity. Here only is it that the negative theology can pass over into
positive theology. God, as dread Power, and Might, King and Judge, the God of positive
theology, resting upon analogies with the world both of nature and of Caesar, is an
exoteric image, as refracted through human sin and darkness. The Holy Scripture gives
both aspects of God, and Holy Scripture speaks not only about the exoteric revelation of
God, but also about an eisoteric revelation of God, about the refraction of the image of
God within the human darkness. The activity of the human spirit is grasped and brought
about by a cleansing, which always is a self-cleansing, a spiritising of one’s nature, a
growing within the spiritual world and its mystery. God is likewise Absolute Power, but
it is as the power of Meaning, the power of Truth, the power of Spirit, the Might of Spirit,
and not of nature, and is Truth and Good, as Power.

God demands submission to Himself. When this is said, then it is said not about
God, but rather about the sin and darkness of man, about his unspiritualness, it is said
about the natural world. God expects love that is free. When this is said, then it is said
about God Himself, it is said about the spiritual world and about that, which transpires
within it. The religious, the Christian life is mutually pervasive, and sometimes also there
is a mingling together of the two orders, the natural and the spiritual, there is the working
of God’s energies within the sinful natural world. In this one must always examine
keenly and ponder it spiritually. Then much will be seen in a new light. It is not that the
old eternal truths will be abolished, but rather illumined, and visible in a new light.
Spiritual theology is a symbolic theology, it is a true theosophy in the old felicitous sense
of the word. The judgemental process of man against God will cease only then, when
there is surmounted the false and debasing idea of a juridical process of God against man,
when it ceases to be juridical a thing and begins to be a matter of living an authentic, a
spiritual life. Then only will become evident, what is genuinely contrary to God. The
Christian revelation is the evangelic good news about salvation and about the Kingdom
of God. And it is folly not to accept this good news on the grounds, that we are perishing
and we be tormented, that in us and around us there reigns evil and suffering. A Christian
renaissance is possible only as a spiritual renaissance. A cleansed spiritual instinct, freed
of false rationalistic and naturalistic ideas, ought to lead to the acceptance of the good
news about deliverance and it ought to direct all its powers of spirit to the realisation of
the Kingdom of God.

NIKOLAI BERDYAEV

1927
IZ RAZMYSHLENII O TEODITSEE. Journal Put’, Apr. 1927, No.7, p.50-62.

*) Purely criminal-law and utilitarian arguments in defense of freedom are put forward
by Metropolitan Makarii in his “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology”, so typical for the
academic doctrinal teaching.

OBSCURATISM
(1928 - #337)

I.

There are grounds to think, that we are entering into an era of obscurantism. And
quite possibly, this is a phenomenon not only Russian, but also worldwide. Obscurantism
flourishes quite the same whether it be among the Soviet Communists or amongst the
emigres. The modern emigre youth is in the grips of a "gnosomakhia" heresy, with a fear
of knowledge and an hatred for gnosis both philosophical and theological. The process of
a mental "simplistic perplexity" (an expression of K. Leont'ev) is making quick strides
forward. From Russia have been banished almost all the philosophers. In Italy the Fascist
young people have made a veritable pogrom on the libraries about Benedetto Croce, a
quite notable Italian philosopher. The most churlish obscurantists in the emigration are
taken up with an inquest into "heresy", wherein everything of creative and independent
thought appears to them under the guise of "heresy". In the Russian emigration the play,
"Woe from Wit", is being played out and Famusov comes out on top, investigating the
"Farmazons" everywhere. This phenomenon could use a closer look. What is this
obscurantism, what is it with its psychology. The very term obscurantism is of
comparatively recent origin, it was coined by the "enlightened" of the XVIII Century and
originally it signified an opposition to rationalism, to the rationalistic enlightenment. For
people in the mold of P. Miliukov, the whole Russian religious-philosophic movement of
the beginning XX Century would be considered obscurantist. The Russian "enlightener"
Pypin, in spite of all his esteem for the merits of N. I. Novikov, regards him and the other
Masonic mystics to be obscurantists in terms of their basic mindset. They considered
Schelling an obscurantist in his final philosophic period. This terminology for us,
ultimately, is inapplicable, and we are inclined to see in such an "enlightenment" strong
elements of obscurantism. In the "enlightenism" there never was a genuine enlightening
of the mind.

First of all, it mustneeds be declared, that obscurantism is not simply a factual

ignorance and lack of enlightenment. Obscurantism is not a phenomenon of nature. With
the ignorant and unenlightened man there can be a thirst for knowledge and an esteem for
knowledge. And likewise still it is impossible to term as obscurantist the naively ignorant
one, who lives a vegetative life and for whom there has not yet been born a cognitive
reflection. Obscurantism is already a reflection over knowledge and enlightenment.
Obscurantism is a principle, a primary attitude towards knowledge and enlightenment,
and not a factual condition. Whereas the obscurantist masses be always darkly ignorant,
the obscurantist ideologues and leaders can be intelligent, learned and enlightened
people. Obscurantists are moved by instincts and emotions, but the obscurantist ideology
can be the product of an intense activity of the mind and knowledge. The ideologues of
obscurantism for themselves might be or not be obscurantists, but they are obscurantists
for others. Here we meet with a basic feature of obscuratism. Obscurantism is a social
phenomenon, and not individual, and amidst this it is socially aggressive, on the
offensive. If whatever the man denies knowledge and intellectual culture for himself, and
yet amidst this is passive in relation towards others, towards society, then it is impossible
as yet to call him an obscurantist. But it is possible to term obscurantist the principled,
offensively-aggressive struggle against free knowledge and creative intellectual culture.
Obscurantism is a social fear of the light, a social love for darkness, as being itself good,
and the danger of light as being evil. Obscurantism on principle is the conviction, that
light, that free thought, philosophy, intellectual creativity leads to social evil and social
ruin, to the destruction of church, state, the family, private property, to heresy, to
revolution. The mental obscurantist can avail himself of free thought, of philosophy, of
intellectual creativity, but from this he draws negative social inferences. Obscurantism
desires to hold the masses in darkness in the name of their salvation, for the averting of
perdition. The activeness of intellectual obscurantists always presupposes the passiveness
of stupid obscurantists. And this is simultaneously true regarding both the "rightist"
obscurantism and the "leftist" obscurantism. The "rightist" leaders of obscurantism, --
Magnitsky and Pobedonostsev likewise need in the masses darkness and mental passivity,
just like the "leftist" leaders of obscurantism -- Lenin and Stalin. Pobedonostsev was
personally quite more enlightened, more cultured and learned a man, than was Lenin, but
for the sociology of obscurantism he provides an analogous example. Both
Pobedonostsev and Lenin alike were afraid of the light of the mind, of knowledge, of
mental activeness and creativity, as being threats of social ruination for the masses, as
impediments to their social salvation, although they tended to see the actual perishing and
salvation in quite opposite principles. The obscurantists of the "right" even now fail to
understand, that the terrors of the Revolution were begotten by that lack of enlightenment
and ignorance, which they themselves held so dear.

At the basis of obscurantism lies always a sense of panicky fear, of terror, fright,
suspicion and mistrust. And this fear is not personal only, but is unfailingly social.
Honest obscurantism is a soul-emotive structure, begotten by a falsely-directed need for
salvation and fear of perdition. Amidst all this is a lack of distinctness, in what they want
to save and what sort of perishing they are afraid of. Obscurantism can alike be begotten
of the fear of the perishing of the soul for eternal life, a panicky fear of the eternal
torments of hell, the fear of the perishing of the state and the social order, just like also
the fear of the collapse of the Revolution or of Socialism. Obscurantism is a dreadful
contraction of the extent of consciousness in consequence of an obsessive fear of the
collapse of whatever the value considered uppermost and singularly so, together with a
constant pathological distress over its saving and preservation. The fear of revolution and
the fear of counter-revolution alike makes people into obscurantists. An exclusive
absorption with the saving of monarchy and private property, or alternately with the
victory of the Revolution and the Communist order alike makes for obscurantists, it
darkens the consciousness and deprives one per se of the capacity for thought. Fear is not
favourable for the revealing of truth. The obscurantist always is situated in a condition of
mistrust and suspiciousness, absorbed with an impending danger, be it the danger of a
worldwide revolutionary "Jew-Masonic" conspiracy or a worldwide counter-
revolutionary conspiracy of the bourgeoisie. The social obscurantism of the conservatives
and reactionaries likewise is begotten by the fear of revolution, just as the social
obscurantism of Robespierre or Lenin and Dzerzhinsky was begotten by the fear of
counter-revolution. The French Revolution executed Lavossier and declared his learning
unneeded for it, out of the fear of counter-revolution. And always obscurantism is bereft
of the capacity for free and objective thinking, of knowledge for its own sake.
Obscurantism cannot simply be identified with the reactionary trend. All the fanatics of
revolution become obscurantists in accord with their spiritual type. Obscurantists always
adopt forceful and coercive social measures for the averting of ruin, for he saving of what
they believe in. The obscurantist has the feeling of being in a time of a pestilential
epidemic. Everything has to be subordinated to the struggle against the terrible sickness,
there is no time for free thought, for knowledge of its own accord, for spontaneous
creativity. Aggressive social obscurantism sees for itself the life of society as the
assuming of a militant posture, it always senses itself as a militant front, positioned forth
against the hostiles. For the obscurantist there is never time for free thought, for
knowledge, creativity, always there is never time. Free thought, knowledge and creativity
give rise to "heresies", from which there is the threat of the collapse of society, or the ruin
of some value which alone is essential. The Russian nihilists and socialists were
obscurantists, they were fearful of free thought, philosophy, the creativity of culture, as
being hostile and dangerous for the liberation and salvation of the people, as impediments
to the making of the revolution, as deflections from the sole thing needed. The exclusive
absorption in the sole idea of the salvation of the people and the fear behind the
realisation of this idea, the fear of hostile forces, is what makes for obscurantists, makes
for a contraction of consciousness, and it quenches the freedom of spirit. Thus also the
panicky fear of eternal perdition and the eternal torments of hell, the thirst for the
salvation of the soul, as a singular goal, is what makes people into obscurantists. And
thus too the exclusive absorption of consciousness towards the overthrow of Bolshevism
makes for obscurantists.

I participated 18 years back at Moscow in a certain gathering, at which was

discussed the question about the expansion of course offerings at the spiritual academies
[i.e. upper level seminaries], and about the introduction into the plan of offerings of a
comparative history of religion and a large quantity of philosophical subjects. Certain of
the participants, especially the now deceased V. A. Kozhevnikov, defended just like I did
the significance of a comparative study of the history of religion, as in general also the
significance of the scientific disciplines and philosophy. Present at the gathering was a
bishop, then rector of the Moscow Spiritual Academy, a man of the strict monastic-
ascetic type, who said: what is with this science and philosophy, when the discussion
involves the eternal salvation, or the eternal perdition, of the human soul. He, certainly,
was in principle an obscurantist out of the fear of eternal perdition and the thirst for
eternal salvation. For him nothing else existed. Such was the obscurantism of
Archimandrite Photii. The Communists too -- are typical obscurantists, since they are
obsessed with fear of the collapse of the Communist Revolution under the powers of a
counter-revolution, and they thirst for its salvation on a worldwide scale. They therefore
likewise cannot tolerate free science and free philosophy, just like the bishop, whose
words I mentioned. Light and thought are distracting and hinder the saving from ruin
whatever be the sole and utmost value. The evaluations of the obscurantist are always
utilitarian, and he will not tolerate the free investigation of truth. In our own day the
obscurantism of the Russian emigre youth is defined by its basic passion -- the fright over
revolution as a perishing, a thirst for a being saved from revolution. All other values are
subordinated to this passion, and there remains no place in the soul for free thought and
free knowledge. The Russian counter-revolutionary youth, having grown up in the Civil
War, not having received the normal mental and educational training, tends to imagine
that the errors of the Revolution were begotten by free thought, by free knowledge, by the
"heresies" of the mind. This youth also does not suspect, that the Russian Communist
Revolution was created typically by obscurantists, who pursued philosophy back then
when they were in the underground, but forbidding it now when they are in power. Both
revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries customarily are copies of each other. The
counter-revolutionary generation of emigre youth is afraid of and hates freedom, while
simultaneously in the Russian Communist Revolution there is an utmost denial of
freedom. It likewise sees "heresies" in free thought and knowledge, just like the
Communists, who tolerate only thought and knowledge, as regulated by the central organ
of the Communist Party. It likewise denies the creative values of culture, the same as the
Communist generation denies them. And completely the same has to be said also of the
Fascist youth of Western Europe. All this is a consistent and homogenous sociological
phenomenon, a phenomenon of barbarisation and intellectual democratisation, into which
tend also the reactionary circles, a phenomenon of intellectual obscurantism, the denial of
an hierarchy of values. The counter-revolutionary youth is incapable of conceptualising
the cause and meaning of the Revolution, it relates emotionally to it exclusively. The pre-
revolutionary order of life seems to it a lost paradise, though at the same time, it was the
evil and injustice of this order also that produced the Revolution.

II.

Obscurantism tends to be dogmatic and orthodox oriented, and this feature is

connected with it social aspect. Obscurantism desires the welfare and salvation of the
social collective and in the name of this it demands a dogmatic orthodoxality, the struggle
against the heresies of free thought and free knowledge. I use dogmatism here in the
sense of a certain psychical structure, and not the confession of churchly dogmatics. It is
possible to firmly confess the dogmas of the Church and be in this regard fully Orthodox
and together with this not possess a dogmatic structure of soul, to be very free in one's
thought and perception, to have a creative spirit and admit the sphere of the problematic.
The obscurantist can be very poorly read in dogmatics, he even customarily knows
nothing about Christian dogmatics and does not understand the mystical and
metaphysical aspect of dogmatics, but he considers it possible to root out and denounce
heresies. The very process of thinking he regards as an heresy. Every creative movement
in knowledge presents itself to him as dangerous, as ruinous in its consequences. The
attitude towards problems of cognition for him is exclusively a matter of militant
policing. The obscurantist is always the inquisitor. He demands coercive measures for
putting limits to cognition. Even young people, -- completely unread in dogmatic
questions, things which first of all necessitate study, -- reckon possible to engage in the
unmasking of "heresies". Thus, for example, in the Russian emigration there is the
laughable denunciation by the obscurantist-minded youth of the "heresy" of Sophianism.
The problem of Sophia is very complex and subtle, graspable by but few people,
altogether incomprehensible even for the greater part of the clergy, but the youths,
knowing nothing and mixing up Sophia as signifying a feminine name, reckon it possible
to detect the "heresy" about Sophia. And this monstrous phenomenon is spurred on by the
old way-guides of obscurantism. Typical as obscurantists, quenchers of light and
quenchers of thought in our day are the "Karlovtsi-ites" and those grouped round them. If
one were to inquire of a modern obscurantist, what it is that he calls "heresy", then he
would be compelled to answer, that by "heresy" he calls that, which led to Bolshevism
and that which impedes the struggle against Bolshevism. This certainly is a completely
novel understanding of heresy within the history of churchly consciousness, but in it there
is disclosed the social nature of the orthodoxy involved in the detecting of heresy, -- the
fear of the perishing of the collective, which is esteemed as the highest value. It is
completely the same way that the Communists understand heresy, and for them vitalism
in biology or idealism in philosophy is an heresy, threatening the ruin of the Soviet order.
Amidst this, our rightist obscurantists likewise understand nothing in Christian
dogmatics, just as the Communist obscurantists understand nothing in Marxism. And
indeed, obscurantism does not demand understanding. Obscurantism is a proclivity of
will, and the less enlightened it is by thought, the better. The obscurantists in the
emigration are gripped by a Mason-mania, but they have not the slightest shreds of
familiarity with Masonism, a phenomenon very complex and complicated, demanding of
a serious objective study. But the obscurantist Mason-mania is not a phenomenon of
thought and knowledge, it is emotively volitional. The darkness and ignorance are
reinforced by the will and they intensify the emotional aspects. The obscurantism of the
masses is always an emotional volitional revolt of the dark baser elements of being
against the rights of intellect and knowledge. It always is a disregard towards the
intellectually venerable. Obscurantism by its nature is anti-hierarchical, it does not
recognise a mental hierarchy, it neither respects nor esteems the intellectual heights, it
equates on the same level the intellectual and the stupid, the talented and the ungifted, the
learned and the ignorant. In the final end it surrenders power over the world to the dark
mobs and casts down the intellectually and spiritually aristocratic. The Russian Black
Hundreds and the Russian Bolsheviks in their constituent masses belong to a kindred type
of soul. Both with the one and with the other there is a black envy and hatred towards
intellectual uplift, towards creative ascent, towards the qualities of spirit. Theological
obscurantism stirs itself with an impotent envy towards those, who discover a capacity
for theological creativity. The rightist obscurantists assert, that they also are defenders of
the hierarchical principle in the Church and state. But this their hierarchical principle is
esteemed under the condition that it be made impersonal, unqualitative, thoughtless and
in principle a spiritual obscurantism. Clericalism always is obscurantism. Obscurantism
altogether can neither comprehend nor accept an hierarchy of qualities, an hierarchy of
thought and spirit. In this regard it is something leveling and democratic. It represents
that aspect of dogmatics and orthodoxy, which equates to the very lowest and dark, bereft
of all thought and creativity. Obscurantists do not understand the great humility of
knowledge, the humility before truth, before which the will and the passions fall silent.
The obscurantists are incapable to think "individually", they think "collectively" and they
always speak not for themselves but for the collective. They deny the mind, thought,
knowledge under the guise of the collective, from the perspective of the social self-
preservation of this collective. The obscurantists however that are intellectual, clever,
knowing and knowledgeable never appear as obscurantists in their own regard and for
themselves, they are obscurantists only for others, only in their orientation towards
society. Amidst this they distinctly understand, that they are compelled to rely upon the
dark masses, upon the ignorant and those incapable of articulate thought in the collective.
Why has Russian obscurantism so grown and spread? This can scarcely be explained by
any quantitative growth of stupidity and ignorance. There was enough of that even
formerly. The reason for the deluge of obscurantism has to be sought out in this, that
everything has gone out of its hierarchical position and one is compelled to occupy
oneself with things, that one is unsuited to be occupied with. A man may have been a
governor or chief of police, a government or district chief, a division general or the
captain of a dragoon regiment. If he were stupid and boorish, these traits then did not
especially stand out and strike the eye, when he occupied his place and his hierarchical
position. From him they demanded some definite and defined deed, but they did not
demand of him decisions on world questions. Now this selfsame man, having lost his
position, has become a public figure or even thinker perchance. He is compelled to judge
about Sophia, about Masonism, about the social question, about the Kabbalah and about
the ways of saving Russia and the world. As a result there obtains an aggressive
obscurantism. Another man may have been a machinist or locksmith, a clerk or a
veterinarian, a cabman or petty accountant. When he was in his habitual place, his
ignorance and limitedness did not hit the eye nor bear an intrusive character. But now this
selfsame man is forced to decide questions of world politics, to build plans of a social
construct on a planetary scale and even to determine the course of enlightening the
country. Again there obtains an unenlightened and extremely intrusive obscurantism.
Howsoever paradoxical it may seem, but the deluge of obscurantism obtains not from
insufficiency of deliberation, but rather from a superabundance of deliberation about
those abstruse questions, by those out of place and altogether unfit to deliberate about
such questions.

Characteristic for obscurantism is a denial of problematics. Nothing appears

problematic for the obscurantist, he has a ready answer for everything. He has always in
his pocket a small catechism, which is moreover a small encyclopedia, in which it is
possible to find the resolution of all questions. The very possibility of having to posit
problems, the resolution of which demands intense creative thought, represents heresy for
the obscurantist. The Christian obscurantist likewise regards all questions in Christianity
to have been resolved, he does not foresee that new questions may arise, in the same way
as the Communist obscurantist, who regards all questions to have been resolved within
Marxism and does not allow for new questions to be put forth. The problematics, the
intense creative thought directed towards its resolution, is also that which most of all
frightens the obscurantist. In his mindset, questioning the good of something is not
allowable. Obscurantism always wants "to provide in Voltaire a sergeant-major". And
obscurantism hates philosophy most of all and is deathly afraid of it. Obscurantists in
every period of time have incited persecution against philosophy. The Russian
obscurantists of the era of Alexander I and Nicholas I sought to hunt down philosophy
and forbid its teaching, and they would consent only to this, that a "sergeant-major"
should teach philosophy. And in 1850 Shirinsky-Shikhmatov abolished the teaching of
philosophy in Russia. The obscurantists already were agreeable to allow the positive
sciences, physics and chemistry, since with them were connected discoveries providing
conveniences for life, which the obscurantists nowise would want to refuse. But
philosophy also is a sphere of problematics primarily, it is a free searching for truth. The
Soviet Communist obscurantism likewise hunts down philosophy and entrusts its
teaching to "sergeant-majors", just like the obscurantism of the era of Nicholas I, which
now within the emigration seems to many to be a golden age by virtue of loss of memory
and the savagery of hurt from the Revolution. The Orthodox obscurantism especially
hates religious philosophy, and evidently even prefers positivism. Religious philosophy is
free, it appears full of the problematic, and consequently it would seem, full of the
heretical.

Our hierarchs of an obscurantist mindset always hounded and oppressed Russian

religious thought. They hounded Khomyakov, Bukharev, Vl. Solov'ev, Nesmelov.
Metropolitan Philaret himself was stifled. It was easier to get in print the works of
Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Pisarev, than the theological works of Khomyakov, or than
other creative religious thought. The Orthodox persecutors of Russian religious thought
were themselves distinguished by the utmost lack of giftedness, by creative impotence
and incapacity for thought. A subliminal hatred towards foreign creative thought always
was one of the impulsive motifs of obscurantism. A man always wants to stand out at
something and to be higher than others. Lacking the possibility to prevail in the light, he
falls back on this, to prevail in the dark. Philosophy is a sphere of free creative thought
preeminently, it does not tolerate slavery. And thus it is natural, that against it
preeminently should be directed the hatred from obscurantism. Philosophic thought is
aristocratic, it is accessible but for few. And therefore it evokes the spiteful feelings of
the obscurantists, who represent the social collective and allow only that, which is useful
and saving for the social collective. Vl. Solov'ev gives a very simple answer to the
question, whether philosophic knowledge be necessary for the Christian. Certainly, it is
not necessary for those, who have no mental aptitudes, no need of knowledge, just as art
is not necessary for those, who lack artistic feeling and aesthetic needs. There are no
disputes on this. To be saved is possible both without philosophy and without knowledge.
But the question is in this, whether it be necessary to save but the bones and shreds of
being or the integrally whole image and likeness of God in man. The mind also was
wrought by God the Creator and upon it also lies the imprint of God, a reflection of the
Divine Logos. The human mind is disfigured and impaired by sin, it demands
enlightening, but an enlightening and not an abolishing. Stupidity cannot in any instance
be a sign of God-likeness, and in the plan of the world creation it was not included.
Stupidity -- is sinful, it is a distortion of God's creation. Stupidity is the occupying of a
wrongful hierarchical position. One could pen an investigation about "stupidity, as a
factour of the world process". This theme relates entirely to Original Sin. All the positive
spiritual powers of man demand enlightening, hence also the powers of mind, the
cognitive gifts. In the Gospel and in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul it constantly speaks
about talents, about gifts, which ought not to be buried into the ground, which mustneeds
be returned to God many times over. This also is a justification of the creative vocation of
man, which likewise nullifies the obscurantism within Christianity. Man ought to serve
God with all his gifts, both the gift of mind and of knowledge, having been called to
bring light into the world.

III.

It is impossible to deny, that the obscurantist mindset has played no small role
within Christianity. The danger of obscurantism stalks eternally the Christian world. And
it exists to a powerful degree in our own day. The metaphysical cause of Christian
obscurantism lies in a false interpretation of the Biblical account about the Fall, the Fall-
into-Sin. The prohibition to taste of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is
understood, as a forbidding of knowledge, as a censuring of the inquisitiveness of the
mind. The temptation of knowledge is also a Gnostic temptation, a temptation of
forbidden knowledge. There is hence made the conclusion, that all knowledge,
philosophy, the inquisitiveness of the mind, is from the serpent. Humility demands the
renouncing of knowledge, of philosophy, of the inquisitiveness of the mind. Every
judgement and deliberation represents a sin. The imperative of religious obscurantism is
-- do not judge, do not deliberate, posit no sort of problems, and therein regard, that
everything has been resolved for thee by external authority. Such an obscurantist
understanding of Original Sin as it were finds its confirmation in the struggle of the
Church against Gnosticism. Gnosticism also was a temptation of knowledge, condemned
by the Church. The Church thus would seem to affirm the truth of agnosticism. The
obscurantist understanding of Orthodoxy, to which many inclined in the XIX Century
and again incline in the XX Century, encounters an insurmountable difficulty in the
existence of the Patristic Fathers, and especially the Greek Teachers of the Church. They
least of all can be considered obscurantists, they were men of intellectual judgement and
intellectual deliberation, men of knowledge, they were philosophers, and people of high
mental culture. Obscurantism rests exclusively upon the ascetic literature for monastics,
and not upon the classical Patristics, which soared to the utmost heights of mental insight.
Eastern Patristics especially is intellectualised, and set beneathe the influence of Neo-
Platonism it demands enlightening of the mind. A fundamental mistake of obscurantism
consists in the confusion of true and false knowledge, of the enlightened and the fallen
mind. For obscurantism all knowledge is false, every mind fallen. The mind, knowledge,
is always from the serpent, from the devil, and not from God. And thus it would seem
that God demands from man non-knowledge, boorish ignorance, lack of thought and
stupidity. In actuality the path of the serpent, the path of the forbidden fruits of the
knowledge of good and evil is also the path of the lower, the false, the rationalistic
knowledge, enslaving spirit to the creaturely natural world in opposition to the higher, the
true, the enlightened knowledge in God, in the Divine Light, the intuitive cognition of the
world and God. The knowledge from the serpent is a loss of freedom of spirit. Such a
false knowledge is manifest not by science about nature, but a wrongful philosophy. God
demands from man an enlightened mind, an intuitive cognition, a Divine sagacity,
surpassing the wisdom of this age. Hence also there are two understandings of
enlightenment -- the false rationalistic enlightenment, the enlightenment of the XVIII
Century, cutting man off from the sources of being and the meaning of being, and that
other understanding -- the true, spiritual, integral enlightening, the in-lightening, uniting
man with the sources of being and the meaning of being. Christ is the Logos, the
Meaning of the world. And this Logos, this Meaning, cannot demand lack of thought and
ignorance. Christianity demands from man the attaining of a Christly mind and through
this the higher knowledge. In vain do the obscurantists think, that they stand for humility,
while at the same time always assuming that the adherents of knowledge and mental
enlightenment are lacking in humility. It is obscurantism namely that is lacking in
humility, it is a condition of self-smugness within its darkness and a conscious preference
of darkness over the light. Obscurantism is the non-desire to humble oneself before the
infinitude of light, knowledge, mind, the awareness of one's smallness before the endless
task, obscurantism is a desire for non-perfection, a non-desire for movement towards the
heights, the absence of awareness of its own ignorance and insufficiency of its
attainment. The typical obscurantist is a self-smug man, who in essence thinks, that he
knows everything, he has no desire to humble himself before knowledge, he desires
neither enlightenment nor any in-lightening and he actually impedes the in-lightening and
enlightening of others. The obscurantists need first of all to arrive at a condition of
humility, to get out of their state of self-smugness, to arouse in themselves the thirst for
infinite perfection. Man ought to humble himself before the infinitude of knowledge, the
infinitude of the tasks of life.

The struggle against the inhuman obscurantism within Christianity, just also as
against the godless obscurantism within the negative "enlightenmentism", is one of the
great tasks of our time. The lights in the world can become extinguished. It is a terrible
mistake to think, that the condemnation by the Church of the Gnostics signifies the
condemnation of every gnosis. The reverse side of the obscurantist condemnation of
every gnosis within Christianity results in the development of a falsely-named and indeed
anti-Christian gnosis, which has become very popularised in our day within Theosophy,
in occultism, in varied forms of a false mysticism and a false rationalism. With this false,
this anti-Christian gnosticism, it is impossible to contend against by measures of banning,
of cutting-off, of forceful forbidding. And indeed in the Christian world there are no
longer already any implements for cutting-off and forceful forbidding. The development
of the false gnosis signifies, that a true gnosis is not developing. Within Christianity
likewise there ought to be revealed the true gnosis in opposition to the false gnosis, the
true theosophy in opposition to the false theosophy, just as there ought to be revealed
truly the Christian resolution of the social question in opposition to the false resolution of
the social question in atheistic socialism. When Christianity fails to positively decide
whatever the vital questions, then the resolution of such is undertaken by anti-Christian
powers. It is impossible to oppose false knowledge by means of no knowledge, by means
of ignorance, it can only be opposed by authentic knowledge. Agnosticism namely also
renders Christianity powerless in the struggle with Gnosticism. It is time already to cease
talking about whatever the sort it be of a simplistic Christianity, the Christianity of the
simple baba. Such a Christianity at present is a myth. Such was not the Christianity of the
Cappadocian Fathers. And we have come upon an era of Christianity mentally
complicated, which is the reverse side of the mental simplification of the anti-Christian
world. All the external sanctions ought to be lifted from thought and knowledge.
Thought, knowledge -- are free as regards their nature and they tend to wither under
force. But within thought itself, within knowledge itself there will blaze up a new light,
there will ensue a shining-forth. Upon the immanent paths of knowledge there will be
perceived the limits of mind, the limits of knowledge, and rationalism will be overcome.
And the consciousness of these limits is a consciousness not of the chopping asunder of
knowledge, not of its lessening, but on the contrary, an upsurge and expansion of it,
within the context of the docta ignorantia. The consciousness of the limits of mind is an
in-lightening of mind, is the attaining for itself of an higher mind. There is possible an
infinite gnosis, but the infinite movement of cognition presupposes always a
consciousness of the limits of cognition, it presupposes the consciousness of its own non-
knowledge, a cognition of the infinitude of task, of problematics, of the infinitude of the
creative process, of infinite in-lightening, of necessity of faith for knowledge, an
orientation to the meaning of the world and the source of life. In accord with our
Christian faith the end purpose of worldwide human life is an in-lightening, the
transfiguration, the theosis-deification of all the positive powers of being, in which
number also the powers of mind and cognition, i.e. the struggle against the sinful
obscurantism of world life.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1928

OBSKURATIZM. Journal Put’, oct. 1928, No. 13, p. 19-36.

THE TREE OF LIFE

AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
_____________________

(L. Shestov. On the Scales of Job. A Peripateia of Souls.

From "Sovremenniya Zapiski". Paris. 1929)

(1929 - #346)

"And said the Lord God: Behold,

Adam hath become as one of Us,
knowing good and evil, and how
might he not stretch forth his hand,
and take likewise of the tree of life,
 and taste, and begin to live eternally".
(Genesis 3: 22).

The brilliant book of L. Shestov contains an inaccurate sub-title, "A Peripateia of

Souls". L. Shestov is no psychologist and he has little interest in the diversity of
individual souls. He -- is a man caught up with a single idea, an one-track soul, and
therefore he tends towards a twofold division of the world into his own and the foreign
world, in which everything gets jumbled together into one. For him and intimate to him,
beloved by him, are Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Luther, Pascal, Plotinos, all who perfectly
resemble each the other and experience one and the selfsame tragedy. L. Shestov cries
out against the "universal", the "general", yet all the time and everywhere he himself sees
but the "universal", the "general", he fails to individualise, to note the manifold diversity.
He is interested with only his own one theme, it even is impossible for him perchance to
turn attention to other themes, to perspectives such as may be foreign to him. With this is
connected the difficulty of philosophic dialogue with L. Shestov, but with this is
connected likewise his most significant quality. L. Shestov has his own particular theme,
to which all his life he remains faithful. He stands apart from all the currents and trends,
he is completely outside the social and even anti-social as regards his thought. In
everything, that L. Shestov writes, there is a great intensity and alacrity, a radicalism of
thought, a seriousness and tormentive searching. One senses in him a religious nature.
But his thought runs narrow and one-sided. He writes beautifully as to form, and he is
endowed with an indisputable literary talent. But the literary gift of L. Shestov masks
over and hides much, it hinders him from giving expression to all the contradictions and
difficulties of his thought, it glosses things over and embeds it within "literature". Better
it were that he should write ponderously and less well. L. Shestov has not found adequate
forms for the expressions of his thoughts, for conveying to us his themes. And indeed it is
not easy to find such. It is very difficult to understand him, despite the clarity of
language, and all too easy to interpret it in an opposite sense. His thought is
comprehendible only from its negative side, and he readily strives to formulate against it.
But from the positive side he neither desires nor is able clearly to express himself. The
manner of his writing is semi-romantic. He abuses the device of romantic irony, which
sometimes he muddles to the point of exhaustion. He is constantly resorting to romantic
hyperbole, he loves to arouse the emotional conditions. A phrase from whatever the
philosopher torn out of context he finds to have an immeasurable and worldwide
significance, just as with an isolated experience of whatever the writer. L. Shestov in the
manner of his writing manages in a strange way to combine the influences of both
Nietzsche and L. Tolstoy. But the aphoristic style, after which he strives, appears nowise
innate a form for him. It sometimes becomes irritating, when he as it were sets store by
something, in order to say the contrary, and the reverse to that, as established in the
traditional philosophic terminology. Shestov's interpretation of thinkers of interest to him
sometimes produces the impression of arbitrary caprice. His method has analogy with the
Freudian method of searching out within the subconscious something other, than what is
asserted in the consciousness. L. Shestov started out with Nietzsche and this left its
indelible imprint upon his thinking. But he moves on to the Bible, and his latest book is
filled with Biblical motifs. The jumbling together of Nietzschean and Biblical motifs also
adds to the difficulty of understanding him. And it is proper to point out, that in speaking
about the Bible, L. Shestov always has in view the Old Testament and does not speak
about the Gospel. New Testament Gospel motifs he has not. He is prepared to
acknowledge the Bible as revelation, but Christianity for him does not fall within this
revelation. He almost ignores the existence of the believing Christian world. He is
cognisant only of Catholic and Protestant theology. But he completely as it were does not
know Orthodoxy, its uniqueness, its distinctness from Western Christianity. And indeed
upon the soil of Orthodoxy the question about the relationship of reason and knowledge
to revelation and faith is posited altogether differently, than it is upon the soil of
Catholicism and Protestantism. Catholic theologians often accuse the Orthodox of a total
alogicism, a complete lack of logic. Shestov's impressions of Christianity are so Western,
that he even quotes the Bible after the Latin manner, something rather out of place in a
Russian book. The attitude of L. Shestov to Christianity tends to be under the influence of
Luther, of whom he is fond and uniquely interprets, and other generally Protestant motifs.
Right up to the present entirely like a Lutheran he is caught up in the struggle against
"good deeds". But he posits his theme about reason and faith, about the universally-
binding and self-evident truths and revelation such, as would only the Bible and Greek
philosophy posit it, as would Judaism and Hellenism, but not as would the Christian
revelation, namely as a revealing, and not as an empirical fact of Christianity within
history and not as theological teachings. Shestov's theme and Shestov's searchings -- are
religious, but he remains upon this shore, upon the shore of philosophy, and he does not
pass over to the other shore, the shore of religious faith. The constant quotes from various
philosophers prove exhausting and hinder seeing Shestov himself. L. Shestov has set
himself an unresolvable task: he demands resolutions of a religious theme upon the
territory of philosophic thought, he presents to philosophers pretensions, impossible to be
bestown them. For this one mustneeds recourse to the prophets, to the apostles, to the
saints, to mystics, to the religious life of mankind, rather than to Aristotle, to Spinoza, to
Hegel. From whence occurs a whole series of misunderstandings. Plotinos passes over
from the plane of philosophy onto the plane of mysticism. Upon the plane of the
mystical, reason no longer still possesses that strength and power, which it has within
philosophy, for then it is upon a trans-rational plane. A man, caught up into the mystical
plane, into a mystic contemplation, then "becomes bereft of the reliance upon reason", he
surmounts reason. But this reliance upon reason returns, when the man drops back down
into the plane of our natural world. Shestov however is inclined to investigate this
phenomenon, common to Christian mysticism, as some sort of catastrophe upon the
territory of philosophy, since he overstates the significance and potentialities of
philosophy. Plotinos, just like all the mystics, within mysticism renounces reason, but not
in philosophy. And the question devolves but upon this, does reason become altered or
otherwise enlightened by revelation, in what has been received upon the mystical plane.
St. Thomas Aquinas thinks, that the answer is no, that these planes appear as separate
steps. I think, however, that the answer is yes, and that a religious philosophy is possible.
L. Shestov simultaneously both terribly overstates the significance and ability of
philosophy and at the same time he is terribly hostile against philosophy for precisely
this, that it does not speak the language of the prophets and apostles, of the saints and the
mystics. L. Shestov wants to remain a philosopher free from faith-confessions and thus is
unable to find the means to express that, what is not received from a philosophical
source. He is compelled to recourse to categories of thought, which he denies.
 The mortal enemy of L. Shestov -- is the "monistic", the "common", generality, the
very fact of existence common to all the world. There is no world in common, for each
has his own particular world. The world in common for L. Shestov is reminiscent of the
"das Man" of Heidigger. But philosophising and the art of writing presupposes a common
ground, a basis of communication. The very word itself, without it would be impossible
to transmit one's thought to others and in any case impossible to write, already
presupposes a common ground, a basis of communication. The word itself possesses a
socio-ontological nature. When L. Shestov suggests to have me preview his book, he
stretches over a bridge between his own world and my world, he establishes a common
ground between us. But the basis of communication is impossible, if there is no sort of
common ground, if there is no language in common. In this is the most immense
difficulty of his task. It is indisputable, that each of us has his own particular world, but
each of these worlds enters into a single world in common. Were this not so, it would
then be needful to fall silent, and to cease expressing oneself for others. Denying reason,
as the anti-God, L. Shestov constantly recourses to the reason in common and utilises its
categories. There is in him even an indubitable element of rationalism. But he stubbornly
does not want to admit, that the irrational is not without reason. Reason is endowed with
the capacity for self-surmounting, -- in this is the meaning of the docta ignorantina of
Nicholas of Cusa. L. Shestov himself creates a "world in common" of his beloved heroes
Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pascal, Luther, Plotinos et al., which he sets in
opposition to the remaining world, likewise a world "in common". But if however there is
no world "in common", then it is inconceivable, why he finds so much "in common" with
his thinkers and writers set in opposition, why with Schelling it transpired likewise the
same, as with Nietzsche, with Nietzsche likewise the same, as with Luther etc. L. Shestov
wants to convey us into the world of his beloved heroes, to force it on us, to force on us
"his own" truth and persuade us of this truth. It is quite mistaken to think, that the
general, the basis of communication is established only through the concepts of reason.
There are other paths of establishing the basis of communication. Concepts tend often
however to be divisively partial. The cognition of God is impossible through the concept,
it is possible only through the mythic. The one world in common altogether exists not
because that it is subsumed under an eternal law of reason, governing the world, or that it
is set up in accord with "Aristotle", but because it is the creation of the one God. The
basis of communication and the unity of all the world exists in accord with the Creator, in
God. The "One", which the seers seek after, is also God, -- the Creator and Fashioner of
the world. In the fated currents of the world there is an unity and basis of communication
within the multiplicity, since that within it there is operative the Providence of God. This
first of all is a Biblical teaching, and not a teaching of the Greek philosophers, it is the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and not of the philosophers, it is the one God and
Fashioner, holding in hand His world. The basis of communication, the unity of the world
rests also within the hand of God, and not within abstract reason. And the basis of
communication is first of all a common community in love, and not in concept, the basis
of communication is in God, and not in reason. Thus teaches revelation. L. Shestov is
contending still against the judging and the judgement. The judging, the evaluations are
begotten of the Fall through sin. But he himself is compelled to judge. He is all the time
judging, and he makes judgements upon reason, upon the good. He is compelled to
regard himself as upright and it is about his righteousness that he informs us. And he
contradicts himself in what he affirms of himself. The truth as it is reveled to him he is
compelled to regard as bindingly true also for us. He struggles for this truth, he contends
against sin, against evil, against Satan. It does not matter, that the truth is revealed to him
"all of a sudden", catastrophically, not through reason, -- truth all the same has been
revealed, this truth having been revealed is all the same for him a truth absolute, eternal,
one, in common for all, for everyone who experiences a similar catastrophic experience,
who becomes open to it. The "classic" argument against L. Shestov is no less true in that
it is "classic", since also the "classic" tends to become true.

If the problem, which torments L. Shestov, be expressed in the traditional

philosophic language, then this first of all is the problem concerning universals, about the
genus and the individual, about the general and the partial, which was posited by Greek
philosophy and which stood at the centre of Medieval philosophy. In German idealism
this problem was not posited thus, since it presupposes an objective gnosseological
realism, which from the time of Kant began to disintegrate. L. Shestov himself considers
this problem within the categories of ancient philosophy and in a very radical form he
defends the individual and the partial against the genus and the general, he is close to the
nominalism of Occam. Surely, L. Shestov would not consent to be stuck into any sort of
category, he wants to be outside them. But he -- is set within the constraints of thought
and word, as are we all, subject to these categories. As I have already said, upon the
territory of philosophic thinking, the task posited by L. Shestov, is unresolvable. Only
within the Christian revelation is there a resolving of the question about the genus, the
general and the individual, the partial, about the one and the many and it is altogether
otherwise, than within philosophic realism and nominalism. The Christian revelation
reveals for us life, and not a concept, being, and not an idea, and the light of revelation
cannot be set merely within the refraction of the philosophy of Plato or Aristotle, nor of
the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas or Dun Scotus. Christ, in Whom transpired the
unique, the singular and one-time revelation, paradoxically and antinomically is both
genus and individual, both the one and the many, since within Him is all humankind, all
the manifold of human persons. The "general", as it is affirmed in the dispute of the
realists and the nominalists, does not exist, there exists, certainly, only the individual, but
an individualisation of various degrees and gradations. The "general" is a logical
deformation and rationalisation at a certain degree within the hierarchy of individualities.
For example, the cosmos, the world is not at all something general, but rather is an
individuum, an unique existence, but at a different degree, than the human individuum.
The single and individual being, the person is always a creative idea by God the Creator,
conceived through the creative imagination of God and through the Wisdom of God. L.
Shestov is hostile to ideas, which he imputes to the general, to the genus, but he himself
has no central idea, which would afford him the right to judge reason and the good, to
judge universally-binding truths. And he first of all does not want, that truth should be in-
common and binding for all. He is against that which is necessary to all, beyond the
inconsequential and insignificant. His chief enemy -- is "to-allness". "To-allness", that
which is necessary for "all", universally-binding, is an effect begotten of the Fall through
sin, it came about from what man plucked from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. After this, the life of the world became subject to "reason" and to the "good". L.
Shestov herein has caught the sense of something very profound and true, he has touched
upon the wellspring of all the evils and woes of our life. But he has gotten the problem all
tangled and made difficult the understanding, of what he wants to say. The enemy for L.
Shestov is not the sensory and material world, but namely rather the spiritual and
ideational world. And amidst this, he conducts his judgement within the categories of
ancient, non-Christian thought. The Christian thinking about man and the world is
essentially personalistic and always paradoxical from the perspectives of Greek logic and
every rational logic. Within the categories of Greek philosophy it is quite impossible to
conceive of the person. The person in the sense of the Christian revelation is not known
whether it be in Plato, or Aristotle, or Plotinos. And the Greek Patristics met with great
difficulty, when it worked out the teaching concerning Hypostasis, concerning ousia,
concerning the inter-relationships between "nature" and "person". Only the Christian
revelation paradoxically combines for thought the one and the many, allows for a perfect
unity amidst preserved distinctions, the "undivided" remains "unconfused". The Greek
thinking about this was always inadequate to the Christian revelation concerning the
person. Rational philosophic thought, non-enlightened by revelation, always inclines
either towards monism or towards dualism, for which in the uniting there disappear the
distinctions, within the one there disappears the multiplicity, or else the reverse. But L.
Shestov remains under the grip of rational thinking, an effect inherited of sin, when he
desires to be exclusively a philosopher of the singular, the individual, the unrepeatable
and sees truth only in the accidental, in caprice, within variability. In doing so he comes
to be at either of the extreme poles, created by Greek rational thought. He is compelled
even to defend Protagoras. But the paradox in this consists also, in that the singularly-
individual is this-only instance exists and can be stated as such, if it is one, universal (not
precisely however "in-common"). The singular unrepeatable human visage exists in
Christ, Who Himself is a singular unrepeatable visage yet amidst this includes within
Him all the human genus. Distinctions, i.e. the shared admitting of personal visages is
possible only against the backdrop of something that is one, is universal, in it and through
it. The personal visages can only be seen in an one-only light. It is impossible to
distinguish anything singular and individual, if it does not relate to some whole, some
unity. There is nothing of a multiplicity, if there is nothing of an unity. The consequent
and radical nominalism, to which L. Shestov tends, cannot be grounded upon anything
individual, nor any sort of individuum, it has to go on endlessly and at depth with a
nominalistic fragmenting and splintering down. There are no sort of grounds to allow for
the existence of Nietzsche, Pascal, Dostoevsky, as real totalities. "Nietzsche" as such is
already an "in-common". What sort of manner is L. Shestov convinced of the existence of
"Nietzsche" and what sort of grounds does he have to speak about such an
altogetherness? "Nietzsche" would have to be broken down into endlessly brief partial
moments, but it would be impossible also upon each of them to establish a ground.
Nominalism always establishes itself arbitrarily upon a certain reality, which as such does
not want to leave off. L. Shestov thinks, that "Luther" exists and that it is possible to
speak about him, as a real totality, whereas "Protestantism" does not exist, but
"Protestantism" is indeed likewise a certain historical individuum, and from another angle
too "Luther" is a composite totality, which from a nominalistic point of view is subject to
dividing into fragments.
 L. Shestov is hostile against the monistic "one". Yet amidst this he is least of all
hostile against God. But indeed God -- is "one". God reveals Himself, as one, as the one
God in the Bible, unlike as in philosophy. "I am the Lord Thy God". The universality and
oneness of truth are effected from the oneness of God, and not from Aristotelian logic.
The universally-binding aspect of truth for all the world and for all people is a reflection
of monotheism, such as has surmounted national particularism, having become universal.
The God of all peoples, the universal God is also the source of truth all in-common. And
this truth all in-common least of all negates and annihilates the person, the individual, it
is also the truth about the person. L. Shestov is always for revelation and against reason.
But revelation is quite more universally-binding, than is the truth of reason. The truths of
reason are relative and their proclaiming is tolerated. The truth of revelation however is
absolute and its proclaiming is exclusive. They have never burned anyone at the stake in
the name of reason and philosophy, but in the name of the Truth of revelation, alas, they
have often made burnings at the stake. Spinoza, "having killed off God", in the name of
reason and nature, never would have burnt anyone, but he himself might readily have
been burnt. People have but poorly comprehended, that revelation is oriented towards
freedom and it forces no one. It might even be said, that L. Shestov ought to be all the
more contentious against religion, than against philosophy. Religion is namely also a
"for-allness", it is social as regards its nature (this finds full expression in the history of
religions), it is trans-national, oriented to all the world. Christ came for all, for all the
world, He is the Saviour of the world. Philosophy however has always existed for the
few, attainable only for the select, it is a matter individual. Liturgy, which stands at the
centre of the religious life of peoples, is also a deed in-common. Religion always teaches
the interaction of man with God, of man with his neighbour, it always organises the life
in-common of people. The Church is interaction, community, in a certain sense "for-
allness". The whole sacramental side of religion, which little interests L. Shestov,
possesses a social nature, it is an activity in-common within a strictly established rhythm.
Against this it is possible to mutiny, but the actual fact is impossible to deny. Only the
prophetic side of religion is bound up with solitary persons, having risen up against the
religious collective. But even the prophet is social. The prophet -- is a solitary, having
made a break with the religious collective, they pelt him with stones, and yet also he is
social, he is oriented towards the fate of the people, to the accomplishing of history.
Suchlike were the Old Testament prophets, they were solitaries and yet social. The
socialness, the in-commonness at depth, and in a metaphysical sense, is the deed of love.
The unique truth, the unique light is revealed within the community of love, and not in
logic. Logic leads forth to very divergent truths, something we see also in the clash of
philosophical systems, in contradiction of each other. For L. Shestov the religious life,
religious revelation is whatever the some sort of "being shaken up", a catastrophic,
momentary, illumining experience of separate and always remarkable -- people of genius
-- Isaiah, the Ap. Paul, Pascal, Luther, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche. The life of peoples
becomes excluded from revelation and doomed by "Aristotle".

L. Shestov long since already has made known, how basic a thing it is, the opposition
between tragedy and the everyday ordinary. He is all the time writing a philosophy of
tragedy, he seeks out people, shaken by the tragic. For his philosophy of tragedy he
concerns himself with those remarkable people, who have survived a shaking jolt, a
particular sort of tragic experience, after which the solid ground has dissipated from
beneathe their feet, and they come into doubt on the universally-binding truths, to doubt
reason and the good. People caught up however in the everyday ordinary have a sense of
firm ground under their feet and with assurance they believe in universally-binding truth,
in reason and the good. The form of romantic irony, as adopted by L. Shestov, hinders
him from simply and straight-out telling about those jolts, which the people of tragedy
have experienced. But we can nonetheless express, in what this tremendous jolt consists.
This -- is fear and the proximity of death, a grievous illness, an unhappy love, wounds
and hurts, inflicted upon man through selfishness, ressentiment, the impotence of
whatever lofty ideas to comfort a man in the torments and sufferings of life, etc. It seems
to me, that L. Shestov is incorrect in his basic opposition between tragedy and the
everyday ordinary. tragedy -- is something "ordinary", everyday, of the common people.
Everyday tragedy befalls and strikes in the life of the door-keeper of L. Shestov's house
no less, than in the life of Nietzsche, Luther, Pascal, although he be less endowed with a
talent of genius to tell us about it. This door-keeper tragically thus may experience his
own ressentiment in relation to the door-keeper of a neighbouring house, just as Schelling
experienced it in regard to Hegel. It cannot be said, as L. Shestov tends to say, that "all
people usually tend to sense themself well off". But thus he thinks about people caught
up in the everyday ordinary, i.e. concerning the majority of people. And this is the most
unjust thing of all written by him. It is not necessary to read a tragedy of Aeschylos or
Sophocles, of Shakespeare or Dostoevsky, in order to sense the profound tragic aspect of
life. The fate of an enormous majority of people is unbearable tragic and tormentive.
Every creature groans and wails and awaits deliverance, even the least little bug, and not
only Pascal, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, who possessed scarce comfort in their creative
genius. The majority of people live in fear and straddle the precipice. The firmness and
steadiness of their philosophical, scientific, moral and social ideas remains at the
sidelines and provides little help against the fear, the terror, the torments of life. Death,
with which even for L. Shestov deepest of all is connected tragedy, belongs in-common
to the world, to all, it is an "everyday matter". In facing death every ordinary man
becomes a tragic man. L. Shestov tends to exaggerate the originalness and exclusiveness
of the "joltings", by which he discovers his beloved people. Nietzsche experienced his
jolting through an hopeless illness, something a great number of the most ordinary people
tend to have experienced, and he differed from them only by his creative genius. But in
one thing L. Shestov is entirely correct. No sort of the most exalted ideas can save man
from the terrors and torments of life and death, and man tends to become shaken by this
at certain moments of life. Ideas do not save, whether be it of Schiller, or of Hegel, or of
Wagner, it is the Living God, the Saviour, Christ, Who saves. This truth, it may be, is
striking and surprising for the philosophers, but it is quite elementary, simple, and totally
widespread for all believing Christians. No authentic Christian ever had the thought come
into his head, that he could be comforted and saved by an abstract idea of the good.
Christianity is quite the opposite of Stoicism, though Stoicism also has had an influence
upon Christian thinking. Christianity does not know the idea of an abstract good, it knows
only vital existence. Man is higher than the Sabbath.

L. Shestov ascribes an immense and central significance to the hero of the "Notes
from the Underground". And through him, through his words he wants to relate to us
certain precious aspects of his thought. In my book about Dostoevsky I myself ascribe
enormous significance to the "Notes from the Underground", and within this I see the
beginning point of the whole creative path of Dostoevsky. Yet it seems to me, however,
that L. Shestov here has overstressed and inaccurately interpreted much. For him the hero
of the "Notes from the Underground" becomes transformed almost into a saint, through
him resounds a voice from the higher world "beyond good and evil". Particularly
inaccurate it seems to me is Shestov's explanation of the expression of the underground
man, "whether it be for the world going to smithereens or for me not to drink tea". To
Shestov this seems extraordinarily bold and cut off from the everyday world. In actuality,
there is nothing more ordinary, than this expression. An enormous majority of people
prefer, irregardless of the world going to smithereens, but that for them they should
"drink tea". An enormous majority of people are nowise guided by any sort of the ideas
and ideals, which so distress L. Shestov, and their life is exclusively oriented
egocentrically. Each regards himself as the navel of the universe, he relates everything to
himself and sits in the dark pit of his egocentric isolation, from whence is unseen the light
Divine. L. Shestov as it were idealises the condition of outrage, envy, naked selfishness,
ressentiment. He mistakenly thinks, that the experiencing of these conditions provides a
"jolt", after which God reveals Himself beyond reason and the good. In actuality these
conditions also appear directly begotten of original sin, they tend then also to shut out
God for people. Modern psychopathology has revealed a frightening substrate within the
subconsciousness of man, it has shown, that all people are impaired. To behold God,
God, and not reason and the good, is possible only after an inward turnabout, a turning
away from the egocentric orientation of life towards rather a theocentric orientation. L.
Shestov at times tends to express himself such, that one gets the impression, that for him
a sickly self-love, i.e. a very ordinary, very commonly widespread and very impaired
condition, is also something liberating, leading out from the realm of the ordinary. Self-
love also reflects a for-allness, it has distorted and adapted to itself even the truth of
revelation. There transpires herein I think a sort of misunderstanding. L. Shestov simply
does not find the appropriate words. When he wants to find positive words for the
characteristics of the chasm beyond the limits subject to law, the everyday world, he
recourses to such words as: caprice, chaos, self-affirmation, variability, "sudden". The
solely successful word here appears to be "sudden", which points to abruptness and
catastrophism and the resistance to the introduction of revelation and the action of grace
within the determined evolutionary process of the world. Revelation and the acting of
grace is indisputably "sudden", a breaking asunder from its world. All the remaining
words are inadequate. The law also is created by the selfish and egocentric man, it is
created by him and created for him. People of the law-bound and everyday world do not
at all so love ideas, reason, the good, the eternal truths, as it seems to L. Shestov. The
enormous majority of people are incapable of seeing anything "in-common". They are
capable of living merely "in-particular". L. Shestov exaggerates immeasurably the
significance and power of "philosophy" within the life of people. In actuality, philosophy
always has existed for quite small a number of people, it is something aristocratic. It is
customs and traditions, often irrational, and not reason and logic that guides the life of
people. A majority of people understand freedom namely as self-will, arbitrariness,
caprice, "what my foot wants". All the tyrannies of the world are based upon caprice and
self-will, and they have distorted even the understanding of God. In our world likewise
reign unrest, turbulence and variability, and the aspect of law has always been but the
reverse side to the human passions. People are compelled not by the norms of reason, but
rather by the sociological norms. In L. Shestov himself I do not see any love for caprice,
the arbitrary, self-assertion, variability. All his life he has been faithful to his singular
truth. And he, most likely, does prefer his nemesis "reason" and "the good" over that self-
affirmation of man, which begets lust, avarice, malice, the vengeful passion. L. Shestov
very much in essence loves "the good" and contends against "evil". The "good" such as is
hateful to him is "the evil". The problem however is in this, that the "underground"
words, by which L. Shestov attempts to characterise the higher world, lying "beyond
good and evil", are characteristic of the world "on this side", the world of evil. This
occurred already in Nietzsche. In his "Beyond Good and Evil" there was depth and
significance, but it dissipated, when "on this side" he proposed imitating Cesare Borgia.
Cesare Borgia is situated entirely "on this side", in evil. "Beyond good and evil" cannot
be "evil". For the characteristics of life "beyond good and evil" what is needful are the
words of the Gospel, and not the words of "Notes from the Underground". L. Shestov
began with a struggle against positivism. He is correct in his denunciations against
positivism. correct, when he denounces it also in positive religions. But he still thus has
not found adequate language for the expression of his theme, he has not found the words
for expressing himself on the positive side. And he will always remain misunderstood.
And moreover he does not want that they should understand him. In this he remains a
man of the end-XIX and early-XX Centuries, a man of the era of individualism.

The position of L. Shestov would have played out clearly, if he were to have
acknowledged, that his chief enemy is not philosophy, not Aristotle and Husserl, the
significance of which, sad to say, he very much exaggerates, it is not reason and the good,
but rather law, laws logical and laws ethical, the laws of nature and laws social, all which
are uncreated by philosophers. I am prepared in much here to be in sympathy with L.
Shestov.1 The world has need of law and forms and strengthens it in response to its sin,
but it also groans beneathe its death-bearing and crippled life under the grip of law. The
grip of law tyrannises both the world and man. It has distorted the verymost Christian
revelation, and adapted it to the conditions of our world. The mystery itself of the Fall
through sin has been interpreted legalistically. The law condemns sin, but it also is
begotten of sin. Life under the law is posited in contrast to paradaisical life. We all live
imprisoned, fettered by law. The Kingdom of God has come to be regarded legalistically,
with the transferring over upon it of our legalistic categories. Law is the norm of the
social life of our sinful world. L. Shestov fails to see the consequences of the anti-social
and the outside the social in his thought process, that the force of universally-binding law
is comprised of a social nature, that it is a force of society and the society is not
paradaisical, but sinful rather.2 Legalistic norms, be they of logic, ethics, law, church
canons, possess a social nature and have to be considered sociologically. The logically
and most universally-binding possesses a social nature and is bound up with degrees of
the community aspect. The logical, the scientific or juridical universally-binding is bound
up with the lower degrees of the community aspect. However, for the higher degrees of
the community aspect there exists intuition. The grip of law is a compulsory community
of an inner world in ruin, situated upon the lower degrees of the in-common. The Church
however in its profound sense is a graced and free community, presupposing an higher
degree of the in-commonness of love. But externally it has been distorted by the lower
degrees of community, by the compulsory grip of law. L. Shestov too lightly brushes
aside the problems of community, of society, he fails to see it in its ontological depth. For
him everything social relates to the lower everydayness, to the for-allness. Social norms
are created for kitchen chefs, he seems to think. This is a deep-rooted error of his. Life in
paradise was a social life, the Kingdom of God will be a social life. On the other hand too
"Aristotle", "Husserl", "Logic" ought to be considered socially. The universally-binding
aspect of truth is the expression of a social community, -- either a community upon the
basis of compulsory law or a community upon the basis of free love. And yet the most
compelling things universally-binding appear to us as truths, having arisen upon very low
degrees of in-commonness. Law lowers the qualitative aspect of everything, it vulgarises,
it pulls downwards, witnesses to sinful discord. L. Shestov does not want to admit the
constraints of reality, borne of sin. All this, while the question about the Fall through sin
all more and more stands at the centre of the consciousness of L. Shestov. He recourses to
sources in the Bible, to the book of Genesis. His interpretation of the Biblical account
about the Fall through sin, which is an object of faith of all the Christian world, is sharp
and unique, but inaccurate or accurate only partially. Here we approach what is central in
L. Shestov. His interpretation of the Fall through sin produces an impression suchlike, as
though for him the Fall through sin was something that occurred in cognition, and not in
being, in the gnosseological sphere, and not the ontological. Here is how L. Shestov
understands it. God created the world, in which everything was "exceedingly good", and
everything was wonderful. He created paradise for man, blessed and gifted him with it.
God permitted man to eat of all the fruits from the Tree of Life. And this was
authentically genuine life. Man however fell away from life, he tasted from the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he opposed God with his reason and his good, which
had arisen from discernment through the fruits of the forbidden tree, he created therein a
world of law, a world of universally-binding truth, of universally-binding good.
Therefore reason and the good with their universally-binding truths are anti-God. The
fine and wonderful life, blessed and gifted by God, became distorted and in tatters. L.
Shestov desires the free paradaisical life. He wants, that man should cease to eat from the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and begin, just as in paradise, to eat from the
Tree of Life. It is difficult not to sympathise with his desire. But how to attain the
paradaisical life, how to break away from the sinful world, subject to law? Shestov
understands Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil" as a paradaisical life, as the cessation of
eating from the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". And I tend to think, that
Nietzsche desired a free paradaisical godly life, he wanted a breaking-through "to the
other side". But the tragedy is in this, that he remained entirely "on this side" and indeed
the characteristics of life "on the other side" were compelled to assume images and terms,
taken from the this-side sinful life. Nietzsche suggested that we learn of life, the will to
power of the this-side evil, which he himself neither wanted nor loved. The will to power,
to might, proved too much with him to be in the semblance of the sinful and evil will of
our this-side world. The tragedy of Nietzsche consisted also in this, that he was never
able to break through "to the other side". And with him there was an extraordinarily
intense, passionate will to transcendence, a love for the heights. Many a motif of
Nietzsche has carried over into L. Shestov, but he in turn wants to combine them with
Biblical motifs. The struggle over the affair of Socrates bonded Nietzsche to L. Shestov.
But L. Shestov as it were fails to notice, that the struggle of Nietzsche against Socrates
was transformed into a struggle against Christianity. Nietzsche did not actually know
Christianity and did not understand it. He was surrounded by a Christianity both merely
external and degenerate, and in which there no longer remained an heroic spirit. And
Nietzsche conceived of himself as a mortal enemy of Christianity, though he, I am
convinced, served in the matter of Christian renewal. He did not commit that blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit. God loves suchlike God-strugglers and Christ-strugglers. L.
Shestov tends to express it, as though it were philosophy that taught humility and
renunciation (in consequence of Nietzsche he employs these words in a disdainful
sense).But in actuality humility and renunciation are taught by Christianity, it is
revelation that does the teaching, and not philosophy, not reason. Reason never once
would be desirous of humility and renunciation, it is proud by its nature. Nietzsche
regarded Christianity as an enemy of life, as something decadent. Even more radically
struggling against Christianity, as being an enemy to life, was V. V. Rozanov. The theme
of L. Shestov has much in common with the theme of Nietzsche and Rozanov. But he
himself is not caught up in a struggle against Christianity, he struggles against
philosophy, philosophy for him is the enemy to life, i.e. the philosophising reason,
manifest by sins. There results a great lack of clarity.

The law, distinguishing good and evil, is a product of sin and an exposure of sin,
witnessing to it. The sinless paradaisical life does not know law. And how must one say
it: the law is from sin, or sin is from the law? L. Shestov thinks, that sin derives from the
law, from reason and the good. The knowledge of good and evil is the arising of the
distinction between these, it is a betrayal and falling away from paradaisical life, as
fashioned by God, in blessing and gift. But our thinking about these things is always on
the edge, always antinomic and paradoxical. And prior to the knowledge of good and
evil, on the other side beyond good and evil, there was not our good, nor our evil. About
this there can only be apophatic thinking, kataphatic thinking is impossible, since it
always borrows material from our sinful this-side life, subject under the law. No sort of
words of ours can in a positive sense characterise the Kingdom of God and paradise, and
the words to which L. Shestov recourses here are likewise altogether unsuitable. One
mustneeds resort to revelation, to the Gospel. When we attempt to characterise God, as
caprice and the arbitrary, as it please L. Shestov to do, then clearly herein we are
borrowing material from the characteristics of the autocratic monarchies and despotisms
of our earthly life. And hence there occur concepts about the arbitrarily merciless and
vengeful judgements of God. The monarchical concepts concerning God possess
sociological an origin. But God and the Kingdom of God are as little subject to law, as
also to caprice and the arbitrary. God is not good and is not subordinate to the good, but
God also is not evil, God is beyond and higher than all goodness, He is transcendent
beyond goodness, He is beyond both good and evil in the sense of apophatic theology.
The Kingdom of God is beyond our good and evil. This is something every Christian
ought to acknowledge. The legalistic understanding of the Kingdom of God is a verymost
great distortion of the Christian revelation. But to us has been given the revelation, that
the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom based on love, yet this love is not a legalistic good,
it is transcendent beyond the good. L. Shestov, in following upon Nietzsche,
unintentionally introduces an element of our evil into the characteristics of the Kingdom
of God and paradise -- self-asserting selfishness, i.e. egocentrism, caprice, the arbitrary,
i.e. all the conditions very much this-sided and earthly. The account of the Biblical
revelation concerning the Fall through sin and the origin of evil comprises a paradox,
insuperable within the categories of reason. But L. Shestov also namely undermines this
sense of the paradox, with himself not taking notice. He is zealous for paradaisical life, as
are many upon the earth. But he as it were thinks, that it is possible to break through to
paradise, to conquer the source of evil, having renounced reason and the good. In
actuality, when sinful man attempts to get beyond good and evil, to renounce reason and
the good, he does not at all fall back into paradise, he remains "on this side", he remains
within evil and suffers being smitten by the law. Wherefore Christ also said, that He was
come not to destroy, but to fulfill the law. It is not some empty gesture, presupposing to
get beyond good and evil, but a real and ontological victory over sin which liberates from
the grip of the law, from the grip of the legalistic good and leads forth into a world set
beyond good and evil. The real victory over sin presupposes however both Redemption
and a Redeemer. L. Shestov has never deigned to reveal to us the totally concrete, the
real, the practical, the what for him serves a life beyond good and evil, beyond reason,
what sort of path he has. Only by virtue of this total lack of discourse and abstraction is
he able to maintain his position. Christianity reveals however, that beyond the legalistic
good and evil there lies a kingdom of love. Love in Christ is not a law, love is a graced
power. And only by virtue of love can life get beyond and outside the law, "beyond the
this-side" aspect. This is not something taught by Greek philosophy, but by revelation.
But even the law in the profound religious sense of this word originated not from
Aristotle, to an immeasurably greater degree it originated from Moses, i.e. it has a
Biblical origin. For L. Shestov the Bible as it were consists in the account of the book of
Genesis concerning the Fall through sin, and moreover certain of the Psalms, revelations
from the Prophets and the book of Job. But the content of the Bible is immeasurably
more complex and far richer. In the Bible is the teaching about the Wisdom of God, about
Sophia. God by His Wisdom created everything and therefore everything only can have
been exceedingly good, all wonderful. Is it that L. Shestov would identify the Biblical
Wisdom or the Sophia of J. Boehme with reason as it is in the Greek philosophers?
Wisdom, Sophia, is something searched for by the greatest philosophers, since by their
very name they are termed philo-sophists, lovers of wisdom, but by the powers of reason
they were never able to discern, that which was given but in revelation. The mind too is
something created by God.

L. Shestov is first of all contending against the grip of law over the world, against the
legalistic mindset of religion itself. In this I am fully in accord with him. He is right in his
rising up against the subordinating of the individual and particular to the general and
monistic (his revolt against the Algemeinheit of Hegel is so to speak very reminiscent of
Belinsky's revolt in the name of the living person, when he "made a bow to the
philosophic nightcap of Egor Fedorovich" and anticipated much in the thoughts of
Dostoevsky). But he gets us all tangled up and muddled, when he subjoins to this the
character of a struggle against knowledge, against philosophy, against all reason and all
the good. In truth moreover there is not a legalistic knowing, nor a legalistic reason nor a
legalistic good. Knowledge possesses both a liberating and creative significance. L.
Shestov however does not want to make any distinctions, does not want to reckon with
various meanings of the word reason. And therefore completely unclear and
incomprehensible remains his attitude towards knowledge, towards science, towards
philosophy. There remains the impression, that for L. Shestov knowledge is always sin
and evil, always from the serpent, a view that surprisingly conjoins him with some very
obscurantist currents within Christianity. But if man were only to eat of the fruits from
the Tree of Life and not tasted from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then he
all the same would have attained to consciousness. Knowledge too is of life, and the Tree
of Life would also give us knowledge. Life, bereft of knowledge, would be a terribly
impoverished life. The sin itself is not in the knowledge of good and evil, but in the
experience of evil, i.e. a life external to God and against God (this mustneeds be
understood not legalistically, in the sense of disobedience to the will of God, but
ontologically rather), which immanently subordinates life to the law, rationalising and
moralising life. But if the distinction between good and evil has arisen and sin be
censured by the law, then the very knowing of good and evil can be a felicitous thing. L.
Shestov himself only but acts, as though he knows what is good and evil, just as it was
with Nietzsche. He is completely correct, when he fights for the independence of
philosophy from science, when he asserts that in philosophy there are other paths of
knowledge. All the authentic philosophers stand together with him on this. And Husserl's
denial of philosophy, as being wisdom, and with the demand that it become a strict
science, is itself a decadent philosophy, a quenching of the philosophic spirit. The
philosophy of the great German idealists was, certainly, wisdom, and not science. The
struggle of L. Shestov against science and philosophy in the name of the Bible and
revelation, as sources of the Truth, is to a remarkable degree based upon a
misunderstanding. The higher cannot be dependent upon the lower, philosophy as
wisdom cannot be dependent upon science, religious revelation cannot be dependent
upon philosophy. But in its own sphere, upon its own plane, science remains in force and
deserves respect. "Twice two is four" -- is a very respectable arithmetical truth, which L.
Shestov cannot deny, but that does not mean that it carries over into theology. We know,
that for the Christian teaching about the Trinity altogether inapplicable are the truths of
arithmetic. L. Shestov is often smashing through an open door. The misunderstanding
issues forth from this, that L. Shestov jumbles together science and ethics, he ethicises
the problem of knowledge and in essence he is interested exclusively with ethical
questions. L. Shestov himself however, when the talk gets around to what he is calling
the everyday ordinary, about life whether social or historical, always he tends to take a
stand beyond healthy common sense and science. This is evident in his ponderings about
the fate of Russia. He renders himself a moralist, a rationalist, and does not see the
metaphysical depth within historical life. He comes out with a dualistic system, a double
book-keeping as it were. The one is for the realm of tragedy, the other for the realm of the
everyday ordinary. About the realm of the everyday ordinary he renders judgements no
less positivist and rational, than P. N. Miliukov. And therefore he is lacking in a path to
the transfiguration of life, the path to paradise. Everything remains set within the intimate
catastrophic experiences of isolated remarkable people and in the literature, expressing
these experiences. He does not believe in supernatural miracles, i.e. miracles,
transcending the natural, he believes only in psychological miracles.
 The searchings of L. Shestov are begotten of an epoch of non-belief. And he is
powerless to sunder the degrees of the law, the spell of reason and the good. He does not
at all desire the incarnation of his "mindlessness", his "beyond good and evil", he is afraid
of this and warns against this. L. Shestov is not a Biblical man, he is a man of the end-
XIX Century and beginning-XX Century, of the era of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, and
not of Isaiah and the Ap. Paul, nor even of Pascal and Luther. He smashes against a door,
already opened by Christianity, but cannot get through it. The assertion of L. Shestov is
astonishing, that no one can dispute it, wherein that misery, sickness, banishment and
death are matters which no one can do anything about. Christianity disputes it, and it
bases itself completely upon the matters of misery, sickness, banishment and death. I
understand much in L. Shestov, with much I am in agreement, but I do not understand his
intonation and not infrequently I get all worked up over it. Everything, that L. Shestov
ascribes to Pascal, as extraordinary and of value in him, is in general proper also to the
Christian revelation and the believing Christian world. There is nothing exclusively
original in this, that Christ will be in agony til the end of the world and that there is need
to be vigilant, that there is a need of s'abetir, that knowledge, reason, the good ought to
be surmounted, as also all other self-evident truths. Pascal expressed this acutely with
genius, but this is part of the common heritage of Christianity. Just as it is the common
heritage of mystics, in what L. Shestov says about the surmounting of reason with
Plotinos. L. Shestov speaks like a man, living in a world of positivists. And this
determines his tone. Foreign to him remains the Christian revelation concerning the God-
Man and God-manhood. And all the time it remains unclear, whether L. Shestov is
defending man or whether he is in revolt against man, as the school of K. Barth is in
revolt, and with whom he has points in common. L. Shestov is in revolt against the
philosophy of Spinoza, for whom the human tear does not exist, nor human woes and
joys. But does his particular God know sorrow over the needs of people? The God of the
Bible indeed knows sorrow. But the God of L. Shestov is capricious, some He chooses
for salvation, others He consigns to perdition, just as with Calvin. God does not know the
human sense of justice and right, He remains "beyond on the other side". But then it
transpires likewise, that with Spinoza, there is no sort of affinity between God and man,
no truth in common. God remains completely transcendent. But the essence of
Christianity consists in this, that the transcendent is become immanent, that there is a
commensurability between God and man, there is a likeness and kinship, that the Divine
truth is rendered human, whilst also non-human. The theme, which all his life torments L.
Shestov, finds its resolution only in Christianity. Over and beyond an immanent god, of
abstract Reason and the Good, the God of the philosophers, and a God absolutely
transcendent, a God capricious, unjust, merciless and cruel, there is a third, the Christian
aspect of God -- God as Love, God as Sacrifice, the God emptying Himself and issuing
forth blood, God, having become Man. And it is only this aspect of God that can be
acceptable. Theodicy is not at all a justification of God in the face of human judgement,
theodicy is a defending of God against a false human understanding of God, against the
slanders, leveled against God. The sole possible theodicy is Golgotha, the redemptive
sacrifice of God, reconciling God and man. Here is why between our sinful, legalistic,
this-side life and the life beyond, of paradise, the Kingdom of God, there lies sacrifice,
effort, humility, -- the path, along which God Himself went, the son of God, Who
humbled Himself and took on the form of a lowly servant. This also is the sole resolution
of the theme of L. Shestov. The merit however of L. Shestov is in this, that he defends the
individual human soul, which from all sides suffers violence and torment.

Nikloai Berdyaev.

1929

© 2005 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1929 - 346 - en)

DREVO ZHIZNI I DREVO POZNANIYA. (L. Shestov. "Na vesakh Ioba.

Stranstvovanie po dusham". Iz-vo "Sovremennyia Zapiski". Parizh. 1929). Journal Put',
sept. 1929, no. 18, p. 88-106.

1
Already back in my quite of old book, "The Philosophy of Freedom", I asserted, that the
law of logic -- is a product of the Fall through sin.
2
Durkheim, without understanding the ontological sense of this, in what he says, speaks
much of truth about the grip of the force of society.

STUDIES CONCERNING JACOB BOEHME 1

Etude I. The Teaching about the Ungrund and Freedom

(1939 - #349)

"Im Wasser lebt der Fisch, die Pflanzen in der Erden,

Der Vogel in der Luft, die Sonn im Firmament,
Der Salamander muss mit Feur erhalten werden:
Und Gottes Herz ist Jakob Boehmens Element".

["In water lives the fish, the plant in the ground,

The bird in the sky, the sun in the firmament,
The salamander must with fire be sustained,
And God's Heart is Jacob Boehme's element".]
Angelus Silesius

I.

Jacob Boehme has to be termed the greatest of Christian gnostics. The word gnosis
I employ here not in the sense of the heresies of the first centuries of Christianity,2 but in
the sense of knowledge basic to revelation and dealing not with concepts, but with
symbols and myths; contemplative knowledge, and not discursive knowledge. This is
also a religious philosophy or theosophy. Characteristic for J. Boehme is that he had a
great simplicity of heart, a child-like purity of soul. Therefore before death he could
exclaim: "Nun fahre ich in's Paradeis" {"Now I journey on into Paradise"}. He was not
learned, not bookish, not schooled a man, but rather a simple craftsman, a shoemaker. He
belonged to the type of the wise-seers from amongst the people. He did not know
Aristotle, he did not know Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite, he did not know the
Medieval Scholasticism and mysticism. In him it is impossible, just as it is for the larger
part of Christian mystics, to discern any direct influences of Neo-Platonism. He found his
sustenance first of all in the Bible3 and beyond this he read Paracelsus, Sebast. Franck,
Weigel, Schwenckfeld. He lived within the atmosphere of the German mystico-
theosophic currents of his time. Boehme was not a philosopher in the academic school
sense of this word, he was first of all a theosophist, a visionary and myth-creator, but his
influence on German philosophy was enormous. His thinking was not by calculated and
clear concepts, but by symbols and myths. He was convinced, that Christianity had
become distorted by the learned and by the theologians, by the popes and the cardinals.
Boehme by faith-confession was a Lutheran and he died with the final unction of a
pastor. But the Lutheran clergy vexed and harassed him, and forbade him to publish his
works. This is a phenomenon typical to all faith-confessions. And just like with the
greater part of mystics and theosophists, he was supra-confessional. It is possible to
discern in him strong Catholic elements, despite his extreme hostility to papism. The
origin from which the knowledge of Boehme derived -- is a very complex problem. This
problem involves the possibility of a personal gnostic revelation and enlightening, by a
special cognitive charism. At present they tend to think, that Boehme was more widely
read, than earlier was thought, but certainly least of all can the teachings of Boehme be
explained by borrowings and influences (an explanation unbecoming for such an original
and remarkable thinker). Eckhardt was a man learned and bookish, he knew Aristotle,
Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite, Thomas Aquinas, the Medieval Scholasticism and
mysticism. Boehme however was self-made, and with him undoubtedly were primal
intuitions. Boehme himself says about the sources of his cognition: "Ich brauche ihrer Art
und Weise und ihrer Formeln nicht, weil ich es von ihnen nicht gelernt habe; ich habe
einen andern Lehrmeister, und der ist die ganze Natur. Von dieser ganzen Natur mit ihrer
instehenden Geburt habe ich meine Philosophie, Astrologie und Theologie studirt und
gelernt, und nicht von oder durch Menschen" {"I use not their art and wisdom and their
formulas, since from them I have learned nothing; I have an other Master-Teacher, and
this is the whole of nature. From this whole of nature with innate birth I have studied and
learned my philosophy, astrology and theology, and nothing from or through man"}.4
There is here a sense of the Renaissance reaction against the Scholastics and a
reorientation towards nature itself. Moreover, Boehme was convinced, that his knowing
was not by his own human powers, but with the help of the Holy Spirit. "In meinen
eigenen Kraeften bin ich so ein blinder Mensch, als irgend einer ist, und vermag nichts,
aber im Geiste Gottes siehet mein eingeborner Geist durch Alles, aber nicht immer
beharrlich; sondern wenn der Geist der Liebe Gottes durch meinen Geist durchbricht,
alsdann ist die animalische Geburt und die Gottheit ein Wesen, eine Begreiflichkeit und
ein Licht" {"In mine own ability I am as blind a man, as is anyone, and am capable of
nothing, but in the Spirit of God throughout all stands my inborn spirit, but not always
unwaveringly; but when the Spirit of the love of God is focused through my spirit, then
is the creaturely birth and the Godhead one essence, one understanding and one light"}.5
Sophia assists him in the perception of the very mystery of God. He believes, that God
"wird dich zum lieben Kinde annehmen und dir ein neu Kleid der edeln Jungfrauen
Sophiae anziehen, und einen Siegelring (Mysterii Magni) an deine Hand des Gemueths
stecken; und in demselben Kleide (der neuen Wiedergeburt) hast du allein Macht, von der
ewigen Geburt Gottes zu reden" {"wilt adopt thee as a beloved child and clothe thee in
the new garb of the nobly virginal Sophia, and a signet-ring (Mysterii Magni) upon thine
hand of mind wilt set; and in the selfsame garb (the new birth-anew) hast thou alone the
power, to speak from God's eternal birth"}.6

In contrast to the majority of mystics, Boehme writes not about his own soul nor
about his own spiritual path, nor about what happened with him, but rather what has
transpired with God, with the world and with man. This is a feature distinguishing
mystical theosophy from pure mysticism per se. The mysticism of Boehme belongs to the
gnostic type. But Boehme perceives God and the world through man, his knowledge
issues forth from the subject, and not from the object, despite the predominance in him of
nature-philosophy and cosmology. The visible world is a reflection of the invisible world.
"Und die sichtbare Welt ist eine Offenbarung der innern geistlichen Welt, aus dem
ewigen Lichte und aus der ewigen Finsterniss, aus dem geistlichen Gewirke; und ist ein
Gegenwurf der Ewigkeit, mit dem sich die Ewigkeit hat sichtbar gemacht" {"And the
visible world is a manifestation of the inner spiritual world, from the eternal light and the
eternal darkness, from the spiritual working; and it is an opposition of eternity, which
eternity itself hath made visible"}.7 Heaven reveals itself within man. "Ich bin auch nicht
in den Himmel gestiegen und habe alle Werke und Geschoepfe Gottes gesehen, sondern
derselbe Himmel ist in meinem Geiste offenbaret, dass ich im Geist erkenne die Werke
und Geschoepfe Gottes" {"I however have not climbed up to Heaven so as to have seen
all the works and creatures of God, but the selfsame Heaven is revealed in my spirit, so
that I in spirit perview the works and creatures of God"}.8 For Boehme, the natural
physical elements are essentially the same in common with the elements of soul. He sees
in nature likewise that which is in spirit. Man -- is a microtheos and a microcosmos.
Heaven and hell are within the soul of man. And it from thence only that there is possible
the cognition of God and the world. The unseen spiritual world is the foundational basis
of the visible material world. And God can only be found in the depths of one's own
heart. Divine wisdom is not to be sought for in the academies and books. The world-view
of Boehme is symbolic. All the visible world is but a symbol of the inner world. "Die
ganze aeussere sichtbare Welt mit all ihrem Wesen ist eine Bezeichnung oder Figur der
inneren geistlichen Welt; alles was im Inneren ist, und wie es in der Wirkung ist, also
hats auch seinen Charakter aeusserlich" {"The whole external visible world with all its
essence is a sign or figure of the inner spiritual world; all what is in the inner, and how it
is in effect, also indeed has its character externally"}.9 Physical traits signify the spiritual
ones. The preface to the greatest work of Boehme, the "Mysterium magnum", begins with
the assertion, that the visible world -- is a symbol of the invisible spiritual world. "Denn
die sichtbaren empfindlichen Dinge sind ein Wesen des Unsichtbaren; von dem
Unsichtlichen, Unbegreiflichen ist kommen das Sichtbare, Begreifliche" {"The visible
and sensible things are an essence of the invisible; from the unseeable and
incomprehensible are come the seeable, the understandable"}.10 The world is a symbol of
God: "diese Welt ist ein Gleichniss nach Gottes Wesen, und ist Gott in einem irdischen
Gleichniss offenbar" {"This world is in likeness to God's essence, and God is manifest in
the earthly likeness"}.11 The cognition of God is a birth of God in the soul. And such a
cognition is possible only through the illumination of the soul by the Spirit of God.
Boehme quite distinctly comprehends the limitations of human cognition, and he speaks
about the foolishness of mere human wisdom. But together with this, he possesses a very
sublime conception concerning cognitive knowledge. The cognitive knowledge of God --
is a duty of man, and for this he was created. Boehme -- is a symbolist, but he is not an
idealist in the sense of the German Idealism of the XIX Century. He -- is a realist. He has
not lost that living vital connection with real being, he has not trapped himself into an
abstract world begotten of thought, a world of subjective experiences. The contemplation
of Boehme -- is realistico-symbolic. The cognitive knowing of the spiritual world was for
him a dwelling within the spiritual world, it was of the very life within him. Being for
him was not transformed into an object, set opposite the subject. Cognition transpires
within being itself, it is an event within being.

The gnosis of Boehme was experiential and from life, it arose from the torment over
the fate of man and the world. Boehme had a child-like pure, good and compassionate
soul. But his feeling for worldly life was austhere, not sentimental. His fundamental
intuition of being was of an intuition of fire. In this he was akin to Herakleitos. He had an
extraordinarily acute and strong sense of evil in the life of the world. And therefore he
sees a struggle of opposing principles, a struggle of light and darkness. As regards his
sensing of the power of evil and of the struggle of God with the devil, of light and
darkness, he was nigh close to Reformation sources, to the experience of Luther.12 He
senses God not only as love, but also as anger, wrath. He senses within God a poignant
and harsh quality. Herein the physical qualities signify also the spiritual qualities. He sees
within the very Divinity a dark nature, an irrational abyss. As regards his feeling of life,
Boehme stands already at the threshold of modern times. He begins, having his roots still
within the Medieval, and a mystical realism is a Medieval trait in him. But in him already
there storms the blood of the man of the Reformation and the Renaissance. With him
there is a Renaissance orientation towards cosmic life, towards nature, and the self-
consciousness of man becomes far higher, than that of the Medieval. As regards the
dynamism of his world-concept, his interest in the genesis and establishing of order, his
sense of the struggle of opposed principles, the idea of freedom fundamental to him,
Boehme was a man of modern times. The world is no longer still conceived of by him, as
an eternally forever static order, as a rigid hierarchical system. World life is a struggle, an
establishing of order, a fiery dynamic process. This is nowise similar to the world-
concept of Thomas Aquinas and Dante. Quite more profoundly than the people of the
Middle Ages, Boehme pondered over the problem of the origin of evil, over the problem
of theodicy. He was very much tormented by the question, how God could have created
the world, yet foreseeing the evil and suffering. In the face of the evil and suffering of
world life, the anger and wrath of the Father, he sought salvation in the heart of the Son,
of Jesus. There was a moment, when it seemed to Boehme, that God had withdrawn from
the evil world and he seeks God close at hand. Koyre says quite accurately, that Boehme
started out with torment over the problem of evil and he sought salvation first of all, and
thereupon knowledge.13 How is one to conceive of evil in the face of the Absoluteness of
the Divinity? How is one to be saved from evil and from the anger, the wrath of the
Divinity, such as is no longer discerned in the Son, as Love? Boehme has affinity with
the gnostics of old in his torment over the problem of evil. But his resolution is distinct
from the merely gnostic by its immeasurably more Christian character. In any case,
Boehme belonged to that profound select group of people, who are pained by the evil and
torment of world life. Boehme was the first in the history of modern thought to make a
distinction, which will thereafter play an enormous role in German Idealism, --
everything can be discerned only through the other, through opposition. Light cannot be
discerned without darkness, good without evil, the spirit without the opposition of matter.

II.

Boehme wants to decide the question, which has disquieted many a philosopher: how
is it possible to make the transition from God to the world, from the one to the many,
from eternity to time? But he fashioned himself an even more audacious question: how
did the Divine Trinity come about, how from the Divine Nothing, how from the Absolute
did there become possible the creation of the world, how became manifest the Creator,
how did the Person become manifest in God? The Absolute of apophatic theology and
metaphysics cannot be as such the Creator of the world. God -- the Creator, as regards
kataphatic theology, is correlative to the creation, is correlative with man. And suchlike it
was there already in Eckhardt.14 An investigation of Boehme's teaching concerning the
concept of the Trinity does not at present enter into my task, and the theme of my study
here is rather more limited. The formulations of Boehme in this regard are not always
distinct with exactitude nor dogmatically satisfactory. But his virtue is in this, that he sees
everywhere in the world and in man the Trinitarian principle, a reflection of the Divine
Trinity. The traditional-type theology has always been vexed with this, that Boehme
taught about a theogonic process, about a birth within God, about a dynamic stirring
within God. His understanding of God was to the highest degree dynamic. Christian
theological systems, however, have worked out their teachings about God, employing
categories of thought from Greek philosophy. Thus, the teaching about God, as pure act,
comprising within Him no sort of potentiality, was constructed wholly upon Aristotle.
The teaching about the unstirring, self-sufficient, static God of Christian theology was
taken not from the Bible, not from the Christian Revelation, but from Parmenides, Plato,
Aristotle. Within it was reflected the static aspect from Greek ontology. An unstirring
God, God as pure act, is God -- as a concept, and not God -- as life. The predominant
theological doctrine deprives God of inner life, denies any sort of process within God,
makes Him equivalent to an unstirring stone. And this idea ultimately is idolatrous. Not
such is the God of the Bible, the God of Revelation. He is full of inner life and drama, in
Him there is dynamic stirring. There is a tragic aspect within God that is both Biblical
and mythological, though too non-theological an understanding of God. God, undergoing
the torment and sufferings of the Cross, God, offering the sacrifice of love -- is a God
dynamic, and not static. Bl. Augustine in a certain sense also admitted of dynamism in
God. L. Bloy defined God, as a lonely and misunderstood sufferer, and in this he was
more correct, than Thomas Aquinas. The tremendous significance of Boehme is in this,
that after the dominance of Greek philosophy and Medieval Scholasticism with their
static concept of God, he then introduces a dynamic principle into the understanding of
God, i.e. he sees an inner life within God, the tragic aspect characteristic of all life. And
with Boehme it was bound up with this, that on the one hand he immersed himself in the
Bible and meditated upon it, free from the categories of Greek thought, yet on the other
hand he carried over into his contemplation of God an experience about the evil in world
life and about the contradictions rending the world, about the struggle of light and
darkness, of the sweet and the bitter, of love and anger. Boehme was of the modern type
of soul, which stood face to face afront the problem of evil, unable to still yet humbly
bow and hold back through a consciousness of its own sinfulness. He boldly wanted to
gain insight into the origin and meaning of evil. In this he was a gnostic. He saw a dark
principle within the primal sources of being, deeper than being itself. He was compelled
to admit of a dark principle within the Divinity itself, and that there is some positive
meaning to the very existence of evil, which so tormented him. But he does not fall into a
Manichaean-gnostic dualism, into a dualism of gods. Without evil, good cannot be
known. Through evil, the good is discerned. As regards the character of his thought
concerning Divine matters Boehme is no Neo-Platonist, as were the majority of Christian
mystics. Boehme likewise was not at all a monist, and he does not at all teach about
emanation. Everywhere for him it is a matter of will and contradiction. The moral sense
of evil in Luther was transformed in Boehme into the metaphysical. The metaphysics of
Boehme is voluntaristic, and not intellectualistic, as was the Greek and Medieval
metaphysics. The voluntarism of Boehme is a new principle, introduced by him into
philosophy, and German philosophy would tend to develope it along further. It is only
Boehme's voluntarism also that has rendered possible a philosophy of freedom. The
whole of Boehme is saturated with the magic of will, which at its primal-basis is still dark
and irrational. Boehme to the very end is seriously concerned with the problem of evil
and he approaches it neither as the pedagogue nor as the moralist, nor from the point of
view of tending to infants. Being for him is a fiery current. And this fire in the darkness --
is both cold and scorching: "ein jedes Leben ein Feuer ist" {"every life is a fire"}.15 The
will is fire. The primal-basis of being is a ravenous and hungry will. In response to it
issues forth light and love. The potentiality of darkness lies in the very depths of being, in
the Divinity itself.16 It is bound up with meonic freedom.

The mysterious teaching of Boehme about the Ungrund, about the abyss, without
foundation, dark and irrational, prior to being, is an attempt to provide and answer to the
basic question of all questions, the question concerning the origin of the world and of the
arising of evil. The whole teaching of Boehme about the Ungrund is so interwoven with
the teaching concerning freedom, that it is impossible to separate them, for this is all part
and parcel of the same teaching. And I am inclined to interpret the Ungrund, as a
primordial meonic freedom, indeterminate even by God.17 We tend to see that the
teaching of Boehme concerning the Ungrund is not distinguished by any clarity of
precision, such as is characteristic to a concept. But such a demand would be improper in
approaching it, there cannot be such a precision in concept concerning the Ungrund and
being, this is an area situated at the very limits of rational concepts. In what regard do the
teachings of Boehme come nigh to that of the traditional rational theology, which has the
desire to know nothing corresponding to the Ungrund? I have always tended to think, that
the theodicy, worked out by the prevailing systems of rational theology, only but
transforms the relationship between God and the world into a comedy, into a mere play of
God with Himself, and it reflects upon the ancient slavery of man, his being crushed
down into cowering fear. This -- is an ontology of sin. Boehme has no desire to conceive
of the mystery of the world-creation, but as of a tragedy, a tragedy not only of man, but
also of God. The only thing that saves the rational kataphatic theology is this, that at a
certain moment it is transformed into an apophatic theology and then asserts, that we
stand facing a mystery unfathomable and unapproachable, before which we have to bow.
But the kataphatic theology too late recourses to the mystery, as to its sole salvation and
only way out, after it has already rationalised everything so much so, that it has become
impossible to breathe. This theology both goes too far in the rationalisation of Divine
mysteries and too early on, it proclaims an interdict for knowledge, it asserts agnosticism.
In this it is distinct from theosophy, which both more admits the irrationality of Divine
matters and permits more the possibility of an endless movement in the cognition of these
mysteries, but a cognition not through concepts. Theology however operates primarily
through concepts, especially the Catholic school theology, so beautifully worked out. I
term it a comedy, this following conception from the kataphatic rational theology. God is
perfect and unstirring, having no need of anything, and as self-sufficing, all-powerful,
omniscient and all-good He created the world and man for His own glorification and for
the good of the creation. The act of the world-creation was neither evoked by nor
answered any sort of need in God, it was the product purely of free chance, it nowise
added up to anything more for the Divine being and nowise enriched it. God endowed
His creature, man, with his fatal freedom, and sees in the freedom the worthiness of His
creation and a likeness to Himself. Man however made bad use of his freedom, he rose up
in revolt against his Creator, he fell away from God and in his fall he dragged down after
him the whole of creation. Man, having transgressed the will of God, fell under a curse
and the power of the law. The whole of creation groans and weeps. Such was the first act.
In the second act begins the Redemption and there transpires the Incarnation of God for
the salvation of the creature. The image of the Creator is replaced by that of the Saviour.
But it is remarkable, that this whole cosmology and anthropology is constructed upon the
principle of a pure monotheism, without any sort of relationship to Christ or to the
revelation of the MostHoly Trinity. This is a dualistic theism, knowing nothing about the
aspect of the Trinity within the Deity, knowing only the monarchic teaching about God,
i.e. a teaching non-Christian. The comedy or play of God with Himself here involves also
this, that God, having endowed man with freedom, in His Omniscience knew also all the
consequences of this freedom -- sin, evil, worldly torment and suffering, the eternal
perishing and the eternal torments in hell of an indeterminable, and evidently, enormous
number of beings, created by Him for bliss. Man is rendered an insignificant plaything,
innately having received freedom, but together with this there is imposed upon him an
immense responsibility. He is great of stature only in his falling. For God everything
transpires within eternity and in the act of world-creation, so that in eternity are
predestined both the temporal and the eternal torments. This inevitably leads to the
teaching about the predestination of some to salvation, for others however to eternal
perdition, a teaching, to which Bl. Augustine had already inclined and which Calvin took
to its conclusion. God in thus having created man, predestined him to eternal perdition,
since He knows the consequences of freedom, He knows, what a man will choose. A man
has received his freedom from God, he does not possess it of himself and this freedom is
wholly set within the grip of God, wholly determined by Him, i.e. ultimately, it is
fictitious. God awaits a response from the creature to His call, so that the creature should
love God and dwell in a godly life, but ultimately it is that God is awaiting an answer
from Himself, He plays Himself a game, since He Himself endows the freedom and He
knows Himself the consequences of this freedom, for Him it is clearly apparent. The
problem of Ivan Karamazov is posited at greater depth and carries over into eternity. The
matter involves not merely the tears of a child in the temporal earthly life, but about the
torments both temporal and eternal of an enormous quantity of living beings, having
received the fatal gift of freedom from God, knowing, what this gift signifies and to what
it will lead. The soteriology of the traditional theological systems can readily be
interpreted, as an unseemly correction by God of a mistake created by Him and assuming
the form of a criminal penal process. The rational kataphatic theology, in its cosmology
and anthropology having forgotten about God in Trinity, having forgotten about Christ,
about the God of Love and Sacrifice and having relegated the mystery of the Christian
Revelation to the part concerning Redemption, and not concerning the world-creation,
cannot as such rise about this Divine Comedy and only therein but builds a fictitious
theodicy. The theological teaching about the freedom of the will bears a pedagogical,
moral-juridical character and does not penetrate down into the primal foundations of the
mystery of freedom. All that is necessary is that there should be someone to punish. And
in such a sort of outlook, the apophatic and the kataphatic get all hopelessly jumbled
together. J. Boehme was one of the few bold enough to rise above this rational kataphatic
theology and to perceive the mystery of the world-creation, as a tragedy, and not as a
comedy. He teaches about a process not only cosmogonic and anthropogonic, but also
concerning a theogonic process. But the theogony does not at all signify, that God has a
beginning, that He arises within time, it does not mean, that He comes about to be within
the world process, as with Fichte or Hegel, it signifies, that the inner eternal life of God
reveals itself, as a dynamic process, as a tragedy within eternity, as a struggle with the
darkness of non-being. The teaching about the Ungrund and freedom is also a bold
attempt to apperceive the world-creation from the inner life of the Divinity. The world-
creation bears a relationship to the inner life of the Divine Trinity, and cannot be for It
something completely external. The principle of evil thus acquires an actual seriousness
and tragic aspect. The cosmogony and anthropogony of Boehme is pervaded by the
Christian Revelation, it does remain something Old Testament, but it is within the New
Testament light, in the light of Christ. Boehme teaches about a serious "Quall [Qual] des
Abgrundes",18 about the torment in the dark abyss, which the light of Christ has to
conquer.

III.

The teaching of Boehme about the Ungrund was not all immediately worked out, and
was as yet not there in the "Aurora". It was chiefly revealed in the "De signatura Rerum"
and in the "Mysterium magnum". It answers the need of Boehme to penetrate the mystery
of freedom, the origin of evil, the struggle of darkness and light. In Chapter III of the "De
signatura Rerum", which is entitled "Vom grossen Mysterio aller Wesen" {"Of the Great
Mystery of All Being"}, Boehme says: "Ausser der Natur ist Gott ein Mysterium,
verstehet in dem Nichts; denn ausser der Natur ist das Nichts, das ist ein Auge der
Ewigkeit, ein ungruendlich Auge, das in nichts stehet oder siehet, denn es ist der
Ungrund; und dasselbe Auge ist ein Wille, verstehet ein Sehnen nach der Offenbarung,
das Nichts zu finden" {"For out of nature is God a Mysterium, i.e. the Nothing; for from
out of nature is the Nothing, which is an eye of eternity, a groundless eye, which stands
nowhere nor sees, for it is the Ungrund and the selfsame eye is a will, i.e. a longing for
manifestation, to discern the Nothing"}.19 The Ungrund thus is the Nothing, the
groundless eye of eternity, yet together with this it is will, without foundation,
unfathomable and indeterminate will. But this -- is a Nothing, which is "ein Hunger zum
Etwas" {"an hunger to be something"}.20 And together with this the Ungrund is
freedom.21 Within the darkness of the Ungrund there is ablaze a fire and this is freedom,
a freedom meonic with potential. According to Boehme, freedom is contrary to nature,
but nature has issued forth from freedom. Freedom is a semblance of the Nothing, but
from it issues something. The hunger of freedom, of the groundless will to something has
to be satisfied: "das Nichts macht sich in seiner Lust aus der Freiheit in der Finsterniss
des Todes offenbar, denn das Nichts will nicht ein Nichts sein, und kann nicht ein Nichts
sein" {"The Nothing loves to make itself manifest from out of freedom in the deathly
darkness, for then the Nothing wills not to be the Nothing, and cannot be the
Nothing"}.22 The freedom of the Ungrund is neither light, nor darkness, neither good, nor
evil. Freedom lies within the darkness and thirsts for the light. And freedom is the cause
of light. "Die Freiheit ist und stehet in der Finsterniss, und gegen der finstern Begierde
nach des Lichts Begierde, sie ergreifet mit dem ewigen Willen die Finsterniss; und die
Finsterniss greifet nach dem Lichte der Freiheit und kann es nicht erreichen, denn sie
schleusst sich mit Begierde selber in sich zu, und macht sich in sich selber zur
Finsterniss" {"Freedom exists and is set within the darkness, and over against the dark
desire is still yet the desire for light, it seizes the darkness with the eternal will; and the
darkness aspires after the light of freedom and cannot attain it, for then it passes with
desire over into itself, and attains in itself but to the darkness"}.23 Boehme apophatically
and as an antinomy describes the mystery, transpiring in the depths of being, at that
depth, which is contiguous with the primordial Nothing. In the darkness there is kindled a
fire and a glimmer of light, the Nothing comes to be something, the groundless freedom
gives rise to nature. And two processes occur: "Die Freiheit [...] ist des Lichts Ursache,
und die Impression der Begierde ist der Finsterniss und der peinlichen Quaal Ursache. So
verstehet nun in diesen zwei ewige Anfaenge, als zwei Principia: eines in der Freiheit im
Lichte, das andre in der Impression in der Pein und Quaal der Finsterniss; ein jedes in
sich selber wohnend"{"Freedom [...] is the cause of the light. And the impression made
of the desire is the cause of darkness and painful torment. So there arises now in this two
eternal points of departure, as two principles: one in freedom in the light, the other in the
impression made in the pain and torment of the darkness; ; each living in itself"}.24
Freedom, as the Nothing, as meonic, possesses in itself no substantial essence.25 Boehme
was perhaps the first in the history of human thought to have seen, that at the basis of
being and prior to being lies a groundless freedom, the passionate desire of the Nothing to
become something, the darkness, within which would blaze the fire and light, i.e. he was
the originator of an unique metaphysical voluntarism, unknown to Medieval and ancient
thought.26 Will, i.e. freedom, is at the origin of everything. But Boehme thinks it is so
because the conjectured Ungrund, the groundless will lies within the depths of the
Divinity, and prior to the Divinity. The Ungrund is also the Divinity of apophatic
theology and is together with this an abyss, a free Nothing deeper than God and outside
God. In God there is a nature, a principle distinct from It. The Primal-Divinity, the Divine
Nothing -- is on the other side of good and evil, of light and darkness. The Divine
Ungrund -- is somehow prior to the arising within eternity of the Divine Trinity. God
arises, realises Himself from out of the Divine Nothing. This is a path of thought about
God akin to that, whereupon Meister Eckhardt makes a distinction between the Godhead
(Gottheit) and God (Gott). God, as the Creator of the world and of man, corresponds with
the creation, He arises from the depths of the Godhead, the unfathomable Nothing. This
is an idea that lies deep down within German mysticism. Such a path of thinking about
God inevitably involves an apophatic theology. Everything, that Boehme says concerning
the Divine Ungrund, relates to the apophatic, the negative theology, and not to the
kataphatic positive theology. The Nothing is deeper and more primieval than anything
that is, the darkness27 is deeper and more primordial than light, freedom is more
primordial and deeper than any nature. The God of kataphatic theology is already
something and He as such signifies a thinking about a second-level aspect: "und der
Grund derselben Tinctur ist die goettliche Weisheit; und der Grund der Weisheit ist die
Dreiheit der ungruendlichen Gottheit, und der Grund der Dreiheit ist der einige
unerforschliche Wille, und des Willens Grund ist das Nichts" {"And the ground of the
selfsame tincture is the Godly wisdom, and the ground of the Wisdom is the Trinity of the
ungrounded Godhead, and the ground of the Trinity is the one unfathomable Will, and
the ground of the Will is the Nothing"}.(Italics mine. N.B.)28 This also is a theogonic
process, a process of the birthing of God within eternity, within eternal mystery, which is
described in accord with the method of apophatic theology. And this therefore is all the
less heretical, than it would seem to the exclusive adherents of the kataphatic, i.e.
rationalising theology. The pondering of Boehme lies deeper than all the second-tier
rationalising kataphatics. Boehme opens out a path from the eternal foundation for nature,
from the free will of the Ungrund, i.e. the ungroundedness without foundation, which is
the natural ground of the soul.29 Nature always is secondary and derivative in aspect.
Nature is not the will, is not freedom. Freedom is uncreated. "Wenn ich betrachte, was
Gott ist, so sage ich: Er ist das Eine gegen der Kreatur, als ein ewig Nichts; er hat weder
Grund, Anfang noch Staette; und besitzet nicht, als nur sich selber: er ist der Wille des
Ungrundes, er ist in sich selber nur Eines: er bedarf keinen Raum noch Ort: er gebaeret
von Ewigkeit in Ewigkeit sich selber in sich: er ist keinem Dinge gleich oder aehnlich,
und hat keinen sonderlichen Ort, da er wohne: die ewige Weisheit oder Verstand ist seine
Wohne: er ist der Wille der Weisheit, die Weisheit ist seine Offenbarung" {"When I
ponder, what God is, I then say: He is the One in contrast to the creature, as an eternal
Nothing; He has neither a ground, a beginning nor state; and is of naught, save only of
Himself: He is the Will of the Ungrund, He is in Himself only One, He occupies no space
nor place: from eternity in eternity in Himself He comes to be: He is like or similar to no
thing, and hath no particular place, which He inhabits: the eternal Wisdom or
Intelligibility is His habitation: He is the Will of the Wisdom, the Wisdom is of His
manifestation"}.30 God comes about to be everywhere and always, He is both the
foundational ground and the groundlessness.
 The Ungrund mustneeds first of all be understood as freedom, a freedom in the
darkness. "Darum so hat sich der ewige freie Wille in Finsterniss, Pein und Quaal,
sowohl auch durch die Finsterniss in Feuer und Lichte, und in ein Freudenreich
eingefuehret, auf dass das Nichts in Etwas erkannt werde, und dass es ein Spiel habe in
seinem Gegenwillen, dass ihm der freie Wille des Ungrundes im Grunde offenbar sei,
denn ohne Boeses und Gutes moechte kein Grund sein" {"So therefore in the darkness
doth the eternal free will have itself the pain and torment, just also as with the fire and
light through the darkness, and it passes over into a kingdom of joy, so that the Nothing
can be known as something, and that it should have a playing out in its opposition of
wills, so that by it the free will of the Ungrund should have a ground upon which to
manifest itself, for without the evil and the good it would have no ground upon which to
be"}.31 Freedom is rooted in the Nothing, in the meonic, it is also the Ungrund, "Der
freie Wille ist aus keinem Anfange, auch aus keinem Grunde in nichts gefasset, oder
durch etwas geformet... Sein rechter Urstand ist im Nichts" {"The free will is from no
sort of origin, likewise upon no sort of ground is it constituted, nor through anything is it
formed... Its proper primal setting is in the Nothing"}.32 The free will has within it both
good and evil, both love and wrath. "Darum hat der freie Wille sein eigen Gericht zum
Guten oder Boesen in sich, er hat Gottes Liebe und Zorn in sich" {"The free will
therefore hath its own court for the good and the evil within it, it has its proper path
within it, it hath God's love and wrath within it"}.33 The free will likewise possesses
within it both light and darkness. The free will in God is of the Ungrund within God, of
the Nothing within Him. Boehme provides a profound interpretation to the truth about the
freedom of God, which likewise the traditional Christian theology admits of. He teaches
about a freedom of God, deeper than that of Dun Scotus. "Der ewige goettliche Verstand
ist eine freier Wille, nicht von Etwas oder durch Etwas entstanden, er ist selbst eigener
Sitz und wohnet einig und allein in sich selber, unergriffen von etwas, denn ausser und
vor ihm ist nichts, und dasselbe Nichts ist einig, und ist ihm doch auch selber als ein
Nichts. Er ist ein einiger Wille des Ungrundes, und ist weder nahe noch ferne, weder
hoch noch niedrig, sondern er ist Alles, und doch als ein Nichts" {"The eternal Divine
mind is a free will, not having arisen from anything nor through anything, it is itself its
own seat and abides at one and alone in itself, ungrasped by anything, for then beside it
and before it is nothing, and the selfsame Nothing is at one, and is moreover itself as the
Nothing. It is the one Will of the Ungrund, and is neither near nor far, neither high nor
low, but is rather the All, and moreover as the Nothing"}.34 For Boehme chaos lies at the
root of nature, chaos, i.e. freedom, the Ungrund, will, an irrational principle. In the
Divinity itself there is a groundless will, i.e. an irrational principle. Darkness and freedom
for Boehme are always correlative and conjoined. God Himself is also freedom and
freedom is at the beginning of all things: "darum sagen wir recht, es sei Gottes, und die
Freiheit (welche den Willen hat) sei Gott selber; denn es ist Ewigkeit, und nichts weiters.
[...] Erstlich ist die ewige Freiheit, die hat den Willen, und ist selber der Wille" {"We
properly therefore say, such would be God, and the Freedom (which hath the Will) would
be the selfsame God; therefore it is eternity, and nothing further. [...] Firstly is the eternal
Freedom, which hath the Will, and is the selfsame Will"}.35 Boehme was apparently the
first in the history of human thought to have posited freedom at the primal foundation of
being, deeper and more primary than all being, deeper and more primary than God
Himself. And this would bear enormous consequences for the history of thought. Such an
understanding of the primacy of freedom would have induced terror in both the Greek
philosophers and the Medieval Scholastics. And this would open up the possibility of a
completely different theodicy and anthropodicy. The primal mystery of being is a
kindling up of light within the dark freedom, in the Nothing is also the solid firmness of
the world from this dark freedom. Boehme speaks wondrously about this in the
"Psychologia vera": "denn in der Finsterniss ist der Blitz, und in der Freiheit das Licht
mit der Majestaet. Und ist dieses nur das Scheiden, dass [...] die Finsterniss materialisch
macht, da doch auch kein Wesen einer Begreiflichkeit ist; sondern finster Geist und
Kraft, eine Erfuellung der Freiheit in sich selber, verstehe in Begehren, und nicht ausser:
denn ausser ist die Freiheit" {"Then in the darkness is the flash of lightning, and in the
freedom is the light with majesty. And this is only the point of departure, so that [...] the
darkness be made material, while however therein is no manner of intelligibility; rather
only a dark spirit and power, a fullness of freedom in itself, i.e. in desire, and nothing
else: for the else is but freedom"}.36 There are two wills -- the one within the fire, the
other within the light.37 Fire and light -- are basic symbols for Boehme. "Denn die
Finsterniss hat kalt Feuer, so lange bis es die Angst erreicht, dann entzuendet sich's in
Hitze" {"For the darkness possesses a cold fire, to the extent of attaining anguish, then it
sparks itself forth into heat"}.38 The fire -- is the origin of everything, without fire there
would be nothing, only the Ungrund would be: "und waere Alles ein Nichts und Ungrund
ohne Feuer" {"And without the fire all would be a Nothing and the Ungrund"}.39 The
passage over from non-being to being is accomplished through the blazing up of fire from
out of freedom. Within eternity there is the primeval will of the Ungrund, which is
outside of nature and prior to nature. Fichte and Hegel, Schopenhauer and Hartmann
proceeded from this point, although they de-Christianised Boehme. German idealist
metaphysics passes in transition directly from the Ungrund, from the unconscious, from
the primary act of freedom, passing over to the world process, and not to the Divine
Trinity, as with Boehme. The primal mystery of being according to Boehme consists in
this, that the Nothing seeks to become something. "Der Ungrund ist ein ewig Nichts, und
machet aber einen ewigen Anfang, als eine Sucht; denn das Nichts ist eine Sucht nach
Etwas: und da doch auch Nichts ist, das Etwas gebe; sondern die Sucht ist selber das
Geben dessen, das doch auch nichts ist als bloss eine begehrende Sucht" {"The Ungrund
is an eternal Nothing, and it opens upwards to an eternal beginning, as with a passion; for
then the Nothing is a passion for something: and therein yet moreover it is the Nothing,
giving forth into something; for the passion is itself the fruition of such, and the yet still
Nothing is a bare desiring passion"}.40 The teaching of Boehme concerning freedom is
not some psychological or ethical teaching about the freedom of the will, but is rather a
metaphysical teaching about the primal basis of being. Freedom for him is not a
grounding of moral responsibility upon man nor a regulation of the relationship of man to
God and neighbour, but rather an explanation of the genesis of being and together with
this the genesis of evil, as a problem ontological and cosmological.

The evil has happened from a bad inner-imaging, i.e. from the imagination. The
magic effect of the imagination plays an enormous role in the world-view of Boehme.
Through it the world was made and there occurred the downfall of the devil into the
world. The fall of the creation for Boehme is a matter not of the human, but of the angelic
world, wherein the human world arises later and has to set right the deed wrought by the
fallen angel. The fall of Lucifer is defined by Boehme thus: "Denn Luzifer ging aus der
Ruhe seiner Hierarchie aus, in die ewige Unruhe" {"Then Lucifer went from out of the
tranquil repose of his hierarchy, out into an eternal unrest"}.41 There occurs a confusion
of the hierarchical centre, a transgression of the hierarchical order. And here is how
Boehme describes the Fall: "Dass sich der freie Wille im Feuerspiegel besah, was er
waere, dieser Glanz machte ihn beweglich, dass er sich nach den Eigenschaften des
Centri bewegte, welche zuhand anfingen zu qualificiren. Denn die herbe, strenge
Begierde, als die erste Gestalt oder Eigenschaft, impressete sich, und erweckte den
Stachel und die Angstbegierde: also ueberschattete dieser schoene Stern sein Licht, und
machte sein Wesen ganz herb, rauh und streng; und war seine Sanfmuth und recht
englische Eigenschaft in ein ganz streng, rauh und finster Wesen verwandelt: da war es
geschehen um den schoenen Morgenstern, und wie er that, thaten auch seine Legionen:
das ist sein Fall" {"Thus the free will caught sight of itself in the fire reflection, what it
was, and the brilliant luminance of this caused it to agitatedly shake, so that it itself shook
the unique ordering of the centre, which had initially started the process of qualification.
Then the severe bitter desire, as a first form or quality, made its impression, and aroused
hurt and anguished desire: therein this beautiful star overshadowed its light, and made its
nature to become quite embittered, rough and severe; and its gentleness and rather angelic
quality was transformed into total severity, a rough and dark nature: so the bright
morning star was lost, and how he acted, so acted his legions: that is his Fall"}.42 The
Fall through sin occurred from a dark desire, from a lust, from a bad inner imagination,
from the dark magic playing out of the will.43 Boehme tends to describe the Fall
mythologically, never in clear concepts. The devil experiences a fiery torment in the
darkness because of his own false desire (Begierde). Without Boehme's teaching about
the Ungrund and about freedom, the origin of the Fall and evil would be
incomprehensible. The Fall and evil for Boehme represents a cosmic catastrophe, a
moment in the world creation, a cosmogonic and anthropogonic process, the result of the
struggle of contrary qualities, of darkness and of light, of rage and of love. The
catastrophes are prior to the arising of our world, prior to our aeon was many another
aeon. Evil possesses also a positive significance in the arising of the cosmos and of man.
Evil is a shadowing of light, and light presupposes the existence of darkness. Light, the
good and love for their revealing have need of a contrary principle, in opposition. God
Himself possesses two visages, a visage of love and a visage of wrath, a bright and a dark
visage. "Denn der heiligen Welt Gott und der finstern Welt Gott sind nicht zween
Goetter: es ist ein einiger Gott; er ist selber alles Wesen, er ist Boeses und Gutes, Himmel
und Hoelle, Licht und Finsterniss, Ewigkeit und Zeit, Anfang, und Ende: wo seine Liebe
in einem Wesen verborgen ist, allda ist sein Zorn offenbar" {"For the holy world God and
the dark world God are not two Gods; there is only one God; He is Himself all being, He
is the bad and the good, heaven and hell, light and darkness, eternity and time, the
beginning, and the end: wherein lies concealed His love in a being is all therein His wrath
revealed"}.44 And further on: "Die Kraft im Lichte ist Gottes Liebefeuer, und die Kraft in
der Finsterniss ist Gottes Zornfeuer, und ist doch nur ein einig Feuer, theilet sich aber in
zwei Principia, auf dass eines im andern offenbar werde: denn die Flamme des Zornes ist
die Offenbarung der grossen -- Liebe; in der Finsterniss wird das Licht erkannt, sonst
waere es ihm nicht offenbar" {"The power in the light is God's love-fire, and the power in
the darkness is God's wrath-fire, and is but yet only one selfsame fire, it divides itself
over into two principles, in order that the one be revealed in the other: for the flame of
wrath is the revelation of great -- love: in the darkness will be known the light, elsewise
would nothing be revealed to it"}.45 With Boehme there was a teaching of genius in this,
that the love of God amidst the darkness is transformed into wrath, thus perceived.
Boehme thinks always in oppositions, in antitheses, in antinomies. All life is fire, but the
fire has a twofold aspect: "der ewigen Leben zwei in zweierlei Quaal sind, und ein jedes
stehet in seinem Feuer. Eines brennet in der Liebe im Freudenreich; das andere im Zorne,
im Grimme und Wehe, und seine Materia ist Hoffart, Geiz, Neid, Zorn, seine Quaal
vergleichet sich einem Schwefel-Geist: denn Aufsteigen der Hoffart im Geiz, Neid und
Zorn macht zusammen einen Schwefel, darinnen das Feuer brennet, und sich immer mit
dieser Materia entzuendet" {"The two eternal lives are in a twofold tension, and each one
is set within its own fire. The one burns within love in a state of joy; the other within
wrath, in fury and woe, and its material is pride, greed, envy, anger. Its torment makes of
it a sulphurous-spirit: then the arousal of pride, in greed, envy and wrath mix altogether
that sulphur, wherein the fire doth burn, and is always fired up with this material"}.46 But
Christ upon the Cross hath transformed the wrath into love. "Am Kreuze musste Christus
diesen grimmigen Zorn, welcher in Adams Essenz war aufgewacht, in sein heiliges,
himmlisches Ens trinken, und mit der grossen Liebe in goettliche Freude verwandeln"
{"Upon the Cross Christ had to suffer that furious wrath, which had in Adam's essence
been aroused, imbibing it into His holy and heavenly Being, and with great love in godly
joy transformed"}.47 Boehme's understanding of the Redemption is cosmogonic and
anthropogonic, a continuation of the world creation.

Schelling, in his book, "Philosophische Untersuchungen ueber das Wesen der

menschlichen Freiheit" {"Philosophic Investigations Concerning the Nature of Human
Freedom"}, moves along the lines of Boehme's ideas concerning the Ungrund and
freedom, although he does not always correctly understand Boehme. Clearly echoing
Boehme resound the words of Schelling: "Alle Geburt ist Geburt aus Dunkel ins Licht"
{"All birth is a birth from darkness into light"}. The initial primal creation is nothing
other, than a birth of light, as a surmounting of darkness. In order that there be the good
from darkness, from a potential condition that should pass over into an actual condition,
freedom is necessary. Being for Schelling is will. He is the first in German philosophy to
develope Boehme's voluntarism. Things possess their ground not in God Himself, but in
the nature of God. Evil is possible only because, that in God there is that, which is not
God, which is an ungroundedness in God, a dark will, i.e. the Ungrund. Nature both for
Schelling, and for Boehme, is an history of spirit, and for Schelling everything, which is
examined within nature, within the objective world, leads forth through the subject. The
idea of process within God, of a theogony, is taken by Schelling from Boehme. In his
"Philosophie der Offenbarung" {"Philosophy of Revelation"}, Schelling makes an heroic
effort to surmount German idealism and break through into philosophic realism. And
Boehme helps him in this.48 Schelling attempted to surmount the pantheistic monism of
German idealist philosophy. He was aware, that pantheism is incompatible with freedom.
The pantheistic denial of evil leads to a denial of freedom. The fundamental basis of evil,
according to Schelling -- is predicated to the utmost. Evil is the ungroundedness of
existence, i.e. bound up with the Ungrund, with potential freedom. All this involves
Boehme's motifs. But closer to Boehme and more in accord with him was Fr. Baader,
who to the extreme felt poisoned by the idealist rift from being and like Schelling became
immersed in Boehme. Fr. Baader was Catholic, but a Catholic very free and very in the
spirit of Eastern Orthodoxy. Baader with a remarkable simplicity and clarity finds
justified Boehme's dynamic understanding of God, with the admitting of a genesis within
the Divine life. If there were no genesis within the self-consciousness of God, then the
Divine self-consciousness would be bereft both of life and of process.49 A dynamic
understanding of God means also, that God for us is alive, has an inner life, that within
the Divine life is the dramatism common to all life. This is perhaps inconsistent with
Thomas Aquinas and with the Scholastic theology, but it is consistent with the Biblical
Revelation. Baader indeed provides a remarkable definition of evil, as a sickness, a
distortion of the hierarchical order, a displacement of the centre of being, after which
being passes over into non-being.

IV

Characteristic to Boehme's world-view is that he hated the idea of predestination.

And in this he was not a man in the Protestant spirit.50 He wanted to defend the goodness
of God and the freedom of man, both alike undermined by the teaching about
predestination. He was prepared to sacrifice the almightiness and omniscience of God
and admit, that God not foresee the consequences of freedom. He asserts, that God did
not foresee the downfall of angels. This problem deeply tormented him and in this
torment was the moral significance of his creative path. But Boehme herein does not
always say one and the same thing, and his thoughts tend to be antinomic and even
contradictory. Characteristic to him was an antinomic attitude towards evil. And similar
to him in this is our Dostoevsky. The evil, so tormentive for Boehme, finds its
explanation in this, that at the primal basis of being lies the Ungrund, the dark, irrational,
meonic freedom, a potentiality determined by nothing. The dark freedom is unpenetrable
for God, He does not foresee its results and is not answerable for evil as regards its
origin, it is not created by God. The teaching about the Ungrund removes from God the
responsibility for evil, which the almightiness and omniscience of God evokes a sense of.
Yet amidst all this Boehme sees the Ungrund in God Himself, within God there is the
dark principle, there is the struggle of light and darkness. It might be said, that the dark
principle (dark here does not mean evil) is in the Gottheit, in the Godhead, but not in
Gott, not in God. Boehme to the extreme sets in opposition the Person of the Son, as love,
in contrast to the Person of the Father, as wrath. In the Son already there is no sort of dark
principle, He is all entirely light, love, good. But thereupon the Father is transformed into
the Divinity of apophatic theology. And herein are to be sensed gnostic motifs. But the
evil, which so torments Boehme, has for him also a positive mission. The Divine light
can reveal itself only through the opposition of the other, the darkness set opposite. This
is a condition of every actualisation, of every genesis. The evil is not only a negative
principle, but also positive. Yet amidst this, the evil remains evil and has to burn itself
out, has to be conquered. Everywhere in nature there is the struggle of opposing
principles, and not calm, not an eternal order. And this struggle of opposing principles
possesses also a positive significance. Only through it there is revealed the supreme light,
good, love. Being is a combination of contrasting opposites, of the yes and the no.51 The
yes is impossible without the no. And the whole of being and the Divinity itself -- is in a
fiery movement. But this does not mean, as the German idealist metaphysics at the
beginning XIX Century tended to assert it, that God is merely becoming, merely the end
of the world process. Hell does exist for Boehme, but in the hell of Boehme, just as in the
hell of Swedenborg, they do not suffer. With Boehme already there was that new manner
of soul, which could not say like Thomas Aquinas, that the righteous one in paradise
takes delight at contemplating the torment of the sinner in hell. The thoughts of Boehme
concerning freedom and evil remain antinomic. His thoughts, begotten of a basic intuition
of the Ungrund, were not logically harmonious and consistent. When the German idealist
metaphysics attempted to harmonise them and take them to their logical conclusion,
within an higher consciousness, it failed to surmount the tragic antinomy of evil and
freedom, it sought to annul, it dulled down into a primordial monism the acute and
burning awareness of evil and freedom. Boehme's teaching about the Ungrund explains
as deriving from freedom the origin of evil, the downfall of Lucifer, drawing after him in
the Fall the whole of creation, yet together with this the Ungrund carries over into God
Himself and explains a genesis, the dynamic process within the Divine life. Herein
becomes possible a break with extreme monism and extreme dualism, alike mistaken
from the perspective of the Christian revelation. The thinking of Boehme is all as it were
on a slender edge and constantly subject to danger from the opposite sides, but his
fundamental intuition is a matter of genius, organic and fruitful. The teaching concerning
the Ungrund and freedom run counter to Greek rationalism, with which the Medieval
Scholasticism was infected and from which even the Patristic thought was not free.
Boehme has to be acknowledged as the founder of the philosophy of freedom, which is
genuinely a Christian philosophy.52 The non-tragic and rationalistic optimism of Thomas
Aquinas gives way to a tragic philosophy of freedom. Freedom -- is the source of
tragedy.

Hegel attempted to apply an optimistic character to the very principle of

contradiction and the struggle of opposing principles. He transferred life over into the
concept and made the concept itself to be the source of dramatism and passion. After
Thomas Aquinas, Hegel represents a second genius-like flaring up of rationalism. But at
the foundational basis of Hegel's philosophy lies an irrational principle. The Divinity for
Hegel is a primordially unconscious Deity, which comes to consciousness only through
human philosophy, in the philosophy of Hegel himself. The irrational has to become
rationalised, within the darkness there has to be awakened the light. The rational
perception of the irrational, lying at the ground of being, is a fundamental and grandiose
theme of German metaphysics. German philosophy is that of the metaphysical
northlands. The world is not illumined naturally and from the start by the solar light, it is
plunged in darkness, light is obtained through a plunging into the subject, from the depths
of the spirit. In this lies a deep-rooted difference of German thought from the Latin.
German thought understands the reason differently, than does the Latin. Within the
German understanding, reason stands afront the irrational darkness and has to bring light
into it. In the Latin understanding, antiquity's understanding, reason from the start
illumines the world, like the sun, and the reason within man but reflects reason in the
nature of things. The German idea however comes from Boehme, from the teaching
about the Ungrund, about freedom, about the irrational principle, lodged within the
depths of being. With Boehme begins a new era in the history of Christian thought. His
influence is enormous, but externally not so obvious, acting moreso like an inner
engrafting. This influence is obvious only in Fr. Baader and Schelling. But it is there also
in Fichte, in Hegel, in Schopenhauer.53 And very strong is Boehme's influence in
Romanticism and in occult currents.54 Without Boehme's intuitions of genius, the
rationalism of antiquity and Scholastic philosophy, as also the rationalism of modern
philosophy, of Descartes and Spinoza, count not be surmounted. Only a mythologic
consciousness could have seen an irrational principle within being, wherein the
philosophic consciousness had always seen but a rational principle. Boehme returns
metaphysics back to the sources of the mythological consciousness of mankind. But his
mythological consciousness itself is nourished by the wellsprings of the Biblical
Revelation. From Boehme comes the dynamism of German philosophy, and it might even
be said, the dynamism of all the thought of the XIX Century. Boehme was the first to
have conceived of the world, of life as a passionate struggle, as movement, process, an
eternal genesis. Only amidst such an intuition of world life could there become possible
the phenomenon of Faust, could there become possible Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, already
so remotely sundered from the religious ponderings of Boehme. The teaching of Boehme
about the Ungrund and about freedom makes it possible to explain not only the origin of
evil, even though antinomically, but also to explain the creativity of the new in world life,
creative dynamics. Creativity by its nature is a creativity from out of meonic freedom,
from out of nothing, from the Ungrund, it presupposes this unfathomable wellspring
within being, it presupposes the darkness, underlying the enlightening. There was an
aberration of Boehme in this, that he thought the Ungrund, the dark principle was in God
Himself, rather than seeing the principle of freedom in the Nothing, in the meonic,
outside of God. It is necessary to distinguish between the Divine Nothing and the non-
being outside God. But the thought of Boehme is inconducive to the understanding, it is
somewhat coarse. Boehme would not have consented to this, that within God is the
source of evil. This also is something that tormented him. His thought remains antinomic,
not subject to logical explication. But his moral will was pure, not for an instant poisoned
by an inner evil. Boehme -- was a pious Christian, fervently believing, and with a pure
heart. His viprous wisdom was combined with a simplicity of heart, with faith. This
mustneeds always be kept in mind in making judgements on Boehme. Boehme was
neither a pantheist nor a monist, nor was he a Manichaean. Carriere also correctly says,
that Boehme was neither a pantheist, nor a dualist.

Boehme's idea about the Ungrund tended not only to be further developed, but also
distorted, within German philosophy, similar to what resulted from the wellsprings of the
Christian revelation, from the Christian realism. German metaphysics thus became prone
to imperialism, to monism, it taught about God, as coming about to be within the world
process. But the voluntarism of Boehme was very fruitful for philosophy, just as also was
the teaching about the struggle of opposing principles, of light and darkness, about the
necessity of opposition for the developement of positive principles. The metaphysics of
Boehme is a musical Christian metaphysics and in this it is in character for the German
spirit. In this it is distinct from the architectural Christian metaphysics of Thomas
Aquinas, in character for the Latin spirit. The German metaphysics of the XIX Century
attempted to convey a musical theme into a conceptual system. In this grandiose scope of
their project was also the cause for the breakdown of their systems. At present a revival
of Boehme has become feasible. He is written about in a series of new books. He can be
of help in surmounting not only the routines of Greek thought and Medieval
Scholasticism, but also that German Idealism, upon which he himself had an inner
influence. Just also as with Fr. Baader, Boehme for us as Russians ought to be nearer and
dearer than other thinkers of the West. By the unique traits of our spirit we are called to
construct a philosophy of tragedy, and foreign to us is the optimistic rationalism of
European thought. Boehme so loved freedom, that he saw therein the authentic Church,
only where there is freedom. Boehme had an influence on Russian mystical currents of
the late XVIII and early XIX Centuries, but they assimilated him naively and without any
creative working out. He was translated into the Russian language and penetrated right
down into the segments of the common people, into the theosophy of the people, where
they esteemed him as almost a father of the Church. Curiously, Herzen, in his "Letters
Concerning the Study of Nature", spoke enthusiastically about Boehme. Boehme's
influence later on can be found in Vl. Solov'ev, but it was overshadowed by the
rationalistic schematism. The philosophy of Vl. Solov'ev cannot be called a philosophy of
freedom or a philosophy of tragedy. But in the Russian thought of the beginning XX
Century those closest to Boehme were writing along suchlike lines. The guardians of
Orthodoxy, having an especial taste for the detection of heresies, tend to fear the
influence of Boehme, as being someone non-Orthodox, a Protestant, as well as a gnostic
and theosophist. But actually the whole Western world is non-Orthodox, the whole of the
thought of Western Europe is a non-Orthodox thought. From such a point of view,
indeed, it would become necessary to flee any involvement with Western thought and
moreover struggle against it, as a temptation and evil. This is a most unadulterated form
of obscurantism and a return to our old empty-headedness. The Christian world in its
most creative period nourished itself upon the pagan thought of antiquity. And in any
case Boehme was more a Christian, than was Plato, who stands for high esteem with us
as regards the Patristic tradition, and moreso also than Kant, who is held in high regard
by many Orthodox theologians, e.g. Metropolitan Antonii. Boehme is very difficult a
challenge for the understanding and from him can result very diverse and contrary
conclusions. I see the significance of Boehme for Christian philosophy and Christian
theosophy to be in this, that he attempted by his contemplation to surmount the grip of
Greek and Latin thought over the Christian consciousness, he immersed himself in the
primal mystery of life, which the thought of antiquity had avoided. Christian theology,
and not only the Catholic theology, is so overgrown with Greek thought, with Platonism,
Aristotelianism and Stoicism, that any infringements upon the routines of this thought are
regarded as an infringement upon the Christian Revelation. And indeed the Greek
teachers of the Church were learned in Greek philosophy, they were Platonists and upon
their thinking lies the imprint of the limitedness of Greek rationalism. This thinking failed
to resolve the problem of the person, the problem of freedom, the problem of creative
dynamics. Boehme not only was not an Aristotelian, he also was not a Platonist, and his
influence lies outside the struggle between Eastern Platonism and Western
Aristotelianism. Boehme was nigh close only to Herakleitos. I think, that there has to be
surmounted in Christian philosophy not only the Aristotelianism, but also the Platonism,
as representing a philosophy static and of a repetitive world, incapable of pondering the
mystery of freedom and creativity. The teaching of Boehme about Sophia, to which I
shall shift in the following etude, is not a Christian Platonism, as Russian Sophiology
tries to conceive of itself, its sense is altogether different. Boehme's teaching concerning
the Ungrund and freedom needs however to be further developed regarding the
distinction between the Divine abyss and Divine freedom, in contrast to the meonic abyss
and meonic freedom.55 In the final inexpressible depths of the mystery this distinction
also will dissipate, but at the threshold in approach of this mystery, this distinction ought
to be made.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1930

© 2002 by translator Fr. S. Janos -- with the great and gracious assist of Fr Michael
Knechten in correction of the German portions of the original Put' text, and his intensive
review with the translation from German.

(1930 - 349 -en)

IZ ETIUDOV O YA. BEME. ETIUD I. UCHENIE OB UNGRUND'E I SVOBODE.

Journal Put', feb. 1930, No. 20, p. 47-79.

1
The edition, which I have used and from which I make citations, is "Jakob Boehme's
Saemmtliche Werke herausgegeben von K. W. Schieber" ["Jacob Boehme's Collected
Works edited by K. W. Schieber"], in seven volumes from the 1840's. From books about
Boehme, I have used: FR. BAADER, "Vorlesungen uber J. Boehme's Theologumena und
Philosopheme" {"Lectures on J. Boehme's Theologumena and Philosophy"}; the third
volume from 1852 has also his "Vorlesungen und Erlaeuterungen zu J. Boehme's
Lehre"{"Lectures and Insights into J. Boehme's Teachings"}; the thirteenth volume of the
"Collected Works" is 1855; M. CARRIERE, "Die Philosophische Weltanschaung der
Reformationzeit" {"The Philosophical WorldView of the Reformation Period"} (there is
a large chapter about Boehme); MARTENSEN, "Jakob Boehme. Theosophische Studien"
{"Jacob Boehme. Theosophical Studies"}; HARLESS, "Jakob Boehme und die
Alchymisten" {"Jacob Boehme and the Alchemists"}; EMILE BOUTROUX, "Le
Philosophe allemand Jacob Boehme" {"The German Philosoph Jacob Boehme"};
DEUSSEN, Jacob Boehme; ELERT, "Die voluntaristische Mystik Jacob Boehmes"
{"The Voluntaristic Mysticism of Jacob Boehme"}; BORNKAMM, "Luther und
Boehme"; HANKAMMER, "Jacob Boehme"; "Jacob Boehme Gedenkgabe der Stadt
Goerlitz zu seinem 300 jaehrigen Todestage. herausgegeben von Richard Jecht" {"Jacob
Boehme Commemoration in the City of Goerlitz for his 300th Year of Repose. edited by
Richard Jecht"}, 1924; RUFUS M. JONES, "Geistige Reformatoren des sechzehnten und
siebzehnten Jahrhunderts" {"The Spirit of the reformers of the Sixteen and Seventeen
Hundreds"}, 1925, Quaker Publishing (American author); R. STEINER, "Mystik"
{"Mysticism"}; and the most recent thorough investigation on Boehme: A. KOYRE, "La
Philosophie de Jacob Boehme", 1929.
2
I consider it incorrect to term the old gnostics as Christian heretics. Having been
begotten of the religious syncretism of the Hellenistic era -- they were not so much
distorters of Christianity with the pagan wisdom of the East and Greece, as rather
enrichers of this wisdom by Christianity.
3
Close to Boehme, the German Christian theosophist of the XVIII Century, Oetinger,
said about Boehme: "Gott habe ihm durch Offenbarung gezeigt, welche diejenige
Grundweisheit sei, welche zur hl. Schrift gehoert" {"God hath shown him through
Revelation, what is that fundamental wisdom, which doth hearken to the Holy
Scripture"}. "Die Theosophie Fr. Chr. Oetingers", von Auberlen, p. 113.
4
Vide "Jacob Boehme's Saemmtliche Werke" -- edited by K. W. Schiebler, Leipzig,
1831-1846 (used for this and the quotations to follow); Vol. II, "Aurora", p. 255.
5
Vide Vol. II, p. 260.

6 Vide Vol. III, "Die Drei Principien Goettlichen Wesens" {"The Three Principles of the
Godly Essence"}, p. 26-27.
7
Vide Vol. I, p. 144.
8
Vide Vol. II, "Aurora", p. 19.
9
Vol. IV, "De signatura Rerum", p. 346.
10
Vol. V, p. 3.
11
Vide Vol. VI, "De incarnatione Verbi", p. 319.
12
Bornkamm accurately points this out in his book, "Luther und Boehme", though he
exaggerates the affinity of Boehme with Luther.
13
Vide A. Koyre, "La philosophie de Jacob Boehme", p. 30 and p. 25.
14
This was beautifully expressed by Valentin Weigel: "Gott ist in sich selber einig und
hat keinen Namen. [...] Er wird aber entweder fuer sich selbst, absolute, betrachtet, ohne
alle Kreaturen, wie er in seiner verborgenen Einigkeit ist, oder respectu creaturarum, wie
er sich haelt und erzeigt in der Offenbarung mit seiner Kreatur. Absolute, allein und fuer
sich selbst, ohne alle Kreatur, ist und bleibt Gott personlos, zeitlos, staettelos, wirkunglos,
willenlos, affektlos und also ist er weder Vater noch Sohn noch heiliger Geist, er ist die
Ewigkeit selber ohne Zeit, er schwebt und wohnt in sich selber an jedem Ort, er wirkt
nichts, will auch nichts, begehrt auch nichts. Denn was sollte er wirken, begehren oder
wollen? Ist er doch mit seiner seligen Ruhe und Ewigkiet das vollkommene All, es ist
ihm alles gegenwaertig und nichts zukuenftig noch vergangen, darum begehrt er nichts,
darum hofft er nichts, er besitzt alle Dinge in sich selbst, und ist keines Dinges
beduerftig. [...] Aber respektive d.i. in, mit und durch die Kreatur wird er persoenlich,
wirkend, wollend, begehrend, nimmt Affekte an sich, oder laesst sich unserthalben
Personen und Affekte zuschreiben. Da wird er zum Vater und wird zum Sohne und ist der
Sohn selber, er wird zum hl. Geiste und ist selber der hl. Geist, er will, wirkt und schafft
alle Dinge und ist alle Dinge, er ist aller Wesen Wesen, aller Lebendigen Leben, aller
Lichter Licht, aller Weisen Weisheit, aller Vermoegenden Vermoegen" {"God in Himself
is one and has no name. [...] He will however either have to be considered for Himself an
absolute, apart from all creatures, as He is in His hidden oneness, or respectu
creaturarum, as He is and manifests Himself in revealing Himself with His creature.
Absolutely, alone and but for Himself, without any creature, is and remains God such as
is personless, timeless, stateless, inactive, without will or affect, and is also neither Father
nor Son nor Holy Spirit, He is Himself eternity without time, He is present and abides in
Himself in every place, He works nothing, likewise wills nothing, likewise desires
nothing. For then, what is He supposed to work, to desire or will? He is indeed in His
blissful repose and eternity the perfect All, all is in the present for Him and there is
nothing future nor of the transitory past, therefore He desires nothing, therefore He in
hope expects nothing, He sustains all things in Himself, and is needful for His things. But
respective, i.e. in, with and through the creature He is as Person, active, willing, desiring,
He assumes upon Himself affect, or lets it be ascribed to Him in semblance to us of
Person and affect. Therein He will become the Father, and the Son and is the Son
Himself, and the Spirit and is Himself the Spirit, He wills, forms and creates all things
and is all things, He is at the essence of all essence, the life of everything alive, the light
of all alight, the wisdom of everything profound, the capacity of everything possible"}.
"Deutsche Froemmigkeit, Stimmen deutscher Gottesfreunde". Verlegt bei Diederichs
1917, p. 183.
15
Vide Vol. III, "Die drei Principien goettlichen Wesens", p. 385.
16
The English follower of Boehme, Pordage, speaks about "the eye of the Ungrund from
eternity". Vide his "Theologia mystica".
17
A nothingness in the sense of me on, and not ouk on.
18
Vide Vol. IV, "Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen", p. 25.
19
Vide Vol. IV, p. 284-285.
20
Vol. IV, p. 286.
21
Vol. IV, p. 287, 288, 289.
22
Vol. IV, p. 406.
23
Vide Vol. IV, p. 428.
24
Vol. IV, p. 429.
25
Vol. IV, p. 429.
26
The elements of voluntarism were there already in Dun Scotus, but altogether different,
than with Boehme.
27
The darkness here is not as yet evil.
28
Vide Vol. IV, "Von der Gnadenwahl", p. 504.
29
Vide Vol. IV, p. 607.
30
Vide Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 7.
31
Vide Vol. V, p. 162.
32
Vide Vol. V, p. 164.
33
Vide Vol. V, p. 165.
34
Vol. V, p. 193.
35
Vol. VI, "Psychologia vera", p. 7.
36
Vol. VI, p. 14.
37
Vol. VI, p. 15.
38
Vol. VI, p. 60.
39
Vol. VI, p. 155.
40
Vol. VI, "Mysterium pansophicum", p. 413.
41
Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 61.
42
Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 41.
43
Vol. IV, "De signature Rerum", p. 317-318.
44
Vide Vol. V, p. 38.
45
Vol. V, p. 38.
46
Vol. III, "Die drei Principien goettlichen Wesens", p. 385.
47
Vide Vol. V, p. 133.
48
In his final period, the period of the "Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation",
Schelling was indebted to Boehme as regards his basic ideas, but he was very unjust to
him and expressed judgements, lacking in truth. "Was dem Theosophismus zu Grunde
lieget, wo er immer zu einer wenigstens materiell wissenschaftlichen oder speculativen
Bedeutung gelangt -- was namentlich dem Theosophismus Jakob Boehmes zu Grunde
liegt, ist das an sich anerkennenswerthe Bestreben, das Hervorgehen der Dinge aus Gott
als einen wirklichen Hergang zu begreifen. Diess weiss nun aber Jakob Boehme nicht
anders zu bewerkstelligen, als indem er die Gottheit selbst in eine Art von Naturprocess
verwickelt. Das Eigenthuemliche der positiven Philosophie besteht aber gerade darin,
dass sie allen Process in diesem Sinne verwirft, in welchem naemlich Gott das nicht bloss
logische, sondern wirkliche Resultat eines Processes waere. Positive Philosophie ist
insofern vielmehr in direktem Gegensatz mit allem und jedem theosophischen Bestreben"
{"What lies at the basis of theosophy, what it always has arrived at as least material
scientific or speculative meaning -- what in particular lies at the groundwork of the
theosophy of Jacob Boehme, is itself a praiseworthy effort to understand the emanation of
the things from God as an actual process. Yet this however is what Jacob Boehme but
managed to accomplish, that he entangles the Godhead Itself within an aspect of the
nature-process. The peculiarness of Positive Philosophy rests directly upon this, that the
entire process would reject the sense, in which God namely be not merely logical, but
rather the actual result of a process. Positive Philosophy is far contrary and in direct
contrast to all and every theosophic endeavour"}. ("Schellings Saemmtliche Werke",
Zweite Abteilung, Dritter Band, -- "Philosophie der Offenbarung", B. I., 1858, p. 121).
"Sowie J. Boehme ueber die Anfaenge der Natur hinaus und ins Concrete geht, kann man
ihm nicht mehr folgen; hier verliert sich alle Spur, und es wird stets ein vergebliches
Bemuehen bleiben, ihn aus dem verworrenen Concept seiner Anschauungen ins Reine zu
schreiben, was man auch nacheinander Kantsche, Fichtesche, naturphilosophische,
zuletzt sogar Hegelsche Begriffe dazu anwendet" {"When J. Boehme goes far out beyond
the beginnings of nature and into the concrete, one knows not how to follow him further;
here all traces are lost and it instead will remain a vain effort, to inscribe from the
confused concept its intuition in pure, which one after the other the Kantian, the Fichtean,
the Nature-Philosophy, and finally the more pervasive Hegelian, employs therein"}.
(Ibid. p. 124). "Dem Rationalismus kann nichts durch eine That, z.b. durch freie
Schoepfung, entstehen, er kennt bloss wesentliche Verhaeltnisse. Alles folgt ihm bloss
modo aeterno, ewiger, d.h. bloss logischer Weise, durch immanente Bewegung... Der
falsche Rationalismus naehert sich eben darum dem Theosophismus, der nicht weniger
als jener im bloss substantiellen Wissen gefangen ist; der Theosophismus will es wohl
ueberwinden, aber es gelingt ihm nicht, wie am deutlichsten an J. Boehme zu sehen.
Wohl kaum hat je ein anderer Geist in der Glut dieses bloss substantiellen Wissens so
ausgehalten wie J. Boehme; offenbar ist ihm Gott die unmittelbare Substanz der Welt; ein
freies Verhaeltniss Gottes zu der Welt, eine freie Schoepfung will er zwar, aber er kann
sie nicht herausbringen. Obgleich er sich Theosophie nennt, also Anspruch macht,
Wissenschaft des Goettlichen zu seyn, ist der Inhalt, zu dem der Theosophismus es bringt
doch nur die substantielle Bewegung, und er stellt Gott nur in substantieller Bewegung
dar. Der Theosophismus ist seiner Natur nach nicht minder ungeschichtlich als der
Rationalismus. Aber der Gott einer wahrhaft geschichtlichen und positiven Philosophie
bewegt sich nicht, er handelt. Die substantielle Bewegung, in welcher der Rationalismus
befangen ist, geht von einem negativen Prius, d.h. von einem nichtseyenden aus, das sich
erst ins Seyn zu bewegen hat; aber die geschichtliche Philosophie geht von einem
positiven, d.h. von dem seyenden Prius aus, das sich nicht erst ins Seyn zu bewegen hat,
also nur mit vollkommener Freiheit, ohne irgendwie durch sich selbst dazu genoethigt zu
seyn, ein Seyn setzt, und zwar nicht sein eignes unmittelbar, sondern ein von seinem
Seyn verschiedenes Seyn, in welchem jenes vielmehr negirt oder suspendirt als gesetzt,
also jedenfalls nur mittelbar gesetzt ist. Es geziemt Gott, gleichgueltig gegen sein eignes
Seyn zu seyn, nicht geziemt ihm aber, sich um sein eignes Seyn zu bemuehen, sich ein
Seyn zu geben, sich in ein Seyn zu gebaeren, wie J. Boehme diess ausdrueckt, der als
Inhalt der hoechsten Wissenschaft, d.h. der Theosophie, eben die Geburt des goettlichen
Wesens, die goettliche Geburt ausspricht, also eine eigentliche Theogonie. [...] Dass nun
freilich die positive Philosophie nicht Theosophismus seyn koenne, diess liegt schon
darin, dass sie eben als Philosophie und als Wissenschaft bestimmt worden; indess jener
sich selbst nicht Philosophie nennen und auf Wissenschaft verzichtend aus unmittelbarem
Schauen reden will" {"Nothing is known to rationalism through action, i.e. to originate
through action a free creation, it knows merely the bare essential conditions. All follow it
blindly modo aeterno, in an eternal i.e. blindly logical manner, through an immanent
movement... The false rationalism comes nigh close in points to theosophy, caught up no
less than it in bare substantial knowledge; theosophy itself seeks by and by to surmount
it, but if successful, it would be for naught, as clearly is seen with J. Boehme. Scarcely
ever has another spirit in the glow of this bare substantial knowledge been so noticeable
as J. Boehme; God is revealed for him as the unmediated substance of the world; he
indeed wants a free creation, a free condition of God in relation to the world, but he
cannot produce it. Though it calls itself theosophy, making pretension to be the
knowledge of God, it is rather a content, which theosophy introduces into it, only still a
substantial movement, and it postulates God only in the substantial movement therein.
Theosophy of its nature is nowise less historical than rationalism. But the God of a
genuine historical and positive philosophy moves nothing, He acts. The substantial
movement, in which rationalism is involved, proceeds from a negative Prius, a first
principle, i.e. from an unfathomable such that it is the first in being to have movement;
historical philosophy however proceeds from the positive, i.e. from the fathomable Prius,
a first principle, such that it is not the first in being to have movement, yet also only with
a perfect freedom, without somehow through itself being obliged to be, a setting of being,
indeed not uniquely unmediated, without the having from its being a different being, in
which this is on the contrary denied or suspended as legitimate, since in this case only the
directly immediate is legitimate. God has to be effortlessly in His own being. He should
not have to make the effort to be, should not Himself have to be allowed being, should
not Himself be born into His being, as J. Boehme tends to express it, with all the whole
content of the utmost knowing, i.e. theosophy, with even the birth of the Divine Being,
speaking about a birth of God, as some sort of an actual theogony. Positive philosophy
certainly cannot grant this now of theosophy, the reason for this is that it is philosophy
and knowledge; for this cannot call itself philosophy, because it renounces of knowledge
and speaks of an unmediated view"}. (Ibid, p. 124-126). Schelling himself might be quite
the more guilty than Boehme in a tendency towards naturalism and rationalism. The
intuitions of Schelling, bearing primarily a philosophic character, would be thus less
primary, than the intuitions of Boehme. But Schelling is subtle in his remark, that
theosophism is not historical and not felicitous for the understanding of history.
49
Vide "Franz von Baader's Saemmtliche Werke", Vol. 13, "Vorlesungen und
Erlaeuterungen zu Jacob Boehme's Lehre" {"Lectures and Explanations on Jacob
Boehme's Teachings"}, p. 65.
50
This is stressed particularly by Koyre. Vide his "La philosophie de Jacob Boehme", p.
158.
51
This is well elucidated in the book of Koyre. Vide p. 395-396.
52
Vide Charles Secretan, "La philosophie de la liberte".
53
Kroner, in his notable history of German Idealism, "Von Kant bis Hegel", points to J.
Boehme, alongside Eckhardt and Luther, as one of the sources for German philosophy.
54
Vide the recently arisen and extraordinary interest as regards the material in the two
tome collection of Viatte, "Les sources occultes du Romantisme". Everywhere is apparent
the enormous influence of Boehme.
55
Modern psychology and psychopathology scientifically discern the Ungrund within the
human soul and call it the unconsciousness. But they do not adequately make a
distinction between the subconsciousness and the supra-consciousness, between the lower
and the uppermost abyss. Vide the summation in the book of Dwelshauvers,
"L'Inconcient".
With the Ungrund is connected likewise archaic man. In this regard especially
important is Bachofen.

STUDIES CONCERNING JACOB BOEHME

Etude II. The Teaching about Sophia and the Androgyne.
J. Boehme and the Russian Sophiological Current.

(1930 - #351)

I.

Boehme has a most remarkable teaching about Sophia, essentially the first in the
history of Christian thought. His was a completely original intuition. The sophiology of
Boehme cannot be explained by influences and borrowings.1 If Boehme in his intuition
of the Ungrund tends to see darkness, then in the intuition of Sophia he tends to see light.
Boehme's understanding of Sophia has its own theological and cosmological side, but
overall it is primarily anthropological. Sophia for him is bound up with the pure, the
virginal, the chaste and integrally whole image of man. Sophia is likewise purity and
virginity, the integral wholeness and chasteness of man, the image and likeness of God in
man. Boehme's teaching about Sophia is inseparable from his teaching about androgyny,
i.e. the initial integral wholeness of man. Man possesses an androgynic, bisexual,
masculine-feminine nature. Innate to man was Sophia, i.e. a Virgin. The fall through sin
is also a loss of his Sophia-Virgin, which has flown off to the heavens. Upon the earth
instead has arisen the feminine, Eve. Man grieves with longing for his lost Sophia, his
lost virginal state, the wholeness and chasteness. Half a being is a being torn asunder,
having lost the integral wholeness. In his teaching about androgyny Boehme stands in the
same line, which is to be found in the "Symposium" of Plato, and the Kabbala. "Siehe!
ich gebe dir ein gerecht Gleichniss: du seist ein Juengling oder Jungfrau, wie denn Adam
alles beides in einer Person war" {"Behold, I give a correct comparison, for thou art
divided into a youth or a maiden, whereas Adam was all both in one person"}.2 The
unique aspect of Boehme's teaching about Sophia is in this, that it is first of all a teaching
about the Virgin and virginity. The Divine Wisdom within man is a virginity of soul, the
Virgin, lost by man in the fall through sin and shining in the heavens. "Die Seele sollte
sein der schoene Juengling, der geschaffen war; und die Kraft Gottes die schoene
Jungfrau, und das Licht Gottes die schoene Perlen-Krone, damit wollte die Jungfrau den
Juengling schmuecken" {"The soul was supposed to be a beautiful youth, as which it was
created; and the power of God a beautiful Virgin, and the light of God a beautiful Pearl-
Crown, wherewith the Virgin wanted to adorn the youth"}.3 Adam, who initially was an
androgyne, in his fall through sin by his fault lost his Virgin and found the woman.
"Adam hat durch seine Lust verloren die Jungfrau, und hat in seiner Lust empfangen das
Weib, welche ist eine cagastrische Person; und die Jungfrau wartet seiner noch immerdar,
ob er will wieder treten in die neue Geburt so will sie ihn mit grossen Ehren wieder
annehmen" {"Adam through his lustful desire has lost the Virgin, and in his desire has
come to perceive the womanly, which is a transitory person; and the Virgin yet ever
awaits, whether he will again appear in a new birth so that it again can be assumed by
him with great honour"}.4 Eve -- is the child of this world and is created for this world:
"Eve is formed for this fragile life; and thus she is the woman of this world".5 Androgyny
likewise is the image and likeness of God in man: "allein das Bild und Gleichniss Gottes,
der Mensch, welcher die zuechtige Jungfrau der Weisheit Gottes in sich hatte: so drang
der Geist dieser Welt also hart auf die Bildniss nach der Jungfrau; hiermit seine Wunder
zu offenbaren, und besass den Menschen, davon er erst seinen Namen Mensch kriegte, als
eine vermischte Person" {"Alone hath man in himself the image and likeness of God,
which is the chaste Virgin of the Wisdom of God: thus also strongly impressed upon the
spirit of this world is the image still of the Virgin, herewith revealing its miracle in
possessing man, because he foremost hath the Name of Man, as a composite Person"}.6
The initial and pure image of man is the image of the virginal-youth. The Sophia aspect is
a constitutive sign of man, as an integrally whole being. The Virgin is also the Divine
Wisdom. And here is a most lucid definition of Sophia by Boehme: "Die Weisheit Gottes
ist eine ewige Jungfrau, nicht ein Weib, sondern die Zucht und Reinigkeit ohne Makel,
und stehet als ein Bildniss Gottes, ist ein Ebenbild der Dreizahl" {"The Wisdom of God
is an eternal Virgin, not a female, but a chasteness and purity without a blemish, and
represents also an image of God, it is a like image in form of the Trinity"}.7 In another
place he says: "Und die Jungfrau der Weisheit Gottes, welche Gott der Vater durchs Wort
ausspricht, ist der Geist der reinen Elements, und wird darum eine Jungfrau genannt, dass
sie also zuechtig ist und nicht gebieret, sondern als der flammende Geist im Menschen-
Leibe nichts gebieret" {"And the Virgin of the Wisdom of God, which God the Father
hath bespoken through the Word, is the Spirit of the pure element, and is therefore termed
a Virgin, being chaste and not giving birth, but rather as a flaming spirit in man -- not
birthgiving of body"}.8 And here is a corresponding statement: "Dieses Ausgesprochene
ist ein Bildniss der hl. Dreizahl, und eine Jungfrau, aber ohne Wesen, sondern eine
Gleichniss Gottes: in dieser Jungfrau eroeffnet der heilige Geist die grossen Wunder
Gottes des Vaters, welche sind in seinen verborgenen Siegeln" {"This out-speaking is an
image of the Holy Trinity, and a Virgin, but without essence of being, save as a likeness
of God: in this Virgin the Holy Spirit makes manifest the great wonder of God the Father,
hidden in its seals"}.9 "Diese Weisheit Gottes, welche ist eine Jungfrau der Zierheit und
Ebenbild der Dreizahl, ist in ihrer Figur eine Bildniss gleich den Engeln und Menschen,
und nimmt ihren Urstand im Centro auf dem Kreuz, als eine Blume des Gewaechses aus
dem Geiste Gottes" {"The Wisdom of God which is a virginal adornment and in likeness
of the Holy Trinity, is in its figure an image like unto angels and men, and takes its
unique stand centred upon the Cross, as a flowering of the outgrowth from the Spirit of
God"}.10 Boehme many a time repeats, that "the Wisdom of God is an eternal Virgin"}.
Sophia, the eternal Virgin, the virginalness is an heavenly element within man. Boehme
definitively teaches, that Sophia is non-created: "die Jungfrau ist ewig, ungeschaffen und
ungeboren: sie ist Gottes Weisheit und ein Ebenbild der Gottheit" {"The Virgin is eternal,
uncreated and unborn: it is the Wisdom of God and a likeness of the Godhead"}.11 For
Boehme therefore man also is more, than a mere creature, in him there is the eternal, the
heavenly, the Divine element, the element of Sophia. The soul was as a virgin, man was
created with a virginal and pure soul, i.e. to it corresponded the heavenly and Divine
element. It is necessary to seek the Sophia-virgin in man. "Thus he knows now to search
out the Virgin nowhere but in man, for there he hath first perceived it"}.12 This tends to
explain the predominantly anthropological character of his teachings about Sophia. The
appearance of man the androgyne, the virginal man, and the appearance of the earthly
halves of man, the masculine and the feminine, -- are various moments of an
anthropogonic and cosmogonic process, various stages of the world creation. Between
these two moments lies catastrophe. Earthly man has heavenly antecedents. "Die Bildniss
ist in Gott eine ewige Jungfrau in der Weisheit Gottes gewesen, nicht eine Frau, auch
kein Mann, aber sie ist beides gewesen; wie auch Adam beides war vor seiner Heven,
welche bedeutet den irdischen Menschen, darzu thierisch: denn nichts bestehet in der
Ewigkeit, was nicht ewig gewesen ist" {"The image in God is an eternal Virgin abiding
in the Wisdom of God, not feminine, also not masculine, but in both abiding; suchlike
was Adam in both before his Eve, which signifies the earthly man, therein animal-like:
thereof nothing subsists in eternity, which is not of eternity"}.13 The androgynic, sophian
image of Adam is likewise the heavenly and previously existent man. And therefore only
he as such inherits eternity. "Adam war vor seiner Eva die zuechtige Jungfrau, kein Mann
und kein Weib, er hatte beide Tincturen, die im Feuer und die im Geiste der Sanftmuth,
und haette koennen selber auf himmlische Art, ohne Zerreissung gebaeren, waere er nur
in der Proba bestanden. Und waere je ein Mensch aus dem andern geboren worden, auf
Art, wie Adam in seiner jungfraeulichen Art ein Mensch und Bildniss Gottes ward: denn
was aus dem Ewigen ist, das hat auch ewige Art zu gebaeren, sein Wesen muss ganz aus
dem Ewigen gehen, sonst bestehet nichts in Ewigkeit" {"Adam was until his Eve a pure
virgin, neither male nor female, he had both aspects, as in fire and in the spirit of
meekness, and had ability himself of an heavenly sort, unsplit to give birth, were he only
to withstand the test. And man otherwise ever would be born of the sort, that Adam was
as man in his virginal kind and in the image of God: for that what is of eternity would
give birth of an eternal sort, its being must entirely enter into eternity, else it nowise
would subsist in eternity"}.14 Man fell asleep in eternity and awoke within time. He
initially did not appear within time, he is a child of eternity. The sophian and androgynic
aspect, the virginal man is likewise a sign of eternity in man. The losing by man of the
Virgin, i.e. the androgynic image, is a losing of Paradise. "Adam war ein Mann und auch
ein Weib, und doch der keines, sondern eine Jungfrau, voller Keuschheit, Zucht und
Reinigkeit, als das Bild Gottes; er hatte beide Tincturen vom Feuer und Licht in sich, in
welcher Conjunction die eigene Liebe, als das jungfraeuliche Centrum stund, als der
schoene paradeisische Rosen- und Lustgarten, darinnen er sich selber liebete" {"Adam
was man and also was woman, and was naught other than a virgin, full of chastity,
modesty and purity, a being in the image of God; he had moreover aspects of fire and
light in himself, in conjunction with which was an unique sort of love, set centred within
the virginal, as with the beauty of the paradisical rose garden and the garden of desire,
wherein he would have love for himself"}.15 The image of God is a "maennliche
Jungfrau" {"manlike virgin"}, not a woman and not a man.16 Wherefore the fallen soul
doth cry out: "Give me to drink of thine sweet waters of an eternal virginalness!"}.17

The virginity of man does not mean the tearing away and isolation of the masculine
nature from the feminine and the feminine from the masculine, but rather on the contrary
-- their unification. The virginal man is not half a man, not man chopped apart in half.
Both the masculine and the feminine -- are halves, i.e. beings sundered in half.
Asceticism and renunciation by each of their half, be it the masculine or the feminine, is
still not the wholeness nor virginalness, is still not the returning to man of his lost Virgin.
Suchlike are the inferences from Boehme's teaching about Sophia and the androgyne. In
this Boehme is unique. The mystical intuition of Boehme about the androgyne can be
substantiated by modern science, which is compelled to admit the bisexuality of human
nature. The mere half differentiation into the masculine or the feminine nature does not
possess an absolute character.18 Man is a being of twofold sexuality, but with a variable
degree of the presence of the masculine and the feminine principle. A being, such as
would be absolutely masculine or absolutely feminine, i.e. absolutely half, would not be
human. A woman, having nowise in herself any of the masculine element, would not be
human, but rather a cosmic element, in which would lack for personness.19 A man,
nowise having included within himself any of the feminine element, would be an abstract
being, bereft of any cosmic basis and any connection with cosmic life. The nature of the
person is androgynic, it is constituted as a combination of the masculine and the feminine
principle. But the masculine principle is predominantly anthropological and creative,
whereas the feminine principle is predominantly cosmic and birth-giving. And in this
context can be developed the intuitive insights of Boehme. The mystical meaning of love
involves also a seeking of the androgynic image, i.e. an integral wholeness, which is
unattainable within the confines of the psycho-physical arrangement in the makeup of
man, it presupposes an egress beyond it.20 The androgynic image of man does not
possess an adequate physical image upon the earth, within our natural conditions.
Hermaphroditism is a distorted and sick caricature of it. The myth concerning the
androgyne belongs to the very profoundly old myths of mankind. This myth finds its
justification upon a quite deep and esoteric interpretation of the book of Genesis, though
it be not characteristic to any prevailing theological teachings. However, a teaching about
the androgyne can be found in the Kabbala. Those theological teachings which are afraid
of any teaching about the androgyne hence deny it, and in consequence of their exoteric
character deny also the Heavenly Man, Adam Kadmon, and teach only about the earthly,
the natural and empirical man, i.e. they admit of only an Old testament like anthropology,
set retrospectively from the perspective of sin. Boehme however discerned a celestial and
seraphic anthropology, the heavenly origin of man. The anthropology of Boehme is
bound up with Christology. His Christology and Mariology are bound up with the
teaching about Sophia and the androgyne.

Boehme definitely teaches about the androgynic aspect of Christ: "er weder Mann
noch Weib war, sondern eine maennliche Jungfrau" {"He was neither man nor woman
but rather a manlike Virgin"}.21 Boehme taught, that God became incarnate as Person
only in Christ, in the Second Hypostasis of the Trinity, and therefore already Christ had
to be an androgyne, a virginal-youth, i.e. the image of the perfect Person.22 Christ
Himself was not only neither masculine nor feminine in our earthly sense, but He
likewise freed us from the griphold of the masculine and the feminine. "Und als Christus
am Kreuz unser jungfraeulich Bild wieder erloesete vom Manne und Weibe, und mit
seinem himmlischen Blute in goettlicher Liebe tingirte; als er diess vollbracht hatte, so
sprach er: Es ist vollbracht!" {"And as Christ on the Cross hath redeemed anew our
virginal image from being man and woman, and with His heavenly Blood in Godly Love
hath it blotted; He this did consummate, as He said: It is consummated!"}.23 Christ has
transfigured the evil-wrought nature of Adam.24 In following the Apostle Paul, Boehme
all the time teaches about Adam and Christ, about the Old and the New Adam. "Christus
wurde ein Gottmensch, und Adam und Abraham in Christo ein Menschgott" {"Christ
became the God-Man and Adam and Abraham in Christ a man-god"}.25 This means also,
that God was incarnated, became man, so that man might become divinised, become
deified. In Boehme can be found elements of that teaching about God-manhood, which in
Russian thought chiefly was developed by Vl. Solov'ev. Christ in His human self died in
the wrath of God and was resurrected in eternity in the will of God.26 The human nature,
however, had to remain, had to abide. "Verstehet, dass die Natur des Menschen soll
bleiben, und ist nicht ganz von Gott verstossen, dass also ein ganz fremder neuer Mensch
sollte aus dem Alten entstehen; sondern aus Adams Natur und Eigenschaft, und aus
Gottes in Christi Natur und Eigenschaft, dass der Mensch sei ein Adam-Christus; und
Christus ein Christus-Adam; ein Menschgott, und ein Gottmensch" {"Understand, that
the nature of man has to remain, and is not entirely obliterated by God, and that also an
entirely different new man should result from the old; for from Adam would be the nature
and the unique aspect, and from God in Christ would be the nature and the unique aspect,
so that man would be an Adam-Christ; and Christ a Christ-Adam; a Man-God, and a
God-Man"}.27 Here, certainly, the words Man-God and God-Man possess different a
meaning, than in Dostoevsky. Boehme boldly takes to its conclusion the Christian
teaching concerning Adam and Christ. "Nun ist aber doch Adam in seiner Natur, und
Christus in der goettlichen Natur Eine Person worden, nur ein einiger Baum" {"Yet still
above Adam in his nature, Christ in His Divine nature would be One Person, only as it
were but one single tree"}.28 This is also what I would term a Christology of man.29 In
Christ, man is conveyed up to Heaven, to the Holy Trinity. Man-Adam through the dying
of the evil will is transformed into Christ.30 But this does not mean, that according to
Boehme, Christ was merely a divinised man. Christ -- is the Second Hypostasis of the
Holy Trinity, but in the Second Hypostasis is existent an heavenly humanness. In
traditional theology there was never taken to its final point the teaching, that Christ was
the Second Adam. The exoteric character of theology was determined by the stifling of
man by sin. Boehme attempted to see farther and more profoundly, but he expresses what
he sees antinomically, with contradictions, and sometimes even confusedly. He initially
sensed, that man lives in three worlds, in the dark, in the light and in the external world.31
Hence arises the difficulty of the contemplation and cognition of man, the light is
distorted by the dark and the external world. But Christ, according to Boehme, took his
humanness not only from Heaven, but also from earth, otherwise He would have
remained foreign to us and would not have been able to set us free.32 Boehme was not a
monophysite. He says about Christ: "Also verstehest du, dass dieser Engel groesser ist als
ein Engel in Himmel; denn er hatte (1) einen himmlischen Menschenleib, und hat (2) eine
menschliche Seele, und (3) hat er die ewige Himmelsbraut, die Jungfrau der Weisheit,
und hat (4) die heilige Trinitaet, und koennen wir recht sagen: Eine Person in der heiligen
Dreifaltigkeit im Himmel, und ein wahrer Mensch im Himmel, und in dieser Welt ein
ewiger Koenig, ein Herr Himmels und der Erden" {Understand also, that this Angel is
greater than an Angel in Heaven for He hath (1) an Heavenly human body, and hath (2)
an human soul, and (3) He hath the Heavenly-Bride, the Virgin of Wisdom, and hath (4)
the Holy Trinity; and correctly do we say Virgin: a Person of the Holy Trinity in Heaven,
and a true Man in Heaven, and in this world an eternal King, the Lord of both Heaven
and earth"}.33 The incarnation of Christ leads to this, that His humanity is present
everywhere. "Nun so er denn Mensch ist worden, so ist ja seine Menschheit ueberall
gewesen, wo seine Gottheit war; denn du kannst nicht sagen, dass ein Ort im Himmel und
in dieser Welt sei, da nicht Gott sei; wo nun der Vater ist, da ist auch sein Herz in ihm, da
ist auch der heilige Geist in ihm. Nun ist sein Herz Mensch worden, und ist in der
Menschheit Christi" {"So now thus as He is become Man, so indeed in His humanness
extended throughout all, where His Divinity was; for thou canst not say, that there be a
place in Heaven or in this world, where God is not: where now the Father is, there is His
Heart in Him, there also is the Holy Spirit in Him. Now is His Heart become Man, and is
in the humanness of Christ"}.34 This thought about the presence of Christ everywhere
and as Man pervading all life is very close in Russian religious thought to that of
Bukharev. The teaching of Boehme concerning the dying off of the Old Adam and about
rebirth in Christ is fully in accordance with the traditional Christian teaching. He teaches
about being reborn again, and about this, that Christ lives already within man, as taught
also the Christian mystics. This represents a developing of the thought of the Apostle
Paul. He often says, that "wohnet denn Christus in Adam, und Adam in Christo" {"for
Christ abides in Adam, and Adam in Christ"}. The proximity and closeness between God
and man, between Heaven and earth, represents for Boehme the very essence of
Christianity. "Gott muss Mensch werden, Mensch muss Gott werden, der Himmel muss
mit der Erde Ein Ding werden, die Erde muss zum Himmel werden" {"God had to
become Man, Man had to become God, Heaven had to become one thing with the earth,
the earth to Heaven must become"}.35 From this is apparent how off target would be any
accusation against Boehme of an inclination towards a Manichaean dualism.
Characteristic for Boehme is that he always sought salvation from evil in the heart of
Jesus Christ and found in Him the power of the liberation and transfiguration of the
world. But the most original thing in the Christology of Boehme -- is in its connection
with the teaching about virginity, i.e. the sophianic, and the Mariology deriving from it.
The intuition of Sophia and the androgynic image of man remains a fundamental intuition
of light in Boehme, just as the intuition of the Ungrund is a fundamental intuition of
darkness.

II.

Boehme sensed profoundly, that the very essence of Christianity is bound up with
this, that Christ was born of the Virgin and of the Holy Spirit, and in this he is profoundly
distinct from the later Protestantism, which lost faith in the virginity of the Mother of
God, and distinct also from Luther himself, for whom the cult of the Mother of God was
foreign. When Boehme first hearkened to the word "Idea", he exclaimed: "I behold an
heavenly pure Virgin". This also was an intuition of Sophia. God became Man in
virginity: "und in dieser lebendigen Jungfrauschaft, als in Adams himmlischer Matrice,
ward Gott Mensch" {" And in this vitally living virginity, as in Adam the Heavenly
Mother, God became Man"}.36 In order that God should enter into our world, within the
race of Adam and Eve there had to appear a pure Virgin. "Sollte uns armen Hevae
Kindern nun gerathen werden, so musste eine andere Jungfrau kommen, und uns einen
Sohn gebaeren, der da waere Gott mit uns, und Gott in uns" {"It was now needful for us
children of poor Eve, that there had to come an other Virgin, and give birth a Son for us,
that therein should be God with us, and God in us"}.37 The Sophiology of Boehme
becomes concrete within the Mariology. After man's downfall through sin the Virgin
Sophia flies off from him to Heaven, while upon the earth becomes the spousal Eve. The
Virgin of Adam is transferred into the wife of Adam and in woman remains only the
element of virginity.38 The Virgin-Sophia returns to earth in Mary, the Mother of God.
Mary receives Her immaculate virginity not from Her racial inheritance, not from Her
birth from the proto-mother Eve, but from the Heavenly Virgin. Descending upon Her
and becoming flesh of Her is Sophia. "Also auch sagen wir von Maria: sie hat ergriffen
die heilige, himmlische, ewige Jungfrau Gottes, und angezogen das reine und heilige
Element mit dem Paradeis, und ist doch wahrhaftig eine Jungfrau in dieser Welt, von
Joachim und Anna gewesen. Nun aber wird sie nicht eine heilige, reine Jungfrau genannt
nach ihrer irdischen Geburt: das Fleisch, das sie von Joachim und Anna hatte, war nicht
rein ohne Makel; sondern nach der himmlischen Jungfrau ist ihre Heiligkeit und
Reinigkeit" {"Moreover we say about Mary: She hath taken on the holy, heavenly,
eternal Virgin of God, and is wrought the pure and holy element with that of Paradise,
and is yet truly still a Virgin in this world, begotten of Joachim and Anna. But now She is
not called an heavenly and pure Virgin in accord with Her earthly birth: the flesh, that
She hath from Joachim and Anna, was not pure without blemish; but rather in accord
with the heavenly Virgin is Her holiness and purity"}.39 And further on: "die Seele
Mariae hat die himmlische Jungfrau ergriffen, und die himmlische Jungfrau hat der Seele
Mariae das himmlische neue, reine Kleid des heligen Elements, aus der zuechtigen
Jungfrauen Gottes als aus Gottes Barmherzigkeit, angezogen, als einen neuen
wiedergebornen Menschen" {"The soul of Mary hath taken on and become the heavenly
Virgin, and thereby the heavenly Virgin hath of the soul of Mary a new and pure garment
of the holy element, from the chaste Virgin of God as from the mercy of God, and is
wrought as an again-born Man"}.40 The Virgin for Boehme abides in Heaven: "Die
Jungfrau aber, als die goettliche Kraft, stehet im Himmel" {"The Virgin however, as a
Godly power, is in Heaven"}.41 Within the Mariology of Boehme are to be sensed very
strong Catholic elements. With Boehme there is a genuine cult of the Mother of God,
quite foreign to the Protestant world. In certain of his formulations, Boehme comes very
close to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. He admits of the workings of a special
act of God's grace upon the Virgin Mary, as it were excluding Her from the sinful race of
Eve. Certainly, Boehme's formulation does not correspond to the demands of the rational
piety of the Catholic theology, but in essence he is very close to the Catholic cult of the
Virgin Mary. Boehme admits of two elements in Mary -- the heavenly, from Sophia,
from the eternal Virginity, and the earthly -- from Adam and Eve. The heavenly and
virginal element in Her was victorious.42 The difference in Boehme's point of view from
that of the Catholic dogma is in this, that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception looks
upon the Virgin Mary instrumentally, as a tool of God's Providence for salvation,
whereas Boehme sees here the struggle of contrary elements. The descent of the
Heavenly Virgin unto Mary is a working of the Holy Spirit, "Himmlische Jungfrau ist ein
Glast [Glanz] und Spiegel des hl. Geistes" ["The Heavenly Virgin is a reflection and
mirroring of the Holy Spirit"}.43 The image of Mary for Boehme is likewise an
androgynic image, as is every virginal, integrally whole image. With Boehme it was not
the cult of the Eternal Feminine, but rather the cult of Eternal Virginity. The cult of the
Virgin is likewise the cult of Sophia, the Wisdom of God, since the Wisdom of God is
likewise an eternal and heavenly Virgin. The feminine nature of Eve cannot be a subject
of veneration and it is not ascribable to wisdom, is not sophianic, but in it is an element of
the sophianic, i.e. of virginity.

The sophiology of Boehme does not bear a natal character, it is not bound up with
sexual birth. It is only that the birth from the Virgin and the Holy Spirit is holy and
saving for the world. But the birth of Christ from the Virgin transforms and sanctifies
feminine nature, liberates it from the harsh aspects of femininity. "Darum ward Christus
von einer Jungfrau geboren, dass er die weibliche Tinctur wieder heiligte, und in die
maennliche Tinctur wandelte, auf dass der Mann und das Weib wieder ein Bild Gottes
wuerden, und nicht mehr Mann und Weib waeren sondern maennliche Jungfrauen, wie
Christus war" {"Therefore was Christ born of a Virgin, so that He again should sanctify
the womanly aspect and make change in the manly aspect, from the man and the woman
again be rendered an image of God, and be no more man and woman, save as man-like
virgins, as was Christ"}.44 The transfiguration and deification of human nature, of both
man and of woman, is always a transformation into a virginal and androgynic nature.
"Und als Christus am Kreuz unser jungfraeulich Bild wieder erloesete vom Manne und
Weibe, und mit seinem himmlischen Blute in goettlicher Liebe tingirte; als er diess
vollbracht hatte, so sprach er: Es ist vollbracht!" {"And as Christ on the Cross hath
redeemed again our virginal image from being man and woman, and hath extirpated it
with His heavenly Blood in Godly Love; as did He this, so spake He: It is
consummated!"}45 Boehme was one of the few with an understanding of the
metaphysical depths of sex. What is said about sex in theological tracts generally bears a
pathetic and superficial character, and runs but along moralistic-pedagogical lines. The
whole metaphysics of Boehme, all his teachings about the fall through sin and salvation
is bound up at depth with sex, with the loss of the Virgin-Sophia and the finding of it
again. The human soul mustneeds be co-united with its Virgin: "die Jungfrau soll sein
unsere Braut und werthe Krone, die wird uns geben ihre Perle und schoene Krone und
kleiden mit ihrem Schmuck: darauf wollen wir's wagen um der Lilie willen, ob wir gleich
werden grossen Sturm erwecken, und ob der Antichrist von uns hinrisse die Frau, so
muss uns doch die Jungfrau bleiben; denn wir sind mit ihr vermaehlet. Ein jedes nehme
nur das seine, so bleibet mir das meine" {"The Virgin should our bride and worthy crown
be, which on us bestow its pearl and beauteous crown and cloth and jewel whereof for the
lily will rouse our desire, if well we weather the great storm, and if from us the Anti-
Christ carry off the wife, so mustneeds still the Virgin remain to us; then shall we with
her be wed. Each one takes only his own, and thus remains to me mine"}.46 The rebirth
of the soul is bound up in the encounter with the Virgin: "so wird dir entgegnen die
zuechtige Jungfrau hoch und tief in deinem Gemuethe; die wird dich fuehren zu deinem
Braeutigam, der den Schluessel hat zu den Thoren der Tiefe. Vor dem musst du stehen,
der wird dir geben von dem himmlischen Manna zu essen: das wird dich erquicken, und
wird stark werden und ringen mit den Thoren der Tiefe. Du wirst durchbrechen als die
Morgenroethe: und ob du gleich allhier in der Nacht gefangen liegest, so werden dir doch
die Strahlen der Morgenroethe des Tages im Paradeise erscheinen, in welchem Orte deine
zuechtige Jungfrau stehet, und deiner mit der freudenreichen Engelschaar wartet; die wird
dich in deinem neuen wiedergebornen Gemuethe und Geiste gar freundlich annehmen"
{"Thus will respond the chaste Virgin high and low in thine tenderness; which should
lead thee to thine Bridegroom, and which hathe the key to the gates of the deep. Before
this must thou stand, and be given of the heavenly manna to eat: to quicken thee, that
thou be strong to wrestle with the gates of the deep. Thou wilt break forth like the dawn:
and if as such throughout all the night thou be caught up in prison, so for thee will the
gleams of the dawn of day shine forth in paradise, in which place doth thine chaste Virgin
abide, to await thee amidst the rejoicing of the pure angelic hosts; so as to uplift thee in
thine anew reborn tenderness in spirit fully rejoicing"}.47 Boehme is remarkable in this,
that although the metaphysical profundity of sex stands at the centre of his contemplation,
his teaching about Sophia is distinct by its heavenly purity and detachment, fully free
from any vileness. Sex becomes fully sublimated. And amidst this in him there is not that
clipped-wing aridity, which results in sexlessness of thought. Boehme strives not towards
the negative sexlessness, characteristic to arid ascetic teachings, but to a positive virginal
integral-wholeness, i.e. to a transfiguration of sex, to a transfiguration of man, as a
sexually sundered being. Virginity is not sexlessness, but deific sex. Integral wholeness
and fullness is connected not with a negation of sex, but the rather by a transfiguration of
sex, with the alleviation of the yearning of sex as regards integrality. In this is the
mystical meaning of love, which Boehme himself did not adequately reveal.

III.
 The thoughts of J. Boehme concerning man are akin to those of the Kabbala.
Boehme admits the existence of Adam Kadmon -- the heavenly man. But the thought of
Boehme, in contrast, is deeply pervaded by Christianity. In the Kabbala was a teaching
about Sophia-Wisdom. In 2 Sephiroth -- Hokhmah is Wisdom. But Wisdom in the
Kabbala -- is the theoretical reason -- and is the masculine element. The feminine element
however is revealed as Binah -- the practical reason.48 Boehme's teaching about the
Virgin-Sophia is foreign to the Kabbala and is not derived from it. It appears instead as
the fruit of his profound Christian meditations and ponderings. In the gnostics of old
there was likewise Sophia. The feminine principle, rather subdued in Judaism, was taken
by them from Greece, from the pagan world.49 But it would be difficult to find anything
in common between the Hellene Simon Magus and the Sophia-Virgin of Boehme.
Moreover, in the Helene it is hidden as a profound symbolism and presentiment. And it
mustneeds likewise be mentioned, that the mystical gnosis of Boehme bears a supra-
confessional character. Even as a Lutheran Protestant, Boehme had within him strong
Catholic elements, and likewise elements akin to the Orthodox East. As a theosophist in
the noblest and profound sense of this word -- he by a path of mystery imbibed within
him the whole of worldly wisdom. But all the same, he always directly strove after the
Biblical revelation. The "Mysterium magnum", the greatest of his works, represents a
Biblical esotericism. Characteristic to Boehme was his lofty outlook on man, and in this I
see his greatest significance. He derived this lofty idea of man through a process of
understanding such as it deeply immersed in Biblical Christian revelation. From
Christianity he reached anthropological conclusions, which are impossible to be found in
the teachers of the Church. He surmounts the limitedness of the Old Testament
anthropology and cosmology. In him is to be sensed the breathing of a new spirit, a new
world epoch. He belongs to the epoch of the Reformation and the Renaissance, yet amidst
this he transcends their boundaries. His perspective simultaneously is oriented both to the
depths of spirit, and to cosmic life, to nature. The first strong impact of Boehme was in
England. He had an influence upon George Fox, the founder of Quakerism. And he was
early translated into the English language. Both Newton and Milton read him. But the
first consequential representative of Boehmism, one who further developed Boehme's
ideas, was the English mystic and theosophist of the XVII Century, Pordage. And
Pordage teaches also about the eye of the Ungrund. Pordage wrote a book, likewise
bearing the title "Sophia". In it, in the tradition of Boehme, was expressed the teachings
of a Christian theosophy concerning Sophia. And for him also Sophia-Wisdom is an
eternal Virgin. The teaching of Pordage concerning Sophia does not possess the freshness
and originality of Boehme's contemplations, but it is interesting and worthy of attention,
as a developing of Boehme's ideas. Pordage says, that Sophia heals the wounds, quenches
the thirst situated in darkness.50 Within the deep abyss awakens a wise spirit. Wisdom
operates likewise also within man. The Virgin-Wisdom (Sophia) appears in man as the
source of strength.51 Pordage in particular stresses, that within man it is Sophia-Wisdom
that makes everything happen. "Wisdom is my inward rouser, my guide, my strength, my
initiator, it pervades and orders my life".52 For Pordage, Sophia is an all-pervasive
Divine energy and its activity is very similar to the activity of the Holy Spirit. He says,
that the wine of Sophia is the bracing draught of life.53 His teaching about Sophia can be
termed vitalistic. "And the spirit of virginal Wisdom is mother of the soul, just like as the
spirit of eternity is father of the eternal spirit."54 Pordage very clearly distinguishes
between spirit and soul and he sees the eternal person of man in the co-uniting of spirit
and soul. The pure will for him is a virginal will. And the virginal will loves Wisdom.55
God's heart is alive within the human heart and paradise mustneeds be sought within the
human heart. God lives in man and man lives in God. Here is an especially important
definition for Sophia. Sophia says concerning itself: "I am the virginal Wisdom of my
Father, Who without me could do nothing, just as I could do nothing without the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit".56 "One with the Holy Trinity, that which I do, the Father Son and
Holy Spirit do, I do nothing of Myself, but within Me doth act the Holy Trinity".57
Clearly, for Pordage Sophia is not created, not a creature. He is particularly insistent upon
this, that Sophia is rooted within the Holy Trinity. All the feminine figures of the Bible
appear as figures and images of Sophia, right on up to the Virgin Mary".58 Pordage
comes to identify Sophia with the Holy Trinity and in this he goes farther than Boehme.
-- "I Wisdom by my essence am the pure Divinity and one with the Holy Trinity; and
that, which I do, the Holy Trinity doeth in me".59 The service rendered of Wisdom and
renewal is accomplished through fire. Sophia also acts, like fire. The new Heaven and the
new earth are not outside man, but within him.60 But in Pordage it is very difficult to find
a separately distinct definition of Sophia. Sophia is likewise the spirit of Christ. "The
spirit of Wisdom and the spirit of Christ are one and the selfsame spirit... The Spirit of
Wisdom is the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of Wisdom".61 Man
through Sophia becomes a new creature and Sophia creates a new earth. Sophia leads
man into a new world. The new earth through Sophia is created for the eternal man. Only
for spiritual man will it be knowable. For Pordage, Sophia is the power transfiguring the
creature. The teaching about Sophia assumes an all-encompassing character, it has a
broad sweep in comparison with Boehme and loses its more subtly pious character, of
being first of all a teaching about the virginalness of man. The sophiology of Pordage has
an affinity with the sophiology of Fr. S. Bulgakov. "The MostHoly Trinity neither acts
nor creates anything without its eternal Wisdom, just as Wisdom can do nothing without
the eternal MostHoly Trinity... The MostHoly Trinity acts in Wisdom and through
Wisdom and Wisdom acts in the MostHoly Trinity, through it and with it".62 I certainly
do not think, that Pordage had any sort of a direct influence upon the sophiology of Fr. S.
Bulgakov. Fr. S. Bulgakov derived his teaching about Sophia from other sources, but as
regards the all-encompassing character in the understanding of Sophia, there is between
them an affinity. Pordage associates closely the teaching about Sophia with the teaching
about the Holy Trinity. Boehme's first influence was in England, first of all upon
Pordage. Then in France upon Saint-Martin, a very remarkable and influential Christian
theosophist.63 However, in Germany as Boehmists mustneeds be reckoned Oetinger64
and Fr. Baader, especially Fr. Baader, the greatest and most remarkable of the Boehmists
and the most churchly in his world-outlook. But even still quite earlier Boehme had
inspired the great Catholic mystic and poet, Angelus Silesius. Boehme likewise had
influence upon wide circles of occultists, theosophists, and mystical-masons, but often
therein poorly understood and vulgarised.65

IV.

In Russia the influence of Boehme can be found upon our homegrown theosophist
Skovoroda, although the influence of Weigel upon him evidently was stronger than that
of Boehme. Boehme was very highly esteemed, although very poorly known and poorly
understood, by the representatives of the mystical and masonic currents of the late XVIII
and early XIX Centuries -- Novikov, Schwarz, Lopuchin, Labzin et al. More direct upon
us was the influence of such second-rate Christian theosophists, as Jung-Stilling and
Eckartshausen.66 During the XIX Century the Russian romantic and Schellingite
Odoevsky imbibed within him elements of Boehme's Christian theosophy, yet in this
moreso of Pordage and Saint-Martin, than of Boehme himself.67 With Vl. Solov'ev
begins the sophiological current in Russian religious philosophy and theology. Does this
current rest upon the spirit of J. Boehme? Imperceptibly and unconsciously Boehme's
spirit has acted here, since Boehme is the source of the teaching about Sophia. But on the
conscious level Fr. P. Florensky and Fr. S. Bulgakov are repulsed by Boehme, and Vl.
Solov'ev is quite hesitant to allude to him. But essentially between the teachings of J.
Boehme about Sophia and the Russian teaching about Sophia, as it was formulated
among us, there is a difference. If there be compared the sophianism of Boehme and the
sophianism of Vl. Solov'ev, then the clear preference ought to be given to J. Boehme. The
teaching of Boehme, as it relates to him, is distinguished by a greater purity and
abnegation. If he is not always distinct for a logical clarity, he is always however distinct
with an ethical clarity, and in him there is no sort of anything murky. All the sophiology
of Boehme arose out of his vision of heavenly purity and virginalness, it was bound up
with the intuition of the Divine light. The Divine Sophia is not for a single instant blurred
by the earthly Aphrodite. The earthly Sophia for him thus is the Virgin Mary. Boehme's
teaching concerning Sophia is profoundly and completely Christian, in it there are no
pagan elements. As regards Vl. Solov'ev, amidst all his enormous merits in the setting of
the problem, it is regretably impossible to say, that his teaching concerning Sophia was
entirely chaste and renunciatory. He allowed of a great murkiness in his sophianic
settings. His poetry witness to this. At the meeting in Egypt he has journeyed not to that
Sophia -- the Heavenly Virgin, the Wisdom of God. With Vl. Solov'ev there was a cult of
eternal femininity, i.e. a cosmic cult. In Sophia what allured him were the features of
feminine charm. In feminine beauty there is indisputably a glint of the Divine world. In
St John of the Ladder (Climacus) there is a remarkable statement: "One may have caught
sight of an extraordinary feminine beauty, and have glorified exceedingly the Creator in
it, and from this single such sight have become ablaze with love for God and shedding
tears abundant. An amazing spectacle indeed! What might be a pitfall of perdition to
some, for him instead would supernaturally serve to the receiving of eternal glory. If such
a man in like instances have always such indeed an awareness and action, then he is
resurrected, incorrupt even before the universal Resurrection".68 Thus wrote a very
austere ascetic. But the woeful problem is in this, that with Vl. Solov'ev the image of
Sophia becomes twofold, and deceptive images of Sophia appear for him. He
tormentively sought out his Virgin in the nocturnal and subconscious element, and often
got it confused with the cosmic allure. Vl. Solov'ev was tormented with the new religious
thirst, so that "in light undimmed by a new goddess the heavens should merge with the
watery deeps".

"All, wherein worldly Aphrodite be beauteous,

The joy of homes, and forests, and seas, --
 All has in common the beauty transcendent,
More pure, more powerful, and alive more, more fully".

There was a right thirsting for the religious transformation of all creatures, of all the
cosmos within beauty. At a moment of insight he saw everywhere "one but image of
feminine beauty" and then it was the beauty of the cosmos. The cosmos thus is a feminine
nature and the cosmos transfigured is beauty. The Sophia of Vl. Solov'ev is totally and
exclusively cosmic, it was not through a contemplation of the Divine Wisdom and it does
not possess, as with Boehme and Pordage, a direct relation to the Holy Trinity. The
"image of feminine beauty" within the cosmos, within the created world, can shoe forth
not only from an upward abyss, but also from the lower abyss, and can be a deceptive and
false allure, it can seem as a Sophia sundered off from the Logos and not receptive of the
Logos, i.e. a non-wise femininity. The tragic encounter of Vl. Solov'ev with Anna
Schmidt, a gifted mystic of genius, witnesses to a great inauspiciousness in Solov'ev's
sophianic formulations and searchings.69 He was repulsed and fled the unattractive and
not pretty image of A. Schmidt, the most remarkable woman, whom he was to happen to
meet in life, since he was searching for a sophianic charm and beauty, he was seeking the
features of an earthly Aphrodite. And moreover, in the capacity of being a romantic, Vl.
Solov'ev was afraid of its realisation and was incapable for it. Vl. Solov'ev's cult of
Sophia was something totally romantic, and in it was not a religious realism. The very
conceiving of Anna Schmidt herself as Sophia, as the Church and Bride of Vl. Solov'ev
was defined by the duplicity and murkiness of Solov'ev's sophianic outlook and
searchings. Vl. Solov'ev attains to a quite great abnegation and loftiness only in his
remarkable article, "The Meaning of Love".

Vl. Solov'ev had quite great an influence upon the Russian poetry of the beginning
XX Century, as regards its sophianic theme. We see this with A. Blok, with A. Bely, and
partially with Vyacheslav Ivanov. The greatest of our poets at the beginning of the
century, A. Blok, picked up on all the murkiness of Solov'ev's sophianic mindset. Vl.
Solov'ev himself believed in Christ and remained faithful to Christianity. But the Russian
sophianic-poets for the most part believed in Sophia, while not believing in Christ. This
Sophia altogether was already lacking for wisdom and was foreign to the Logos. The
Beauteous Lady of A. Blok is this unknowable Sophia. It eternally tempts and it eternally
deceives, its image is twofold. Herein we find ourselves at a very great distance from
Boehme. I do not regard it proper to subject the Russian poetry of the beginning XX
Century to any sort of theological judgement. It would make no sense to do this. We
experienced at the beginning of the century a remarkable poetic renaissance. But into our
poetry entered murky and distorted sophianic moods. Poets have the right to sing of the
Beautiful Woman and can make the claim, that "Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan"
{"The Eternal Feminine impels us wherever"}. But this is an altogether different plane
and a different area, than the religio-philosophic, theosophic and theological teaching of
Sophia the Wisdom of God. The Russian theological sophianism is certainly very distinct
from the poetic sophianism. Fr. S. Bulgakov in his recent books makes the greatest
efforts to attain a purified theological teaching about Sophia, in accord with tradition. He
is far removed from the sophianism of Vl. Solov'ev, and foreign to him is the sophianism
of J. Boehme.70 Fr. S. Bulgakov desires to be a theologian, and not a theosophist. In this
is the difficulty of his position. But his sophiology can have reproaches made against it
only quite otherwise, than those made in vulgar and ignorant accusations of a sophianic
"heresy". The Russian sophianic current can weaken the awareness of the freedom of the
human spirit and its creative vocation in the world. Man gets wrapped up in the divinely-
cosmic sophianic energy and therein his lot can become but a passive swooning. The
cosmic element, just like the feminine, begins to predominate over the elements
anthropological, the masculine. And this impedes the strengthening of the consciousness
of the person, of the person's activity and responsibility. As for Boehme's teaching about
Sophia, primarily anthropological in character, and positing at its centre the virginal
integral wholeness of man, it is impossible to say, that it would lead to such results. We
have already seen, that Boehme was totally lacking in any Monophysite and Pantheistic
tendency. He did not betray man over into the grip of cosmic forces, as theosophists tend
to do. The world-concept of Boehme -- is personalistic. Boehme himself did not draw any
anthropological deductions from his teachings. But in him are given the foundations for a
Christian anthropology.

With Boehme there was a certain annoyance to his contemplations, its getting all
mixed up with astrological and alchemist teachings and terminology. But in him also was
a pure vision of truth. He caught sight clearly of darkness, evil, struggle, the
contradictions of being, and he saw also Divine Wisdom, virginal purity, light. He was a
man intoxicated with God and the Divine Wisdom. All his being was oriented to the heart
of Jesus Christ and his theosophy was imbued with Christology. Western Christian
thought has tended to neutralise and secularise the cosmos. This occurred alike in both
Thomas Aquinas and in Luther. God's cosmos, bearing upon itself the imprint of God the
Creator and transfused with Divine energies, tended to wither and die in the
consciousness of the Christian West. It was replaced by a neutralised nature, the object of
scientific nature-knowledge and technology. In the Christian theosophy and cosmology
of Boehme, spirit is revealed within nature, God is revealed within the cosmos, the whole
of world life is comprehended, as a symbol of the Divinity. For Boehme what stood at the
centre was justification, as it did for Luther, as it did for the Catholic theology, but rather
the transfiguration of the creature. And the theme of Sophia is a theme about the
possibility of such a transfiguration. Boehme was not a pantheist, but he denied that a
transcendent chasm exists between God and the creation, between God and the world. He
did not think the world process to be something completely external to God and having
no sort of relation to the inner life of the Divine Trinity. The gist of the whole teaching
about Sophia consists in this, that it brings in a triadic and immediate principle between
the Creator and the creature, a co-unifying principle. In context of the categories alone of
God-Creator and world-creature it is impossible to overcome the hopeless dualism and
the transcendent chasm. But Christianity puts to rest the transcendence-immanence aspect
and simultaneously it does not permit of any identicalness between God and the world
nor of any chasm between them. God's creation bears upon itself the imprint and seal of
God the Creator, the imprint of God's Wisdom, which conveys the sophianic aspect. For
otherwise, in the life of the world, in the cosmos and man there would not be any beauty,
nor meaning, nor harmony. The sophianic aspect is also the beauty of the creature. The
sophianic aspect in man is his purity, his wholeness, chasteness, virginalness. This purity,
wholeness, chasteness, virginalness is also in all the creation, as the possibility of its
transfiguration. The Virgin-Sophia has flown off to Heaven, but its image is reflected
also upon the earth and the earth to itself. The transfiguration of the earth is possible only
through the sophianic aspect. the total denial of any sophiology leads to a deadened
dualistic theism, and ultimately to deism. God will have in the final end departed the
world. The tremendous significance of J. Boehme and of Christian theosophy in the West
is in this, that they rose up against the process of godlessness and neutralisation of the
creaturely world, the cosmos. And moreover, Boehme is not given to a non-tragic cosmic
optimism. Within the world acts not only the Divine Wisdom, but also dark and irrational
freedom.

I have said already in my prior Etude, that the influence of Boehme upon German
philosophy was enormous. But apart from Fr. Baader, it must be pointed out, that least of
all has German philosophy developed the teaching about Sophia. Even in Fichte can be
found the hidden influence of Boehme. But the forcefully-masculine spirit of Fichte is
directly contrary to the sophianic spirit, and he is the most anti-sophianic of philosophers,
with him the cosmos is transformed into the material resisting the activity of the I.
Likewise anti-sophianic is the philosophy of Hegel and even moreso that of
Schopenhauer. Within German Idealist philosophy the greatest success was had instead
by Boehme's intuition concerning the dark irrational will and concerning the struggle of
opposing principles within being. The teaching about Sophia became the lot not so much
of philosophy, as rather theosophy. Philosophy in its literal meaning is the love for
Sophia, but it tends readily to forget this its nature. Husserl wants even to forbid
philosophy to love wisdom. Still, the teaching about Sophia is about God's Wisdom
(theosophy), and not the love of wisdom (philosophy). Yet even here the academic
theologians of the schools have failed to develope the teaching about Sophia. It is almost
impossible to find it with the teachers of the Church. With St. Athanasias the Great and
others, Sophia becomes identified with the Logos and subsumed under the Second
Hypostasis. This is explained by the fact, that within the traditional theological
consciousness, both the Eastern Patristic and the Western Scholastic, there were yet not
only not clearly resolved, as rather not even clearly posited the problems of a religious
cosmology and a religious anthropology. The whole cosmology and anthropology of
traditional theology was subordinated to the soteriological problem and bound up
exclusively with the teaching about sin and salvation. The mystery of God's creation, the
creative mystery of the creature involves not only the being saved from sin, but also of
bearing within it the imprint of the Creator and being pervaded with Divine energies, this
has remained hidden over time. Upon this mystery have touched only a few Christian
mystics and genuine theosophists, gnostics, ahead of their time. The greatest of them was
J. Boehme. But the thought of modern times has tended to naturalise Boehme's intuition
about the mystery of the world-creation, the mystery of the creature, and it has become
bereft, of what Boehme revealed.

The Russian religious thought of the late XIX and early XX Centuries has posited
very acutely the problems of religious cosmology and religious anthropology, the
problems of the relationship of Christianity to the creaturely world. In this is its enormous
and as yet unacknowledged significance. The problematics underlying this, as yet lacking
in any generally obtaining resolution, have assumed various forms. At one point it
became, whether a new revelation of the Holy Spirit be possible, amidst a new world
epoch within Christianity, at another point it intensified over the problem of man and his
creative vocation, and of the existence of an ab-eternal humanness within the bosom of
the Holy Trinity, and then it was over the problem of Sophia and the sophianic aspect of
the creature. This problem became vital on the concrete level in the new understanding of
the relationship of Christianity to culture and to society. There opened up herein several
currents. They waged between them a struggle, but all were tormented by one and the
same theme. Among the thinkers of the century past who anticipated the problematics of
the XX Century and who influenced it -- were Bukharev, Dostoevsky, Vl. Solov'ev, V.
Rozanov, N. Fedorov. This is also that current of Russian religio-philosophic and religio-
social thought, which at one time we tended to call the "New Religious Consciousness",
an expression since become trite, vulgarised and disparaged, but essentially preserving its
own significance and its own truth. The problematics of the new religious consciousness
cannot be extinguished and abolished by any sort of reaction of the times involving a
theological and churchly-social conservatism, for with it is connected the future of
Christianity. Fr. P. Florensky, who sometimes speaks with hostility and scorn about "the
new religious consciousness", is himself one of its representatives. everything, that he
says about the possibility of a new out-pouring of the Holy Spirit and about the sophianic
aspect of the creature in his book, "The Pillar and the Ground of Truth", signifies the
setting of all these selfsame themes, of the "new religious consciousness", which is
subject to cleansing and deepening, but not annulling. J. Boehme, to whom Russian
theologians of a sophianic bent tend to react negatively, was nonetheless one of those
geniuses, who have anticipated the settings of the problem in dealing with the mystery of
God's creation. The academic school theology of all the faith-confessions is totally
impotent in contending against these problematics and quelling the agitation evoked by
them. We ought spiritually to imbibe the great clear-sighted seers of the past, whilst
freeing their contemplation of certain tangles and murkiness, and bring them into accord
with the basic truth of the Church of Christ. The sources for the insights and ponderings
of Boehme remain for us enigmatic, as is everything primal in origin. In Boehme was a
philosophic dialectics, but the sources of his cognition were not dialectical, but rather
purely intuitive and of clear vision. The attempts to develope sophiology in Boehme's
direction ought not to cause yet greater suspicion against this current of godly-wisdom,
but on the contrary, to lessen and remove this suspicion. If there be disregarded the
suspicions, connected with the mindsets of the ignorant and of obscurantism, with the
hostility towards every creative thought in theology and religious philosophy, then still
there remains the suspicion of an insufficient cleansing of the teaching about Sophia, in a
muddling together of the heavenly with the earthly, of the Virgin Mary with Aphrodite.
Yet least of all does this obtain in regards to Boehme's teaching about Sophia. Sophia for
Boehme is likewise purity, virginity, chastity. Boehme's teachings present the challenging
tasks of a new Christian anthropology, of the surmounting of the slavery subjection of
man under the Old Testament consciousness, in a bold attempt at discerning the mysteries
of the creation within the light of Christ. Boehme is not a theologian, he is -- a
theosophist in the finest sense of the word, and his contemplations are not easily to be
carried over into the traditional theological language. Least of all was Boehme an
"heretic" as regards the condition of his heart, as regards his spiritual disposition, and the
final resolution of this question does not belong to the academic school theological
teachings. Boehme was indeed not fully free of naturalism. And upon the teachings of
Boehme, certainly, lies the imprint of a certain limitedness of his epoch, the epoch of the
Reformation and the Renaissance, and that too of his faith-confession and his people, --
he thought like a typical German. But he indeed more than others broke out of the
thickets of this limitedness. Many of us, as Orthodox Russians of the XX Century, think
otherwise, than might a German craftsman of genius from the late XVI and early XVII
Centuries. but we can sense in him a brother after the spirit, his thought resonates for us,
and we can find common issue with it beyond all the separate faith-confessions and
nationalities, beyond all the separate times and places, just as we ought to find common
cause with everything spiritually genuine that is lofty and high, even though it appear a
foreign world for us.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1930

IZ ETIUDOV O YAK. BEME. ETIUD II. UCHENIE O SOPHII I ANDROGINE.

Journal Put', apr. 1930, No. 21, p. 34-62.

1
Koyre could not find any sort of source, from which Boehme had taken his teachings about Sophia.

2
Vol. III, "Die drei Principien goettlichen Wesens" {"The Three Principles of the Godly essence"}, p. 112.

3
Vol. III, p. 115.

4
Vol. III, p. 117.

5
Vol. III, p. 187.

6
Vol. III, p. 188.

7
Vide Vol. IV, "Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen" {"Of the Threefold Life of Man"}, p. 70.

8
Vol. III, p. 295.

9
Vol. IV, p. 69.

10
Vol. IV, p. 71. [not p. 21; Correction of Berdiaev's or printer's error. MK].

11
Vol. IV, p. 156.

12
Vol. III, p. 141 [not Vol. II; Correction of Berdiaev's or printer's error. MK].

13
Vol. IV, p. 96.
14
Vol. IV, p. 261.

15
Vide Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 94.

16
Vol. V, p. 140.

17
Vol. V, p. 409.

18
The school of Freud is conducive to such an understanding of the relative aspect of the half
differentiation. Freud claims, that sex floods through all the organism of man.

19
Quite with genius did Bachofen express his idea concerning the feminine and masculine principle. In
the correlation of the masculine and feminine principle he sees a symbolic correlation between the sun and
the earth, between spirit and flesh. Vide the fine exposition of Bachofen in the book of Georg Schmidt,
"Bachofens Geschichtsphilosophie" {"Bachofen's Philosophy of History"}, 1929.

20
In this vein is the very remarkable article of Vl. Solov'ev, "The Meaning of Love".

21
Vol. V, "Mysterium magnum", p. 463 [not p. 464; Correction of Berdiaev's or printer's error. MK].

22
Vol. V, p. 32.

23
Vol. V, p. 101.

24
Vol. V, p. 133.

25
Vol. V, p. 287.

26
Vol. V, p. 316.

27
Vol. V, p. 420.

28
Vol. V, p. 421.

29
Vide my book, "The Meaning of Creativity. Attempt at a Justification of Man" (in English published
under title, "The Meaning of the Creative Act").

30
Vol. V, p. 528.

31
Vide Vol. I, ("The Way to Christ"), p. 104.

32
Vol. III, p. 302.

33
Vol. III, p. 307.

34
Vol. III, p. 316.

35
Vol. IV, "De Signatura Rerum", p. 374.

36
Vol. V, p. 465.
37
Vol. III, p. 296.

38
Vol. V, p. 327.

39
Vol. III, "Die drei Principien goettlichen Wesens", p. 298.

40
Vol. III, p. 298-299.

41
Vol. III, p. 119.

42
Vide Vol. VI, p. 206.

43
Vol. VI, p. 697.

44
Vol. V, p. 482.

45
Vol. V, p. 101.

46
Vide Vol. III, p. 117-118.

47
Vide Vol. III, p. 184-185.

48
Vide "Die Elemente der Kabbalah", Erster Theil, Theoretische Kabbalah; Uebersetzungen,
Erlaeuterungen und Abhandlungen von Dr. Erich Bischoff, 1920.

49
Vide Hans Leisegang, "Die Gnosis", Leipzig, 1924.

50
I shall quote from Pordage using the 1699 edition of the German translation (written in 1675): "Sophia,
das ist Die hold-seelige ewige Jungfrau der Goettlichen Weisheit". The citations in Russian translation are
from me, N.B.

51
Vide "Sophia", p. 17.

52
Vide "Sophia", p. 21.

53
Ibid., p. 26.

54
Ibid., p. 38.

55
Ibid., p. 86.

56
Ibid., p. 123.

57
Ibid., p. 126.

58
Ibid., p. 146.

59
Ibid., p. 161.

60
p. 162.
61
p. 193.

62
p. 193.

63
Vide A. Franck, "La philosophie mystique en France a la fin du XVIII Siecle. Saint-Martin et son maitre
Martinez Pasqualis.

64
Vide August Auberlen, "Die Theosophie Fr. Chr. Oetigers nach ihren Grundzuegen", 1859.

65
Vide the still interesting book of Viatte, "Les sources occultes du Romantisme".

66
Vide the book of Bogoliubov, "Novikov".

67
Vide the detailed and scrupulous, though also lacking in dogmatic understanding, explanation of the
mystico-theosophic influences upon Odoevsky in the book of Sakulin, "Iz istorii russkago idealisma".

68
Vide "Prepodobnago otsa nashego Ioanna Igumena Sinaiskoi gory Lestvitsa" ("Our Monastic Father,
Hegumen of Mount Sinai, John of the Ladder"), 1909, p. 122.

69
Vide the book, "Iz rukopisei A. N. Schmidt" ("From the Manuscripts of A. N. Schmidt"), one of the most
remarkable mystical books in the Russian language, but nigh close to madness.

70
Fr. S. Bulgakov in his book, "Svet Nevechernii" ("Light Unfading"), provides a quite inaccurate
explanation of the teachings of Boehme, especially the part concerning Boehme's teaching about Sophia,
and is very unjust to him. Boehme falls victim to the struggle against modern currents, against the
influences of German Immanentism and Spiritualism.

EAST AND WEST 1

(1930 - #353)
_____________________________________

It is possible to posit the existence of two inner emotional types of people -- the one
shut in upon itself, seeking for perfection within itself and finding it in the end, whereas
the other anguishes as regards a different and foreign world, and has need of a going out
beyond itself and seeking perfection in the infinitude. The culture of the first type is self
evident. One of the most refined Frenchmen of our time, a man of extraordinarily broad
culture, Charles Du Bos says, that the French have not the anguish over other worlds,
which so vexes the German Romantics, and a foreign world holds interest for them only
as something exotic. I might term this type classical. Classicism also is a seeking out of
the perfect form within its own self-sufficing world. Classicism has enjoyed great success
in art, as well as in all spheres. And its greatest success, known to history, fell to the lot
of Greece. It enjoyed another great success in the France of the XVII Century. But there
exists a fundamental law of life, which serves as a warning for the classical feel for life
and a calling to mind about the inevitable death of every culture. And this law proclaims:
nothing, no sort of any manner of being can have its source of life only in itself, outside
of God, Who is infinite life. Everything immanently shut in upon itself faces the threat of
a withering and exhaustion of life. The Romanticism in the type of the Mediterranean,
Graeco-Roman2civilisation possesses a relative superiority over the classical, in that it
conveys into its own feeling for life not only a love for life, but also a love for death, it
anticipates a threatening fate. Creative life can continue on, if still there is endless
potential, if there is still matter unconquered of form, a Dionysian element, to which there
has not yet been set limits and boundaries. Even a most perfect culture is not destined to
live an eternal life, for death inevitably threatens it. And in this is a source of sorrow for
every very greatly refined culture. Exhaustion threatens every aristocracy. Classicism is
an eternal principle of human culture, without which its perfection is unattainable. But
Classicism is a love for the finite, a dislike for the infinite, of which the ancient Greeks
were so afraid. The infinite is incommensurate with any sort of form, and everything, that
is commensurate with perfect form, has to fear the infinite. Romanticism, however, not
knowing success in form, is a love for the infinite, but without the power of penetrating
into it and mastering it. Classicism, in the culture of Western Europe and foremost of all
the very old, the very perfective and refined culture of France, so captivating by its sense
of clarity, derives from the Classicism of Graeco-Roman civilisation, to which it desires
to be faithful. The Mediterranean civilisation presents itself as universal and eternal, and
all the rest of the world -- is a barbaric world. That ancient conceit, destroyed by the
universalism of the Hellenistic era, has returned to the civilisation of western Europe in
modern times. And this thus faces us with the problem of East and West.

The concepts of East and West are very fluid and indeterminate. And these concepts
of East and West, such as obtain modernly, no wise stand up to criticism. The Graeco-
Roman Mediterranean civilisation itself, which they want to set in opposition to the East,
was in a multitude of ways subject to influences from the East. Without the interaction
from the East, which always amidst this entailed a degree of struggle, it would not now
itself exist. The Aegean culture was from the East. From outside it, from Thrace, there
arrived in Greece the god Dionysos, and without this Eastern god there would not have
been the greatest creation of the Greek genius -- Greek tragedy, there would not have
been the greatest attainments of the Greek religion. Orphism was full of Eastern
elements. It was very strong in Plato, whom certain regard as an Eastern philosopher. The
Greek genius of Apollonian form mastered the stormy Dionysian element, but without
this element it would have been able to accomplish nothing. And how great were the
influences of Egypt! Modern humanistic Europe loves the Greek rationalism and
positivism, which are regarded as Western, but not the Greece of mystery and tragedy, of
Herakleitos and Plato, in any case not Plato the myth-maker, not that profound aspect of
Greece, which revealed itself to Bachofen and Nietzsche. At a certain moment Greece
was transformed into the East, in regard to the Roman West. The Hellenistic era,
pervaded by a spirit of universalism, destroyed the boundaries of the Graeco-Roman
civilisation, in it East and West arrived at an unprecedentedly close contact and the east
proved to be of an overwhelming spiritual influence in the West. With this also is the
beginning of worldwide history, it was created by Christianity. Rome, the West in its
supremacy, was spiritually conquered by the East, by the Eastern cultures and the Eastern
world-view, since Rome itself was bereft of all signs of religious and philosophical
genius. Franz Cumont, in his book, "Les mysteres de Mithra", says: "jamais, peut-etre,
pas meme a l'epoque des invasions musulmanes, l'Europe ne fut plus pres de devenir
asiatique qu'au III siecla de notre ere, et il y eut un moment ou le caesarisme parut sur le
point de transfer en un khalifat" ["never, perhaps, not even at the time of the Mussulman
invasions, was Europe closer to becoming Asiatic, than at the III Century of our era, and
there was a moment when Caesarism seemed at the point of becoming transformed into a
caliphate"]. The asiaticisation of the West was an everywhere common phenomenon at
the beginning of our era, which also was rendered possible by the triumph of Christianity.
Jerusalem proved victorious over Athens and Rome. Light arrived from the Eastern
wilderness, and not from the classical civilisation. This is something indisputable for
anyone not a child of Voltaire. For the whole Medieval period, the Eastern world and the
Western world were neither isolated nor closed off from each other. The final isolation
happened only after railway lines were built and ready means of communication
established. There was a time when Byzantium, within which Greece had become the
East, was the summit of refined culture, and the West drew from it for its cultural
influences. Through the Arabs, the West discovered Aristotle, who became a Western
philosopher predominantly. Although for the modern humanistic and rationalistic Europe,
even the Medieval period has to seem like something Eastern.

Only during the era of the Renaissance does there begin the shut-in isolation of the
West, and as it were the East's falling to the wayside as regards historical dynamics. The
Western humanistic culture tended to become crystalised, and to conceive of itself as
having returned after "centuries of darkness" to the culture of antiquity, and that therefore
it is the sole and universal culture. But during the modern era the West has least of all
been universal, and within it everything stands under the standard of particularism.
Amidst all this, it has been a time of religious weakening in the West, a time of the
extinguishing of faith, of an apostacy from the Christian revelation. With the end of
modern history there has to end also the isolation of the world of the West and the world
of the East. And modern history is reaching an end point, it has outlived its possibilities.
There has to begin an era analogous to the Hellenistic era. If we at present have
something immanently facing us, then it is not at all the classical antiquity with its self-
sufficing autarchies, but rather the time of the collapsing of the ancient world, when the
soil had been broken up, when all the boundaries and divisions had fallen, and the world
was ready to accept the influx of a powerful religious light. Back still at the beginning of
the World War, I wrote in 1915 an article, "The End of Europe", in which I defended the
thought, that the bloody devastation of the World War has to lead towards a coming
together of the world, towards an unprecedented interaction of East and West, that
Europe was ending in the sense that it would no longer hold an exclusive monopoly on
culture, that the great values of European culture would pass over across the world
expanse, with the peoples and cultures of the East entering anew into world history, as
one of its determining powers. I think, that I was right. We have entered upon an era of
unification and closeness of varied worlds, religious, intellectual, literary, political and
social. And the enormous consequences are still not apparent. This is not at all a matter of
simple internationalism, of something impersonal and empty. The revolt of cultures
autarchic and particularistic against this universal momentum is a reaction of the dying
modern times, it is a fear afront what is to come. And it has particularly to be emphasised,
that Christians ought to welcome an universalistic era. Universalism, certainly, does not
signify herein the negation of individual nationalities nor a renunciation of the positive
values of national cultures. But the world of the West and the world of the East have to
emerge from their isolation. Every world shit-in upon itself is doomed to death, if it does
not receive an influx of powers from other worlds, if after its allotted ages of isolated
existence it fails to breathe the breath of the world. When we use the terms "East" and
"West", we are operating with very abstract and conditional concepts. There exist very
varied Easts and very varied Wests. The more I get into the life of the West, the more I
am convinced, that no sort of a single Western culture exists, it instead was contrived by
the Russian Slavophils and Westernisers for clarifying their points of opposition. At the
centre of Western Europe is first of all France and Germany. But between the French and
the Latin culture generally in contrast to the German culture there exists an abyss quite
greater, than exists between the German culture and the Russian culture or that of India,
though here even the differences are colossal. Yet it would be groundless for the French
to say, that the German culture, in having created great philosophy, mysticism and music,
is on account of its not having inherited the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean culture, or that
it is not in direct continuance from it. The Anglo-Saxon world likewise is an altogether
unique world. And the American civilisation is of far greater difference from the
civilisation of the French, than the French civilisation is from the Russian. The Russian
civilisation has connections with the Greek, which America possesses not at all. One can
speak only about a singular Western civilisation only if there be regarded abstractly the
elements of science, technology, democracy, etc. In spirit, however, the differences are
enormous, The same also mustneeds be said about the East. The Russian, the Orthodox
Christian East, the Islamic East, the Indian East, the Chinese East -- all these are totally
different worlds. There is very little affinity between Russia and India. Hinduism does
not conceive of history, does not know the person, denies the Incarnation. Christian
Russia is similar to ancient Israel in its orientation to the meaning of history and the
experiencing of it, as a tragedy, it believes in the Divine incarnation, it awaits the second
Coming, and it tormentedly experiences the problem of the human person and its fate.

Yet all the same, we can speak symbolically about the "East" and the "West". The
West indisputably has had a great mission in world history and it has displayed
exceptional gifts in fulfilling it. The mission of the West has been in the unfolding and
development of the human principle within culture, with the increased complexity and
refinement of the emotional world of man, the intensification of historical activity, and
the working out of formal principles in thought and creativity. The humanism of the West
has had world significance, with the living out of human destinies. And the world of the
East should involve itself with the humanistic world of the West. But the civilisation of
the West, having actualised too far the potentialities and in everything providing a
predominance to the formal principle, has led to the closing off and hardening of the
consciousness, everywhere establishing divisions, boundaries and limits. Being thus
closed off did not allow for moreso a breadth of life. The perfection of form became a
danger for the sustaining of life. I once happened to be told by one of the most
remarkable Catholic theologians of the West, Guardini, a leader of the German youth
movement, and a visible activist in the liturgical movement: only with you in Russia has
been preserved still the Dionysian element of life, which with us in the West is no more,
it has been extinguished, it has become weakened by the dominance of form, which has
not taken hold with you Russians. The Russians understand differently the
correspondence between form and matter, between act and potentiality, than obtains per
Aristotle. Russian thinking is inclined to see activity in the very potentiality of life and
not in the approach, wherein that form as it were from the outside is imposed upon
matter. And hence the acute antipathy of the Russian spiritual type towards formalism
and juridicism in culture, towards authoritative claims in religious life, towards
rationalism in thought, towards a predominance of external settings of arrangement of the
inner organic life. Hence also there is a different understanding of freedom, as
indeterminism, as an irrational principle in life, as rooted in the potentialities of life.
Hence also there is the antipathy towards individualism, as involving division, a closed-in
condition, setting boundaries to the fullness of life, towards the Roman concept of
possessions, towards having high walls around one's dwellings and bolting shut the gates,
towards the delimitation of rights and the struggle for one's own rights against the rights
of others. But this antipathy towards individualism has nothing in common with a denial
of the person, as often it might seem to Western people. And hence also within literature
there is the demand of Russians to express their soul and their search for the truth of life,
yet amidst this a lack of confidence, that the mysteries of life, the authentic reality, can
actually be expressed in word or in any sort of form. "Thought bespoken is a lie", says
Tiutchev. With this is all bound up the constant doubt and reflection of Russians over the
justification of culture, doubts that are religious, moral, social. Hence also the difficulty
to reach the perfective in one's own creativity. The West has become so fond of
civilisation, that in its name it consented to set boundaries to life and weaken its power, it
believes terribly much in the word, in the concept, in form, in organisation, in rights, and
to such it entirely subordinates both soul and life. In the West it is only the Romantics
that have risen up against this. In Russia it was not needful to be a Romantic, in order to
prevent the dominance of form over life. And with this are connected not only the
positive, but also the negative and difficult sides in the Russian spiritual type.

The East is a land of revelation. There God spoke with man, person to person. All the
religions have arisen in the East -- the Jewish religion and our Christian religion, as well
as Mahometanism, Buddhism, Brahmanism, Parseeism. The West has created not a
single religion, nor has it heard directly the voice of God. The West, true, has developed
the Christian religion and has done much, but has developed it with the methods of
civilisation. The West is the land of civilisation and the people of the West rarely doubt
the absolute value and the absolute good of civilisation. The symbols of East and West
tend to signify: Jerusalem or Athens, revelation or culture. We can desire not to have to
make a choice and instead say -- both Jerusalem and Athens, both revelation and culture.
The early teachers of the Church tended to unite Jerusalem with Athens. But it is
necessary to make a distinction between these two world principles and establish between
them an hierarchical correlation. The centre of world culture, certainly, is in the West, but
the sources, in which this world comes into contact with the other world -- are in the East.
East and West -- are not so much geographic nor historical spheres, always conditional
and fluid, even not types of cultures, since there are no Western cultures, into which
elements of the East have not entered, -- East and West, -- are symbols, the symbol of the
rising of the sun, of revelation, and of the setting of the sun -- of civilisation. The East --
is the realm of genesis. It viewed the creation and the downfall of the world and in it
remained still the primordial chaos. The world was created in the East, in the West was
created civilisation and there too was awakened reason. The West is right in the middle of
the historical path of the world and mankind, but it is not the beginning and it is not the
end. In this middle point was created and developed great culture, the thought of man
showed its strength. But the final fates of culture remain hidden and frequently to people
in the West it seems endless. In order to uncover the final fates necessitates a turning
towards the East, to the sources of things, similar to how the Apocalypse, the revelation
of the end, relates to the beginning, to the book of Genesis. But where is Russia, which is
of interest for these gatherings, -- is it East or West? Russian thought over the entire XIX
Century was in torment over this question and it gave rise to two opposing currents --
Slavophilism and Westernism. Russia is not only a nationality, Russia -- is an entire
world, almost a peculiar world. And indisputably within it has occurred the encounter of
East and West, in it there are two elements, which both find unity and lead to struggle
between them. Russia is an East-West and in this is a source of the complexity and
torment of its fate, its sad history. In the soul of the cultural Russian man there also
transpires the struggle of East and West. Russian man languishes for the West and
dreams about it. He seeks to get beyond the Eastern enclosure and strives for fullness.
Westernism is a purely Russian, an Eastern-Russian phenomenon. Russian people of
culture have not only been fond of it, they became infatuated with it, they could not live
without it. Russia has received endlessly much from the West. To Russians belong the
most tender and penetrating words about the great culture of the West. The Slavophil
Khomyakov called Western Europe "the land of holy miracles". The Byzantist, K.
Leont'ev, was totally in love with the great past of Western culture. And finally, even
Dostoevsky, who for many people in the West personifies in himself the mysterious,
chaotic and repulsive East, spoke very moving words about the grandeur of Western
Europe and termed Russian man as a patriot of Western Europe. The greatest Russian
thinkers and writers tended to denounce not the West in general, not the Western culture
in general, but rather the modern Western civilisation, godless and bourgeois, having
forsaken its great past. Russia is not that East, which viewed the creation of the world and
the beginning of things. In Russia the world does not begin, as it does for the genuine
East, but rather ends. Russia as it were has sought to view the end of things, and in this is
its religious pathos. Suchlike also it has to be with the Christian East.

Yet in its communion with culture, in the person of Russian people standing at the
summits of culture, Russia is tormented with doubts on the justification of culture. Is
culture authentic being and life? Is it not an unsuccessful failing of life? Is not the price
for culture too dear, is it not a betrayal of God or the people? Ought not the creativity of
cultural values pass over to the creativity of life itself, of a new transfigured life? These
questions -- are purely Russian questionings, purely a Russian reflection over that
cultural condition, in which the West lives, possessed of no doubts on its good and value.
Russian people, and especially the most creative and cultured Russian people, have
experienced what might be called a cultural apocalypse, a sort of Dread Last Judgement
regarding culture. And this fully conforms to the eschatologicism of Russian Orthodoxy.
The fate of three of the Russian great writers -- Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky --
witnesses to the tragedy of culture and creativity. In the fate of Tolstoy, who is more
remarkable than his teachings, this became apparent throughout all the world. The
Russian culture of the XIX Century and the Russian great literature was not endowed
with any sort of a Renaissance character and it was not from a joyful exuberance, not
from any free play of powers that the Russians created their works. Only in Pushkin was
there the gleam of a Renaissance aspect, but this was merely only a brief moment of
creative joy at the beginning XIX Century, in the Golden Age of Russian poetry. Russian
literature, ever so sad, went other paths. The Russian creative writers were afflicted by
the sufferings of the world and of man, they sought for salvation and a deliverance from
the torments. Russian literature within its most remarkable works seeks the truth of life,
seeks the religious meaning of life and desires to pass over into religious activity. At its
summits it transcends the limits and has no desire to know of laws, which would restrain
it within an enclosed and differentiated sphere. We as Russians tend to be lawless people
in general and in everything we overstep the limits. Western European culture and
literature tends to flow always within the categories of Classicism and Romanticism. And
this testifies to its ancient Graeco-Roman origins. If it be said to a typical Western man,
that some certain Russian writer is not classical, then he suspects of him, that he is a
romantic. But in actuality, Classicism and Romanticism are nowise Russian categories.
The elements of Classicism and Romanticism with us represent something affected and
borrowed. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are nowise classical nor are they romantics, this is
obvious for everyone. Should Rozanov however be set into the category of Classicism or
of Romanticism? Romanticism correlates to Classicism and appears as the reaction to the
oppression and tyranny of Classicism. Romanticism is a phenomenon totally Western and
it developed upon the soil of Western humanism. Romanticism in Russia often has been
only a languor for the West and an experiencing by the Russian soul of Western
influences. The spirit of the East is not at all romantic, just as in general spirit is not
romantic, -- only the soul tends to be romantic. Characteristic to the Russian spiritual type
is neither Classicism, nor Romanticism, for characteristic to it is a special kind of
religious realism. Russian creativity attempts to penetrate to the very depths of life, the
depths of being, to reveal the truth about man, which also is the truth about God, and not
about the reaching of perfected forms, such as obscure the truth abut life, about man and
about God. Granted that this regards the East, since the West reveres form foremost of all
and aspires towards perfection of form more than towards being itself. But this is an East,
which tends to remember, that its deepest source is the Bible and Jerusalem. It was still
not so long ago that you, as Frenchmen, had a remarkable writer, who was mindful of this
truth and was close to Russian motifs, though he was also a typical Latin. I speak about a
man of the Apocalypse, L. Bloy. He was not afraid of further risk, such as people tend to
fear, all those chained fast to civilisation.

Western culture has too much forgotten, that it derives not only from Graeco-Roman
civilisation, but also from Jerusalem. Even the Christian West often forgets this. In order
to know primary sources it is necessary to resort to the book of Genesis. Narrated therein
is the origin of East and West, of South and North, of the coming about of the world. And
here it mustneeds be said, that the Bible is not at all a matter of Classicism, just as neither
is it Romanticism, it is necessary to turn to the Bible, in order to comprehend the fate of
the world apart from any matters of Classicism and Romanticism, of classical formations
and the romantic inner reactions against these formations. There is no one that would
assert, that the Prophets or the book of Job are either classical or romantic. A comparison
of the book of Job with Greek tragedy, with the Oedipus of Sophokles makes clear the
differences between the ancient Hebrew, the Biblical, and the type classical, the Greek. In
the Oedipus what is striking is the submissive resignation to fate. The words and gestures
of Oedipus are beautiful in their moderation and resignation, in them there is an aesthetic
transformation of suffering. Oedipus in his blameless suffering has no one to appeal to,
no one to fight against, Oedipus lives in an immanently enclosed world, and there is no
power, upon which he can rely in his struggle against the world. The world is full of
gods, but these gods are immanent to the world, over them likewise rules fate, which has
sent Oedipus his tragic sufferings, blameless and inescapable. The way out is possible
only aesthetically. Classical antiquity did not know of the struggle with God. Job
experiences his tragedy altogether differently. In him there is no submission and
resignation. Job cries out, and his outcry fills the history of the world, to the very present
it sounds forth on our lips. In the outcry of Job we get a sense of the fate of man. For Job
fate does not exist, as it did for Oedipus. He knows of a power, standing higher than the
world, higher than fate, to appeal to in the sufferings of the world, he turns his outcry to
God and this outcry passes over into a struggle with God. Only in the Bible is known the
manifestation of God-struggle, the struggle with God face to face, the struggle of Jacob,
the struggle of Job, the struggle of all Israel. The resignation to the tragic in a beauty of
submissiveness to blameless and inescapable suffering, the amor fati is the grandest
attainment of the tragic spirit of Greece. Higher than this the west has not risen.
Nietzsche was captivated by this, and by it have been captivated people of Western
culture, having forgotten the Bible, having forgotten Him, to Whom is possible to offer
complaint against innocent suffering in the world. The amor fati is a romantic motif in the
classical world and man can rise up no higher than it, with having lost faith in God
uppermost beyond the world. Dostoevsky is Russian tragedy. And here it is more in the
line of Job, than in the line of Greek tragedy. In Dostoevsky there is that selfsame God-
struggle, that same outcry, that same irreconcilableness and non-submissiveness, in him
there is that selfsame absence of surmounting the tragic through an aesthetic catharsis. It
is remarkable, that in him is altogether no sorrow and melancholy, so characteristic of the
romantic West, he is not so much a psychologist, as rather a pneumatologist, and by this
is uncovered an authentically tragic element. All the whole of Russian great literature in
the XIX Century was more Biblical, than Greek in its spirit. In it is heard that selfsame
outcry about the suffering fate of man in the world, calling out to God and for seeking the
Kingdom of God, in which would be wiped away the tears of the child. We, as Russians,
have connections with Greece, and not with Rome, the connections with Greece are
through our Church, through the Greek Patristics, through Platonism, through mystery.
Close to us is the Greek cosmic sense. But even beyond all this, we as Russians are aware
of our own connection with the Bible and with Jerusalem. Within Russian spiritual
culture enters in the Greece of Plato, Neo-Platonism and mystery, and also Judaism: the
Bible and the Apocalypse. The strong admixture of Tatar blood creates an unique
element, in which are active spiritual principles, deriving from Jerusalem and Athens.
And here is this unique East, distinct from the East of the Indian or the Mussulman, it
entered into an interaction with the west, it experienced the influences of Western culture
and in its own way transformed them over the course of the XIX Century. Russians love
Athens, although they are not native to the Mediterranean Sea, and often they languish
over Athens, since always they love to languish over some other world, they have
likewise languished over Paris and over Goettingen, when they lived remote from such
places (at present they languish over Moscow), but Jerusalem was for us more primary,
more a bed-rock, than Athens, not only the old Jerusalem, but also the new Jerusalem,
after which we seek.

The people of the Russian East or East-West, as I prefer to say, cannot be

reconciled with those forms of the humanistic civilisation of the west, which ultimately
have disdained the Bible and Jerusalem and have led to the forgetting of them. Foreign to
us and impossible for us is not the love of the West in general, so great in its creativity, in
the intensity of its thought, from which eternally there is much to learn, but it is rather the
rationalistic and bourgeois West, a West conceited and of a repetitive spirit, a West
impersonal with its worship of Mammon, in which form has made insignificant the
content of life. Foreign to Russia is the European individualism, with its stifling isolation
of persons, of families, of social groups, nationalities and different spheres of culture.
The paradox of European individualism consists in this, that it not only isolates and shuts
in the person within himself, not only that it invokes a cult of private property in
everything, but also that it depersonalises the person, with his subordination to uniform
social norms. It was not thus during the Middle Ages, it was not thus in the era of the
Renaissance. The frightful thing in the mechanical civilisation of the West of the XIX
and XX Centuries consists in this, that it both atomises and isolates the person, leaving
him at the mercy of the whims of fate, and it also degrades every uniqueness of the
person and in his distinctness from other persons, subordinating him to a mechanical
collective. Social tyranny is the reverse side of this individualism. Peculiar to Russians is
an unique kind of collectivism, unknown to the peoples of the West, it is rooted in the
spiritual type of Orthodoxy. And totally mistaken indeed are the opinions of those
Western people, who think, that the principle of the person is foreign to Russians, that
Russia represents an impersonal East. The reading of Dostoevsky and other Russian
writers should prove persuasive in this. Throughout the whole of the Russian culture of
the XIX and XX Centuries there is an intense and tormentive experiencing of the problem
of the person, of personal fate, as in the book of Job. It is Russians namely that have
always risen up against bourgeois civilisation, against progress, against the absolute spirit
of Hegel, against all social norms and laws in the name of the living human person, his
joys and sufferings. This -- is a traditional Russian motif. But it remains an enigma,
unsettling for the people of the West, why indeed the Russian people, having created a
deep thought and literature, wholly taken up with the Christian idea of the person, having
risen up against everything that would enslave and diminish the living person, why that
such a people should have created the Communist order, in which ultimately the human
person is crushed and brought low. In the West it would not be so easy for Communism
to triumph over the effects of the individualism of Western people. This paradox of
Russian fate is explicable by the twofold ambiguity of the Russian spiritual type, which
was revealed with genius by Dostoevsky. The Russian people not only strives towards the
New Jerusalem, towards the Kingdom of God, but also to an high degree it is capable of
being tempted on its path, of falling into doubt, of getting confused and mistaking the
kingdom of the Anti-Christ for the Kingdom of Christ. The Russian searching for social
truth, and this always is for a maximum of social truth, can lead to opposite results. The
verymost Russian of virtues can turn out as vices. What determines this, is that the
structure of the Russian soul comprises within it a sort of polar opposition and it is
possible only with difficulty to hold a middle ground. The hierarchicalisation of values
proceeding by steps, which the West does with such genius, comes only with difficulty
for Russians. An historical gradualness rests uneasily for Russian thought. But the
question about East and West in Russian Communism is quite more complex, than is
usually thought. There is active within it an Eastern element and it is an Asiatic
Socialism, this is beyond dispute. But the ideology of Communism and militant atheism
is taken from the West, And the Russian East has gone out of its mind from the Western
draughts, bearable for a more moderate temperament. The experience of Russian
Communism is something very instructive for the West. Russian Communism is nothing
other than an evil-inducing apocalyptic caricature of the final limits of a godless Western
civilisation, such as the West itself has not experienced. It shows, whither the paths lead
out, those which for awhile had seemed safe and secure. Russian Communism is a
phenomenon of a religious sort. The Russian East is on no middle path, but rather over
beyond the limits. And in this is expressed an eschatological spirit.

Barbarisation threatens the world. It threatens Europe both from the outside and from
within its own civilisation, not from the forest, but from the machine. Blows are being
struck at the aristocratism of culture. But it would be folly to think, that it is possible to
contend against the barbarisation by an East and West isolated and hostile. God cannot be
only in the East or only in the West. The West has to leave off with the idea, that the East
is for it only an object for material and spiritual influencing. The East is a subject, and in
its capacity as an active subject it again is emerging into world history. The smugness and
isolation of the East is intolerable, but so is the smugness and isolation of the West. There
is necessary a mutual fulfilling and enrichment. And particularly unseemly for Christians
is such an isolationism and smugness. Christianity is an universal revelation and it
entered the world, as an universal truth. It arrived from the East, but it was alike for both
the East and for the West. We want to breath a world breath and move on to a new
universal epoch, in which will be overcome the shut-in isolationism of all the parts of the
earth, just like with the shut-in isolationism of the earth itself, its disjunction from the
heavens and from other worlds.

There is an impersonal and anti-Christian East. But it cannot be conquered by that

civilisation of the West, which itself is anti-Christian and impersonal. The Far East and
the Far West can combine into one and the same godless and inhuman civilisation. But
the unity of East and West in the Name of God and of man, in the Name of Christ and of
the person, has to be made both against an East and against a West, such as would kill
God, and in killing God, would also kill man.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1930

VOSTOK I ZAPAD. Journal Put', aug. 1930, No. 23, p. 97-109. In French language,
"L'Orient et l'Occident", trans. W. deVogt, Cahiers de la quinzaine, 5 juin 1930, 20e
serie, 9ecahier, p. 55-60. In German, "West-Oestliches Russland", Eurpaeische Revue,
aug 1930, No. 8. In Serbo-Croatian, as 3rd title "Istok i zapad" in anthology "Istina i lazh
komunisma", trans. Dr Nikola Thaller, Zagreb, 1934, 80 p.

1
Paper, presented at the Studio Franco-Russe in the French language, on 27 April 1930,
in Paris.
2
The word civilization I use here in it French sense, i.e. identical to the word culture.

On Suicide
(1931 - #27)

I.

The question concerning suicide -- is one of the most disquieting and tormentive
within the Russian emigration. Quite many Russians tend to end their life by suicide. And
many, even if not resolved to kill themselves, still bear within them thoughts about
suicide. The loss of all meaning to life, torn off from the native land, the shattering of
hopes, solitude, want, sickness, the harsh change of social position, whereby a man,
belonging to the upper classes, is rendered a common labourer, and a lack of belief in the
possibility to better his position in the future -- all this is very conducive to the epidemic
of suicide. Suicide as an individual phenomenon has existed in every period of time, but
sometimes it becomes a social phenomenon and thus so it appears in our time within the
Russian emigration, wherein a very fertile collective atmosphere has been created for it.
The suicide becomes contagious and the man, killing himself, commits a social act, he
instigates others onto the selfsame path, and it creates a psychological atmosphere of
disintegration and depression. Suicide involves not only oneself and the forceful
annihilating of one's own life, it has significance not only for oneself alone. The suicide
evokes the fatal resolution also in others, he sows death. Suicide belongs to those
complex aspects of life, which evoke towards them a twofold attitude. On the one hand,
the man himself, doing away with himself, evokes towards him a profound pity, a
sympathy for the torment endured by him. But the fact itself of suicide evokes terror, the
condemnation as a sin and even as a crime. Those near and dear often want to hide this
horrid fact. It is possible to sympathise with the suicide, but it is impossible to sympathise
with suicide. The Church refuses the suicide a Christian burial, and looks upon it as a
going to eternal perdition. The churchly canons in this regard are too cruel and merciless
and in a practical regard are compelled to soften. But in this cruel aspect and
mercilessness there is its own metaphysical depth. Suicide evokes a frightful, almost a
supernatural feeling, as a transgression of both Divine and human laws, as a violation not
only of life, but also of death.

The suicide of Russians within the atmosphere of the emigration possesses not only
a psychological, but also an historical significance. It signifies a weakening and
disintegration of Russian strength, it says that Russians do not hold up under historical
tribulation. And to contend against it requires first of all an heightening of spirits and a
sense of one's own worth, one's calling. The Russian, feeling at present a fatal inclination
towards suicide, cannot provoke within himself very strong and tough an attitude. As
regards a strong and tough attitude towards himself, he always tends to answer you, that
you are situated in more privileged and happy a position and therefore you have to
understand the torment and hopelessness of his life. And it is necessary first of all to
understand the man sympathetically, for his having put himself in his position. But here is
what mustneeds must be understood first of all. It is difficult, very difficult for a man to
live isolated, alone, torn off from his nourishing native soil, to sense himself flung off
into an immense dark ocean foreign to him and dwelling amidst a strange life. And when
the life of a man is not warmed by faith, when he does not sense the closeness and help of
God and the dependence of his life on the power of good, then the difficulty becomes
unbearable. It is very terrible for a man, when all the surrounding world -- is foreign,
hostile, cold, indifferent to want and woe. Man cannot survive in the icy cold, he is in
need of warmth. The Russian youth, strewn throughout all the world, often senses himself
abandoned to the caprice of fate, uncared for, left to his own limited devices. He
struggles, he attempts to assert his life, but sometimes is unable, he loses the power to
resist, he does not hold up against too grievous the tribulations. In the emigration, the
cause of the tendency towards suicide appears to be not only material needs, the uncertain
future, sickness, but rather something more intimidating, the fact that down to the end of
all our days one has to live in a foreign and cold world and that the life within it appears
meaningless and without value. Man can bear up under sufferings, his powers are greater
than he himself tends to think, as was sufficiently demonstrated during the war and
revolution. But it is difficult for a man to endure the meaninglessness of suffering.
Suffering, the meaning and value of which one is conscious, is already altogether a
different suffering, than the suffering which is without meaning and value. The heroic
living through even the greatest tribulations presupposes an awareness underlying the
meaning of the suffering.

The Russian revolution has brought people an incalculable host of sufferings, and it
is indeed a great trial of spirit. Yet herewith in order to hold up under this tribulation, to
endure these sufferings, it is necessary to realise, that what has transpired has some sort
of meaning, that it is not a matter of pure meaninglessness and loss. A faith-lacking
attitude towards the revolution, as to something purely meaningless, as a completely
external misfortune, smiting people in life, as a chance incident wrought by a swarm of
evil-doers, leads to a spiritually destructive mindset in the emigration, to a sense of the
complete meaninglessness of life, and it gives the push towards a forceful ending of life.
But such a view on the misfortunes from the revolution is something totally external, it is
not spiritual, not religious, it is materialistic, something shallow. Revolution in actuality
is a very serious and tragic inward moment in the fate of peoples, and in the fate of each
of us. The revolution is an historical event, happening in us and with us, how can we not
but react to it, how can we not but get all worked up over its evil side; it is not at all
something external for us and completely meaningless for our life. The meaningless
aspect is this, that it should remain completely external for us, that it should have no sort
of inward connection with our life. And indeed towards the misfortunes and tribulations
of personal life -- the death of people near and dear, sickness, destitution, the
disillusionment in people, seeming friends who prove otherwise, in all this there has to be
a connection, as towards something having meaning for the personal fate, as inward and
not merely external events, i.e. it has to relate spiritually. This also reflects a spiritual
attitude towards life. The same too mustneeds be said concerning historical misfortunes
also, about wars, revolutions, the loss of one's fatherland, and social degradation. The
revolution is a payback for the sins of the past and also a redemption. No one can
consider himself exempt from the common guilt, from the common fate. And only in the
experiencing of the guilt is what makes the revolution endurable. A revolution means
always, that the powers of good have revealed themselves creatively in life, but also that
there has accumulated much evil and poison, making inevitable a renewal through
catastrophe and the playing out of evil powers, if the renewal not be made through a good
spiritual power. A man can be situated in the emigration, can be an implacable foe of the
evil of Bolshevism, but he has to sense and be conscious of the fact, that the revolution is
an inward occurrence, transpiring both in him and with him and that its significance can
be enormous for the historical fate of the people, though quite inconsistent with what the
makers of the revolution themselves see it to be. The emotional suffocation and loss of
the meaning of life will be overcome, if it be realised, that we live in an epoch of great
crisis and upheaval, that there ensues a new period of history, that the old world has
collapsed and a new as yet unseen world is being created. And each man is called to be
active in this process. Upon the spiritual power manifest by each depends the future. But
such epochs always give birth to a great host of sufferings. These sufferings are however
neither without meaning nor without value. What has to be overcome is the dejected and
demoralised mindset in the Russian emigration, especially in the youth. These depressed
states of mind grow out of a defective view on the tribulations from the revolution, from
disillusion in the old methods of struggle against Bolshevism, from mistaken ideas,
spiritual hindrances for surviving revolution. The struggle against the depression and
inclination towards suicide is first of all a struggle against the psychology of hopelessness
and despair, a struggle for the spiritual meaning of life, which cannot be merely
dependent upon outward occurrences.

II.

Suicide is a psychological phenomenon, and in order to understand it requires an

understanding of the emotional condition of the man, resolved to put an end to himself.
Suicide happens at a peculiar and exceptional moment of life, when black waves engulf
the soul and all personal hope is lost. The psychology of suicide is first of all the
psychology of hopelessness. The hopelessness is a terrible narrowing-down of
consciousness, the extinguishing of all the riches of God's world for him, wherein the sun
ceases to shine and the stars be not visible, and life gets locked into an obsession upon
one dark point, with no possibility of escape from it, an escape from oneself into God's
world. When there is hope, there is possible an enduring of the most terrible tribulations
and torments, whereas the loss of hope results in the inclination to suicide. Hopelessness
signifies the impossibility to imagine for oneself a different condition, it always
represents a bad infinity of torment and suffering, i.e. a predilection for the eternal hellish
torments, of which a man thinks to free himself by taking his own life. The soul becomes
completely obsessed with one condition, with one thought, one fear, which overshadows
all of life, overshadows all the world. The suicide retreats into his own "I", into one dark
corner of his "I" and amidst all this he works not his own will, he does not comprehend
the satanic metaphysics involved in suicide. A man may happen to experience torment
over an unhappy love affair. At some point the darkness thickens and it eclipses all the
manifold aspects of life. The man sees only the endlessness, an eternity of unhappy love.
He is therefore unable to see in it any sort of meaning and he sees nothing to attract him
in his life. He ceases to see meaning in the life of all the world, everything becomes
tinged for him in the dark light of hopeless meaninglessness, all the perspective has
become distorted. The question about suicide is a question about this, that a man falls into
dark recesses, from which he cannot break out. The man indeed wants to deprive himself
of life, but he wants to deprive himself of life namely because he cannot escape out of
himself, because he is immersed and submerged within himself. To escape out of himself
is possible for him only through the killing of himself. However, life as bottled up in
itself, locked in upon the isolation of the self, is an intolerable torment. The suicide -- is
always egocentric, for him there is no longer God, nor the world, nor other people, only
but himself. For him there are not even those people, on account of whom he resolves to
put an end to himself. To overcome the will to suicide means a forgetting about oneself, a
surmounting of the egocentrism of being locked up in oneself, to think about others and
about the friend, to glance at God's world, upon the starry heavens, upon both the
suffering of other people and upon their joys. To conquer the will to suicide means to
cease thinking chiefly about oneself and one's own concerns. In the life of people there
are dangerous dark recesses from out of which condenses the bottomless darkness. If a
man succeeds in breaking out of this dark recess, in breaking out of himself, then he is
saved and the will to commit suicide cannot proceed. Here is why at certain moments
help can be so important for a man, he can be saved by a spoken word or even a glance,
that this man is not alone in the bright light, which had become for him black. The
psychology of suicide is the psychology of man locked up in the isolation of himself,
within his own particular darkness. It is even possible to say, that when a man is situated
in an egocentric condition, concentrated exclusively upon himself, upon his own
sufferings and torments, when there is lost for him a real relationship to others and to the
friend, he is then always in darkness, in a dark pit, which seems bottomless. The full light
presupposes for me the existence of the other and of others, and presupposed first of all is
the existence of the Sun of the world. Here is why solitude and isolation is so terrible for
the man, who neither sees nor senses God. It is then that there gapes open the bottomless
black pit. Outward loneliness and a sense of abandonment can be withstood only with
God. One of the paths in the struggle against the depressive mindsets, leading to suicide,
is a spiritual sense of unity with people, a spiritual sense of co-friendship. A great task of
human life consists in this, that a man should make the initiative to emerge beyond
himself, from being swallowed up within himself, to emerge beyond himself to other
people and to the world, for values possessed of a supernatural significance, and when a
man goes deep within himself, he finds there not only himself, but also that which is near
closer to him than his very self, he finds God. The psychology of the suicide does not
know an emergence from the self to others, for him everything is bereft of value. Within
the depths of man, however, he sees not God, but rather a dark emptiness. Herein is why
the psychology of the suicide is not a spiritual condition.
 But it would be a great oversimplification to view suicide as a phenomenon always
one-sided. There exist very varied types of suicide and the suicides evoke varied
responses. People kill themselves over an unhappy love, in the heat of some strong
passion or from an unhappy familial life, they kill themselves from a loss of the taste for
life, from infirmity; they kill themselves out of disgrace and the loss of honour; from the
loss of position and destitution; they kill themselves, in order to escape infidelity and
betrayal; they kill themselves out of hopeless sickness and the fear of suffering. There
was a man that killed himself, whom I very much esteemed and loved and reckoned one
of the finest of people. The reason for his suicide was hopeless sickness. It is not for me
to judge him. When a man kills himself, because he is facing torture and fears being
broken into betrayal, then this essentially is not even suicide. Suicide can be from a total
infirmity or from an overexuberance of powers. The psychology of the suicide is so
peculiar, that there have been instances, when people have killed themselves out of a fear
of becoming infected with cholera. In this instance, they wanted to put an end to an
unbearable feeling of fear, which can be more terrible than death itself. Suicide can occur
also under aesthetic motifs, out of the desire to die elegantly, to die young, to evoke
towards one an especial sympathy. The temptation of the beauty of suicide is powerful in
certain epochs and can be contagious. The suicide of Esenin, a quite remarkable Russian
poet after Blok, evoked his personality cult. He became a central focus of depressed
outlooks, idealising the beauty of suicide. But whatever the varied motives of suicide and
their emotional aspects, it always signifies an experiencing of despair and the loss of
hope. The exception might be made for the Romans in decadent times, for those like
Petronius, who forcefully cut short their life with full self-control, philosophically, in
nowise an affective state. But even in this phenomenon there is a subliminal layer of
profound hopelessness, yet indeed it is not at all characteristic to our times nor to the
average Russian. Strong passions, giving rise to the insurmountable conflicts of life, often
lead to suicide -- the love for woman, zealotry, gambling, the lust for power, the passion
for gain, the feelings of revenge and anger. This type of suicide can be separated off into
an unique category and within it the suicide is a social phenomenon. Of greater interest to
me at present is that type of suicide, which can be termed a phenomenon of social
weakness and decay.

Suicide is by nature a denial of the three utmost Christian virtues -- faith, hope and
love. The suicide is a man, having lost faith. God for him has ceased to be a real and good
power, governing life. He is likewise a man, having lost hope, having fallen into the sin
of despondency and despair, and this most of all. Finally, he is likewise a man, not having
love, he thinks about himself and he does not think about others, about those near and
dear. True, there are instances, when a man resolves to depart life, so as not to be a
burden on those near and dear for him. This -- is a special instance of suicide, untypical,
not grounded upon egoism and a false judgement concerning life, it is summoned forth
by an hopeless illness, total incapacity or the loss of ability to work. And certain ones
have departed life, in order to give place to others, their rivals even. In any case, faith,
hope and love tend to defeat the state of mind, inclined towards suicide. Even one of
these Christian virtues can save a man from perishing. The suicide in the prevailing forms
of this phenomenon is a man already believing in nothing, hoping on nothing and loving
nothing. Even the suicide upon an erotic ground witnesses more to a love of self, than for
the fellow man. And the love for fellow man itself in this instance involves the sin of
idolatry. A man does not believe, does not hope, does not love at that dark instant of his
life, when he resolves to do away with himself. If he succeeds in tearing himself away
from the dark corner, to get beyond it, then within him can indeed awaken faith, and hope
and love. But he has accepted this dark moment as involving all his life, all his being. In
the moment following hope might have awakened, but he will not have survived up to
this moment following. In this is a great mystery and paradox of the times. In one instant
there can be gulped in the whole of eternity and the one surviving this moment as it were
partakes fully of being. Up until this terrible moment the man would have had hope, and
it then in turn would become the following moment, but he grabbed hold of this moment
in place of eternity, he decided herein to annihilate eternity, and to extinguish being. Man
in essence never actually desires to kill himself, and indeed this is an impossibility, since
man belongs to eternity, he wants only to annihilate the instant, mistaken by him for
eternity, at this one point he wants to annihilate all being and for this infringement upon
eternity he answers against eternity. A failed suicide sometimes even leads to a rebirth of
life, like the return to health after a grievous illness. Suicide seemingly can call up
impressive powers. It is not easy to do away with oneself, it needs a mad resolve. But
suicide in actuality is not a manifesting of the powers of the human person, it is done by
an unhuman power, which commits this terribly difficult deed for a man. The suicide, all
the same, is a man obsessed. He is obsessed with the darkness enveloping him, he has
lost freedom. This is the typical phenomenon. Suicide likewise is a manifestation of
cowardice, unable to show spiritual strength and to hold up under tribulation, it is a
betrayal of life and of its Creator. The psychology of suicide is a psychology of being
offended, being offended against life, against other people, against the world, against
God. But the psychology of being offended is the psychology of the slave. In contrast and
opposite to it is the psychology of admitting guilt, which is the psychology of a free and
responsible being. In the consciousness of admitting guilt is discovered a greater strength,
than in the consciousness of victimhood.

III.

Does suicide signify a lack of love for life and for its blessings? Superficially
considered, suicide can produce the impression of the loss of all taste for earthly life, the
utmost renunciation of it. But in actuality this is not so. Suicide in the majority of cases is
of a special sort the manifestation of an unillumined love for earthly life and its blessings.
The suicide is a man, who has lost all hope, that the blessings of life can come his way.
He hates his own unhappy and meaningless life, but not earthly life in general, not the
blessings of life in general. He would want to have an happier and more meaningful
earthly life, but has despaired of its possibility. The psychology, which leads to suicide, is
least of all the psychology of a renunciation of the blessings of earthly life. People of the
ascetic type, directed upon spiritual life, are oriented towards the other world, towards
eternity, and never do they end their life by suicide. There is needful, on the contrary, a
great concern for the temporal and the mundane, with a forgetting about eternity and
heaven, in order for the psychology of suicide to take form. For the psychological
mindset of the suicide it is namely the temporal that has become eternal, whereas the
eternal has vanished, it is the earthly life namely with its blessings that is the solely
existing life, and of any other sort of life there is not. The psychology of the suicide
nowise signifies a contempt for the world and for a good life in the world. On the
contrary, it signifies a slavery to the world. A man, spiritually free from the forces of the
world, would never suffer the condition of despair and hopelessness, which leads to
suicide. He knows, that genuine happiness is not given by the blessings of the world, but
rather by a maturing in spiritual life and by closeness to God, he knows that authentic life
is a maturing into eternity. But the man, growing within eternity, never wants to forcibly
end his life within time. Freedom from the world provides a maturing within spiritual life.
When a man ends his life by suicide, he is then murdered by the world, as having become
too bitter for him, at a time when he regarded the sweetness of the world as the solely
authentic and genuine life. The poison, which a man in the pit of despair takes within, the
bullet, which he shoots into his brow, the river, into which he hurls himself, all this is an
annihilating of his "world", in the grip of which he finds himself. When a man deeply and
vitally is pervaded by the awareness, that the life in this world and this time is not the
sole and utmost life, that there is another, an higher, an eternal life, he never would take it
into his head to have the thought of doing away with himself. There would then instead
open up before the man the infinite task of growth within eternity, of spiritual ascent, a
liberation from the grip of the ugly, miserable, meaningless life of the world. To conquer
the will to suicide means to conquer the grip of the "world" over one's fate. And herein
lies a basic paradox involving the suicide. The suicide is least of all the man, capable for
sacrifice with his life, he is too caught up in it and immersed in its gloom. Suicide is a
submersion of man within himself and the slavery of man to the world. Suicide is egoistic
and it is the opposite to the sacrificing of one's life in the name of others, in the name of
whatever the idea, in the name of one's faith. If the man, resolved on making an end to
himself, had it in him to make the sacrifice, he would then stay alive, he would make the
sacrifice of it, accepting the burden of life. If the would-be suicide at the fatal moment
were capable of thinking about others and of making for the sake of others this sacrifice,
his hand would tremble and his life be saved. The grip of the world over the suicide is
expressed not in this, that he is capable of thinking about the world, with self-
renunciation, the forgetting about himself, but rather in this, that he is all absorbed by his
sufferings, which the world brings him and the despair over this, that the world never
brings the desired blessings. This signifies, that in relation to the world he is oriented
egocentrically. But the egocentric orientation is always a source of slavery. The loss of
taste for the world and for life, when everything has become unbearably wearisome, is a
suicidal frame of mind, but it does not mean, that a man is freed from the grip of the
world. A man would want, that the world should have some taste for him, should arouse
and attract him, and is tormented, that this is gone and impossible for him. Herein is the
aspect of being caught up in the world, though in negative form, and it remains fully so.
History, true, knows of suicide as the duty of slaves, when their master has died, and of
women, when their husband has died. These suicides, certainly, are not egocentric, but
then too they are nowise characteristic for the modern, and indeed most typical
psychological frame of mind with suicide.

Suicide is not only a transgression against life, but also a transgression against death.
In suicide there is not the willful acceptance of death, at the hour, appointed from above.
The suicide has reckoned himself the sole master of his own life and his own death, he
does not want to know That One, Who created life and from Whom death depends. The
voluntary acceptance of death is likewise an acceptance of the cross of life. Death too is
the final cross of life. In the majority of instances the suicide tends to think, that his cross
is heavier, than the cross of others. But no one indeed can determine, whose cross is the
heavier. There is here no sort of objective criteria for comparison. Each man has his own
particular cross, different from that of some other man. Suicide is not only a false and
sinful attitude towards life, it is likewise a false and sinful attitude towards death. Death
is a great mystery, the same sort of profound mystery, as is birth. And suicide herein
reflects a lack of respect for the mystery of death, the absence of a religious reverence,
which it ought to invoke for one. In essence, a man all his life ought to prepare himself
for death and the significance and qualitative attainments of his life are defined by this,
whether he is prepared for death. To be prepared for death nowise means to wither away,
grow weak and give up living. On the contrary, this means to advance one's life, to have
it rooted in eternity. But people in actuality very little become prepared for death, and
frequently they are unworthy of death. The Christian attitude towards death is very
complex and, apparently, twofold. Life is the greatest blessing, bestowed by the Creator,
whereas death is a greatest and final evil. But death is not only evil. The voluntary
acceptance of death, the voluntary sacrifice of life is good and a blessing. Christ by death
hath trampled down death. Death has also a redemptive significance. To have oneself
face a sinful and limited life endlessly would be a nightmare. Through death we come to
resurrection for new life. Suicide is directly the opposite to the Cross of Christ, to
Golgotha, it is a refusal of one's cross, a betrayal of Christ. It is therefore in deep
contradiction to Christianity. The image of the suicide is the opposite to the image of the
Crucified, crucified for truth. And the psychology of the suicide is not at all the
psychology of redemptive sacrifice. Redemptive sacrifice is based upon freedom. The
suicide however does not know freedom, he has not vanquished the world, but the rather
is vanquished by the world. Christ has vanquished the world and prepared the path to an
universal victory over death by resurrection. The voluntary cross of sacrifice is the path
to eternal life. Suicide however is a path to eternal death, it is a refusal of resurrection.

A genius-like dialectic concerning suicide was revealed by Dostoevsky in his book,

"The Possessed" ("Besy"), in the image of Kirillov. Kirillov is obsessed by the idea of
man-godhood. Man has to become God. But in order to become God, man has to conquer
the fear of death, he has to consciously and freely kill himself. Kirillov decides to kill
himself, not because subjectively he experiences a condition of hopelessness and despair,
rather his suicide has to be a metaphysical experiment, in which man becomes assured in
his own power, and in this, that he is the sole master of life and death. He knows no other
master, God, and therefore he himself would become a god. God has existed for man only
because man has been afraid. With Kirillov, the idea of suicide bears an apocalyptic
character, through it time is conquered. Time will stop and there will be eternity. Kirillov
-- is a man with an "idea", he is not guided by any sort of the baser urges, he does not
know fear. And here with the image of Kirillov, in his own way an ascetic, is a man of
purity, but in everything the opposite to the image of Christ. The man-god has to be the
opposite in everything to the God-man. The final word of the metaphysical suicide of
Kirillov is death. The final word of the cross of sacrifice of Christ is life, is resurrection.
Kirillov makes an empty metaphysical gesture, he is powerless by his death to trample
down death, he is powerless to vanquish time and pass over into eternity. The suicide of
Kirillov is something ugly, as is all suicide, in it there is no ray of light. But he -- is one
quite noble and lofty amongst suicides. The crucifixion of Christ, however, which was a
verymost wicked deed of those that crucified Him, shines brightly, it brings the world
salvation and resurrection. Dostoevsky discovers through the metaphysical experiment of
Kirillov that suicide, by its nature, is atheistic, that it is a denial of God, that it is a setting
of oneself in place of God. The majority of people, certainly, that end their life by
suicide, do not have the metaphysical thoughts of Kirillov, they are instead in an
emotional state and do not reason things out. But even without being conscious of it, they
put themselves in the place of God, since they reckon only themselves the sole master of
life and death, i.e. in practise they assert atheism. The making a god out of man, man-
godism, at the extreme can itself be manifest in a violent death. And herein we approach
the question concerning the relationship between this violent death and murder. Does
suicide constitute murder?

If death be not only an evil, but also a path to resurrection, then murder is purely evil
and a very terrible evil. Suicide is the murder of a living being, God's creation. Those,
who do not see this to be murder, base themselves upon the stand, that murder is the
annihilating of a life foreign to and not belonging to me. My life belongs to me and
therefore I can annihilate it, not committing murder in doing so. Just the same, I cannot
commit theft relative to the things belonging to me. But this is a false and superficial line
of reasoning. My life is not mine merely, upon which I possess an absolute right of
ownership, but is as it were a life on loan, it is first of all a life, belonging to God, Who
alone has in it an absolute right of ownership, and it is likewise a life relating to those
near and dear for me, other people, my nation, society, and ultimately, all the world,
which has need of me. The principle of an absolute right of private property stands in
general upon a false principle. The Roman understanding of the right of ownership is not
a Christian understanding. The classical formula of the Roman understanding of the right
of private property proclaims: dominium est jus utendi, fruendi, abutenti re sua quatenus
juris ratio partitur [ownership is the right of disposition, of using, of abusing a thing
itself to the extent permitted by reason of law], i.e. this means, ownership is the right not
only to make use of a thing for good, but also to misuse it, to do with it whatever one
wishes. But the right of absolute ownership does not exist for the things, for the
inanimate objects, belonging to man. From a right to a serf-like slavery ought to be
liberated not only people, but also things. Granted that from the perspective of an actual
right I have the right to break apart and destroy the things belonging to me and I will not
be held responsible in this, I will not wind up in prison. But spiritually, morally,
religiously I do not have any right to do whatever I see fit to do with the things belonging
to me, to deal with them badly, to annihilate and destroy them. I do not have an absolute
right to things, I ought to use them well, not misuse them, I ought to treat them in the
proper God-befitting wise. And indeed if in too nasty a manner I begin to destroy the
things belonging to me, to smash up my furniture, to break the dishes and windows in my
home, to tear to shreds my clothes, then very likely I will wind up under a doctor's care
and be put in hospital. My right of ownership of things is relative and not absolute, the
things likewise belong to God and to my neighbour and to all the world, an inseparable
portion of which they comprise. And if it is even with my own pencil, or book, or
clothing, that I ought not to mistreat, then all the moreso I cannot act thus with my own
body, with my own life, which is more precious than mere things. The assertion of an
absolute right of private property represents a false and non-Christian individualism.

A man ought to love himself as a creation by God, and too great a lack of love and
care for oneself, usually accompanied by fits of selfishness (selfishness is not love for
oneself in the proper sense of the word, on the contrary), it is a sinful condition, a denial
of God's creation, a denial of the image and likeness of God, of God's idea. The saying is:
"Love thine neighbour, as thyself". But this presupposes likewise a love for oneself,
which is in no way egoism. Without such a love for self, sacrifice would be impossible,
and indeed true love for neighbour would be impossible. But here within suicide there is
present both egoism and egocentrism, both self-immersion and self-absorption, and there
is absent the normal love for self, as a being belonging to God. When a man renders
himself hateful and contrary, when he wants to destroy himself, when he is unforgiving
towards someone, then to him are rendered hateful and contrary both other people and all
God's world. The psychological paradox consists in this, that the hatred and loathing for
oneself involves together with this an egocentrism, an absorption with oneself, a
powerlessness to get beyond oneself, to forget about oneself and think about others.
People, who hate themselves and who want to destroy themselves, are essentially people
with a thin skin, who take offense against others in that which they dislike about
themselves. People often want to do away with themselves in order to spite someone else.
When a sickly ugliness in man evokes in him a repugnance towards himself and a sense
of his own impotence in life and his own abased condition, a man then often takes
offense against others and is malicious in regard to others. Spiritually one ought to relate
towards oneself, not only for oneself and what one owns, but also as to a being,
belonging to God, to the world and to other people. With this is connected the sense of
vocation. There exist obligations not only in regards to God and to other people, but also
in regards to oneself. Towards oneself it is needful to relate well and not badly, not to
destroy oneself, not to deal badly with one's own soul and body. Suicide is an utmost
expression of dealing badly with oneself, of transgressing the duty in regard to oneself.
Suicide is the doubtless killing of a being, belonging to God, to people and to the world.
And besides, this is a killing not only of the body, but of also the soul, i.e. in a certain
sense it is a killing even moreso, than any other. When a man wrecks his soul with
debauchery, drunkenness, over-indulgence, heedlessness, with vulgar passions, malice,
spitefulness, etc., he then partially commits suicide and murder, he deals improperly with
that, which belongs not only to him and which was foreordained for higher ends. The
point of view, which holds that man -- is the autocratic and self-ruling master of his soul
and body, is an atheistic and godless point of view. A man not only does not have the
right to destroy his own soul and body, he has also to answer for heedlessness in regard to
himself. In maiming and annihilating oneself, a man mains and annihilates the world, the
cosmic whole, other people, since, since all is bound up with and dependent upon
everything else. In murdering himself, a man inflicts a wound upon the world as a whole,
and it impedes the realisation of the Kingdom of God. Man is a being more lofty in his
position and his destiny, than he tends to think about himself within his egoism, his self-
absorption and beastliness. The egocentric is doomed always to think about himself
lower, than a man ought to think about himself. And the suicide, immersed only in
himself, does not know the significance, which he has for mankind and for the world, he
does not understand, that he is poisoning not only himself, but also God's world, that he is
impeding the realisation of God's intent with the world. Man did not create himself, God
created him for eternal life and he was created, so that his life should be bound up with
the life of all God's creation. Death however came into the world as a result of original
sin. St. Thomas Aquinas says, that suicide is a sin in relation to oneself, in relation to
society and in relation to God. The suicide commits a great sin in regard to his own soul,
depriving himself of the possibility of repentance, of a spiritually regenerative approach
to the terrible mystery of death. The bold bravery, which sometimes the suicide
manifests, is a surface and illusory bravery. Beneathe it is hidden cowardice and fear in
facing life. Suicide is an absolute isolation of oneself from being, from God's world, from
mankind. But such an isolation is impossible as regards the ordering of being. All and
everything is bound up with all and everything. And all mankind and all the world is as it
were an organism. Only a Christian consciousness reveals the truth about suicide and
posits a proper attitude towards it. The sociological perspective, which being based upon
statistics, wants to establish a social principle underlying the inevitability of suicide, is at
root false, for it sees merely the external side of the phenomenon, merely the result of
unseen inner processes, and it does not penetrate down into the depths of life.1

IV.

In the pre-Christian and pagan world there was a different attitude towards suicide.
And suicide amongst savage peoples was more widespread, than is generally thought.
The Romans were either indifferent towards the question about suicide or else approved
of it. For Seneca, a representative of the Stoic philosophy who is regarded as at the
summits of the Roman moral consciousness and indeed close to Christianity, for him also
suicide was quite the possibility. The Romans idealised suicide and regarded it as noble.
In the empire period, suicide assumed the guise of refinement. But this meant, that the
positive meaning of life was lost or not even found. Both the Epicureans and the Stoics
contended against the sufferings of life and they attempted to work out an inward self-
defense, that of passionlessness. But Stoicism, a very lofty as such natural morality, is
afraid of sufferings and hides itself off from them. The possibility of suicide is one of the
consolations, if all the other consolations have disappeared. Refined souls, suffering from
the coarseness of life, having lost faith in the objective meaning of life, sometimes are
inclined to idealise suicide as a noble gesture, as a noble exit from the world. But this is
not a religious and not a Christian state of soul. Already in the XIX Century the
pessimism of Schopenhauer calls for a worldwide suicide, for an extinguishing of the
worldwide will to life, in its begetting of torment and suffering. He calls for non-being,
for Nirvana. But here the individual question about suicide is dulled and loses its
immediacy. Schopenhauer, who came close to Buddhism, likewise is afraid of sufferings
and wants to flee them. Only Christianity asserts a fearlessness in the face of sufferings,
asserts a meaning to suffering, the significance of the Cross. And therein is Christianity
very brave a religion. The ideological mindset of the suicide asserts however, that the
suffering is more terrible than the killing. We have said already, that suicide is a form of
murder. And with this point of view, however, it might be possible to excuse the killing
of a man out of sympathy, in order to deliver him from unbearable sufferings, from
hopeless illness, from disgrace etc. But the Christian Church has a firm stand on this, that
the killing is always more terrible than the suffering, that it better to suffer, than to kill
out of sympathy. They have even tended to assert, that Judas was more blameworthy, in
having killed himself, than in having betrayed Christ. The Japanese hara-kiri is a noble
and knight-like ritual form of suicide, but it is impossible for the Christian. Christianity is
profoundly different whether from Stoicism or from Buddhism and from all the teachings
religious or philosophic on the question concerning the meaning of suffering. Only
Christianity both teaches, that suffering is bearable and has meaning. Suffering would be
unbearable, if it were without significance. But meaning makes suffering bearable.
Suicide regards suffering as both unbearable and meaningless. But the significance of
suffering is in this, that it is the bearing of a cross, to which the Saviour of the world hath
called us. Take up thine cross and come follow Me. It is namely the consciousness of
bearing the cross of life that also makes suffering bearable. Revolt against the suffering
renders the suffering twofold, and the man suffers not only from the tribulations sent him
down from above, but also from his revolt against the suffering. The cross indeed is an
unique defense against suicide, an unique power, which can be used to withstand it.
Every man, inclined towards suicide, ought to sign himself with the Sign of the Cross, to
accept the cross within himself. In the mystery of the cross namely is the sanction against
suicide.

Man over the course of his life's path experiences inward emotional crises of soul,
sometimes very incapacitating and tormentive. An inward emotional crisis can represent
genuine agony for a man. And the young person tends to know suchlike stormy inward
emotional crises. With them, for example, it is accompanied by the sexual maturing of
man, a stormy flood of forces, finding no outlet. Youth knows its own melancholy, a
melancholy from a surfeit of unspent powers, from the uncertainty of successfully living
them out. Youth is more inclined towards melancholy, than is generally thought, but this
is not the melancholy of impotence and exhaustion, as is the melancholy of old age.
Suicide in youth often happens as the result of stormy inward emotional crises, in which
the powers of man find no outlet. An attentive and watchful attitude to inward emotional
crises is very necessary. The loss of childhood faith, a crisis of world-outlook can beget
very stormy inward emotional processes and evoke this melancholy. Likewise fatal can
be the inward emotional crisis, resulting of a failed love. Particularly dangerous likewise
in its consequences likewise are the inward crises of emotional natures, wherein passions
hold complete sway. Crises come more readily upon natures, in whom the emotional
element is at a stronger level than the intellectual and volitional element. The whole
question consists in this, the ease by which the entire inward life of man becomes defined
by one whatever the passion, the ease by which a man is made obsessed by one whatever
the condition, when the waves of darkness engulf all the soul. Suicide is rendered all the
easier at the moment of inner emotional crises and the whole task here is in getting
beyond the dangerous points of the thickening darkness. There is likewise a small number
of instances of suicide, which appear as the result, even if not fully then at least partially,
of dementia and insanity. Melancholy is a form of psychological disorder. Modern
psychopathology teaches, that the human soul is a tempestuous affair and that in each
man there is the potential for madness, but is held within limits. It becomes necessary for
man to fight his way through to an emotional health and balance. And it mustneeds be
said, that a man at the moment of suicide in a majority of instances is situated in a state of
psychological disorder, his psychical state of mind having toppled and destroyed the
psychological equilibrium, the function of the discerning of reality goes out of focus, the
hierarchy of values becomes distorted and some particular one nowise primary value
becomes the sole and absolute one, the consciousness becomes overwrought and the
memory freezes up in a paralysis upon some much too grave an aspect wherein holds
sway only but the idee fixe of the suicide.

Suicide represents first of all a terrible narrowing down of the consciousness,

wherein the subconscious inundates the proper field of the consciousness. Within the
subconscious of man lives not only the powerful instinct of life, but also the instinct of
death. Freud even creates a whole metaphysics out of this. It would be a mistake to think,
that man strives only towards life and self-preservation, he strives likewise towards death
and self-destruction. Some inner crisis, in which whatever the passion completely
consumes the man, readily betrays the man into the grip of the subconscious instinct of
death and self-destruction. Even the ancients were wont to say, that Hades and Dionysos
-- are one and the same god. The orgyiast and Dionysian element in exuberant life readily
passes over into a frenzy of destruction and death. This was expressed with genius by
Pushkin in his "Feasting During a Time of Plague":

Everything, everything, what threatens ruin,

For the heart of the morbid
Lies concealed with ineffable delights.

The force of life and the force of death at some point not only intersect, but also
become identical. And therein love and death come to have such a close proximity
between them. The love of Tristan and Isolde, of Romeo and Juliet, is inexorably bound
up with death. And suchlike in particular is the love of the youth. Man is capable of
conceiving of the attraction of death as something most sweet, as the solution to all the
tormenting contradictions of life, as a revenge, taken against life, and as retribution for
his life. The interrelationship between the consciousness and the subconscious within
man is very complex. This has been sufficiently made manifest by modern
psychopathology and psychology, by Freud, Adler and Jung. Inner emotional and
nervous illnesses are begotten of conflict between the consciousness and the
subconscious, they appear as the result of the restraining censorship by the consciousness
over whatever spheres of the subconscious. At the moment during a crisis of soul the
correlation established between the consciousness and the subconscious breaks down,
and the subconscious justifies itself and takes over. The traditional aspects of
consciousness for a given man -- the social, the moral and even the religious -- are
rendered powerless under the pressure of the subconscious: the directly immediate
instincts of life, the force of passions, of love, of revenge, the will to succeed, the strength
of suffering all have their way and obstruct the prohibitions of the consciousness. An
inner emotional crisis, arising from the clash of the subconscious with the conscious, in a
moment leads to a disorder of psychic functions, it upsets the unstable psychical
equilibrium, which obtains by a complete suppression of the subconscious. The instinct
for destruction and death, such as derives from the dark subconscious during a moment of
turbulent inner crises, cannot be conquered by the set established traditional forms of the
consciousness, which tend to prove themselves too weak and powerless a means. It is not
the power of the consciousness, which often proves disabling for life, but rather the
power of the supra-consciousness, a graced spiritual power, which can save one from the
dark instincts of the subconscious. The saving factour in these instances is not the
traditional religious consciousness with its laws and shalt-nots, but rather the graced
power of God. The subconscious instinct for death, which is one of the manifestations of
the orgyiastic instinct for life, remains unconquerable by the too sober, too deliberative
and measured a consciousness. It is conquerable only by the graced power of the Cross
and Resurrection, to which the Cross leads. The psychological mindset of the suicide can
be defined as the extinguishing of the consciousness, begotten of torments, and a return
into the loins of the unconscious, as a revolt against being born from the maternal loin of
life, whereof is begotten the consciousness. But besides the unconscious or the
subconscious there is still also the supra-consciousness. Besides the pull inwards there is
also the pull upwards. The instinct for death is an instinct for an unconscious life.
Dostoevsky in his "Notes from the Underground" says, that suffering -- is the sole unique
cause for the arising of consciousness. Hence the liberation from consciousness
represents a liberation from suffering. And the unhappy tortured consciousness likewise
seeks a liberation in drunkenness and narcotics. But the consciousness is a path to the
supra-consciousness, to an higher spiritual life, to life in God through the cross and
suffering. The whole question consists in this, whether a man can find in himself the
power to bear up under the consciousness with its accompanying suffering. When a man
resorts to morphine, to cocaine, opium, he does not bear up under the torment of
consciousness and from his consciousness he winds up going downwards rather than
upwards. This is a partialised suicide. During inner emotional crises this question
becomes particularly acute and the downward abyss of the subconscious exerts a strong
pull upon a man. The attracting sweetness of death, like a temptation waiting in ambush
for a man at various catastrophic moments, is the sweetness of quenching a tortured
consciousness, it is the delight of uniting with the subconscious impersonal. This is a
renunciation of person, as being something at too costly a price, and an uniting with the
impersonal elements. There is a peculiar temptation to perishing, a rapture with perishing
as a matter of tragic beauty. This is a temptation, deeply contrary to the religion of the
Cross and the Resurrection, it is a refusal not only of existence as a person, but a refusal
also of freedom, a resistance to the will of God, that a man through consciousness should
come to an higher and supra-conscious life, through the Cross and the Resurrection. The
subconscious instinct for death ought to be transformed into a voluntary acceptance of the
Cross of life, and the meaning of suffering, i.e. from an instinct reactive and oriented
backwards, it ought to be transformed into an instinct creative and oriented forwards.
Man is a turbulent being, in his subconscious there is a terrible darkness. Modern
psychology tends to show this. Christianity also teaches this, when it speaks about
original sin. The will to suicide, to self-destruction witnesses to the incapacitating conflict
of the subconscious and the consciousness. The healing however comes from an higher
sphere, standing both over the subconscious and over the everyday consciousness.

V.
 Suicide as an individual phenomenon has to be conquered by Christian faith, hope and
love. The instinct for death and self-destruction has to be transformed by faith, hope and
love, into a bearing of the Cross of life. We are completely convinced, that the person can
worthily exist and preserve himself from the thirst for self-destruction, if within the
person there is a supra-personal content, if one lives not only for oneself and in the name
of oneself. It is impossible to live only for the sustaining of life and for pleasure in life.
This is merely zoological, and not truly human an existence. Life brings an incalculable
number of sufferings and proves disappointing in the possibility of realising the personal
goals in life and of using life for personal satisfaction. The denial of a supra-personal
content to life proves to be a denial of person. The person exists only in the instance, if
there exists the supra-personal, for otherwise it dissolves down into that which is below
it. It is impossible to seek only after oneself and strive only for oneself, it is only possible
to seek after that which is higher than I myself, and to strive towards it. Life is rendered
completely stale, at the moment when I set myself above everything, at the summit of
existence. Then actually it is possible to do away with myself out of anguish and
melancholy. It is needful, that there be somewhere whither to proceed, that there be some
heights, for then only does life take on meaning. When a man perceives within himself of
a supra-personal content to life, he perceives his own belonging to a great whole and that
the very least in life is bound up with the great. Howsoever small the life of a man might
seem, he can conceive of his belonging to the Church, to Russia, to great supra-personal
organisms, and to the great values, realised within history. In eras subject to historical
processes and upheavals, when entire social segments find themselves torn off from the
historical bodies, in which they were born and lived, suicide can become a social
phenomenon. And here then particularly important is the perceiving of the supra-personal
content and values in life. This presupposes an awakening of spiritual life and its especial
intensification. In calm and tranquil times people live naturally in the lifestyle, connected
with the supra-personal organisms, with kindred families, classes, with traditional
national cultures. During such times religion often tends to become exclusively a matter
of lifestyle, inherited, traditional, and it does not presuppose a blazing up of spirit, of
personal spiritual exertions; patriotism likewise becomes a matter of lifestyle, traditional,
defined by the outward position of a man. It is not such for the Russians of the epoch, in
which we live. All the historical bodies have gone to rot, existence has lost all its
tranquility and everything has passed over into a stormy turbulence. Life demands
enormous spiritual exertions. It requires a spiritual strength and intensity, in order to
believe, that Russia and the Russian people remain alive, and that one belongs still to it,
though one be cast off into Africa or Australia. It requires a blazing up of spirit, in order
to believe, that the Orthodox Church, persecuted and oppressed, debilitated in its
organisation, experiencing troubles and discord, in actuality has become reborn and
illumined, standing spiritually higher than the Church, which was triumphant, a part of
the state, externally brilliant in its brocade and gold. It requires personal spiritual efforts,
to find oneself set within a tempest and not be carried off by the wind. There occur
outwardly felicitous epochs, when at times there is stability and everything naturally
occupies within it a firm position. But there occur also catastrophic epochs, when at times
there is no stable firmness, when there is nothing to rely on, when the very ground shakes
beneathe one's feet. In such epochs, more remarkable than the tranquil epochs, the
strength and steadfastness of a man are defined only by the extent that he is rooted in
eternity. Man perceives, that he belongs not only to time, but also to eternity, not only to
the world, but also to God. During such epochs the finding of a spiritual life within
oneself is a life or death question, a question of being saved from perishing. Only those
hold fast, who find within them a great spirituality. Faith itself during such periods
presupposes great efforts of the person's spirit and therefore it is qualitatively higher than
the faith of an inherited lifestyle. It would be folly in such epochs to think only about
oneself and about one's own personal aims. This is the path of self-destruction. Everyone
each bears a terrible responsibility, he either affirms life, renewal and hope, or else death,
disintegration, despair. Each Russian at present to an immeasurably greater degree bears
within himself Russia, moreso than back then, when he lived peacefully in Russia. Back
then Russia was given him gratis, now however it must be had by ardour of spirit.
Likewise too each Orthodox person at present to an immeasurably greater degree is
responsible for the Church and bears within himself the fate of the Church, than back
then when he lived peacefully in the Church, guarded by the state and the traditional
lifestyle. And each of us is faced with immeasurably greater demands, than before. It has
become impossible any longer still to remain lukewarm, to be still a nominal Christian,
half Christian, half pagan, it is necessary to make choices, to show a capacity for
sacrifice, to become spiritually intense. There is occurring in the world an enormous
struggle of Christian and anti-Christian forces, and no one can evade participating in it.
We live in a very difficult, but quite more interesting a time, than in the periods
preceeding. Much of the old is gone and has irreversibly passed away, the old life will
never return and it is in vain to wish for this. But there has awakened a new interest for
world and human life, an interest for the heights and from the depths, from God and
through God. From the perspective of eternity, we receive the possibility to look upon
time and to assert eternity within time. Now is not the time to lose courage, to fall apart,
to give way to despair, now is the time to pull oneself up, to get oneself together, a time
to believe and have hope, and a time to remember, that man is a spiritual being,
foreordained for eternity.

We ought not harshly and mercilessly to judge the suicide. And indeed the
judgement is not ours given us to make. But it is impossible to idealise suicide. It is not
the suicide, the one committing suicide, but rather the act of suicide that ought to be
condemned, as a sin, as a spiritual failing and weakness. Suicide is a betrayal of the
Cross. During that moment, when a man is killing himself, he forgets about Christ, and
were he to remember, his hand would tremble and he would not inflict the mortal blow
upon himself. He would preserve his life, since therein he has found the resolve to
sacrifice it. He wanted to kill himself, since he did not want to sacrifice his life, since he
was thinking only about himself and was affirming only himself. Self-denial and self-
sacrifice in the name of the supra-personal sacred is a phenomenon directly the opposite
of suicide. For the man to live seems more difficult, than to die, and so he chooses the
easier. All moments within life are difficult and demand an effort, whereas the choice of
suicide presupposes merely one difficult moment. But the illusion and self-deception of
the suicide is based upon this, that it presents itself as a final liberation from time, the
cessation of suffering and torments. The suicide believes, that suffering will no more be.
And this comes at the price, that suicide is a refusal of immortality. But the minute, in
which suicide occurs, is a final minute merely of our time, beyond it follows the whole of
eternity and judgement. But if a man, in having resolved to kill himself, were to sense
himself standing afront eternity, afront the judgement of eternity, his resolve would then
be shaken. The suicide hopes to annihilate not only time, but also eternity. Both time and
eternity are bound up for him with consciousness, which he wants ultimately to
extinguish. But ontologically to annihilate himself is impossible, and possible only is the
transfer of himself into another condition. The suicide can no longer endure the torment
of living with himself, in his gloomy darkness, in his isolation. He hopes to escape
himself through killing himself. But in actuality, he is still deeply caught up in himself, in
a bad infinity of torment, which continues after the act of suicide. Man only temporarily
is situated within time, he is a being, predestined for eternity, and in him there is an
eternal and indestructible principle, which cannot be annihilated by killing and suicide. It
is possible to extinguish our consciousness and return into the loin of the subconscious.
But this extinguishing of consciousness is not eternal, but rather temporal. The
consciousness again will awaken and how grievous can seem this awakening. Freud's
student, Rank, wrote a very interesting book about "the trauma of birth". He
demonstrates, that a man is born in fear and terror; he gasps to take a breath in being
separated from the maternal womb, and the consequences of this trauma remain
throughout all his life, it manifests itself both as the source of man's myth-making and of
his sicknesses. Rank thinks, that with man remains the desire to return to the maternal
womb. Life in the world continues to frighten man, the primal fear of birth does not pass
away. I have spoken already about the subconscious instinct of death in man. But the
terrible thing is in this, that the return of the suicide into the loin of the subconscious can
conceal an even greater fear, than that of being born. The considerations of a deliverance
for the suicide are based upon coarse materialistic premises, and we come into conflict
here with the basic question concerning the meaning of life.

The suicidal instinct is a regressive instinct, it denies a positive growth of meaning

within worldly life. How ought we to relate to consciousness, to the person, to freedom?
Are they manifest as values, which nowise are to be possibly refused? The suicide
regards with doubt the value of consciousness, of the person, of freedom. A life
unconscious, impersonal, of the darkness of the womb, determinate upon the attraction of
death and non-being, becomes better than a life that is conscious, of the person, free,
since consciousness begets suffering, since the person is something wrought in the forge
of suffering, since freedom is spiritually difficult and tragic. Right up to the end the man
falters and refuses the great task, to be a person, to be a free being, to grow and mature in
his consciousness towards the supra-consciousness. Out of the fear of suffering he is
ready to turn back. It mustneeds be remembered, that our consciousness is situated at a
certain mid-point of being, and not the summit, it is but a path to the summit, to the
supra-consciousness, to God's deification of human nature. And the subconscious
element, which always is more extensive and deeper than consciousness, through the
work of consciousness knowing its own limits has to pass over into the sphere of the
supra-conscious, of Divine being. This does not mean, certainly, that everything of the
subconscious can and should entirely pass over into the conscious. There will remain
always the subconscious loins of life. But the great task of movement upwards does not
permit of a refusal of being, of the conscious and free person. It is needful right up to the
end to withstand tribulation, to remain a conscious and free person, to not permit its
annihilation by an element of the pre-conscious, hearkening backwards. In each man
there is the archaic man, with inherited aspects from ancient and primieval mankind, in
him there is the child and there is madness. The rise of consciousness as a path to the
supra-consciousness, to the sense of person as the bearer of supra-personal values, of
spiritual freedom, of the high dignity of man and the sign of his God-likeness, involves
an incessant struggle against the regressive movement of man's return to an archaically
primieval and infantile condition, it is a struggle against the dissociation of the
consciousness into madness, which nowise signifies the arising of the supra-
consciousness, as sometimes they tend to think. To be human, to be a person, to be
spiritually free, without allowing the dissociation of one's consciousness out of a fear at
the contradictions and sufferings of life, -- all this is an heroic task, and it is the
realisation within oneself of the image and likeness of God. Suicide however is an
apostacy from this task, a refusal of one's humanity, a return to a pre-human state. Life is
an ascent upwards, whereas suicide is a withering and falling down. The great illusion
and deception of the suicide is the expectation, that suicide is a liberation, a deliverance
from the torments of life, from the absurdity of life. In actuality, the act of suicide is first
of all and most of all a loss of freedom, which always calls for an ascent, for a victory
over the world. And in the people, inclined towards suicide, there mustneeds first of all
be awakened the sense of the dignity of free beings, as children of God, called to an
higher life. The suicide not only himself right up to the end refuses his humanity, he also
poisons the surrounding atmosphere with the poison of non-being. To be human is a great
task, set before us by the Creator. To be human means to be a person, to be spiritually
free, to grow in one's consciousness, and be a creator. And indeed the greatest mystery of
life consists in this, that everything within man has to be transcended by an higher
condition, and therein presupposes the higher. Man has to become man, by transcending
himself, and as a person it presupposes the existence of supra-personal values, of truth,
good, beauty and growth towards supra-personal being, the consciousness presupposes
the existence of the supra-consciousness, wherein the soul both lives and breaths by spirit
and spiritual life. Man exists because that God is, and because he can stir himself to move
towards God. But the transcending of every limitation, the limitedness of consciousness,
the limitedness of the person, the limitedness of everything human cannot be attained by
movement downwards and backwards, it is to be attained only by movement upwards and
forwards. The question concerning suicide is the question concerning the religious
meaning of life. The act of suicide is a denial of it. Hapless, naive and foolish are those
sociologico-positivists, who think, that society and social values can substitute for God
and the Divine values of life, and therein provide the human person the meaning of life.
The thought about society and social duty per se never and no one ever hindered from
suicide. What meaning can an abstract idea have for the man, for whom everything in the
world has grown dim? Only the remembering of God as a most sublime reality, nowise
whither to be escaped, as both source of life and source of meaning, can halt one from
suicide. One can escape society in death, in non-being, and society remains powerless
over the eternal fate of man. From God however it is nowise and nowhere possible to
escape even through death, it is impossible to flee the judgement of God and God's
determining the eternal fates of man. Even the relationship of the human person to
society receives meaning through its relationship to God. Only God provides life its
meaning in the struggle against suicide, against suicidal states of mind, and it is a struggle
for the religious meaning of life, a struggle for the image and likeness of God within man.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1931

© 2002 by translator Fr. S Janos (In Memory of Beloved Friend Peter)

(1931 - 27 - en)

O SAMOUBIISTVE. Psikhologicheskii etiud. Booklet published in 1931 by YMCA

Press, Paris, 46 pages.

1
See for example the book by the head of the French sociological school, Durkheim, "Le
suicide".

THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION

OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD 1)
(1932 - #377)

Everything in the contemporary world is situated under the sign of crisis, not only the
social and the economic, but likewise also a cultural, but likewise also a spiritual,
everything has become problematic. This is moreso acutely obvious in Germany, and
about this much gets written. How ought a Christian to relate to the agony of the world,
how ought one to regard it? Is this only a crisis of a world external for the Christian and
anti-Christian, having betrayed the Christian faith, or is this likewise a crisis of
Christianity? Christians also share in the fate of the world. They cannot purport the view,
that within Christianity, within the Christian world everything is just dandy and that
nothing in the world irritates it. And upon the Christian world, upon the Christian
movement there falls heavy a responsibility. Upon the world is being wrought a
judgement, and it is likewise a judgement upon historical Christianity. The ills of the
modern world are connected not only with the falling away from Christianity, with a
chilling down of faith, but also with the age-old ills of Christianity on its human side.
Christianity is universal in its significance, and everything is situated within its orbit,
nothing for it can be fully on the outside. Christians ought rather to perceive the spiritual
condition of the contemporary world from within Christianity itself, to define, what the
crisis of the world signifies as an event within Christianity, within the Christian
universality. The world has come into a frightful condition, no longer within it are there
firm institutions, it is living through a revolutionary epoch both outward and inward, an
epoch of spiritual anarchy. Man lives in anguish (Angst) more than ever before, under an
eternal threat, he hangs suspended over an abyss (the Grenzsituation of Tillich). Modern
European man has lost the faith, which he tried in the last century to substitute for the
Christian faith. He believes no longer in progress, in humanism, in the saving power of
science, in the saving power of democracy, he is conscious of the injustice of the
capitalist order and he has lost confidence in the utopia of the contemporary socialist
order. Modern France is afflicted by cultural scepticism, and in modern Germany the
crisis dispels all values. The whole of Europe is shaken by the unbelievable events
happening in Soviet Russia, under the grip of a new faith, a new religion, hostile to the
Christian religion. Characteristic to contemporary Europe is the rise of new forms of
pessimistic a philosophy, in comparison with which the pessimism of Schopenhauer
comes off as comforting and innocent. And thus there is the philosophy of Heidigger, for
whom being as regards it own essence is fallen, but from no one is it fallen away, the
world is hopelessly sinful, but there is no God, the essence of being in the world is
anxiety. Reigning over the mind of the modern average European is the melancholy,
gloomily tragic Kierkegaard, his teaching about Angst has been rendered very popular, it
expresses at present the condition of the world, the position of man. Meanwhile most
interesting and remarkable is the trend in theological and religious thought known as
Barthianism, which is under the grip of an exclusive and acute feeling of the sinfulness of
man and the world, and Christianity Barth tends to understand exclusively in
eschatological terms. This current is a religious reaction against the liberal humanistic,
romantic Protestantism of the last century. There is likewise a reaction against liberalism,
romanticism, modernism to be found in Catholicism, which they attempt at present to
save from modernist dangers and to reinforce by a return to Thomas Aquinas. Thomism
is not only the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, it has become likewise a
cultural trend and has taken hold among Catholic youth. But both Barthianism and
Thomism negate man. The gravitating towards authoritarianism and towards the
restoration of tradition is the obverse side of the anarchy and chaos of the world. Within
Western Christianity there has become weakened the faith in man, in his creative power,
in his aspect in the world. In the social-political movements prevail principles of coercion
and authority, with a diminishing of the freedom of man -- in Communism, in Fascism, in
National Socialism there triumphs a new victory of materialism both economic and
racial. Man as it were has grown tired of spiritual freedom and is prepared to renounce it
in the name of power, with which to order his life, both inward and outward. Man has
grown tired of himself, of man, has lost the confidence in man and wants to leap off to
the supra-human, even though this supra-human be a social collective. Many of the old
idols have been toppled in our time, but many new idols have likewise been created. Man
is so constituted, that he can live either with a faith in God, or with a faith in ideals and
idols. In essence, man cannot consistently and ultimately be an atheist. Having fallen
away from the faith in God, he falls into idolatry. We can see the idol-worship and the
fashioning of idols within every sphere -- in science, in art, in statecraft, and in national
and social life. And thus, for example, Communism is an extreme form of social idolatry.

For the contemporary European all faith has weakened. He is more free from
optimistic illusions than the man of the XIX Century, set facing the bare, unadorned and
severe realities. But in one regard modern man is optimistic and filled with faith, and this
is his idol, to which everyone offers sacrifice. We herein come nigh to a very important
moment in the spiritual condition of the contemporary world. Modern man believes in the
might of technology, of the machine, and sometimes it would seem, that this is the one
thing, in which he still believes. And there seems to be a very serious basis for his
optimism in this regard. The dizzying successes of technology in our epoch is a genuine
marvel of the sinful natural world. Man is shaken and crushed by the might of
technology, making all his life topsy-turvy. Man himself has created it, it is the product of
his genius, of his reason, of his inventiveness, it is a child of the human spirit. Man has
succeeded in unlocking secret powers of nature and using them for his own ends, of
introducing a teleological principle into the activity of mechanical-physical-chemical
powers. But to master the results of his work man has not succeeded. Technology has
come to seem more powerful than man himself, it subjugates him to itself. Technology is
the sole sphere of the optimistic faith of man, his greatest achievement. But it brings man,
however, much grief and disappointment, it enslaves man, it weakens his spiritualness, it
threatens him with ruin. The crisis of our time is to a remarkable degree begotten by
technology, which man lacks the strength to deal with. And this crisis is first of all a
spiritual one. It is important for our theme to emphasise, that Christians have proven to be
completely unprepared for an appraisal of technology and the machine, for an
understanding of its place within life. The Christian consciousness does not know, how to
relate to the tremendous worldwide event, connected with the introduction into human
life of the machine and technology. The natural world, in which man was accustomed to
live in the past, no longer still seems to be in the eternal order of things. Man lives in a
new world, altogether quite different from that in which the Christian revelation occurred,
in which lived the apostles, the teachers of the Church, the saints, all with which the
symbolism of Christianity is connected. Christianity was very representative of a
connection with the land, with a patriarchal order of life. But technology has torn man
away from the soil, it has with finality destroyed the patriarchal order. Christians can live
and act in this world, in which everything is incessantly changing, in which there is
naught yet stable, by virtue of the customary Christian dualism. The Christian is
accustomed to live in two rhythms, in the religious rhythm and in the worldly rhythm. In
the worldly rhythm he participates in the technisation of life, religiously not sanctified,
and in the religious rhythm however, on a few days and hours of his life, he withdraws
from the world to God. But it remains unclear, what religiously this formed anew world
signifies. For a long time they regarded technology as a most neutral sphere, something
religiously indifferent, something furthermost removed from spiritual questions and
therefore something innocent. But this period has past, though not all have noticed it so.
Technology has ceased to be neutral. The question about technology has become for us a
spiritual question, a question about the fate of man, about his relationship to God.
Technology has immeasurably deeper a significance, than ordinarily is thought. It
possesses a cosmogonic significance, it creates a completely new actuality. It is a mistake
to think, that the actuality, engendered by technology, is the old actuality of the physical
world, a reality, studied by mechanics, physics and chemistry. This is an actuality, which
did not exist in the history of the world until the discoveries and inventions, made by
man. Man has succeeded in creating a new world. Within the machine is present the
reasoning power of man, within it operates a teleological principle. Technology creates
an atmosphere, saturated with energies, which earlier were hidden within the depths of
nature. And man has no assurance, that he is in a condition to breathe in the new
atmosphere. He was in the past accustomed to breathe a different air than this. It is still
inexplicable, what this electric atmosphere, into which he is cast, will produce for the
human organism. Into the hands of man technology puts a terrible and unprecedented
power, a power which can be to the destroying of mankind. The first tools, found in the
hands of man, were relatively playthings. And it would be possible to regard them still as
neutral. But when such a terrible power is given into the hands of man, then the fate of
mankind depends upon the spiritual condition of man. One already destructive aspect of
technology is war, threatening almost cosmic a catastrophe, and it posits the spiritual
problem of technology quite acutely. Technology is not only the power of man over
nature, but also the power of man over man, power over the life of people. Technology
can be converted into service to the devil. But therein especially it is not neutral. And
especially in our materialistic times everything acquires a spiritual significance,
everything is set beneathe the standard of the spirit. Technology, begotten by spirit,
materialises life, but it can also indeed assist in the liberating of spirit, of liberation from
the bounds of materio-organic life. It can enable also an in-spiriting.

Technology signifies the transfer of the whole of human existence from the organism
to the organisation. Man no longer lives in an organic order. Man is accustomed to live in
an organic connection with the soil, with plants and animals. The great cultures of the
past were still surrounded by nature, they loved their gardens, flowers and animals, they
had not yet broken asunder from the rhythm of nature. The sense of the land begat a
tellurgic mysticism (Bachofen has remarkable thoughts about this). Man came from the
soil and he returns to the soil. With this is connected a profound religious symbolism.
The vegetative cults have played a tremendous role. The organic life of man and of
human societies presented itself as a life similar to that of plants. Organic was the life of
the family, of the corporation, the state, the church. Society had resemblance to an
organism. The romantics at the beginning of the XIX Century ascribed an especial
significance to the organism and the organic. From them comes the idealisation of
everything organic and hostility towards the mechanical. The organism is born, and not
made by man, it is begotten by nature, by cosmic life, in it the whole is not composed
merely of parts, but rather precedes the parts and determines their life. Technology tears
man apart from the soil, carries him across the expanses of the world, and gives man the
sensation of earth as a mere planet. Technology radically alters the attitude of man to
space and to time. It is hostile to any organic embodiment. In the technological period of
civilisation man ceases to live amidst animals and plants, he is flung into a coldly-
metallic medium, in which there is no longer any animal warmth, no warm-bloodedness.
The might of technology bears with it an enfeebling of cordiality within human life, of
cordial warmth, coziness, lyricism, sorrows, always connected with the emotion of soul,
and not with spirit. Technology kills everything organic in life and sets it under the
standard of the organisation of the whole of human existence. The inevitability of the
transition from organism to organisation is one of the sources of the contemporary crisis
of the world. It is not so easy to be torn asunder from the organic. The machine with a
cold ferocity rips the spirit from its intertwined organic flesh, from vegetative-animate
life. And this expresses itself first of all in the weakening of the soul-emotive element
within human life, in the dissociation of integral human feelings. We are entering upon an
harsh epoch of spirit and technology. The soul, connected with organic life, has proven
very fragile, it shrinks back from the fierce blows which the machine inflicts upon it, it
flows with blood, and sometimes it seems, that it is dead. We perceive this as a fatal
process of technisation, mechanisation, the materialisation of life. But spirit can oppose
this process, can master it, can enter into a new epoch of being victorious. This is the
fundamental problem. The organisation, into which the world is passing over, the
organisation of the enormous human masses, the organisation of technical life, the
organisation of economics, the organisation of scientific operations etc, is very
burdensome for the soul-emotive life of man, for the intimate life of the person, and it
begets the inner religious crisis. Elements of organisation have existed since the very
dawn of human civilisation, just as always there have existed elements of technology, but
never has the principle of technical organisation been so dominating and all-extensive,
always there remained much of the organic and vegetative condition. The organisation,
connected with technology, is a rationalisation of life. But human life cannot be
ultimately and without residue rationalised, always there remains an irrational element,
always there remains a mystery. The universal principle of rationalisation receives its just
reward. Rationalisation, bereft of any higher spiritual principle, begets irrational
consequences. And thus in economic life we see, that rationalisation begets such an
irrational manifestation, as unemployment. In Soviet Russia the rationalisation of life
assumes forms, reminiscent of collective madness. Universal rationalisation, technical
organisation, the spurning of the mysterious foundations of life, beget a lost sense of the
old meaning of life, and anguish, and the tendency towards suicide. Man is attracted by
the technics created by him, but he himself cannot be transformed into a machine. Man --
is the organiser of life, but he himself in his depths cannot be the object of organisation,
within him himself there always remains an element of the organic, the irrational, the
mysterious. The rationalisation, the technisation, the machinisation of the whole of
human life and of the human soul itself cannot but provoke a reaction against itself. This
reaction existed during the XIX Century. The romantics always protested against the
might of technology, the dissociating of the organic wholeness, and they appealed to
nature, to the elemental foundation within man. A strident protest against technology was
made by Ruskin. He did not want to reconcile even with the railroad and he journeyed in
a carriage parallel to the rail tracks. The romantic reaction against technology is
understandable and even indispensible, but it is impotent, it either does not decide the
problem or it resolves it too easily. To return to former times, to the organic lifestyle, to
the patriarchal relationships, to the old forms of the familial economy and handicrafts, to
the life with nature, with the land, with plants and animals, is impossible. And indeed this
return would be undesirable, for it is connected with an exploitive use of people and
animals. In this is the tragedy of the position. And it remains but for spirit creatively to
define its own relationship towards technology and towards the new epoch, to master
technology in the name of its own ends. Christianity ought creatively to define an attitude
towards the new actuality. It cannot be too optimistic. But it also cannot run away from
the human reality. This presupposes an exertion of spirituality, an intensification of the
inner spiritual life. Soul-emotive sentimentalism within Christianity has become already
impossible. Soulful emotionality cannot bear up under the harsh reality. Indifference is
possible only for the hardened, the obdurate spirit. Spirit can be an organiser, it can
master the technical for its own spiritual ends, but it would have to resist itself being
turned into a tool of the organising technical process. In this is the tragedy of spirit.
 Another side of the process, engendering the modern crisis of culture, is the entry of
tremendous human masses into culture, of its democratisation, happening upon very wide
a scale. In culture there is a principle that is aristocratic and a principle that is democratic.
Without the aristocratic principle, without qualitative selection the loftiness and
perfectness would never be attained. But together with this, culture has expanded its
scope, and involved with it are altogether new social strata. This is an inevitable and just
process. The culture of our time has lost every organic integral aspect of wholeness,
every aspect of hierarchy, in which the upper reaches sense their own unbroken
connection with the lower reaches. In the cultural elite of our era there has disappeared
the consciousness of service to a supra-personal value over and beyond oneself, of
service to a great goal. The idea of service in general tended to weaken in the era of the
Renaissance, with its oppositely dominant liberal and individualistic ideas. The
understanding of life as service to a supra-personal value is a religious understanding of
life. This understanding however is not characteristic of the modern makers of culture. It
is striking that the idea of service to a supra-personal value has been rendered godless.
The cultural stratum of contemporary Europe possesses neither a broad nor deep social
basis, it is torn asunder from the masses, which claim all ever greater and greater an
allotted weight in social life, and in the doings of history. The cultural stratum,
humanistic in its world-outlook, is powerless to give the masses the ideas and the values,
which should inspire them. The humanistic culture is a fragile thing, and it cannot
withstand the great mass processes, which beset it. The humanistic culture is compelled
to become contracted and isolated. The masses readily assimilate for themself the vulgar
materialism and the outward technical civilisation, but they do not assimilate for themself
the heights of spiritual culture, and they readily cross over from a religious world-outlook
to atheism. And to this end they enable the grievous associations, connecting Christianity
with the ruling classes and with the defending of an unjust social order. Myth-ideas hold
sway over the masses, beliefs either religious or beliefs social-revolutionary, but cultural
humanistic ideas do not hold sway. The conflict of the aristocratic and democratic
principle, of quality and of quantity, of height or of breadth is unresolvable upon the basis
of an irreligious humanistic culture. In this conflict the aristocratic cultural level
frequently feels itself as dying off, and doomed. the process of techinisation,
mechanisation and the process of democtratisation of the masses leads to the
degeneration of culture within the technical civilisation, inspired by a materialistic spirit.
Driving the soul out of people, turning people into machines, and human work into
merchandise is a result of the industrial capitalistic order, in the face of which
Christianity has become perplexed with confusion. The injustice of the capitalistic order
finds its just chastisement in Communism. The process of collectivisation, in which the
human person vanishes, happens already within capitalism. Materialistic Communism
seeks but to bring this process to completion. This posits for the Christian consciousness
in all its acuteness the social problem, a problem moreso of justice, moreso of the human
social order, the problem of spiritising and Christianisation of the social movement and
the working masses. The problem of culture is at present a social problem and on the
outside it is insolvable. The clash of the aristocratic and democratic principles is solvable
only upon the groundworks of Christianity, since Christianity is both aristocratic and
democratic, it affirms the nobility of the children of God and it summons upwards, to
perfection, to the utmost quality, and together at the same time it is oriented towards
everyone, to every human soul. It demands an understanding of life as service, as service
to a supra-personal value, to that which is valued above and beyond oneself. The fate of
culture is dependent upon the spiritual condition of the working masses, upon whether
they be inspired by the Christian faith or by atheistic materialism, and also upon this,
whether technology becomes subject to spirit and spiritual values or whether ultimately it
becomes the lord over life. It is quite pernicious a thing, when Christians assume a pose
of reaction against the movement of the working masses and against the achievements of
technology, in place of this they ought to inspire and ennoble the processes transpiring in
the world, and subordinate them to higher values.

With the growth of the might of technology and with the mass democratisation of
culture is connected a fundamental problem of the crisis, especially disquieting for the
Christian consciousness, -- the problem of person and society. The person, aspiring
towards emancipation, all more and more proves to be smothered by society, by
socification, by collectivisation. This is the result of "becoming emancipated", of the
technification and democratisation of life. The industrial capitalist order already, basing
itself upon individualism and atomism, has led to a stifling of the person, to impersonality
and anonymity, to the collective and mass style of life. Materialistic Communism, having
arisen against capitalism, ultimately does away with the person, dissolves it away into the
social collective, and denies the personal consciousness, the personal conscience, the
personal destiny. The person within man, which in him is the image and likeness of God,
is dissociated and disintegrated into its elements, it loses its integral wholeness. This can
be observed in contemporary literature and art, for example in the novels of Proust. The
processes, occurring in modern culture, threaten the person with ruin. The tragic conflict
of person and society is unresolvable upon a basis outside the religious. The world,
having lost its faith and become de-Christianised, either isolates the person, alienates it
from society, immerses it within itself without the possibility of an exit towards supra-
personal values, towards association with others, or ultimately it subjects and enslaves the
person to society. Only Christianity in principle resolves the tormentive problem of the
relationship of the person and society. Christianity values first of all the person, the
individual human soul and its eternal destiny, it does not admit of a relationship to person
as merely a means for the ends of society, it acknowledges the unconditional value of
every person. The spiritual life of the person unmediatedly connects it with God, and it is
a limiting point to the power of society over the person. But Christianity calls the person
towards a communion, towards a service to a supra-personal value, towards the uniting of
every I and thou into a we, to communism, but totally contrary to the communism
materialistic and atheistic. Only Christianity can defend the person from the ruin
threatening it, and only upon the groundworks of Christianity is there possible the
unification of the person with others in a communion, in a sociality in which the person is
not done away with, but the rather realises the fullness of its life. Christianity resolves the
conflict of the person and society, which has created a terrible crisis, by means of a third
principle, supra-personal and supra-societal, in God-manhood, in the Body of Christ. The
religious problem of the person and society presupposes the resolution of the social
problem of our epoch within the spirit of a Christian personalist socialism, which adopts
all the truth of socialism and repudiates all its falsehood, its false spirit, its false world-
outlook, which denies not only God, but also man. Only then can there be the saving of
the person and a qualitative culture, an utmost culture of spirit. We have no grounds for
great optimism. Everything is too far gone. The hostility and hatred is too great. The sin,
the evil and injustice hold too great a victory. But neither the setting of the creative tasks
of spirit, nor the fulfilling of duty ought to depend upon instinctive reflex, called forth by
the formidable powers of evil, that resist the realisation of truth. We believe, that we are
not alone in this, that in the world are active not only the natural human powers, both
good and evil, but that there are also supra-natural, supra-human, graced powers,
assisting those who do the work of Christ in the world, and in which God acts. When we
say "Christianity", we speak not only about man and his faith, but also about God, about
Christ.

The technical and economic processes of modern civilisation turn the person into their
own tool, they demand from it an incessant activity, making use of each moment of life
for activity. Modern civilisation negates contemplation and threatens to completely shove
it out from life, to make it impossible. This will mean, that man ceases to pray, that he
will no longer have any sort of relationship to God, that he will no longer see beauty and
unselfishly know truth. The person is defined not only in relation to time, but also in
relation to eternity. The actualism of modern civilisation is a denial of eternity, is an
enslavement of man to time. No one instant of life thus is of value in itself, nor has
relationship to eternity or God, every moment is but a means for the one following,
needing all the more quickly but to pass away and be replaced by another. The exclusive
actualism of suchlike a sort changes the relationship to time -- there occurs an
acceleration of time, a mad chase. The person cannot hold on amidst the flooding current
of time, in this actualisation of each moment, it is unable to think about matters, it is
unable to conceive of the meaning of its own life, since meaning is always revealed in
relation to eternity, and the flood of time is of itself incomprehensible. Indisputably, man
is called to activity, to work, to creativity, he cannot only meditate. The world is not
merely a stage-show for man, a spectacle. Man has to transform and organise the world,
to continue on with the world-creation. But man remains a person, the image and likeness
of God, and will not be transformed into a mere means of an impersonal animate and
societal process, only in this instance -- if he is the point of intersection of two worlds,
the eternal and the temporal, if he acts not only within time, but also contemplates
eternity, if he inwardly defines himself in relation to God. This is a fundamental question
of the contemporary actualist civilisation, the question about the fate of the person, the
destiny of man. Man cannot be only an object, he is a subject, he possesses his own
existence within himself. Man, transformed into the tool of an impersonal actualised
process within time, is already no longer a man. The social collective might think it so,
but not the person. In the person there is always something independent of the flood of
time and of the social process. The smothering of contemplation is the smothering of an
enormous part of culture, with which is connected its summit and blossoming --
mysticism, metaphysics, aesthetics. A purely at work actualist civilisation transforms
science and art into a mere accommodation of the productive technical process. We see
this in the intent of Communistic Soviet culture. This is a deep crisis of culture. The
future of man, the future of culture depends on this, whether man should still want for a
moment to be free, to consider and think about his life, to turn his gaze towards the
heavens. True, the idea of labour and a labouring society is a great and fully Christian
idea. The aristocratic contemplation by a privileged cultural class, freed of participating
in the labour process, frequently became a false contemplation, and in such a form it has
scarcely any place in the future. But every working man also, every man has a moment of
contemplation, immersed within himself, of prayer and praise of God, of the beholding of
beauty, of an unselfish appreciation of the world. Contemplation and action can and
ought to be combined in the integral wholeness of the person, and only their conjoining
affirms and strengthens the person. A person, totally dissipating oneself in activity, in the
temporal process, becomes exhausted, and the flow of spiritual energy within ceases.
Amidst all this, the activity usually is understood not in the Gospel manner, not as service
to neighbour, but as service to idols. The liturgical cycle of religious life is unique a
combination of contemplation and action, in which the person can find for himself a
wellspring of strength and energy. We are at present at a fatal process of the degeneration
of the person, itself always an image of utmost being, -- but reformed anew into the
temporal collectives, with demands of an endlessly growing activeness. Man is a creative
being, an image of the Creator. But the activeness, which modern civilisation demands
from man, essentially, is a denial of his creative nature, and therefore it is a denial of man
himself. The creativity of man presupposes the combining of contemplation and action.
The very distinction between contemplation and action is relative. Spirit is essentially
active, and in contemplation there is a dynamic element. We come nigh the final
problem, connected with the spiritual condition of the contemporary world, to the
problem of man, as a religious problem. Since the crisis of man occurs within the world,
it is not only a crisis within man, but is also the crisis of man himself. The utmost
existence of man is rendered problematic.

The crisis of man mustneeds be understood inwardly as a Christian one. Only

inwardly can Christianity understand what is happening. In modern civilisation has been
shaken the Christian idea of man, which still has its remnants in humanism. At the basis
of Christianity lies the God-manhood theandric myth (the word "myth" I employ not in
the sense of being opposed to reality, but on the contrary, "myth" corresponds more to
reality, than does "concept") -- the myth about God and the myth about man, about the
image and likeness of God in man, about the Son of God having become Man. The
worthiness of man is connected with this. The plenitude of the Christian Divine-Human
revelation has only with difficulty been assimilated by the sinful nature of man. And the
Christian teaching about man has not been sufficiently developed, has not been manifest
in life. And therefore inevitable was the appearance of humanism upon the basis of
Christianity. But further on the process became fatal in its consequences. There began a
destroying both in mind and in life of the integral wholeness of the God-manhood
Christian mythos. At first, repudiated was the one half -- the myth about God. But there
remained still the other half the myth about man, the Christian idea about man. And we
see this, for example, with L. Feuerbach. He repudiated God, but there remained with
him still a god-likeness of man, he enroached no further upon man, just as there did not
infringe those humanists, for whom the nature of man remains eternal. But the
destruction of the Christian theandric myth went on further. There began the destroying
of the other half -- the myth about man. And thus there occurred an apostacy not only
from the idea of God, but also from the idea of man. Upon man enroached Marx, upon
man enroached Nietzsche. For Marx already the highest value is no longer man, but
rather the social collective. Man is supplanted by the class, and a new myth is created
about the messianism of the proletariat. Marx is one of the departures from humanism.
For Nietzsche the highest value is not man, but rather the super-man, the higher race, and
man ought to be surpassed. Nietzsche is another departure from humanism. And in such
manner transpires the repudiation of the value of man, of the ultimate value, as esteemed
by Christianity. We see this in such social manifestations, as racism, Fascism,
Communism, as an idolatry nationalistic and an idolatry internationalistic. We enter upon
an epoch of civilisation, which denies the value of man. The supreme value of God was
denied even earlier. And in this is the essence of the modern crisis.
The processes of technification, the processes of society swallowing up the person, the
processes of collectivisation are bound up with this. All the heresies arising within the
history of Christianity, all the fallings-away from the fullness and the integral wholeness
of truth always presented important and significant themes, which were not resolved and
have to be resolved from within by Christianity. But the heresies, begotten by
contemporary civilisation, are altogether different, from the heresies of the first centuries
of Christianity, -- these are not theological heresies, these are heresies of life itself. These
heresies witness to this, that there are urgent questions, which Christianity mustneeds
answer inwardly. The problems of technology, the problems of a just organisation of
social life, the problems of collectivisation in their relation to the eternal value of the
human person have not been resolved by Christianity in Christian a manner, in the light
of the Christian Divine-Human truth. The creative activity of man in the world goes
unsanctified. The crisis, occurring in the world, is a reminder to Christianity about its
unresolved tasks, and therefore it is not only a judgement upon the godless world, but a
judgement also upon Christianity. The basic problem of our day is not the problem about
God, as many tend to think, as often many Christians tend to think, in calling for a
religious renewal, -- the basic problem of our day is first of all the problem of man. The
problem of God is an eternal problem, it is a problem in every time, it is always the first
and the final, but the problem of our time is the problem of man, about the salvation of
the human person from disintegration, about the vocation and destiny of man, about the
deciding of the basic questions of society and culture in light of the Christian idea
concerning man. People have turned away from God, but by this they have subjected to
doubt not the worthiness of God, but rather the worthiness of man. Man cannot hold on
without God. For man God also is that utmost idea of reality, constructed by man. The
obverse side to this, likewise, is that man is the utmost idea of God. Only Christianity
holds the resolution to the problem of the relationship of man and God, only in Christ is
the image of man preserved, only within the Christian spirit are there created both society
and culture, non-destructive to man. But the truth has to be realised in life.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1931

DUKHOVNOE SOSTOYANIE COVREMENNAGO MIRA. Journal Put', sept. 1932,

No. 25, p. 56-68.
 1
Report read in May 1931 at a session of the leaders of the World Christian Federation
in Bad Bol [alt. Bad Boll, Goeppingen, Germany].

NEW BOOKS:
__________
Martin Buber. Die Chassidischen Buecher; Ich und Du; Zwiespreche;
Koenigtum Gottes. I.

(1933 - #385)

Martin Buber -- is a notable Jewish religious thinker. But his significance goes
beyond the Jewish religious theme. What first of all strikes one is his religious
seriousness, his genuineness, he inspires great trust. M. Buber has translated the Bible
together with the already reposed Rosenzweig, likewise a very remarkable Jewish
religious thinker. In M. Buber -- are Biblical sources of insight. He has no desire to be an
abstract metaphysician and theologian. He seeks to base his religious thinking upon myth.
He is therefore oriented towards Hassidic legends. The deathly numbness of the
Talmudic religion of law within the depths of Judaism evoked the reaction of the mystical
and mythological movement of Hassidism towards the end of the XVIII Century. M.
Buber does not translate the Hassidic legends, but he retells them, deliberately
modernising them. And for this they complain about him. But he wants to revive the
Jewish religious myth in that which is eternal in it, enabling it to provide spiritual
sustenance for also the modern soul. The Jewish modernism of Martin Buber in
everything is contrary to the Jewish modernism of Herman Cohen, who wanted to cleanse
myth out of the religion and subordinate revelation to Kantian idealism, i.e. in the final
end to preach a "religion within the limits of reason". "Die Chassidischen Buecher" -- is a
fundamental book of Buber, in it the Hassidic legends are accompanied by his
introduction and commentaries. And in these commentaries are revealed the basic
religious and religio-philosophic ideas of Buber. Hassidism is a victory of the
underground and mystical Judaism over the official and legalistic. The Hassidic legends
tend to charm by this pervasion of the religious principle into the whole of everyday life,
with this characteristic for believing Hebrews of standing face to face before God.
Hassidism is joy in God. In Hassidic life even food becomes a sacramental service. Buber
sees the essence of Hassidic religious life in the overcoming of the separation of life in
God and life in the world. Religious life is nowise an abandoning of the world. It is an
integrally whole salvation, redemption. And in this is an affinity with Christianity and
actually the influence of Christianity, as a religion of redemption. But in the opinion of
Buber the distinction between Judaism and Christianity consists in this, that for Judaism
the redemption is always in the here and now, in each act of life, whereas for Christianity,
according to the inaccurate representation by Buber, it is in a special mystery separate
from life. The Hassid is not a monk and not a priest, repeating his own sacramental act,
but rather a man. God can be seen in all things and can be comprehended in each pure
action. It is necessary to serve God in all the entirety of life. The salvation of man is not
in an ascetic withdrawal from the life of the world, but the rather consists in this, to give
Divine meaning to everything. Religion is the experiencing of everything, it -- is in the
most trivial matters of life. Judaism and Hassidism in particular -- are optimistic, they say
"yes" to the world, and to them is foreign the pessimistic element characteristic to
Christianity. The Hebrew demonstrates himself initially human to start with, and this is a
customary universalisation for Jewish messianism. Rosenzweig in his book, "Der Stern
der Erloesung" ("The Star of Redemption"), says that the advantage of the Hebrew over
the Christian consists in this, that the Hebrew for realisation of religious perfection does
not have to renounce himself and his world, which is a world created by his God, whereas
the Christian has to renounce both himself and his world, which is a fallen pagan world,
and has to become a completely new being. With this is connected the great optimism
and the more readily realised aspect of Judaism, than obtains with Christianity. This is
bound up with a different understanding of sin and the Fall, of freedom and grace. The
chief thing nevertheless that happens to be said by Buber, who does not produce the
impression of being a man exclusively shut up within the Jewish world, what he happens
to say is this, that Judaism is a religion for the Hebrews, and not for every man and all of
mankind, as with Christianity. The universalism of Christianity is an absolute advantage.
For the Judaic mindset, even for the modernising, there is an insurmountable distinction
between the Hellene and the Jew. This likewise is something asserted by anti-Semitism,
which always is also an anti-Christianity. The universalistic pretension of Jewish
messianism, regarding as identical the religious and the national aspects, does not resolve
the question. Christianity exists also for Buber, and he could if desired become a
Christian. But Judaism, but Hassidism does not exist also the same for me, where
genuinely and deeply I could become an adept of the Hebrew religion. It seems doubtless
for me, that both in Hassidism and with M. Buber there is an unconscious Christian
element, there is already the Christian God-and-manness, the surmounting of the absolute
transcendence of the Divinity. In reading the books of Buber it amazed me, this his
interpretation of Judaism in certain regards is very close to my interpretation of
Christianity. For Buber, God has need of man. This is central for his religious philosophy.
God has need of man for his own purpose. In our world is realised the freedom of God.
The world is not God's plaything, but rather God's destiny. Already in the Kabbala there
is the teaching, that God has limited Himself in the world, in order to be loved, to be
known. God desired freedom. This thought is very dear also with me. It arises upon a
Christian soil, since Christianity is a religion of the God-Man and God-manhood, a
religion Divine-human, of an infinite affinity of the Divine and the human. This is a
drama of love and freedom between God and His other. I do not imagine, how this can be
asserted upon the grounds of a pure monotheism. With Buber I see already the
surmounting of suchlike a pure monotheism. And for Buber the religious primal-
phenomenon is dialogue.

Israel spoke with God face to face, person to person. There occurs the encounter of
man (I) with God (Thou). Buber says therefore, that there is initially "relationship". With
Buber there is an affinity with dialectical theology. But the theology of Buber is
consistently of dialogue, since man not only hears, but also answers. And God has need
of the responsive answer of man. The entirety of the religious life involves dialogue. The
dialogue relationship, of the "I" and the "Thou", is also the basis of religion, is an aspect
primary in it. A verymost remarkable book of Buber is entitled "Ich und Du" ("I and
Thou"). This is a not-large, but nonetheless very satisfying and concentrated a book, in it
is provided the fundamental basis of the religious philosophy of Buber. There is the
"Ich"/"I" (man), there is the "Du"/"Thou" (God) and there is the "Es" (the "it", the
impersonal, the world of things). The I and the Thou are not things, but rather of
relationship. Legend for Buber is also nothing other than myth concerning the "I" and the
"Thou", about the caller and the called. There is not the "I" itself per se, but only in
relationship to the "Thou" and the "it". The "Thou" for the "I" is not a thing among
things. The "Thou" for the "I" is not an experience, but rather a relationship. The words
"I-Thou" are bespoken by all personal beings. Between the "I" and the "Thou" there is no
intermediary either in concept or in phantasy, this is a primary relationship. But the
"Thou" can be rendered into an "it" ("Es"). God can become not a "Thou" for me, but
rather an "It", a thing-like object. And this occurs with the religious primal-phenomenon
in history. The object is always an "it", and not a "thou", with a relationship involving an
awareness of something as an object. The "I" as regards the "it" ("Es") involves a
separation, between them there is no primal primary-sort relationship. The primal
relationship is only towards the "thou", and not the perception of things. The "thou" does
not know coordination, only the "it" knows such. For Buber there is the Duwelt (Thou-
world) and the Eswelt (It-world). Only the Duwelt (Thou-world) is a world of revelation
and of religious life. The Eswelt (It-world) is objectivisation. But the "thou" is never
objectivisation. Buber defines spirit, as the responsive answer of man the "thou". The "I"
in relationship to the "thou" -- is person, in relation to an "it" -- is a subject. The relation
of "I" and "it" is a coordination of subject and object. God is not revealed in the relation
of subject, God is revealed, as "Thou", and not as an object. These are central core
thoughts for Buber and have not only a religious, but also a great philosophic value. The
philosophy of Buber is perhaps nigh close to the so-called existential philosophy. The
existential world is not the world of objectification, not a Duwelt (Thou-world), where
within it obtain the "I" and the "thou" and their primal relationship. But in distinction to
the existential philosophy of Heidigger and Jaspers the existential philosophy of Buber
bears a religious character. In these thoughts of Buber there is no binding connection only
with Judaism, they are fully applicable for the Christian consciousness and perhaps even
moreso applicable. The religious thinking of Buber stands higher than the official, the
academic theologising, for which between the "I" and the "thou" stands the conceptual
and God is rendered something from the Eswelt (It-world). But the thought of Buber
needs to be taken further. besides the "I" and the "thou" there is still further the "we",
there is an immediate primary-sort relationship of the "we" and the "thou". The "we" is
revealed in the existentiality of the Church. The not-large book, "Zwiesprache"
("Dialogue") appears to be a continuation of the book "Ich und Du". Very remarkable is a
definition of Buber, how the Word of God reaches man. The Word of God does not fall
like an it, as a thing, which I know, but it falls like a meteor, the light of which enters my
eyes, but the meteor itself I do not see. Buber in this book orients us to the fundamental
theme concerning "I" and "thou". When two speak each to the other with "this thou"
aspect, there occurs between them a coming into being. This is for Buber the path into
authentic being, which in the Eswelt (It-world) is hidden off. Buber posits likewise a very
important and very little as yet worked out problem, that of collectivity and community.
Collectivity for him is not connection, but rather being bound together as though fettered,
which is what likewise obtains in the compulsory social world. Connection is community.
Community presupposes, that people are not each round about the other, but rather are
each of the other. But these thoughts of Buber are insufficiently developed. This indeed is
also the problem of the "we". It might be said, that collectivity is of the natural order,
whereas community is of the order of grace. The social projection of the religious
philosophy of Buber is insufficiently clear. It is premature to speak about his book,
"Koenigtum Gottes" ("The Kingdom of God"), since it has only recently been released.
His Hassidic legends are an artistic recrafting into concrete form of the theme concerning
"I" and "thou". In one place Buber speaks about the danger of a sacramentally-cultic
religion for the relationship of man to God within the world and in life. It might be said,
that on the sacramentally-cultic side of religion matters can readily pass over to
objectivisation, i.e. over to the Eswelt (It-world). Contrary to this is the prophetic side of
religion. But about this especially Buber does not speak. He speaks likewise about the
struggle of religion with myth. From the sidelines it is insufficiently clear the relationship
of Buber to official Judaism, towards the predominant current in the Jewish religion.
Imbued as he is with the mystical traditions of the Kabbala and Hassidism he
undoubtedly goes beyond the bounds of confessionism, he enters into the main channel of
the mystical and spiritual currents of mankind. But the question remains basic concerning
the relation of Judaism and Christianity. What does Buber think regarding Christ? Has
there not transpired for the fate of the world an ultimate and fundamental encounter of the
"I" and the "Thou" within the God-Man Christ? Buber bestows an enormous significance
to freedom, he connects fate with freedom. But for the encounter for the "I" and the
"thou", for an actual reply of man to God there has to be within man an element not
created, not received from God, the element of primordial freedom. This problem seems
to me a basic problem for religious philosophy. With this is connected also an actually
real dialogue within the relationship between the "I" and the "thou". In any case, the
books of Buber have to be acknowledged an outstanding matter within the religious
thought of Europe.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1933

MARTIN BUBER. Die Chassidischen Buecher; Ich und Du; Zwiespreche; Koenigtum
Gottes. I. Journal Put', mai. 1933, no. 38, p. 87-91.

Polytheism and Nationalism

(1934 - #391)

I.

This fact is strange at first glance, that in our universalistic, planetary epoch,
wherein there has occurred a blazing forth of an unprecedented nationalism, which
witnesses merely to the polarity of human nature. Unsustainable are all the straight
forward and rational explanations of human life. And verymost unsustainable certainly is
the Theory of Progress from the XVIII and XIX Centuries. Not only the individual man,
but human society also passes over from one polarity to the other and very easily every
human movement passes over into its opposite. Thus, for example, the Communist
internationalism in Russia very easily can turn itself around into a Soviet nationalism and
this even is already happening. The political and social events of our era have to evoke
astonishment and incredulity amongst people accustomed to judge about everything from
the point of view of rational principles, which to them seem unassailable. The principles
of an enlightened humanism, which to many seemed universal, have toppled completely
in our day. But what is the meaning of the modern nationalism, assuming the forms of
Fascism, considered from a deeper and more spiritual point of view? It signifies certainly
the de-Christianisation of society, which moreover began long ago and only at present is
fully apparent, and their paganisation, the return to a pagan polytheism, hitherto beaten
and overcome by Christianity. The World War was already a struggle amongst various
gods, a god German, Russian, French, English, i.e. the triumph of a pagan polytheism,
continuing to live on in a deep layer of the collective subconscious of peoples. The
Christianisation and humanisation of human societies was not so altogether deep, as it
might seem, often it was only a stifling and squeezing out of instincts, driven inwards.
Nationalism, which I distinguish from the admitting and affirming of the positive value of
nationality, is the reaction and uprising of "nature" against "spirit", the elemental against
the conscious, of eros against ethos, of the collective against the person. Insofar as
nations, in striving to form their own national lifestyle, tend to rise up against the
externally binding upon them "mankind", they set out from a totally accurate position,
that "mankind", as a natural fact, does not exist. The "all-human" is an abstraction.
Mankind, as a positive value, is a spiritual category. It is something created by
Christianity. The sense of mankind is bound up with God-manhood. Insofar as humanism
affirms mankind and an universal humanity, it affirms a Christian truth, but cuts it off
from its spiritual roots, becomes bereft of its spiritual foundation and therefore often
deforms it. In the purely natural order of things man is consigned to a particularistic
national existence and the brotherhood of peoples is impossible. The tranquility and
brotherhood of peoples presupposes the construct of a spiritual cosmos, of a spiritual
universalism, which existed during the Middle Ages and the remnants of which are still
preserved over the span of modern history. Neither the bourgeois cosmopolitanism, nor
the socialistic internationalism, signify suchlike a spiritual universalism, and they
therefore so readily tend to topple. With this is connected a very profound philosophical
problem. The universal is not at all the same thing as the general, the in-common. The
general signifies an abstraction derived from the concrete wholeness and to it are
applicable numeric categories. The universal does not however signify at all an
abstraction and to it the categories of quantity are not applicable. The universal is an
integral and indivisible quality and the individual can bear within itself this quality. The
unique and unrepeatable person can contain within him the universal, as a positive quality
and attainment. The universal cannot be set in opposition to the individual in the sense of
their mutual exclusiveness. The universal does not exclude the individual, on the contrary
it includes it within itself, as a positive degree of being. The general however is always an
abstraction derived from the individual, taken from all the individual variants of being.
The universal is a positive and concrete unity, whereas the general is a negative and
abstract unity. In its application to the national problem this signifies, that universalism,
affirming the spiritual oneness of mankind, is a positive and concrete unity, including
within it all the national individualities, whereas internationalism is an abstract unity,
denying these national individualities. Nationalism is the obverse polarity of
internationalism and as such it is a lie. Nationalism is a revolt of particularism against
universalism, which then becomes understood exclusively, as the general and the
abstract. And it tends thus to be, since nationalism is naturalism and it does not know
mankind, as a spiritual universum. Nationalism is naturalistic paganism, which is
idealised and exalting, but spiritually unenlightening. Nationalism is a particularism of
the individual, which has no desire to know the axiological meaning of the spiritual
quality of the universal and knows merely the inimical to it general, the humanly-general,
the international, the abstract, the contra-natural, but not the supra-natural. It is
impossible to compel the Germans to subordinate themselves to the "general", but in
them can spiritually awaken the universal. Such is the philosophic side of the problem.
Natural paganism always will rise up against the "general", against the "abstract". But it
can be enlightened by the spiritually-universal. The French therefore find themself in a
different position, where the abstract and general principles of humanism have become an
ingrained part of their concrete national individuality. And in this is a cause of
misunderstanding between the French and the Germans. The religious side however of
our problem is here what it signifies: nationalism is polytheism, a natural paganism,
whereas the universalism affirming the spiritual oneness of mankind is a monotheism and
not only a monotheism, but also God-manhood. There is therefore no other universalism,
besides the Christian, which genuinely can exist.

Universalism, as a spiritual category, presupposes the enlightening and transforming

of the individualising natural element, and in the given instance that of the national, of
the people. Within history there are universalising and individualising tendencies. Both
tendencies are proportionate and need not exclude each the other. But human history
constantly vacillates between these two poles and one tendency tends to smother the
other. Nationality, as an individualising step of naturo-historical being, stands between
the human person and mankind, which is a reality and value not of the natural, but of
rather the spiritual order. When mankind is conceived of not as a positive and concrete
universal, but rather as a negative and abstract general in-common, then it proves
inimical to the human person, it depersonalises and swallows it up. It is quite the same,
when nationality is conceived of not as a subsuming enlightening and spiritualisation of
the natural individuality, bringing into play the process of spiritual enriching of the
personal human existence, but rather instead where it is as a supreme and absolute value,
as an idol and matter of worship, it swallows up, depersonalises and even destroys the
personal human existence. The people is a step, standing between the personal human
existence and the existence of all one mankind. This step manifests itself by a quality of
enriching the personal human existence. But at this step can be detected the rising up of
an irrational natural element against the human person -- as spirit, and against mankind --
as spirit. This uprising against also involves nationalism. Man -- is a contradictory and
paradoxical being. It is erroneous to think, that all the evil in human life is the result of
egoism. On the contrary, man is capable of showing an astonishing unselfishness and
ability for sacrifice in the name of evil. Man -- is a religious being and he has an
indestructible need for worshipping something higher, in a reverence towards the sacred.
And in evil man worships not himself, but rather ideals and idols, he is capable of a total
sacrifice of his human aspect for these ideals and idols. We see this also in the formation
of the religion of nationalism and racism, just as in the religion of Communism. The
human person falls the victim of its own idol-worship. In modern nationalism, especially
the German, closely interwoven is the national and race element. It is very necessary for a
distinction to be made between them. Race is a naturo-zoological category. It appertains
to prehistory, although in history there act the intrusions of races, of quite varied
civilisations. Nationality however is a category culturo-historical and it is already the
result of a certain spiritualisation of the natural element. During the XIX and XX
Centuries when they speak about races, about the purity of the race, about the struggle of
races, about the mission of races, this then is always a matter of myth-creating. Gobineau
was, certainly, the creator of the myth about the Aryan race. Modern scientific ethnology
and anthropology does not consider it possible to speak in a precise sense about races,
does not admit of the existence of pure races and does not employ the expression per se
of the Aryan race.1 But myth-creating plays a tremendous role in our era, it is more
influential than scientific theories, such as are interested in abstract truth, and the myth
about race can prove a ready weapon in the hands of a self-asserting nationality. The
mystique of blood enters into the programme of real politics and excites the masses. And
this but proves yet once again, how weak and hapless the political rationalism is. The
nationalism of a purely pagan and telluric origin and the rational arguments against it are
not convincing. The people is of nature, which has to be transformed into culture. But
when nature acts like an elemental force, it is then least of all inclined to heed arguments
from reason. Only a supra-rational spiritual power can conquer its rage and stormy
waves. The national element for Christianity is a fact of given nature, which underlies the
spiritualisation, and has to be submitted to the guidances of spirit. Thomas Aquinas says,
that grace does not negate nature, but the rather transforms it. Christianity cannot deny
nor ignore the natural given, it acts within it. Spirit does not oppose itself to nature, but
rather signifies the attainment by nature of a different quality of existence. This is very
important to understand for defining the relationship of Christianity to nationality and
nationalism. We shall now consider, how these relationships have interacted.

II.

Christianity entered upon the world, when the tribal, the blood-nation and
particularistic religions had been supplanted and there thus obtained the unification of
mankind within the Hellenistic culture and in the worldwide Roman Empire. The
connection inherent to paganism between the "national" and the "religious" was sundered
and in this was a surmounting of polytheism. To the polytheism of the tribes, the clans,
cities and nationalities there was set opposite the Christian universalism and Christian
personalism. The universalism and personalism are complimentary. Christianity is not a
revelation for tribes, for nations, Christianity is a revelation for all mankind, for all the
universe and for every human soul, for every person. Christianity therefore is the
surmounting not only of pagan particularism, but also of the Jewish national messianism.
Christ was crucified in the name of nationalism, not only of the Jewish nationalism, as is
often interpreted, but indeed of every nationalism, be it Russian, German, French,
English. The human person spiritually is set free from the tribal-blood religious
connection, and its relation to God is determined not through race, not through
nationality, not through society based upon nature, but through spiritual society, i.e.
through the Church. In Christianity the natural kindred connections are replaced by
spiritual connections. Christianity on its side asserts a spiritual universalism. There is
neither Hellene nor Jew. This is a totally new consciousness, foreign to paganism and
Judaism. And by this Christianity asserts the spiritual existence of mankind. There comes
to an end the era of the gods of clans, of tribes, kindred, hearths, of cities. In the ancient
Hebrew consciousness Jaweh began as a tribal and particularistic God, and then became
the universal God. But even as universal God He remained connected with the Hebrew
people, in consequence of the messianic consciousness of the people. Christianity gave
conclusively an upsurge of the human consciousness towards monotheism. Universalism
is bound up inseparably with monotheism. The oneness of mankind exists precisely
because there exists the one God. National particularism always corresponds to
particularism. Judaism, connected as it is with blood-line, was not a pagan particularism
only in consequence of its messianism, which is always universalistic. Although the
ancient Hebrew Biblical consciousness is not racism and bears a spiritual character,
rather than naturalistic, the racism is still however nonetheless of a purely Hebrew
ideology. The Hebrews guarded indeed the purity of the race, being opposed to mixed
marriages, and bound up religion together with blood-line. But modern racism is indeed
an Hebrew ideology, torn away from any spiritual roots and having assumed a coarsely
naturalistic, almost materialistic form. In accord with this ideology a man spiritually is to
be defined by the form of his skull, by the colour of his hair, by his inherited blood. In
such manner spirit is rendered into an epiphenomenon consequent upon anatomy and
physiology. This is a determinism moreso coarse and extreme, than even in the theory of
economic materialism, since economics belongs nonetheless to a psychical medium and
allows for a change of the position of people from a change of consciousness. The fatum
of blood, certainly, is not compatible with Christianity. Christianity surmounts the ancient
idea of an irreversible fate, it reveals the freedom of spirit. And racism is, certainly, a
return to paganism, to polytheism, and its pathos of the fatum of blood, weighing upon a
man, is a naturalistic romanticism. Christianity frees the human person from the fatum of
blood, from the enslavement of spirit by birth and tribal principles, from the grip of the
spirits and demons of nature over man. Christianity therefore asserts universalism to the
same degree, as does personalism also, and only Christianity affirms universalism not as
something general and abstract, but rather as a spiritual quality, comprising within it
every enlightened and spiritually individualised degree of being. Christianity surmounts
the primarily pagan attitude towards nationality and the state, i.e. nationalism and statism,
establishing prior to the transfiguration of the world the distinction between that "for-
Caesar" and that "for-God". Nationalism and statism demand the bestowing of divine
honours upon nationality and the state, i.e. to "Caesar", and they therefore signify a return
to paganism and polytheism. Christianity spiritually frees the person from the absolute
dominion of nation, city, state, the grip over spiritual life, it permits merely but a
subordinate value for nationality and the state. Christianity within this world is dualism,
and not monism, and therefore no sort of kingdom of this world, no sort of kingdom of
Caesar can it admit as identical with the Kingdom of God. Christianity is therefore
incommensurate with the idea of the totalitarian state, which represents a dictatorship
over spirit, over spiritual and mental life, a dictatorship not only political and economic,
but also a dictatorship of "world-view", a dictatorship of myth and symbol, of the roused
masses, a dictatorship of the orthodoxness of the state. Christianity is incommensurate
with the supremacy of nation, it acknowledges the sacred rights of the human person,
independent of the will of the nation and is instead rooted in a spiritual an order, rather
than social. But such, indeed, is the pure Christianity, and not the murky and distorted, as
it has become too often within history.

III.

Universalism was characteristic of the medieval period. It combined an universalism

of church and an universalism of empire. In medieval culture there governed one Latin
language. The Holy Byzantine and the Holy Russian realm were likewise universal in
their idea, as was also the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. The medieval
world did not know nationalism. Nationalism is a product of modern history. The
medieval Christian universalism decayed, and the spirit of particularism won out. The
autonomy of politics from the time of Machiavelli signified the triumph of a purely pagan
attitude towards the state. In France nationalism was bound up with the French
Revolution, with the idea of the supremacy of the nation. The makers of the Revolution
were patriot-nationalists, while at the same time the representatives of the Old Regime,
the king, the nobility and clergy, were the betrayers in regard to the nation. With the
weakening of faith, with the de-Christianisation of society, God was substituted for by
the nation. And this was one of the forms of idolatry, from which they fashioned an idol
of the nation. The religion of nationalism is beyond doubt a paganism of societies. But
the modern postwar nationalism bears specific features, distinct from the former
nationalism. The old nationalism was bound up with the aristocratic and bourgeois
classes and this enabled the triumph of international outlooks amongst the workers. Now
the position is changed. We live in an era of the dominion of the masses. There occurs an
intense democratisation of society. And nationalism has become something of the masses
and democratic. This we see in Fascism and National Socialism, which present themself
as democratic movements of the people. The idea of Fascism is the attainment of a strong
popular national unity with a broad social basis. The Fascist nationalism invariably has to
take the view, as though behind it stands the "people", it does not permit within the
people any class-struggle and this is more or less effective. Fascism takes hold with a
large segment of the petite bourgeoise, the lesser service classes, a portion of the
peasantry, the proletarianised middle classes and proletarianised intelligentsia, which
comprises a remarkable portion of the people. The power of Fascism consists in this, that
it operates upon militarised unions of youth. They create a new form of nationalism.
Against the Marxist proletarian internationalism and the liberal-bourgeois cosmopolitism
there occurs a reconstruction of the unity of the nation, inspired by the will to power. In
the finding of national unity there would be a positive element, if it were not all distorted
by idol-making. There occurs a genuine making a god of the nation, of the race, of the
state, i.e. a return to polytheism. The connection of nationalism with polytheism is
presently more clear, than hitherto. And there is moreover a feature, characteristic of
modern nationalism. The former national uniqueness was bound up foremost with an
uniqueness of culture. The modern nationalism is bound up foremost with the state, with
an absolutisation of the state. What determines this is that it is under the grip of the will
to power. Nationalism cannot integrally realise itself without a strong state, controlling
the whole of life. The modern idea of the total state, knowing no boundaries, makes
pretense to be the organiser not only of social, but also of spiritual and mental life, and
this is a product of nationalism. Modern nationalism is not culturo-contemplative, but
rather state-actualising, in the grip of actualism. And to this corresponds all the whole
character of the era. Italian Fascism is first of all statism, the ideology of an absolute
state. This -- is a Roman idea. The German National Socialism is however an ideology of
race. But the race, striving for power, has to have its own implement in the powerful
absolute state. And likewise for the realisation of the stateless ideal of the workers
Communism, a powerful absolute state proves necessary. All the modern social and
national movements stand under the standard of monism, of totality, of integration and by
this is determined their tendency towards tyranny.

The modern world is again torn by polydemonism, from which Christianity formerly
freed the ancient world. Again have broken free the demons of race, of blood, of earth, of
nationality, of sex. Everything that had been driven into the subconscious, has burst forth
and become apparent. The opposite to Tertullian might be said, that the human soul by
nature is pagan, not Christian, and this pagan naturalism at present is manifest more
strongly, than before. But that which is occurring in the modern world is still quite more
complicated and tangled. The modern world is torn likewise by new demons, not the
demons of nature, but rather by the demons of technical civilisation, the demons of the
machine, to which all more and more man is subject, the demons of social hatred,
begotten of Capitalism. Modern revolutions stand either upon the symbol of a chosen
race or under the symbol of a chosen class. The obsession with either one or the other
symbol is an actual demon. When the outlook of society is set either under the standard
of a chosen race or of a chosen class, there then occurs an acute dehumanisation, since it
is not admitted for each man his human worthiness, but merely for each man as belonging
to the chosen race or the chosen class. In racial theory however the dehumanisation is still
stronger, than in class theory. The determinism of class is not absolute, there is possible a
salvation for a man belonging to a reprobate class through a change of consciousness. A
nobleman or bourgeois can become a Marxist and Communist, can become immersed
with the proletarian idea and then from him can be snatched the fatum of his class, and he
can even become a representative of the Soviet of Peoples Commissars. Marx and Lenin,
as is known, were nowise of the proletariat and this did not at all hinder them to be
bearers of the proletarian consciousness. The determinism of race is however absolute,
this -- is a fatum of blood. No sort of change of consciousness, no sort of appropriating
for oneself the ideas and creed of the chosen race can help. The inherited blood, the
structure of skull, the colour of hair determine absolutely one's spirit. If one be a Jew or a
Negro, then the acceptance of Christianity can nowise save one, Baptism is inoperable in
regard to reprobate races, cannot help one even if one become by conviction a National
Socialist. This is an absolute determinism and fatalism. But an absolute determinism and
fatalism are incompatible with Christianity, as the religion of freedom of spirit. The
fatum of blood, hanging over man, belongs to paganism, and not Christianity, this is a
pagan naturalism. Both racial theory and class theory alike represent a polytheism in
social life, incompatible with monotheism, but the racial theory is still moreso of a
degree, than the class theory. The myth concerning the chosen race and the myth
concerning the chosen class have proven very dynamic in our time. Myths possess quite
more dynamic energy, than scientific theories. Into these myths enter in also the element
of empirical reality, but the mythical element is predominant. In the modern world
contest two basic powers -- nationalism and socialism, but in certain tendencies they
intersect and combine. How is to be understood the relationship between the "national"
and the "social"?

Of these two elements, at its basis the national element appears something natural-
cosmic and elemental, though also refracted within civilisation, whereas the social
element is already a by-product of civilisation and into it enters the idea of justness,
which is of spiritual origin. The "social" is already entirely situated within the psychical
medium and everything natural within it has already been reworked by man. The struggle
of the "national" and the "social" at the upper points, when shed of its lower instincts and
interests, can be conceived of as the struggle of eros and ethos. Nationalism does not
want to know of truth and justice, it does not want to know about the brotherhood of
peoples, it wants to know only erotic choosing and erotic refusing, or as the ideologue of
nationalism, K. Shmitt tends to say, politics has to know only the "category of friend and
foe". The assertion therefore of the national element in nationalism always signifies the
dehumanisation and demoralisation of politics, it is always an assertion of polytheism in
politics against monotheism. Socialism can, certainly, be transformed into an actual
idolatry and demonism and become in the means of struggle a dehumanisation and
demoralisation. We see this within Communism. But in its idea and goal socialism is
inspired by the pathos of truth and justice in social relations, i.e. it has to make demand
for the humanisation and ethical aspect of social relationships. Politics, such as would not
too acutely clash with Christianity, ought to be defined not by "categories of friend and
enemy", not by some erotic attraction and repulsion, but rather by the categories of
justice and injustice, of brotherly and non-brotherly relations of people and of peoples.
Communism likewise is guided by categories of friend and enemy, of class friend and
class enemy, it carries over the erotic and anti-ethical principle of nationalism applying it
to classes, and in it therefore the purely social element is distorted, it loses its human
character and becomes subject to a peculiar demonia. In the modern world there occurs
an affinity and uniting of the national element and the social element within National
Socialism. But the social element here is smothered by the national element and bears a
subsidiary character for the organisation of one strong party, which at present cannot be
organised without the participation and support of the popular masses. In the relationship
between nations and races National Socialism denies not only brotherhood, but justice
likewise, and subjects politics to the categories of friend and enemy, i.e. to erotic
attraction and repulsion, without the desire to subject it to any sort of ethical principle.
Nationalism and in particular National Socialism clashes not only with the principle of
universalism, i.e. of the values of the world, of the unity and brotherhood of peoples, but
also with the principle of personalism, i.e. with the unconditional value of every human
person. Christianity however affirms precisely both the principle of universalism and the
principle of personalism, i.e. it demands the acknowledging of the value of the
brotherhood of people and of peoples, of the oneness of mankind, and of the utmost value
of the person, the worth of every man independent of race, nationality and social position.
The sole form of socialism, therefore, which corresponds to Christianity and the ethics of
humanity, is neither the international class socialism nor the racist National Socialism,
not the socialism of the totalitarian state, but rather a personalistic socialism, a syndicalist
socialism, combining within it the principle of the value of the person with the value of
society, of the community, of the communality of people. It signifies the humanisation
and ethicisation of social life and social relations.

IV.

Modern nationalism has flared up in a technological era and this creates for it a
contradictory and paradoxical position. Nationalism and technology -- are completely
contrary principles. The whole emotional basis of nationalism (and nationalism is
emotional first of all) is naturo-telluric, whereas the domination of the technical signifies
the end of the telluric period within the history of mankind. But there transpires the
technification and rational systemisation of the naturo-tellurgic national element. The
very principle itself of technology is something totally international. Technology is a
most mighty international force. Modern youth of every land in their emotionality incline
towards nationalism, if they are not else caught up in Communism, yet together with this
they are caught up and attracted by technology and are ready to devote their abilities to
the developement of technology. The youth do not take note of this contradiction in their
outlooks. But it is technology namely that is the least national, it bears not only an
universal, but also international, abstractly-general character, it depersonalises and
deprives the lifestyle of peoples of any nationally-individual character, it is alike for the
Americans, the Germans or the Japanese. It is technology namely, the technical
civilisation that permits of export and readily passes over from one land to another, from
one people to another, whereas a genuine culture is always individualised and does not
permit of transfer. But modern nationalists love technology and its weapons and they are
indifferent towards genuine culture. This indeed finds its explanation in the fact that
modern nationalism seeks not so much the expression of the individual image of a
people, as rather the showing forth of power, yet power at present cannot be discovered
without technology. Technology provides the weaponry for struggle and war, and
nationalism wants struggle and war. Modern nationalism is indifferent towards culture,
since in culture there has always been a very strong contemplative element, whereas
nationalism at present is not at all contemplative, it is very actualistic, very avid for life
and gripped by the will to power. Technology, without which is impossible any sort of
might, bears a planet-wide character and in the final end it has the advantage over
nationalism, it proves stronger, it asserts its universality of communication, amidst is
already impossible any sort of autocracy, any sort of isolated worlds. Modern
technology's weaponry of the nationalists holds the world under the threat of war.
Nationalism -- is an emotional wellspring for war, it saturates the world with erotic
repulsions. And the paradox is this, that a power precisely most international, most
uniform, most proximate for all the world, is put to work in the service of national
interests and threatens the world with a very terrible destruction. Nationalism, armed with
technology, is most immense a threat for European culture, for its very existence.
Nationalism combined with technology -- is anti-cultural. This is characteristic for an era
of mass rule. With the masses there is the demand for technical civilisation, but not the
demand for qualitative culture. Modern nationalism therefore does not find its
expressions in creative genius, it finds its expression in the "leader", who is interested not
in culture, but in the power of the state. Those that speak for modern German nationalism
are not thinkers and poets, but rather "leaders" -- Hitler, Goering, Goebbels. Their
portraits fill the land and they have replaced the portraits of Goethe and Schiller, of Kant
and Hegel, of Beethoven and Nietzsche, and about them are written an endless number of
books. The modern "leader" is nowise the expresser and bearer of the culture of a people,
he is the expresser and bearer of the will of the masses for national uniformity and state
might. This is an era of "civilisation", and not of "culture". A modernly analogous
process occurs also under the symbolicism of Communism, which would seem hostile to
nationalism. And there too the "leader" brings the masses into uniformity, and armed
with technology he expresses the will to power, and is hostile towards culture as
aristocratically a phenomenon. But if one compare what is happening in Germany and
what is happening in Russia, then there is a difference first of all in this, that different
demons rend at these lands -- in Germany these are foremost of all the demons of nature
(of blood, a chosen race, nationality, land), and in Russia namely because that in the past
this was a land tellurgic primarily, -- the demons are those of a titanic technology, of
social structuring (of machine, a chosen class, planetary social revolution). But the
technology is situated in the service of either a chosen race or of irrational social
instincts, and behind the technical constructs are hidden the irrational instincts of the
Russian people. Communistic internationalism readily turns out to be a Soviet
nationalism, and Stalinism is already almost nowise distinct from Fascism. And behind
the appeal to make a planetary social revolution lies concealed a Russian messianism, the
old idea of the world vocation of the Russian people. Nationalism is strange as a
genuinely Russian tradition, but messianism is characteristic for this tradition. The whole
Russian XIX Century was full of an universal mindset and this universal consciousness
was by character Russian. Nationalism per se for us was something for the foreigner, of
German origin. And Bolshevism is one of the transformations and deformations of the
Russian idea.

Modern nationalism is asserted against the background of an universalistic and

planetary era, and this bestows it an especial alacrity. Nationalistic emotions, sometimes
assuming insane forms, develope during an era, when any sort of an autarchy is no longer
possible. European societies are reverting to polytheism after the already deeply changed
consciousness of monotheism. But it is impossible to simply deny the modern
nationalistic outlooks of the youth and the movements hallowed by them from the point
of view of the state ideas of the Enlightenment philosophy of the XVIII Century and the
already outmoded principles of the French Revolution. Keyserling does not tire
recollecting this, that it is particularly the French, who are inclined to regard as universal
the principles of French humanism, and who believe trustingly in the catholicity of the
Latin reason. But we have entered into a different measure of being, into a world, which I
have termed the "New Middle Ages". And to evaluate what is transpiring is impossible
from the perspective of the relative and transitory principles of modern history, to
evaluate it is possible only from the perspective of absolute and eternal principles. Such
principles are embedded only within Christianity. Modern nationalism, the modern will
to power clashes sharply with the absolute principles of Christianity. One mustneeds be
clearly conscious of this. The opportunistic maneuverings of Christians is shameful. The
desire to employ Christianity, as a tool for the affirming of national and state might, is far
worse a matter from a Christian perspective, than would be outright persecutions against
Christianity and religion. It properly befits Christians to lead an heroic struggle for the
freedom of Christianity, for the freedom of the spiritual life, against the pretensions of the
totalitarian state to nationalise spirit, conscience, thought. It is possible to nationalise and
socialise only that, what a man possesses, his material property, but not that, what he is,
not his person. It is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact, that the social restructuring
of societies, which irreversibly everywhere will happen, will actually be accompanied by
a lowering of the level of spirituality. This also finds expression in a return to polytheism
and polydemonism. And what foremost would initiate a spiritual renewal has to be the
resolution of the elementary questions of human existence. But the spiritual struggle all
the time will occur. The will to power itself per se is not evil. It is impossible likewise to
admit of weakness and impotence as good. The positive fullness of being is power, is
might, and it is needful to strive towards this might. But the whole question is in this, in
what is to be seen this might. The modern will to power is not at all the will to a fullness
of being, it signifies a terrible contraction and diminishing of being. The will, by which
nationalism is propelled, is of suchlike a narrowing of being. The fullness of being
always signifies, that in every one of its individualised steps there is contained universal
content, as a positive quality.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1934

© 2005 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1934 - 391 - en)

MNOGOBOZHIE I NATSIONALIZM. Journal Put', apr.-jun. 1934, no. 43, p. 3-16.

1
Vide e.g., the generalised results of modern science concerning races in the book of
Eugene Pittard, "Les races et l'histoire. Introduction ethnologique a l'histoire".

KNOWLEDGE AND COMMUNION

(Reply to N. N. Alekseev).
_____________

(1934 - #392)
 The positive critique by N. N. Alekseev of my book, "I and the World of Objects"
[English title: "Solitude and Society"], demands a response, since it can give rise to
misconceptions and to an inaccurate understanding of me. With N. N. Alekseev has
transpired, what often occurs with those critics of a philosophy, foreign to what they have
as their own philosophic world-concept, their own themes and trends of awareness, -- he
noted within my book merely what was most of interest to him himself and almost failed
to note in it the central thought, from which only all the remaining can be grasped. First
of all is about my attitude to existential philosophy. My "world-view" is not only very
distinct from the "world-view" of Heidigger and Jaspers, but in much is polarly the
opposite from them, particularly Heidigger. This ought to be totally clear from the book,
"I and the World of Objects". But I regard the very idea of an existential philosophy as
the sole correct understanding of the task of philosophy, the sole fruitful path of
philosophic cognition. Only an existential philosophy leads out from the impasse, into
which philosophy has fallen. I have always thought thus, though I expressed this in
different a terminology. I thought thus, when twenty years back I wrote the book, "The
Meaning of Creativity. An Endeavour in the Justification of Man" [English title: "The
Meaning of the Creative Act"] and twenty-five years back the book, "The Philosophy of
Freedom", which at present does not satisfy me regarding form of expression and
developement of thought. In contrast to idealism, Neo-Kantianism, rationalism, and to
positivism I posit namely existential philosophy. My independent philosophising
originated with pondering over this, that through the object, through objectification it is
impossible to know the mystery of being and that there is another differing path of
cognition, in which the knower comes into communion with the inner mystery of being,
since the knower himself is a being, i.e. existentialised. I have always thought, that being
is knowable only within human existence, wherein it is not objectivised, and therefore I
have always defended a conscious anthropologism within philosophy. This is my
fundamental motif. And this was best expressed in my book, "The Destiny of Man". I am
therefore not able to be sympathetic to the complex results arrived at by the contemporary
existential philosophy of Heidigger and especially Jaspers, although they arrive at this by
altogether different a path and their ontology is altogether different, from mine. I am
inclined indeed to put to Heidigger and Jaspers the reproach, that their academic
philosophy is insufficiently existential, and that they are too inclined towards
objectification in it. But N. Alekseev has turned insufficient attention to this, that
Heidigger and Jaspers have approached existential philosophy not altogether under the
influence of Husserl, but under the influence of Kierkegaard. The influence of Husserl
rather moreso hinders, than help Heidigger. Jaspers however does not belong in proper a
sense to the phenomenological school. I myself have little in common with Husserl, since
Husserl has always contended against anthropologism and never has asserted, that being
is cognitive within man and through man, that cognitive knowledge is a creative act of
man. But I do not deny the illuminating influence of the phenomenological method in
that musty atmosphere, which was created for philosophy by the Neo-Kantian
scholasticism.

Now for a chief matter. What was striking for me, is that N. Alekseev has as it were
failed to note the fundamental theme of my book, from which everything for me gets
brought to light, -- the theme about the connecting of cognitive knowledge with the
degrees of community of people. I sought to posit the problem of cognitive knowledge in
connection with the problem of solitude and society. And therefore my book is an unique
sociology of cognition, a metaphysical, indeed, sociology. This theme centres upon this,
in that I deny the catholicity, the universality of reason in the sense, in which rational
philosophy admits of it. For me reason cannot automatically define an all-compelling
common aspect of cognitive knowledge, since reason is variable, it is not present alike, in
simultaneous a form for all people and for all human groups, it is dependent upon the
spiritual condition of people, upon psychical a structure, worked out by a community of
people, i.e. upon the form and degree of the community of people. Cognitive knowledge
possesses metaphysically a social nature and therefore is dependent upon the character of
correspondence (communication) and correlation (communion) of people. A brotherly
communion of people is transformative of reason itself and has to lead to different a
cognition, than objectified knowledge, which corresponds to the dissociation of people, a
disintegration of world, a lowered degree of community. I nowise dent the positive value
of objectified knowledge, e.g. knowledge in the physico-mathematical sciences, but it
relates to a disintegrated, i.e. a fallen world. It is not the knowledge itself that is manifest
as fallen, but rather this world is manifest as fallen. Only a fallen world is subordinated to
quantitative number, only to it is applicable "twice two is four". This indeed basic theme
for me regarding the connection of cognitive knowledge with the forms of communing
has had for me two distinct sources, foreign to the traditions of the typical academic
philosophy, numbered amongst which is the philosophy of Heidigger and Jaspers. One of
these sources is sociological and connected with Marxism. When I wrote my first
youthful book, "Subjectivism and Individualism in Societal Philosophy", I was a Marxist
and a Kantian (i.e. not orthodox a Marxist). I was then immersed in the theme concerning
the correlation between transcendental cognition, a discerning of universally-binding
truth and justice, and the psychical structure, determinative of by the social position of
people, the class position first of all. But this is also a theme about the connection of
cognition with the forms of communion among people, with the forms of their
cooperation. For Marxism, this is expressed in the form of the dependency of cognition
upon the class psyche. The proletarian knows otherwise, than does the bourgeois, to him
is revealed truth, hidden from the bourgeois, consequently because, that the proletarian --
is a labourer, the bourgeois however -- is an exploiter. There is thus not one and the same
catholicity of reason, present alike for the bourgeois and for the proletarian. I was an
idealist, and not a materialist, and therefore I could not confess the absurd theory
concerning the existence of a class truth, but I was convinced and remain til now
convinced, that there exists a class lie and that there exist both favourable and
unfavourable conditions within class psychology for the knowing of truth, not dependent
upon whatever the class. But this means also, that truth is revealed only amidst a certain
form of communion and community of people. This is a theme I remain faithful to even
at present. But this theme has for me also deeper a source -- religious. Cognitive
knowledge is dependent upon the spiritual condition of people, upon their spiritual aspect
of community, it is different amidst the existence of Christian brotherhood amongst
people. Faith and love spiritually alter and transform reason, they alter the result of
cognitive knowledge. Within the lofty spiritual aspect of the community of people
knowledge becomes altered, there occurs a conjunction to the mystery of being, a
surmounting of the objectification, which is always an alienation. Sobornost' implies a
community of people, a communality, in which no man is manifest as an object of
another, but rather is always a relational "thou" and "we". Objectified mathematical and
physical knowledge are alike obligatory for both the "bourgeois" and for the
"proletarian", for one who is godless, denying any sort of spiritual life and any sort of
spiritual community of people, as well as for the believing Christian, entering into the
spiritual world and the spiritual community of people. But an enormous difference
obtains, when the discussion involves human existence and human fate. This is one and
the same theme, which has both a sociological and a religious aspect. And with this is
connected the insight, that Communism is but a distorted and secularised form of
Christian sobornost', communality, of Christian communion. And this has a direct
relationship also to cognitive knowledge.

N. Alekseev wants to compel me to admit, that the truth, which I have attempted to
affirm in my philosophy, is also for me an objectified truth. I fear, that our dispute is to a
remarkable degree one of terminology. N. Alekseev posits a point of identicalness
between truth and objectification. But I am not amenable to this terminology or in any
case I regard it as conditional. The "subjective" for me nowise signifies something
arbitrary, of interest and endowed with value merely for me. Truth, the truth namely
concerning being is revealed in the subject, and not in the object. Upon this path has
stood already the post-Kantian idealism, which broke with the pre-Kantian forms of
objectified metaphysics and grounded its metaphysics upon the subject, not the object.
Fichte began with this. But the great German idealists did not reach the point of
existential philosophy. This is explicable first of all by the fact, that they failed to posit
the problem of man. The subject, the "I" of German idealism was not man. When Fr[anz]
Baader said, that to know truth means to become truth, he, certainly, in his own way
expressed not an objectified, but rather an existential understanding of knowledge. I
would formulate the point of view thus: philosophy is anthropocentric and cannot be
otherwise, but man himself is not anthropocentric and therefore only in man and through
man is known truth, and not disclosed merely human conditions. This is the reverse to
German idealism, which denied the anthropocentricity of philosophy, whilst asserting the
anthropocentricity of man. The surmounting of objectification, of objectivisation within
cognitive knowledge does not signify a closed-in isolation within oneself, but signifies
rather an emergence into communion with other people, with God and with God's world.
And on the contrary, objectness and objectivisation of cognitive knowledge signify a
closed-off isolation within oneself, the impossibility of an emergence towards others and
the other, an alienation between the knower and the known. The struggle against the
fallenness, which represents a closed-off state of isolation and alienation, is a struggle
against objectification, against the exceptional force of an objectifying knowledge, such
as is conducted in cognitive knowledge and in life, it is a struggle for communion. N.
Alekseev is evidently close to that point of view, with which he philosophises and knows
not the man, but rather as it were the Absolute within man and through man, whereby
man however by suchlike a path is raised to a level of the all-general, the all-common,
and passes over from the subjective to the objective. But this is an idealistic monism.
Christian philosophy for me is not monistic, but rather Divine-human, i.e. it presupposes
a dualistic moment, presupposes the activity and interaction of the two natures, and not
one-only nature. An existential, an anthropological philosophy certainly, is not monistic,
within it, it is thus man that knows, and not the Absolute, but he knows in communion
and interaction with the Absolute, in a conjoining to Its inner life. Otherwise the very
concept of the Absolute I do not consider as a Christian understanding of God. I already
and a number of times have heard not only from Russians, both the Orthodox and the
non-Orthodox, but also from foreigners, the Catholics and the Protestants, that in my
anthropological philosophy there is a tendency towards man-godism and titanism, that for
me the human spirit is an actus purus, at the same time as only God is actus purus. A
judgement of such sort is evoked by basic a position for me through the idea about man,
as a creator, capable of bringing about the new, the non-extant, enriching being, i.e. to
create from out of uncreated freedom. And about this it is almost impossible to dispute,
this is a question of primal a religious intuition, a question not only of faith, but also of
great hope. For me this is entirely bound up with faith in God-manhood, it derives from
Christology in regards to man. This was expressed by me in my book, "The Meaning of
Creativity" [Engl. title: The Meaning of the Creative Act"]. On the surface plane of
philosophic cognition there is first of all this problem concerning an uncreated freedom,
without which is inexplicable either the origin of evil, or the possibility of creativity. I
think, that Christianity denies the possibility for man as actus purus (this is an
Aristotelian-Thomistic terminology, which I do not employ), i.e. the possibility of an
emergence into the sphere of non-objectified an existence, insofar as Christianity is a
social fact, i.e. itself belongs to objectified a world. But Christianity, belonging to
existential a plane, primal and non-objectified, fully can and ought to acknowledge this in
relation to man. Otherwise the image and likeness of God in man ultimately becomes
obscured. Man ought to make creative acts and enter into a pure, non-objectified sphere
of existence not only in his own name, not for self-apotheosis, but rather in the Name of
God, answering to the call of God.

It seems to me a misunderstanding, when N. Alekseev says, that I deny the social

mission of philosophy. This has occurred, because he devoted great attention to my initial
ponderings over the tragedy of philosophy and has devoted very little attention to those
places in my subsequent ponderings, in which I spoke about communion and about the
connection of cognitive knowledge with communion. I talk in my book about the active
task of cognition and in this regard I even express great sympathy for N. Fedorov.
Philosophy ought to alter life, it cannot remain purely theoretical. But namely for this,
that philosophy should realise an active social mission, philosophy ought not to be
dependent upon the social medium, upon the socially ordinary, philosophic cognition
ought not to be determined by social life, but rather to determine social life. This is
completely analogous to what I have more than once asserted concerning Christianity.
Christianity only then will be creative and transformative to have an influence upon
social life and to realise social truth, when it ceases to be dependent upon the social
medium and the social relations of people, when instead it would draw upon its own
strength from the pure wellspring of revelation, rather than from murky a social
wellspring, always distorting Christianity at the whim of the dominant classes. And
because I posit cognitive knowledge in connection with the degrees of community of
people and this even being my basic theme, then by this I assert, that both conscious
awareness and knowledge presuppose something co-human. But the connection of
cognitive knowledge with the co-human aspect, with human community and communion
is, certainly, not an external definability by other people, but rather an inner qualification
of cognition. Sobornost' also indeed mustneeds be understood as an inner qualification of
spiritual life, and not as externally manifest collective, which would be objectification
and which, certainly, exists in the church, as social an institution. The powerlessness of
the philosopher nowise hinders me from acknowledging the tremendous role of
philosophic ideas within history. At the close of his article N. Alekseev sympathetically
alludes to Keyserling [Herman Alexander Graf, 1880-1946]. But his point of view,
evidently, is very distinct from the point of view of Keyserling. Keyserling stands at an
extreme dualistic point of view, contrasting earth and spirit. Politics for him is defined
totally by the tellurgic. Spirit thus is powerless and impotent in the sphere of politics, and
this signifies philosophy also. Keyserling is right in this, in what he says about the
lowliness and vileness of all politics. I am even inclined to think, that those forms, in
which philosophic ideas are appropriated in politics, are base and vile. Philosophy ought
to teach us social activity and together with this a disdain for politics, which always was
and is not a realisation of spirit, but rather a betrayal of spirit.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1934

© 2009 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1934 - 392 - en)

POZNANIE I OBSCHENIE. Otvet N. N. Alekseev. Journal Put', juil.-sept. 1934,

no.44, p. 44-49.

On Christian Pessimism and Optimism

(Regarding a Letter of Archpriest Sergii Chetverikov)

_________________________

(1935 - #397)

I am obligingly grateful to Father Sergii Chetverikov for his letter, occasioned by a

reading of my book, "The Fate of Man in the Modern World", for he provides me cause
very openly and perhaps with greater clarity to express certain of my thoughts. I often am
poorly understood and my world-view is given very contrary characteristics. And in this,
I myself, actually, am to blame. I explain the misunderstandings by this, that I tend to
think in terms of antinomies, contradictions, paradoxes, tragic conflicts. I do this in
consequence of my absolute conviction, that only an antinomic-paradoxical thinking
corresponds to the structure of the world and even the depths of being. And therefore it
becomes impossible to think about the world exclusively in pessimistic terms, or
exclusively optimistic terms. I ought also to mention, to avoid misunderstanding, that I
am not a theologian, that I am a philosopher and my language is otherwise, than the
language of a theologian.

In my book however there is not that ultimate inescapable and gloomy aspect, which
Fr. S. Chetverikov ascribes to me. I have actually a very strong and tormentive sense of
the evil of life, of the bitter lot of man, but I have still more powerful a faith in the
supreme Meaning of life. I do not mince words on this, that for me is characteristic
profound a repugnance to too saccharine, too pacific and placid, too untragic an
understanding of Christianity. Such as in the final end tends to be based upon a dividing
of the world into those saved within the enclosure of church, where everything is
felicitous, cheery and bright, and into those perishing in the world, where everything is
unsettled, tormentive and murky. Such a division and such a consciousness herein of
dwelling within a walled-in enclosure seems to me as not corresponding to the spirit of
the Gospel. The Gospel image of Christ teaches something altogether different. The
following out upon the path of Christ leads to this, that we shall be with the publicans and
profligates, with those perishing in the world and those convulsed in torments. It is
difficult to understand, how it is possible to placidly and cheerily sense oneself as saved
within the enclosure of church and not share in the sorrow and travail of the world.
Always there lurks the danger of a pharisaeical self-smugness.

What astonishes me, is that Fr. S. Chetverikov has been left with the impression from
my book, as though God does not act within history, that God has forsaken the world. In
actuality everything, that I say in my book, has no sort of meaning, if there is no activity
of God within history. Thereupon also would not be that ultimate fate, which comprises
the basic theme of my book. But the activity of God within history is mysterious and not
subject to rational interpretation. Within history God does act, but likewise also act both
nature and man. And therefore history is a mutual interacting of the intent of God, of
natural determinism and of human freedom. The judgement of God upon history is an
exposing of the immanent results of a path, contrary to the path leading to the Kingdom
of God. The judgement is not a chastisement from God, for this sort of understanding is
very anthropomorphic and exoteric, the judgement rather is an experiencing of the
consequences of a departure from God. Father S. Chetverikov as though reproaches me in
this, that for me God is judging and punishing, but thus is not a God of love. In actuality
the chastisement proceeds not from God, it derives rather from the faulty imperfection of
our language. I believe only in the God of love and I do not believe in a God punishing
and terrifying. But the love of God, refracted within the dark element, can act, like a fire,
and be experienced, as a chastisement. The immanent judgement upon history is not the
ultimate judgement over the world and humankind.
 The problem, which torments me and which I regard as fundamental, is the problem of
the origin of evil and of the responsibility for evil. It is difficult to reconcile oneself, with
that God should be rendered responsible for evil. Wherein everything is in the hand of
God, God acts everywhere, God utilises evil itself for the goals of good, no one and
nothing possesses freedom in regard to God. And thus from whence Calvin made his
consequent and radical deductions in the teaching about predestination. Does God act
both within evil and through evil? If yes, then the responsibility for the evil and suffering
of the world is imputable to God. If no, then there exists a freedom from God and relative
to God, which limits the almightiness of God, which renders God as though a
powerlessness (I understand all the limitedness of the language employed here) in regard
to the freedom of evil. This is a most tormentive of problems and it does not permit of
any felicitous and optimistic a resolution. It tormented Dostoevsky. The greater part of
the thought on theodicy, from Bl. Augustine down through Leibniz, is not only
unsatisfactory, but also outright an outrage, demeaning for God and for man. It is
possible, certainly, to assume a purely agnostic point of view and admit, that we have
herein a matter bordering upon mystery, which rationally is impossible to grasp. This
point of view is better, than the rational theodicies, but in theology and in metaphysics it
never holds up consistently to the end and always in the final end get constructed
theories, repugnant to sensitive a conscience. Many teachers of the Church, as is known,
have taught, that evil is non-being. But thinking this out to its end leads one to grant, that
the sources of evil lie outside of being, of being over which the almightiness of God
extends, i.e. in an uncreated freedom external to being. This is merely a philosophic
interpretation and philosophic expression bordering upon mystery, connected with
freedom and evil. This is also herein the wellspring of a tragic world-sense and world-
contemplation. And with this is involved both the experience of evil and torment in the
world, and also of the experience of creativity, a creativity of the new in the world. The
egress from evil -- is in the suffering of the verymost God, i.e. in Christ, not in God All-
Powerful, but rather in God the Redeemer, the God of sacrificial love. I tend to think, that
in this is the essence of Christianity.

Father S. Chetverikov depicts the participation of a loving God within human life,
such that it as though applies only to those situated within the enclosure of church, in the
Ark at the time of the Flood. But the greater part of the historical life of mankind,
especially in our time, is situated outside this enclosure, not within the Ark, and it is
drowning in the stormy ocean of the world. Does this mean, that God has retreated from
the greater part of the world and mankind? Can believing Christians wall themself off
from the agonies of the world and reckon, that these agonies and these torments nowise
involve them, can they be optimists, despite the pessimism, such as derives from attention
to the condition of the world? This would be a sin against the commandment of love. In
the short story by Andrei Zhid, entitled "Le retour de l'enfant prodigue", which represents
a loose rendering of the Gospel theme, the prodigal son -- to the question of what he had
done in the world, outside his father's house, replied: I suffered. This reply can be given
both by those, who have departed their father's house, in order to seek truth and right, and
by those, who have departed, in order to seek happiness and the delights of life.
Christians cannot be indifferent to the sufferings of those who have forsaken the house of
the Father and experience the agony of the world. Attention to them cannot be confined
merely to attempts to convert them to Christianity and return them to the Church, for
Christians also have much to learn from them. There is necessary an especial attention to
the human fate in the world, an assent to share in its tribulations and sufferings.
Christianity can be of help to modern man, when disaster threatens him, only in this
instance, if it be exclusively attentive to the anxiety, the tribulations and questionings of
the modern soul. There is an insufficiency of this, evidently, in churchly circles, for these
circles are insensitive to the stirrings of the times, and they continue to think, that with
mankind everything remains the same, as it was five hundred or a thousand years back.

My book, disquieting as it is for Fr. S. Chetverikov, does not result in a denial of

church. But the historical church is experiencing a crisis and over it likewise is wrought a
judgement. The gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church, since they lack the
power to prevail over Christ, but the powers of Hell do try to prevail and amidst this are
not only powers outside church, but powers also within church, which have distorted
Christianity into serving human interests. In the modern godlessness are hence to blame
not only the godless themself, but even moreso, even more initially to blame are those,
who constantly have said "Lord, Lord" and distortedly have proffered the faith in God
and the worship of God. To defend the Church is possible only by admitting the existence
of two understandings of church. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, a spiritual
organism, as though a continuance of the Incarnation of God. But church is likewise a
social institution, it possesses a sinful human composite, it is bound up with the social
medium and its influences and impulses, it possesses its own law and economic structure,
it possesses defined relationships to the state. In this second aspect church bears within it
the limitedness and sinfulness of all the manifestations of the social order. And the
greatest sin of the Church, as social a phenomenon within history, has been not the
individual sins of its hierarchs and laypeople, but rather the sinful distortion, the warping,
the assimilation to human interests of the very principles of Christianity, of the faith-
teaching. Quite too much of the human and sinful has been accepted as Divine and
sacred. And here over this is wrought a judgement. God always is active in the world and
this graced activity never can come nigh in comparison to that of human judgement with
its fierceness, its disregard for the human person, its pitilessness. But extraordinarily
complex and for us incomprehensible is the acting by God upon the world in
consequence of its correlationship with human freedom and with the dark elements of the
world. This activity [by God] can never be an acting external and coercive. And the very
judgement by God upon the world seems merciless namely in consequence of this, that
God respects human freedom and desires not coercion.

The fate of man in his searchings, his torments and sufferings, is the fate of Job. And I
am the most of all apprehensive, lest we become like the comforters of Job. Job in his
God-struggling was justified by God, whereas the comforters of Job were condemned by
God. Christians too often tend to judge, as did the comforters of Job. By this manner they
reckon it possible to remain optimists, despite the immeasurable sufferings of man and
the world. Let the "evil" writhe in torments, this is just, whereas the "good" separate
themself from this evil lot and experience satisfaction. And here is what seems to me
most unacceptable. No one can separate himself off from the common fate of the world
and man, no one with self-smugness can say, that he goes righteous a path. I, certainly,
distinctly know, that Fr. S. Chetverikov considers it a needful sign on the path to
salvation in having the consciousness of oneself as sinful and unworthy. Regretably with
many Christians the awareness of oneself as unworthy and sinful has managed to obtain
in the Christian world but rhetorically -- in conditional forms. Father S. Chetverikov,
certainly, well knows this. The problem, which I posit, is otherwise. The matter involved
is not about the consciousness of oneself as sinful and unworthy, for this, certainly, is
inevitable for every Christian, but the rather about accepting upon oneself and sharing in
the torments, the sufferings and questionings of the world and of other people. All are
responsible, all are answerable, for all. When people previously have withdrawn from the
world into a monastery, it was in order to go the path of asceticism. But at present life in
this world is a path of asceticism. The God-contending can sometimes be more pleasing
to God, than other forms of worship and piety. Job struggled with God, whereas the
comforters of Job were pious. And at present there is Job and there are his comforters, i.e.
reproachers. Job experienced a moment of pessimism, whereas his comforters were
optimists, since they believed, that everything had happened justly. The judgement of
God however always proves more mysterious, than we would tend to think, and it cannot
be rationalised, even though it be a theological rationalising.

I am not an optimist, but it would be inaccurate to characterise me either, as a

pessimist. An ultimate pessimism is not compatible with Christianity and would signify a
betrayal of being, the tempting allure of the spirit of non-being. Most of all foreign to me
is a passive pessimism, and that dram of pessimism, which is innate to me, can be termed
an active pessimism, a pessimism in struggle. I more than most believe in man, believe in
his God-likeness of nature, in the utmost dignity, in his calling of vocation to creative
work in the world, a though a continuance with the world-creation. Everything written by
me witnesses to this. But this is nowise the optimistic and pretty sort of faith in the
sinlessness and blissfulness of human nature as in the spirit of J. J. Rousseau. The
presence of freedom and creativity for the human spirit also render the life of man tragic.
Man is situated facing an abyss of being or non-being. And he cannot surmount this
chasm merely by his own particular powers, he is in need of help from above. This is a
matter Divine-human. And if in our own era the very existence of the human image is
subject to danger, if man is disintegrating, then it is namely because, that he has relied
exclusively upon himself and his own powers. Man is at present perhaps passing through
a very dangerous period of his existence. But I do not think, that the fate of man is totally
inescapable. This inescapable aspect is merely this-sided, and not other-sided. We indeed
believe, that the history of the world will continue not endlessly, the world will end,
history will end. But this means, that we do not believe in the possibility of an ultimate
way out in this world, upon this earth, within this our time. The this-sided
inescapableness tends to affirm this. An awareness of this inescapable aspect ought not to
hinder the creative effort of man and the realisation by him of truth as regards this side,
since the creative efforts of man will issue forth, until the very end. The end is a deed
Divine-human. And the final word, belonging to God, will include within it also the
human word. An absolute and ultimate pessimism therefore would not advance the
critique, that every judgement upon the meaninglessness and evil of the world and of
human life presupposes the existence of an utmost Meaning, that every judgement and
consideration of judgement concerning the lower aspects of life presupposes the
existence of God. In this sense it can as though be said, that the existence of evil,
recognised as evil, demonstrates the existence of God.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1935

© 2009 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1935 - 397 - en)

O KHRISTIANSKOM PESSIMIZM I OPTIMIZM. (Po povodu pis'ma protoiereya

Sergiya Chteverikova.) Journal Put', jan.-mar. 1935, no.46, p. 31-36.

ETERNITY AND TIME

The problem of history, which interests this gathering in regard to Christianity, is in
its philosophic depths a problem of time. In my book, “I and the World of Objects” 1 ,
I devoted a special chapter to the problem of time, much which bears repeating. The
problem of time is not only a basic problem of the philosophy of history, but also of
contemporary philosophy, which has taken an especial interest in the problem of time
(Bergson and Heidegger posit the problem of time at the very centre of their philosophy).
The problem of time -- is at the basis of the creativity of Proust, and he posits it at a very
great depth -- “le temps retrouve”. The problem of time -- can be approached from two
points of view: 1) as it is dealt with in a mathematical philosophy, wherein time vanishes
mathematically, or 2) as it exists for existential philosophy, where time is not objectivised
and is not subject to a numeric category. In this instance the problem of time is a problem
of the inner human destiny. The problem here arises about the relationship between time
and change: does change happen because of time or does time exist because, that change
occurs? It is naive to think, that time is some sort of external form, in which existence is
situated. On the contrary, time is a condition of realities. With a certain correlation these
realities overwhelm the world, they create the conditions of time. Our historical time is a
sickness, a downfallen eternity (present, past and future). Time makes possible the
creativity of the new, and creative processes exist in the world because, that there is time.
And at the same time, time engenders angst (Heidegger) and fear. Our attitude towards
the future is defined by fear and by hope. With hope for the new, the creative and the
better, and fear and terror afront the death-bearing torrents of time. Changeability
(presupposing the newness of the moment) is not only something positive and valuable,
but also indispensable for the fullness of life. But in the process of change which occurs
in our life, there consists not only a certain change-izmenie, but also a betrayal-izmena. It
is because that at the basis of our existence there leis a twofoldness: the impossibility of
change without betrayal, the impossibility of the creativity of the new without rendering a
betrayal to the old. Actually, time impels us to a betrayal: to the forgetfulness of that
which ought not to be forgotten, to the loss of the connection between the future and the
past, etc. In regard to time and to history there exists a tremendous difference between
Indian philosophy and Christian philosophy: in Indian philosophy time is illusory and
ambiguous, and therefore history is deprived of meaning. Christianity affirms however
the meaning of the existence of time and of history. But the attitude of Christianity
towards time is quite entirely twofold and paradoxical. On the one side it acknowledges
the Incarnation of God within history. But on the other side history is the death-bearing
rushing torrent of time, in which is impossible any sort of realization. Time is therefore a
sickness and a paradox. The morbidity of human existence is connected with the tragedy
of time -- the future dying threatens man, he becomes cut off from the past and the
present and cannot hold on to them. Remarkable thoughts about time were expressed by
Blessed Augustine in his “Confessions”. In it he shows the illusion of time: the past
already is not, the future is not yet, while the present continuously disintegrates into the
future and the past and is therefore elusive; in each of its parts time is elusive, and by this
is illusory. Blessed Augustine speaks about 3 types of the present -- the present present,
the present past and the present future. This elusiveness of time is connected with the
process of objectivization, in which the inner reality of existence cannot be caught hold
of. The paradoxical quality of time shows itself here in the relationship between the
present and the past. The judgment of the present about the past is a judgment, subject to
illusion, since the past, about which we speak in the present, is itself a past within the
present, into which it enters as a component part. And this present-past is altogether not
that present, which was in the past. And between that past, which once was a genuine
present, and the genuine present itself, there exists a transfigurative act of memory.
Memory is a marvelous thing within human existence, for this is a transfigurative act of a
change of the past (an idealization of the past or the other way round); in the past it was
never actually thus, as we in the present affirm it about the past. The creative act of
memory unites us to the past... In regards to the future there is likewise a creative act. But
this ultimately is not a determinization of the future. For us the past is determined, and for
us it is terrible to carry over the determinization of the past into the future. The creative
relationship to the future is as a time not determined, but prophetic. This relationship
towards the future, although in but various degrees, is present for every man, who is in a
small degree a prophet. The essence of prophecy is not in a foreknowing on the basis of
determinization, but in a foreseeing of the future outside the torrents of time.
Propheticism is in this sense an exiting from time. In our relationship to the past there is a
demand on us: on the one side, to be freed from what was evil in the past, to wash it
away, to consign it to oblivion, and on the other side -- to preserve everything good and
beautiful and positive, i.e. our relationship to the past is defined by memory and
forgetting. (With the demand of consigning evil to oblivion in the spiritual life is
connected the sacramental mystery of repentance, the absolution of sins.) In regard to the
future, insofar as time is a sickness, it is deadly, death-bearing, i.e. it is a process of a
constant swallowing-up of the past by the future. Therefore in time there is present
sorrow. In general, sorrow and melancholy are connected with being overwhelmed.
Sorrow is bound up not only with regard to the death-bearing future, but also to the
unreturnably elapsed past, to the leave taking separation. Sorrow and melancholy would
seem unconquerable within time. Victory over them consists only in a creative act, since
only the creative act is a victory over the burdening-down of human existence. Sorrow
tends to arise then, when man falls into a passive condition in regard to time, whereas the
creative act is an active resistance to time. The results of the creative act are to be found
within time, but it itself is outside of time. With this is connected that which is called the
search for the instantaneous, in which the power of time has ceased to be (the
Augenblick-moment of Kierkegaard). The Augenblick-moment is not situated within the
order of mathematical time, but rather in an emergence from it. Herein is attained the
fullness and joy of the eternal present... For the eternal present there is an emergence
from the order of the past-present-future. Therein is the meaning and value of the
experienced moment situated within it itself. With this is connected the sacred within
time, which is situated within the moment external to the temporal order. It is not in the
past and not in the future, though also within the past and within the future.

History, as connected with the problem of time, can likewise be considered from
two points of view. It can be considered as an objectivized world, situated within the
power of time (within the order of the past-present-future), but it can also be as an inward
existence, an inner destiny. My existence is connected with history, but history is also as
it were the primal-history of my spirit. The meaning of tradition for me consists in this,
that it brings me into a communion of history not as of an outward given reality, but to
my own existence. Thus, just as there are possible two understandings of time, likewise --
there are also two understandings of infinity. There is a mathematical infinity, as a
quantity and as a sum-total, and there is an infinity as a non-fractional integral quality. It
is clear, that in the first understanding of infinity there cannot be an attainment of
eternity, since eternity is not numerically measurable. The measurement of time is
something relative. It is measured dependent upon the intensity of human experience.
Happiness, for example, can be experienced in an instant, whereas suffering -- can be for
an endless time. With the problem of time is connected a defining power of our time --
technics, which leads to an acceleration of time. The temporal process is speeded up in an
intensity of expectation and rushing towards the following moment. The moment already
has no self-worth, the actual rushing towards the following moment does not permit any
halt in itself. Actualism does not allow contemplation. In this actual on-rush towards the
following moment, modern man is subjected to the power of time (though actualism can
be on another order and can lead conversely to a victory over time.) The ultimate problem
of time -- is the problem of the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse -- is a paradox of time. The
obscureness of this book consists in the impossibility to express in human thought the
paradox of time, strained to the limit within the Apocalypse. In the Apocalypse is posited
the problem of the relationship between the future and the eternal. In our language it is
extraordinarily difficult to let go the position, that eternity is some period of time set in
the future; in our turning towards eternity we orient ourselves with hope for the future. In
the Apocalypse this is expressed and surmounted with the words: “time moreso shalt not
be”, saying in other words -- that there will be a time, when there will be no time. This
time will not be in our mathematical time, but in another -- when time moreso will not be.
The Apocalypse is a paradoxical combination of the this-sidely and the other-sidely,
transpiring beyond the limits of our history. The end of the world, which will be in the
world and with the world, is an event, which signifies an egress from time, a victory of
eternity over time. This is inexpressible for all rational pondering, since in the
Apocalypse this is expressed in symbols, for which is hidden the truth about non-
objectivised time. For each man there is a personal apocalypse. Man undergoes terror not
only affront this, that time brings death, but also that it brings hell-hades. But hell-hades
cannot be thought of as eternal, rather only as an infinite endless time. Hell-hades is the
impossibility to have a stop in time, and the impossibility of an emergence from this time.
As regards history Christianity acknowledges its meaning, since that which the Divine
introduces into history, is another world which enters into this world, and history therein
finds its meaning. Though from another angle, the truth of Christianity is incompatible
with history and demands an end of history and a judgment over it. But it only enters into
history, it is not accommodated until the end. Secularization (desacralisation) is a
process, holding positive religious meaning, for this is a tragic process, not only
inevitable, but also a process, proceeding from God. Within history the process of
sacralisation was often a process of secularization, and with this is connected the
historical searchings of Christianity, when the too human takes the place of the Divine. In
actuality the relationship between the Divine and the natural world is a relationship of
sunderings apart, begetting a series of tormentive contradictions. History therefore is not
a process of progress. There exists a judgment of Christianity over history, but also the
reverse, history judges Christianity. This judgment of history over Christianity possesses
a religious meaning. History judges Christianity because of this, that it has conquered it
within time, it judges it for its victory over it (at least that it be obliged to conquer the
power of this age). And both in the judgment of Christianity over history, and in the
judgment of history over Christianity, there can be seen the judgment of God.

Only by the creative act of man (in that he should lead human existence out from the
power of time, from ossification and from isolation) can be realised the authentic
meaning of history in its inner change, not knowing the power nor the sickness of time.
The mystery of the religious life consists in the victory over the power of time, in the
knowledge of human life not from the passive sufferance of the external facts of history,
but rather for the active surmounting of time.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1935

VECHNOST’ I VREMYA. Bulletin of the Russian Student Christian Movement

(Vestnik RSCM), 1935, no. 3. Online in Russian.

1.
Trans. note: this book was published in English under title “Solitude and Society”.

PERSONALISM AND MARXISM

 (1935 - #400)

I.

The relationship of Marxism to personalism, as also its relationship to humanism, is

more complicated, than is generally thought. It is very easy to point out the anti-
personalist character of Marxism. It is hostile to the principle of person, as also is every
purely sociological teaching about man, which purports to know merely the social man,
formulated as object. Likewise anti-personalist in its understanding of man is the
sociological school of Durkheim. Hostile to the principle of person is every single-planed
world-outlook, for which the nature of man is comprised solely by its belonging to the
social plane of being, i.e. man possesses no dimension of depth. They often contrast
Proudhon to Marx, suggesting, that his social system was more favourable to
personalism, than is Marxism. 1 But the teaching of Proudhon also about man is indeed
entirely social, and person for him does not possess any inner dimension of depth, i.e.
inner life. True, Proudhon was a very keen critic of Communism, as a system of the
slavery of man, and his particular socio-economic system was the more favourable for
person. But he was essentially was inclined towards a peculiar individualism hostile to
Capitalism, rather than towards personalism. The philosophic world-outlook of Proudhon
would not permit making a distinction between individualism and personalism. Likewise
to me it does not seem especially fruitful to contrast Proudhon with Marx in the
understanding of dialectics. In Proudhon the contradiction has not been surmounted, but
has been preserved. 2 But by this dialectic it is deprived of its dynamic character.
Proudhon stands closer to Kant’s teaching about antinomies, than to the Hegelian
dialectics. But insofar as Hegel and Marx believed in the attainment of an ultimate
harmony, not permitting of contradiction, at the third stage, at the synthesis, they
certainly are subject to criticism.

To substantiate a basis for personalism, which also possesses its own social
projection, is possible only in such instance, if we acknowledge, that the problem of man
is more primary than the problem of society. And prior to passing on to a discussion of
the relationship of Marxism to the principle of person, it is necessary to define, what we
philosophically understand by person. It is not appropriate to confuse the concept of
person with the concept of individual, as was frequently done by thought in the XIX and
XX Centuries. The individual is a naturalistic category, biological and sociological, and it
appertains to the natural world. The individual is from a biological point of view part of
the race, and from the sociological point of view it is part of society. It -- is an atom,
indivisible, not having inner life, it is anonymous. The individual does not possess any
unique or independent existence apart from race or from society. The individual as
regards itself is entirely a racial and a social being, only an element, part of a defining
correlation with the whole. Person signifies something altogether different. Person is a
spiritual and religious category. Person speaks not only about man belonging to the
natural and social order, but also to a different dimension of being, to the spiritual world.
Person is a form of being, higher than anything natural or social. We shall see, that it is
not able to be part of anything whatsoever. Society has a tendency to consider person as
an individual subordinate within it, as its product. From the sociological point of view,
person is part of society, and it is a very small part. Society is the large circle, person
however -- is a small circle set within it. In a sociological setting, person is unable to
oppose itself to society and it cannot fight for itself. But from the point of view of
existential philosophy everything is turned round -- society is a small part of person, is
merely its social condition, and the world is merely part of person. Person is the
existential centre, not society and not nature, it is the existentialised subject, and not
object. Person realises itself in social and cosmic life, but it can do this only because that
within it, it is independent from nature and from the principle of society. Person is not
definable as a part in relation to any sort of whole. Person is an whole, it is a totality, it is
integral, it bears within itself the universal, and it cannot be part of any sort of the
general, whether of the world or of society, or of universal being or Divinity. Person is
not at all of nature nor does it appertain, like everything natural, to an objective natural
hierarchy, nor is it able to be put into any sort of natural order. Person is rotted in the
spiritual world, its existence presupposes a dualism of spirit and nature, freedom and
determinism, the individual and the general, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of
Caesar. The existence of the human person in the world bespeaks this, that the world is
not self-sufficient, that inevitably there is a transcending of the world, its completion is
not in it itself, but in God, in supra-natural being. The freedom of the human person, is
freedom not only within society and within the civil realm, but also from society and
from the civil realm, and it is predicated by that which is over and above the world, over
and above nature and society, over and above the kingdom of Caesar, for it is supra-
natural being, it is the spiritual world, it is God. Person is a sundering within the natural
world, and it is not explainable from it. 3
Person is first of all unity in multiplicity and immutability within change. Person is
not a coordination of parts, it is a primal unity. Person mustneeds undergo change, to
disclose the creativity of the new, to grow and to be enriched. And it mustneeds remain
itself, to be the unchangeable subject of these changes. When we meet again with our
good acquaintance after a number of years during which we have not seen him, we shall
perhaps undergo to simultaneously disturbing and painful impressions. If this man has
not changed at all, and he repeats certain things which have gone cold and stiff, if he has
not grown nor enriched himself by anything, then this produces a painful impression.
This means, that the person has not realised himself. The realisation of person
presupposes changes. But the obverse painful impression is possible. This man has
changed so much, that it is impossible to recognise him, and then he produces the
impression of a different man. He not only has changed, but is himself become changed.
The unity of person has been destroyed in the changes, the existential centre torn to
shreds. Person is first of all an unity of destiny. Destiny is change, amidst the history and
retention of unity of the existential centre. This is a mystery of person. Person
presupposes the trans-personal, the higher being which it reflects, and trans-personal
values, which it realises and which comprise the wealth of its life’s content. Person is not
able to be self-sufficient, it mustneeds emerge from itself towards other persons, towards
the human and towards the cosmic multiplicity, and towards God. Ego-centrism, being
locked up within oneself and being absorbed by oneself disintegrates the person. Person
realises itself through a constant victory over ego-centrism, over the hardening of self.
The realisation of person means the filling-in of its universal content, for it cannot exist
only by its particularity. Person is not something completed, it forms itself, it posits ends,
like God’s idea about every single man. The realisation of person presupposes the
creative process setting off into infinitude. Person-ness is act. M Scheler defines person,
as the concrete unity of all acts. 4 But contrary to M Scheler, it is not life that manifests
itself as active, but rather spirit, the spiritual principle in man, for life indeed is rather
more passive. Only the creative act can be termed act, and in act there is created the new,
the not previously existing, and non-being becomes being. Person presupposes the
creative nature of man. Creativity however presupposes freedom. Authentic creativity is
creativity from out of freedom. Creativity is contrary to evolution, which is determinism.
Only the creative subject is person. A being that exists entirely determined by nature and
by the social process cannot be termed person, not yet having become a person. Le Senne
credibly opposes existence in the sense of an existential philosophy of determinisation. 5
Person defines itself on the outside for nature and for society, but it defines itself from
within. Person is resistance to a determining from within, a determining by society and by
nature. And only that one is manifest as person, who conquers this determining. Person is
not born in nature’s generative process and it is not formed in the social process. The
existence of person presupposes an interruptedness, it does not permit of evolutionary
uninterruptedness. Person is created by God and in this is its highest merit, and the source
of its independence and freedom. That which is born in the generative process and
formed in the social process is merely the individual, in which person needs to be
realised. Person is resistance to determining and is therefore anguish. The affirmation and
realisation of person is always anguish. The refusal of this anguish, the dread of anguish
is a refusal of person. The realisation of person, of its merit and independence is a painful
process, it is an heroic struggle. Person-ness is struggle, and the refusal of the struggle is
a refusal of person. And man happens often upon this refusal. Person is contrary to
conformism, it is a non agreement with the conformism, which nature and society utilise.
Since person is an existential centre and presupposes a susceptibility towards suffering
and joy, it is therefore erroneous to adapt person as a category for the nation and other
trans-personal communities, as the philosopher of personalism Shtern does. The nation is
individuality, but not person-ness. We come to this, that person is a paradoxical
combination of contraries: of the personal and the trans-personal, of the finite and the
infinite, of the interrupted and the developing, of freedom and of destiny. And the
fundamental paradox of person is in this, that it mustneeds still be created and it
mustneeds already be, so that there be possible the creative creating of person. One, who
mustneeds himself create, mustneeds already be. Person is not determined by society, but
it is social, it can realise the fullness of its life only in community with other persons. The
social projection of personalism presupposes a radical, a revolutionary transvaluation of
social values, i.e. the transfer of the centre of gravity from the values of society, the state,
the nation, the collective, the social group, to the valuation of person, of every person.
The social projection of personalism is a revolutionary repudiation of the capitalistic
regime, of the utmost anti-personalist, the utmost death-bearing for person, as ever
existed in history. The socialisation of the economy, which affirms the right to work and
a guarantee of a worthwhile existence for each human life not permitting the exploitation
of man by man, is a demand of personalism. The sole system, therefore, corresponding to
the eternal truth of personalism, is a system of personalist socialism. At the basis of a
social world-concept of personalism lies not the idea of equality nor the idea of justice,
but rather the dignity of every human person, which should receive the possibility to
realise itself.

After these necessary definitions of person we shall look at how Marxism stands in
relation to it.

II.

The attitude of Marxism towards person is antagonistic. This is connected with the
vagueness of the anthropology of Marxism. The anti-personalism of Marx -- is a
consequence of the anti-personalism of Hegel. Hegel acknowledged the sovereignty of
the general over the individual. The person for Hegel does not possess self-sufficient
significance, it is merely a function of the world spirit. Kierkegaard revolted against the
subordination of the human person to the world spirit, i.e. to the general. And such was
the meaning of Dostoevsky’s revolt. 6 The talented creativity of Ibsen is saturated by
these motifs. The anti-personalism of Hegel was inherited also by L. Feuerbach. The
humanism of Feuerbach was through the generative, and not the personalistic. 7 Man
realises himself in the collective life of the genus and ultimately he is dissolved in it.
Feuerbach broke through towards an existential philosophy, he attempted to discover the
“thou”, and not only the object. 8 But the Hegelianism that flipped over into materialism
prevented Feuerbach from revealing person, as an authentic and primary existence. Marx
follows upon Hegel and Feuerbach, and he recognises the primacy of the generic being of
man over his personal being. With Marx it is possible to discover the realism of concept
of the medieval Scholastics. The general, the generic, precedes the partialised, the
individualised, and defines it. Society, and class, is more primary a reality than is man,
than is person. Class is a reality situated in being, and not in thought. The class is not, but
the human person is an abstraction of thought. Class is what then is sort of an universalia
ante rem. It is class, and not man, that thinks and effects judgement and holds value. Man
as person, and not as generic being, is not capable of independent thought and judgement.
Man is a socio-generic being, a function of society. Already predisposed by this is the
totalitarianism of the Communist society and state. In this totalitarianism is in opposition
to man himself, and not to society and state. Only the human person can reflect in itself
the integral and universal being, and society and state are always partialised and cannot
contain the universalised.

Since Marxism is interested exclusively in the general and is not interested in the
individual, the weakest side of Marxism then appears to be its psychology. If Marx
himself not be considered, and from whom it is possible to find interesting psychological
remarks, then the psychological excursions of Marxists usually is exhausted by invective.
Even the psychology of classes is not entirely worked out. The bourgeois type is
altogether not investigated, but is represented as being malevolent, blood-thirsty,
preparing for an imperialistic war. The weakness of psychology of the Marxists is
particularly discomforting, if compared with the works of Zombart, de Man, M. Weber,
Zimmel and others. It is impossible to be concerned by psychology amidst an exclusive
interest for the general and the generic, alongside the interest for the struggle. Instead of
psychology they give moral judgement and sentence. And this is a defect of all the
Marxist teaching about man. Although in Marx himself there is a prophetic element and
he found himself in conflict with the society surrounding him, yet this teaching about
man which emerged from him, negates the prophetic principle, which always signifies the
elevation of the human person over the social collective, and conflict with it in the name
of the realisation of truth, to which an inner voice summons, is the voice of God. A
complete realisation of Marxism in human society mustneeds lead to the annihilation of
the prophetic principle, not only in the religious sphere, but likewise in the sphere of
philosophy, art and social life. The annihilation of propheticism results in a legacy of
ultimate conformism of person in relation to society, of complete adaptability, excluding
the possibility of conflict. This is a very negative side of Marxism, and it results from its
anti-personalist spirit. Marx himself was a person, standing in opposition to the world, yet
the Marxists cannot be likewise. An example of the death of the prophetic spirit was
already demonstrated by the socialisation of Christianity in history. But anti-personalism
is only one side of Marxism, its other side.

The sources of the Marxist critique of Capitalism -- are personalist and humanist.
Marx revolted first of all against the Capitalist regime, because that in it the human
person is crushed, is transformed into a thing. In Capitalist society occurs that, which
Marx called Verdinglichung, the making a thing of man. He saw justly the
dehumanisation, the inhumanity in this society. Both the proletariat and the capitalists are
dehumanised. The working man, deprived of the implements of production, is compelled
to dispose of his labour, as though it were merchandise. By this he is transformed into a
thing needful for production. There occurs for man an alienation from his work activity, it
is thrust out into the world as though objective things, it is projected to the outside. The
results of the work activity of man, of alienation from the total existence of man, are
made by external force, by the oppressing and enslaving of man. In essence, the gap
between mental and physical labour is still a splintering of the whole of human nature
and ought to be surmounted. But this problem was put to us more by L. Tolstoy and N.
Fedorov, than by Marx. The thoughts of Marx in any case, particularly of the young Marx
about alienation and being made into a thing, ought to be recognised as marks of genius.
Herein lies the initial motif of his denunciation of Capitalism and of his antagonism
towards the Capitalist order. 9 This motif is purely human. Marx declares a revolutionary
revolt against the social order, in which occurs the fragmentation of the integral human
person, in which part of it is separated, alienated and transferred into the world of things.
The proletariat is also a man, for whom part of his being is alienated and transferred into
the world of things, into the economy oppressing it. The teaching of Marx about
Verdinglichung, about dehumanisation, was particularly developed by a very intelligent
and interesting, and quite independent among Communist writers, Lukacs. 10 Marx
emphasises, that if socialists attribute an enormous universal historical role to the
proletariat, this is not because they worship him as a divinity, but rather, because that the
proletariat represents an abstraction of everything human, and since his human nature is
alienated from it, he also compels himself to return himself to the fullness of human-ness.
11
And it is especially one, who is deprived of the fullness of human-ness, that ought to
achieve this fullness. This is dialectic thought. For Marx, for the original Marxism it was
a very important thought, that a deprivation occurs, an alienation of man from human
nature occurs, and in its most acute form this occurs for the proletariat. Hence result the
illusions of consciousness. Man undertakes personal activity for an objective worlds of
things, subject to inexorable laws.

In the early Marx is to be sensed the very strong influence of Feuerbach. What
Feuerbach says about religion, Marx extended into all the other areas. In religion
Feuerbach saw alienation of the proper nature of man. Man created God in his own image
and likeness. Belonging to his unique nature presents for man a reality situated outside of
him and over him. The poor man has a rich God, i.e. all the riches of man are alienated
from him and bestown to God. Faith in God as it were proletarises man. When man
becomes rich, God becomes impoverished and vanishes altogether. To return back to man
his riches, he then becomes a totalitarian being, and no part of his nature can any longer
be alienated. Marx placed this idea of Feuerbach at the foundation of his talented critique
of Capitalism and political economy. And for Capitalism this is indisputably more
applicable, than for faith in God. The teaching about the fetishism of goods in Tom I of
“Kapital” is perhaps the most remarkable discovery of Marx. The fetishism of goods in
Capitalist society is also an illusion of consciousness, in the power of which the products
of human work activity are represented by things, by the objective world, in force by
inalterable laws crushing man. Marx navigated this economic world of things, in which
the bourgeios political economy revealed its laws. The economy is not a world of things,
it is not an objective reality of some sort, it is but the activity of man, the labour of man,
the relationship of man to man. And since the economy can be changed, man can take
control of the economy. The riches, created by man, and alienated from him in a world of
things by an objective economy, can be returned to him. Man can become rich, a
totalitarian being, everything can be returned to him, that had been taken away from him.
And this will be accomplished by the activity of the proletariat, i.e. of those people, from
which the most wealth would be alienated. Everything is but the product of human
activity, of human struggle. Economic fate does not exist, we shall conquer it. From the
illusion of consciousness, caused by the false objectivisation of human activity, it can be
set free. And this is the task of the proletariat. Marx defined capital not as a real thing, but
as a social relationship of people to the process of production. This definition was very
shocking to bourgeois economists. By this definition the centre of gravity of economic
life was transferred to human activity and struggle. In the “Theses of Feuerbach” by
Marx is a remarkable place in which he says, that the chief error of the materialists up
until then was in this, that they viewed reality under the form of object, and not as human
activity, not subjectively. 12 Nothing could be more anti-materialistic. This place merely
witnesses, how controversial the materialism of Marx is. That which Marx says here is
far more appropriate for existential philosophy, than for materialism. For materialism
everything is object, a thing, whereas for existential philosophy everything is subject,
activity. In Marx, just as in Feuerbach, there were elements of existential philosophy. The
early Marx obtained his understanding of the exclusive activity of man, as spirit, and not
as thing, from German idealism. But the idea of person was lacking in him.

Economic materialism itself can be understood twofold. First of all, this teaching
produces the impression of a consequent and extreme social determinism. The economy
determines the whole of human life, not only the structure of society, but also the
ideology, all the spiritual culture, and there exists an invariable regularity of the social
process. It was in such a spirit of extreme determinism that both the Marxists and the
critics of Marxism understood Marxism. But this is merely one of the interpretations, one
of the sides of Marxism, and another understanding is possible. That the economy should
define the whole of human life, this is the evil of past times, the slavery of man. The day
will come, when this servile dependence on the economy will cease, and the economy
will depend on man, man will become its master. Marxism announced at the same time
both about the slavery of man and about the possibility of the victory of man. Economic
determinism itself by its sufficiently sad theory is not capable to summon up a
revolutionary enthusiasm. But to an high degree Marxism possesses the capacity to
proclaim the revolutionary will. Young Soviet philosophy moves in a direction of an
indeterminist understanding of Marxism. 13 Marx still lived in a Capitalist society and he
saw, that economics wholly determines human life, economics enslaves the
consciousness of man and evokes an illusion of consciousness. But Russian Communists
live in an era of the proletarians revolution and the world discloses itself to them from
another angle. Marx and Engels spoke about a leap from the kingdom of necessity into a
kingdom of freedom. The Russian Communists sense themselves the accomplishers of
this leap, they already are in the kingdom of freedom. Therefore for them Marxism is
inverted, though they at all costs want to continue to be Marxists. Already it is not
economic being that determines consciousness, but consciousness, the revolutionary,
proletarian consciousness that determines economic being; the economy does not
determine politics, but rather politics determines the economy. Therefore in
philosophising the Russian Communists want to construct a philosophy, based on the
idea of self-actualisation. Into matter is transferred all the qualities of spirit -- freedom,
activity, reason, etc. Such a sort of philosophy is demonstrated as corresponding to the
revolutionary will. Mechanistic materialism is condemned, it does not correspond to the
exaltation of the revolutionary will, it is not a philosophy of the heroic struggle of man.
Man is demonstrated to be free from rule by things, from the objective, from the
determinative-regulated world, yet not as an individual, but rather as collective man. The
individual is not free in relation to the human collective, to the Communist society, and
he attains freedom only in identifying himself with collectivised being. This was so
already not only with Marx, but also with Engels, for whom man is authentically realised
only in commonality, in generic being. Communism is exceptionally dynamic, it affirms
an unheard of activism of man. But this is not an activism of the human person, this is an
activism of society, an activism of the collective. Individual man is completely passive in
regard to the collective, to the Communist society, it discovers active strength only by its
dissolution into generic being. Communism affirms the activism only of human generic
being. This was contained in Feuerbach, and this emerged in Hegel, for the Hegelian
world spirit.

Marxism can be interpreted humanistically, and it is possible to see in it the struggle

against the alienation from man of his human nature, for the restoring of a totalised
existence to him. Marxism can be interpreted on the side of indeterminism , to view in
him a declaration of the liberation of man from the force of the economy, from the
dominion of fate over human life. Marxism exalts the human will, it wants to create a
new man. But in it is also a fanatic side, deeply debasing of man. The Marxist doctrine
about man is situated in a complete dependence on Capitalist industry, on the factory.
The new Communist man is prepared in the factory, he is a manufactured product. The
psychical soul structure of the new man depends on the conditions of life in the factory,
on big industry. The dialectic of Marxism is connected with this. Good is begotten from
evil, which becomes all the more powerful; light is ignited from darkness, which
becomes all the more sombre. The conditions of life of Capitalist industry embitters the
proletariat, dehumanises him, alienates his human nature from him, and makes his
existence possessed by ressentiment, spite, hatred, revenge. Proletarianisation is
dehumanisation, a robbery of the human nature. Least of all in this are the proletariat
guilty. But how to await this progressive dehumanisation, this robbery of human nature,
this terrible constriction of consciousness of the appearance of the new type of man?
Marxism awaits a miraculous dialectical transition of that, which it reckons as evil, into
good, into a better life. But fate weighs upon the proletariat all the same, the fate of
Capitalist industry, of being exploited, oppressed, the alienation from the worker of all
his human nature. The highest type of man would be the result of full alienation of all the
human nature, complete dehumanisation. Suchlike a concept is completely anti-
personalised, it does not acknowledge the self worth of the human person, the depth of its
being. Man for suchlike a concept is a function of the world social process, a function of
the “general”, and the faculty, which would manufacture the new man, is “the cunning of
reason” (Hegel). A quantity of evil transfers into a quantity of good. The activity of
person, its consciousness, its conscience, its creativity, here do not apply. The cunning
reason does everything, which is in “general”. Lukacs recognises the debasing influence
of Capitalism on the class consciousness of workers and he warns about this, he proposes
to struggle against this. 14 This all speaks but about the complexity and the conflicting
condition of Marxism. Marxism gave expression not only to the struggle against the
oppression of man by man, against injustice and slavery, but also reflected with the
materialist spirit the repression obtaining from Capitalist bourgeois societies, the spiritual
decay of these societies.

III.

Neither classical Marxism nor Russian Communism remark on a point here, nor did
Feuerbach note it either. The critique of Marxism humanism is connected with this. An
alienation of human nature occurs. According to Feuerbach and Marx, faith in God and in
the spiritual world is nothing other, than the alienation of the higher nature of man, and
the transfer of it into the transcendental sphere. Human nature in its totality ought to be
restored to man. But how is this restoration to man of the fullness of his nature to occur.
In materialistic Marxism this restoration does not happen. The spiritual nature is not
restored to man, it perishes together with the destruction of the transcendental sphere.
Man remains robbed, he remains a material being, a lump of matter. But a lump of matter
cannot possess human dignity. In a material being there cannot be realisation of the
totality of life. Communism wants to return to the proletariat the means of production
alienated from him, but it does not at all want to return the spiritual element of human
nature alienated from him, spiritual life. There therefore cannot be talk about attainment
of the totality of life, just as there cannot be talk about the authentic dignity of man. The
dignity of man is connected with this, that he is a spiritual being, the image and likeness
of Divine being, that in him is an element independent of the external world, and from
society. The dignity of man and the fullness of his life is connected with this, that man
belongs not only to the kingdom of Caesar, but also to the Kingdom of God. This means,
that man possesses an higher dignity and totality, a value of life, if he is a person. The
idea of person does not exist in Marxism, just as it does not exist in Communism, and
therefore they cannot offer a defense of man. Communism at best affirms the individual,
a socialised individual, and demands for him a totality of life, but it denies the person.
The individual is merely a being, formed by society by way of a drilled discipline. Lenin
said, that after a period of dictatorship, in which there would be no sort of freedom,
people would become accustomed to the new conditions of social life and they would
sense themselves free in the Communist society. 15 This preparation of people by way of
a drill-discipline and habit is contrary to the principle of person, of always presupposing
autonomy. Marx began with the struggle against dehumanisation in Capitalist society.
This dehumanisation it was necessary to oppose by humanisation. But in actuality a
complex dialectical process transpired, in which the humanism crossed over into anti-
humanism. Marxism is one of the crises of humanism, one of the exists from the midst of
the humanistic kingdom, which attempted to affirm man upon himself alone, i.e. it
acknowledged his existing as self sufficient, sufficient unto itself. In materialistic
Communism the process of dehumanisation continues, which Marx denounced in
Capitalist society. Communist industrialism can likewise dehumanise man, just like
Capitalist industrialism, it can transform him into a technical function. Man is not
examined as free spirit, i.e. not as person, but as a function of the social process, as a
material existent, pre-occupied exclusively with the economic and technical, and during
the hours of leisure being entertained by art, summoned forth to embellish the
industrialised life. The anti personalism of Communism is connected not with its
economic system, but with its spirit, with its denial of spirit. This mustneeds be kept sight
of all the time. Personalisation indeed requires a socialisation of economy, but it does not
allow of the socialisation of the spiritual life, which would signify the alienation of the
spiritual life from man, i.e. the deadening of spirit.

The anti-personalism of Marxism is moreover connected with a false attitude

towards time. Marxism and especially its practical application in Communism looks upon
the relationship between present and future, as upon a relationship of means and end. The
present time is a means, in it an immediate end does not exist. And they permit of means
having no sort of semblance with the end -- coercion and tyranny for the realisation of
freedom, hatred and contention for the realisation of brotherhood, etc. The totality of
human life would be realised only in the future, the perhaps remote future. At the present
time man remains robbed, from him everything is alienated, and he himself is alienated
from himself. And while Marxist Communism affirms man and the totality of man in the
future, at the present time it negates man. Man at present is merely a means for the man
of the future, the present generation merely a means for the future generation. Such an
attitude towards time is incompatible with the principle of person, with the recognition of
the self-worth of every human person and its right to realisation of the fullness of its life,
with its self-consciousness, as an end and not as a part, as an end and not as a means.
Regardless of what sort of man or to whatever sort of class he might belong, it is
impossible for him to be converted into simply a means, or to consider him exclusively as
an obstacle. This is a problem of anthropology, and not sociology, though in Marxism
there is however not yet an anthropology.

There are two problems -- the problem of man and the problem of society, and the
primacy, ultimately, ought to appertain to the problem of man. But Marxism affirms the
primacy of the problem of society over the problem of man. Marx was a remarkable
sociologist and made large contributions in this area. But he was not at all an
anthropologist, his anthropology was to the extreme simplistic and out-dated, it was
connected with a rationalistic materialism and naturalistic evolutionism. Man is the
product of nature and society, more concretely -- he is the product of social class, and
there is no sort of independent inner core in man. Anthropology is entirely subordinated
to sociology, is merely an aspect of sociology. Man is considered as the image and
likeness of society, while society also is that higher being, which he reflects. To this is
opposed an anthropology, based not on sociology, but on theology (I here use this word
not in the scholarly sense). Man is not the image and likeness of society, but rather the
image and likeness of God. Therefore in man there is a spiritual principle independent of
society, wherein only is it possible to affirm the dignity of man, as free spirit, active and
creative. Philosophic anthropology first of all teaches about man, as a person, and it is
personalistic. Person cannot be without the spiritual principle, which makes man
independent from the determinism of the external environment, both natural and social.
The spiritual principle is not at all opposed to the human body, to the physical material
condition of man, connecting him with the life of all the natural world. Abstract
spiritualism is powerless to construct a teaching about the integrality of man. The
spiritual principle encompasses also the human body, and the “material” in man, it means
seizing mastery both of “soul” and “body” and the attainment of integrality of the image
of person, of utmost qualification, the entering of all the man into another order of being.
“Body” likewise belongs to the human person and from it there cannot be abstracted the
“spiritual” in man. “Body” is already form, signifying the victory of spirit over formless
matter. The old Cartesian dualism of “soul” and “body”, “spirit” and “matter” is a
completely false philosophy, which it is possible to reckon surmountable. The present-
time dualism is a dualism of “spirit” and “nature”, “freedom” and “necessity”, “person”
and “thing”, which has altogether a different meaning. The “body” of man and even the
“body” of the world can come forth from the kingdom of “nature”, of “necessity”, of
“thing”, and cross over into the kingdom of “spirit”, of “freedom”, of “person”. This
meaning possesses the Christian teaching about the resuscitation of the dead, a
resuscitation in the flesh. The resurrected flesh is not natural matter, subject to
determination, nor is it a thing; it is spiritual flesh, new flesh, but it is not fleshlessness,
not abstract spirit. The teaching about this resurrection is also distinct from the teaching
about the immortality of soul, in that it requires eternal life for all the whole of man, and
not for its abstracted part, not for the soul only. This therefore is a personalist teaching.
The independence of the spiritual principle in man from the dominion of society does not
likewise mean the opposition of the “spiritual” to the “social”, i.e. the abstraction of the
“spiritual” from the “social”, but it means that man ought to define society and be its
master, to realise in full his life also in society, and not the other way around, not to be
defined by society, not to be its slave, its function. The “spiritual” comprises also the
“social”, the social condition of man, and this signifies the attainment of wholeness,
integrality, totality. The end-purpose is not society, the end is man himself, the fullness
and perfection of life, while the perfective organisation of society is itself but the means.
Marxism is anti-personalist in that it posits the end-purpose not in man who is called to
eternal life, but rather in society.

The fundamental error basic to Communist Marxism is with this, that it believes in
the possibility of coercive accomplishment in not only of justice, but also of the
brotherhood of people, in the possibility of coercive organisation not only of society, but
also of community, of the communion of people. Socialism derives from the word
society, Communism however derives from the word communion, the mutual uniting of
people one to another. Socialism is quite distinct from Communism not on the plane of
the social-economic organisation of society, and on this they can agree. But socialism can
be perceived exclusively as the social-economic organisation of society therein limiting
its task to this, whereas Communism inevitably is totalitarian, it presupposes a whole
world-outlook, it wants to create a new man, a new brotherhood of people, its own
relationship to all the whole of life. Communism is not agreeable to this, that it should be
accepted in part, it demands an all-entire acceptance, a conversion to Communism, as
though to a religious faith. The partial, extended but to the social-economic sphere,
recognition of the truth of Communism, and united with a different world-outlook, is also
socialism. By socialism it is necessary to connote the creation of a new classless society,
in which there would be realisation of great social justice and in which there would not be
permitted the exploitation of man by man. The creation of the new man however and the
brotherhood of people is a spiritual and religious task, it presupposes an inner
regeneration of people. Communism does not want to permit this, what actually is
religion. Therefore a Christian can be a socialist, and even, in my conviction, ought to be
a socialist. But it is difficult for him to be a Communist, since he cannot be agreeable to
acceptance of the totalitarian world-outlook of Communism, into which enter in
materialism and atheism. Christian personalism not only ought not to oppose the creation
of a classless society, it ought to direct its creation. The class society, which considers as
but means the vast quantity of human persons and permits the exploitation of the human
person and the negation of the human dignity of workers, is contrary to the principle of
personalism. Personalism ought to desire the socialisation of the economy, it ought to
guarantee each human person the right to work and to a dignified human existence, it
ought to secure for each the possibility to realise the fullness of life. But the socialisation
of the economy is not able of itself to create a new man or a brotherly community of
people, it regulates the community by communication between people on the soil of
justice, but it does not create the community, the communion between people, the
brotherhood of people. A community of people bears a personalist character, it is always
a community of persons, a matter of “I and Thou”, the uniting of the I and Thou into the
We. This is unattainable by an external organisation of society, which seizes upon only
part of the condition of the human person and does not attain to its depths. No sort of
organisation of society is able to create the totality of life. The illusion of this totalisation
obtains in a strange constriction of the life of the person, the impoverishment of its
consciousness, by the strangling in it of the spiritual side of life. The Communist
consciousness is propped up by this illusion. Marxism creates this illusion by a non-
credible teaching about person, about the whole man. A movement, directed towards the
creation of a new classless society, one indisputably more just, can be accompanied by a
degradation of spirituality, by a shrinking of the spiritual nature of man. But it is possible,
that the creation of a classless society, which would be accompanied by the materialistic
illusions of consciousness, would lead to a spiritual renaissance, whereas at present it is
belaboured by the class struggle, its wicked topic of the day. When the classless society
would be created, they would then see, that materialism and atheism, the Dukhobor-like
spirit-denying in Communism belongs to the past, to an epoch of the struggle of classes,
and the new classless man would be set afront the ultimate mystery of being, afront the
final problematics of spirit. Then also would be disclosed in plain view the tragedy of
human life, and that man longs for eternity. Then only would there be attained a totality
of the existence of the person, and they would cease to accept the partial in place of this
totality. In a period aggravated by the social struggle, the social system most
corresponding to Christian socialism, is a system of personalist socialism.

Nikolai Berdyaev

© 1999 by translator Fr. Stephen Janos.

(1935 - 400 - en)

PERSONALIZM I MARKSIZM. Journal “Put’”, juil./sept. 1935, No. 48,

p. 3-19.

(Appeared in English translation under title “Marxism and the Conception of Personality”
in Journal “Christendom”, dec. 1935, No. 2. Above translation
is not a reprint of this.)

1
Vide the interesting book of Denis de Rougemont: “Politique de la personne”. De
Rougemont contrasts Hegel and Marx -- opposite Kierkegaard and Proudhon.
2
Vide concerning the dialectics of Proudhon, in distinction from that of Hegel and Marx,
in G. Gurvitch’s: “L id?e du droit social”.
3
This is the fundamental thought of the remarkable book of Nesmelov, “The Science of
Man” (“Nauka o cheloveke”).
4
Vide Max Scheler: “Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materielle Wertethik”.
5
Vide the remarkable book of Le Senne: “Obstacle et valeur”.
6
Belinsky revolted against the world spirit of Hegel in the name of the living human
person and he anticipated the dialectic of Ivan Karamazov. Vide the book, “The
Socialism of Belinsky”, in which are gathered the remarkable letters to Botkin.
7
Vide L. Feuerbach, “Das Wesen des Christentum”.
8
Vide his “Philosophie der Zukunft”.
9
Vide K. Marx, :“Der Historische Materialismus”. “Die Fruehschriften”. Kroener Verlag
(Into two volumes are gathered the youthful works of Marx). Vide likewise August
Cornu, “K. Marx: L’Homme et l’?uvre. De l’Hegelianisme au materialisme historique”.
10
Georg Lukacs, “Geschichte und Klassen -- Bewusstsein. Studien ueber marxistische
Dialektik”.
11
Vide Tom I, “Der Historische Materialismus”, p. 377.
12
“Der Hauptmangel alles bisherigen Materialismus ist, dass der Gegenstand, die
Wirklichkeit, Sinnlichkeit nur unter der Form des Objekts oder der Anschauung gefasst
wird: nicht aber als sinnlich-menschliche Taetigkeit, Praxiss, nicht subjektiv”. (“The
chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism is, that the matter, the reality, the sense
will have been grasped only under the form of object or concept: but not as sensual
human activity, praxis, nothing subjective”.) -- “Thesen ueber Feuerbach”. -- “Der
historische Materialismus”, II Band. S. 3.
13
Vide my article, “The General Line of Soviet Philosophy and Militant Atheism”. --
“Put’”.
14
Vide his cited book, “Geschichte und Klassen -- Bewusstsein”.
15
Vide V. Lenin, “State and Revolution”. Lenin in his book, “Materialism and Empirico-
Criticism”, defended a quite vulgar materialism and naturalism. His philosophy is much
inferior to the philosophy of A. Bogdanov, and it cannot even be termed socialist, let
alone philosophy, ultimately.

Further on
Christian Pessimism and Optimism
 (Reply to Archpriest S. Chetverikov)
______________________

(1935 - #401)

In answer to the new rejoinder to me by Father Sergii Chetverikov once more it bears
repeating, that to me is nowise characteristic that unenlightened pessimism, which he is
inclined to ascribe to me. My pessimism in any case is active, and not passive. Worldly
evil does not exclude for me faith in God, on the contrary, it the sooner indicates, that the
world is not self-sufficing and that God exists. With this I concluded my first reply. Jesus
Christ for me does not exist merely in the past, He is our eternal contemporary. The deed
of Christ continues upon the earth and will continue until the end of the world. Being not
a theologian, but rather a secular thinker, I speak a language different, from that, which
they employ in the churchly medium, and I recourse to speak specifically about church in
differential a sense of this world. But in my book I by no means subject to doubt the
uninterrupted existence of the Church of Christ in the world and its inner significance
within the historical process. The question involves something quite other, the question
involves an understanding of the Church and its boundaries. Is there a delimitation to the
sphere of the Church, as mystical an organism, in contrast to the visible enclosure of
church and its belonging to this or some other confession? And is everything, that was
historically acknowledged as sacred, does it actually belong to the Church of Christ as
innate to it? The sphere of the Church has to be simultaneously both broadened and
narrowed. For a cleansing of the understanding of the Church it seems to me important to
be aware, that the Church be under consideration not only as the Mystical Body of Christ,
but also as social an institution. As a social institution, acting within history, the Church
becomes subject to being fallible and bears upon itself the limitedness of everything
historical, of all the social aspects, it has served earthly interests, has gotten itself sullied,
has proffered the temporal as the eternal. And in this sense, from its historical aspect, the
Church can expect and demand repentance, the consciousness of its own sins and its
partial betrayal of Christ. To be conscious of its own sins and be penitent is possible only
for the Church in its human aspect, in the person of church hierarchy and church people.
It is needful to repent of betrayal towards God, towards Christ and the Holy Spirit. And
the matter involves not the personal sins of hierarchy and laypeople, but rather churchly
sins, the distortions of Christianity. Christians as hierarchs and Christians simple
laypeople, esteeming themself as church people, are quite culpably to blame in the
godlessness of the modern world and it ill behooves them to assume the posture of
accusers, of preservers of truth. Father Sergii Chetverikov says, that the Pharisees are
situated outside the Church. And yet herein is a very difficult question. Modernly it
would be a mistake to think, that the stigma against the Pharisees, with which the Gospel
is filled, relates only to the remote past, to the teachers of the Jewish people. Phariseeism
is eternal an element, which plays an enormous role in the life of the historical Church,
stifling for Christian theology and Christian morals. The Pharisees are possible, certainly,
in all spheres, there are even the Pharisees of Communism. But the churchly Pharisees
dwell within the visible enclosure of the Church, they are not outcast from the Church,
but rather cast out others from the Church. The Publicans and the sinners ever and anon
have gotten situated outside the visible enclosure of the Church. The self-smugness of
those dwelling within the churchly truth can with great a basis be defined, as Phariseeism.
Being placid, stolid and bereft of tragic a sense, I ascribe as those Christians, who
consider themself bearers and preservers of the fullness of truth and therein its protectors
from the evil of the world. Disquieting to me is the question, does the Church save only
situated formally within its enclosure or does the matter of salvation extend also upon
that visibly situated outside it, i.e. the greater part of the world? It is difficult for me to
understand a spiritual mindset, amidst which oneself and one's own are preserved from
evil, whereas the greater portion of the world, the larger part of mankind are consigned to
perdition. I would think, that the parable about the Prodigal Son can receive far broader
an interpretation. The Prodigal Son wanders the world outside his Father's house. But
suchlike is not only one, who seeks happiness and the pleasures in life, but frequently
also one, who seeks for truth and right. Many have departed the house of the Father,
because they have sought for truth and right, because they could not reconcile themself
with falsehood and injustice, they departed in the name of knowledge or social justice.
Many have left the visible church out of lofty motives of love for what is right, and not
for craven motives. Impertinent in regard to them is the Pharisaeical self-smugness of
people, dwelling in the house of the Father, within the enclosure of the Church, guarding
themself from evil. My question herein is this: whether the Christian Church ought
simply to attract to itself by the old methods people having fallen away from it and
experiencing the torment and anxiety of the world, or rather to give creative a reply to
this torment and anxiety, to give answer to the modernly new questionings and by this
attract thus to itself? Here is the point I wanted to make, by saying, that it is insufficient
to propose to people, experiencing the tragedy of the world, merely to return to the
Church. And this is all based upon the hope, that there is possible a new era in
Christianity. This hope has never vanished in me. Father S. Chetverikov has not turned
his attention on this and therefore has taken me to be an hopeless pessimist.

It seems to me first of all necessary to make a distinction between the factum of

revelation, the factum of a religio-mystical order and the theological and philosophical
interpretation of this factum, as belonging to the order of thought. There has occurred a
splicing of revelation with a theological interpretation, which always includes within it
either this or some other philosophy, albeit subconsciously. The problems of the origin of
evil, of freedom etc., having their source within spiritual experience, in their intellectual
resolutions, relate to the sphere of religious philosophy. To this sphere relates also, what I
tend to say concerning uncreated freedom. The freedom, by which they have attempted to
explain the Sin-Fall and the arising of evil, is always not only a freedom of good, but also
a freedom of evil. And indeed it is impossible to understand freedom, as a choice
between good and evil, since the very distinction between good and evil is already a
result of the Sin-Fall.1 Primordial freedom and the arising of evil -- are penultimate
mysteries and in the sphere of thought and knowledge we have here a matter, which in
philosophy is termed as at the limits of conceptualisation. But whatever the dialectics,
herein is the problem. If God allots freedom to man, then He knows, that He allots man
not only a freedom for good, but also a freedom for evil. It remains completely
inconceivable, why the freedom for good ought to be ascribed to God, whereas the
freedom for evil be ascribed exclusively to man. We are beset with an ungraspable
mystery of the arising of evil from the freedom, bestown by God. Evidently something
ought here to be acknowledged, as possessing a source other, than God, than being, as
determined by God. This also in the final end has to be admitted by Fr. S. Chetverikov.
And I also suggest this, as something bordering upon a mystery, which theology has
attempted to rationalise. It is not possible to ascribe to God foreknowledge of that evil,
which has its source outside of being and outside of the world created by Him. Nowise is
this from matter as in the Greek sense of the word nor is it an evil god as in the sense of
Persian Manichaean dualism. This -- is a dark and irrational principle external to created
being, and upon which are extensible no sort of rational concepts. About this it is
impossible to think, about this it is possible to speak only mythically, only in symbols.
And the Sin-Fall cannot be rationally comprehended, it is a myth, that nowise however
signifies an opposition to reality. The world creation can be interpreted, as a struggle
against non-being, which encounters hindrances within the dark element of non-being.
The freedom of sin and evil, issuing forth from non-being, is unconquerable in the initial
act of the world creation, wrought by God the Father, but it is conquerable by God the
Son, descending down into the dark entrails of non-being, conquerable not by power, but
by sacrificial love. In this is the whole of the mystery of Christianity. Father S.
Chetverikov says, that it is impossible to grant, that evil should be unconquerable for
God. But that traditional teaching, which allows for the existence of an eternal Hell, does
affirm this namely, does affirm the necessity of evil for God. Or the adherents of this
gloomy and hopeless teaching have to say, that an eternal Hell is good, and not evil, since
it would signify a triumph of Divine justice. Thomas Aquinas in essence also asserts this.
The projection of this inhuman teaching into our earthly life also is given to justify a
quite sharp division of the world into a camp of the good and a camp of the evil, into a
world saved and saving itself and of a world of the perishing, which seems to me
something anti-Gospel and a matter for indignation.2 This is a most unreconcilable and
unacceptable form of pessimism, providing some the possibility to sense themself
optimists. But profoundly deeper than what we say, concerning God and concerning His
relationship to the world and to man kataphatically, positively and recoursing to the
rationalism of concepts, lies rather the inexpressible mystery of God, concerning which it
is possible to speak only negatively, apophatically. Therein already obtains no sort of
dualism, no sort of opposition of light and darkness, therein is the pure Divine light,
which is darkly obscured for reason, and therein is impossible already Hell nor is there
possible any sort of pessimism that can be spoken of. This is at the borderline of thinking,
the sphere of mystical contemplation and unity. I fear, that my reply will not satisfy
Father S. Chetverikov, since his approach to the questions raised is first of all pastoral
and pedagogical, whereas my approach is otherwise.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1935

1
Vide concerning this in my book, "O naznachenii cheloveka" [English title: "The
Destiny of Man"].
 2
Vide my book, "O naznachenii cheloveka" [Engl. title: "The Destiny of Man"].

THE PROBLEM OF MAN

(Towards the Construction of a Christian Anthropology)

(1936 - #408)
_____________________________

i“In die Mitte der Welt habe ich Dich gestellt, damit Du frei nach allen Seiten
Umsehen zu halten vermoegest und erspoehest, wo es Dir behabe. Nicht himmlisch, nicht
irdisch, nicht Sterblich und auch nicht unsterblich habe ich Dich geschaffen. Denn Du
selbst nach Deinem Willen und Deiner Ehre dein eigener Werkmeister und Bildner sein
und Dich aus dem Stoffe, der Dir zusagt, formen, so steht es Dir frei, auf die unterste
Stufe der Tierwelt herabzusinken. Doch kannst Du dich auch erheben zu den hoechsten
Sphaeren der Gottheit”.
Pico della Mirandola
ii“Nulle autre religion que la chrйtienne n’a connu que l’homme est la plus excellente
crйature et en mкme temps la plus misйrable”.
Pascal
iii“Nun siehe, Mensch, wie Du bist irdisch und dann auch himmlisch in einer Person
vermischt, und traegest das irdische, und dann auch das himmlische Bild in einer
Person: und dann bist Du aus der girmmigen Quaal und traegest das hoellische Bild an
Dir, welches gruenet in Gottes Zorn aus dem Quell der Ewigkeit”.
Jacob Boehme

I.

The problem of man appears indisputably central for the consciousness of our
epoch. 1 It is aggravated by the terrible danger, which besets man from every side.
Surviving with agony, man wants to know, who he is, from whence he came, whither he
goeth and to what is he destined. In the second half of the XIX Century there were
notable thinkers, who in surviving the agony thus introduced the tragic principle into
European culture and who more than others set the stage for the posings of the problem
of man, -- and these were first of all Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard. There are two
ways of viewing man -- from above and from below, from God and the spiritual world or
from the unconscious cosmic and tellurgic forces, lodged within man. Of those, who
viewed man from below, perhaps the most significant were Marx, Freud and Proust
among the writers of the last era. But an integral anthropology was not created, they
looked at this or that aspect of man, but not the whole man, in his complexity and unity. I
propose to examine the problem of man, as a philosopher, and not as a theologian.
Contemporary thought stands afront the task of creating a philosophic anthropology, as a
basic philosophic discipline. In this current M. Scheler was active and in this the so-
called existential philosophy provides assist. It is interesting to note, that up until now
theology has been quite more attentive to the integral problem of man, than has
philosophy. At any rate, theology has an anthropologic part to it. True, theology has
always brought into its own sphere a very strong philosophic element, but as it were
along a smuggler’s trail and not consciously so. The virtue of theology consisted in this,
that it posed the problem of man in general, in its wholeness, and did not investigate man
only in pieces, dismembering him, as does science. The German Idealism of the
beginning XIX Century, while it mustneeds be acknowledged as one of the most
significant manifestations in the history of human consciousness, did not posit distinctly
the problem of man. This is explainable by its monism. Anthropology coincided with
gnosseology and ontology, man was as it were a function of the world reason and spirit,
which also revealed itself in man. This was inpropitious for the constructing of a teaching
about man. For specific problems of man, Bl. Augustine or Pascal are more interesting,
than Fichte or Hegel. But the problem of man has become particularly urgent and
tortuous for us because that we sense and we feel, in the experience of life and in the
experience of thought, the insufficiency and lack of completeness of the Patristic and
Scholastic anthropology, and likewise of the Humanistic anthropology, issuing forth from
the epoch of the Renaissance. During the epoch of the Renaissance perhaps closest to the
truth were suchlike people as Paracelsus and Pico della Mirandola, who knew about the
creative vocation of man.2 The Renaissance Christian humanism surmounted the
limitations of Patristic-Scholastic anthropology, but it was still connected with religious
bases. In any case, it was closer to the truth, than was the anthropology of Luther and
Calvin, negating man and denying the truth about the good in mankind. At the basis of
the self-consciousness of man there were always two contrary senses -- the sense of
suppression and oppression and that of the rising up of man against this suppression, the
sense of exaltation and power, the capacity to create. And it mustneeds be said, that
Christianity gives justification both to the one and to the other of man’s sensations about
self. On the one hand man is a being sinful and having need for the redemption of his sin,
a being basely fallen, from which they demand humility, but on the other hand, man is a
being created by God in accord with His image and likeness, God became man and by
this raised up human nature, and man was called into a cooperation with God and to
eternal life in God. To this corresponds the twofoldness of human nature and the
possibility to speak about man in terms that are polar opposites. Christianity indisputably
has liberated man from the power of the cosmic forces, from the spirits and demons of
nature, making him subject directly to God. Even the opponents of Christianity are
obliged to acknowledge, that it was a spiritual power, affirming the worthiness and
independence of man, in spite of the great sins of the Christian within history.

When we stand afront the riddle of man, here then is what we ought first of all to
say: man projects himself forth as a rupturing asunder within the natural world and he is
inexplicable by the world of nature. 3 Man is a great marvel, the connection of earth and
heaven, says Pico della Mirandola. 4 Man belongs to the natural world, in him everything
is comprised of the natural world, to the extent of being physical-chemical processes, and
he is dependent upon the lower stages of nature. But in him there is an element going
beyond the natural world. Greek philosophy saw this element in the reason. Aristotle
proposed a definition of man, as a rational animal. Scholasticism adopted the definition
of Greek philosophy. Enlightenment philosophy drew from this its own conclusions and
vulgarised it. But every time, when man has made an act of self-consciousness, he raises
himself up over the natural world. The self-consciousness of man was already a
surmounting of naturalism within the understanding of man, it is always a self-
consciousness of spirit. Man is conscious of himself not only as a natural being, but also
as a spiritual being. There is in man a Promethean principle and it is a sign of his God-
likeness, for it is not demonic, as sometimes they tend to think. But the self-
consciousness of man is twofold, man is conscious of himself as both high and low, as
both free and as the slave of necessity, belonging both to eternity and situated within the
power of the death-bearing stream of time. Pascal with quite especial insight expressed
this twofold aspect of the self-consciousness and self-awareness of man, since he was
more dialectical, than is K. Barth.

Man can be perceived, as an object, as one of the objects in a world of objects. And
then he can be investigated by the anthropological sciences-- by biology, sociology,
psychology. Under suchlike an approach to man it is possible to investigate only this or
some other side of man, but the integrally whole man, in his depths and in his inner
existence, remains elusive. There is another approach to man. Man is conscious of
himself likewise as a subject and foremost of all, as a subject. The mysteries about man
are revealed within the subject, within the inner human existence. In objectivisation, in
the hurling of man out into the objective world the mystery of man is obscured, and he
realises about himself only this, that he is alienated from his inner human existence. Man
does not belong wholly to the objective world, he possesses his own personal world, his
own world outside the world, his own destiny incommensurate with objective nature.
Man, as an integral being, does not belong to the natural hierarchy and cannot be
constituted within it. Man, as subject, is act, he is a striving. In the subject is revealed the
inwardly transpiring creative activity of man. Both alike mistaken is the anthropology
that is optimistic, and the anthropology that is pessimistic. Man is something base and yet
high, he is as nothing and yet great. Human nature is polarised. And if something be
affirmed in man at the one pole, then this is compensated for by the affirmation of the
opposite at the other pole.

The enigma of man posits not only the problem of an anthropologic philosophy, but
also the problem of anthropologism or the anthropocentrism of every philosophy.
Philosophy is anthropocentric, but man himself is not anthropocentric. This is a basic
truth of existential philosophy in my estimation. I define existential philosophy as the
opposite to a philosophy of objectification. 5 Within the existential subject is revealed the
mystery of being. Only within human existence and through human existence is there
possible the cognition of being. The cognition of being is impossible through the object,
through the general concepts, ascribed to objects. This consciousness is the greatest
conquest of philosophy. It might be said paradoxically, that only the subjective is
objectively a matter, whereas the objective is subjectively a matter. God created only
subjects, objects however are created by the subject. Kant expresses this in regard to his
distinction between the thing-in-itself and the appearance, but he uses the poor expression
“thing-in-itself”, which renders itself obscure for experience and knowledge. But
authentically existential is Kant’s “realm of freedom” in contrast to the “realm of nature”,
i.e. objectivisation in my terminology.
 Greek philosophy taught, that being is correlative to the laws of reason. The reason
can know being, in that being corresponds to it, reason has it hidden within itself. But this
is only a partial truth, easily sought out. But there is a truth more profound. Being
corresponds to an integral humanness, being -- is humanised, God -- is humanised. 6 And
only therein is possible the cognition of being, the cognition of God. Without a
correspondence to the human, the cognition of the very depths of being would be
impossible. This is the obverse side of that truth, that man is created in the image and
likeness of God. In the anthropomorphic representations about God this truth is affirmed
often in a crude and unrefined form. Existential philosophy is based upon the humanistic
theory of cognition, which ought to be deepened to the extent of being a theory of
cognition of the theandric, the God-manly. The human-formliness of being and God is
from below an evident truth, which from above reveals itself, as the creation by God of
man in His own image and likeness. Man -- is a microcosm and a microtheos. God is a
microanthropos. The humanness of God is a specific revelation of Christianity, setting it
apart from all other religions. Christianity -- is the religion of God-manhood. L.
Feuerbach has great significance for anthropology, and he was the greatest atheistic
philosopher of Europe. In Feuerbach’s passing over from abstract idealism to
anthropologism there was a great deal of truth. It was necessary to pass over from the
idealism of Hegel to the concrete actuality. Feuerbach was a dialectical moment within
the developement of a concrete existential philosophy. He posited the problem of man at
the centre of philosophy and affirmed the humanness of philosophy. He wanted a
turnaround to the concrete man. He was searching not for the object, but for the “thou”. 7
He taught, that man created God in accord with his own image and likeness, in accord
with the image and likeness of his higher nature. This was the Christian truth turned
inside out. To the end there remained in him a Christian theology, almost mystical.
European thought had to pass through Feuerbach, in order to discover an anthropological
philosophy, which German Idealism was in no condition to reveal. But it cannot be halted
at Feuerbach. The humanness or human-formliness of God is the obverse side of the
Divineness or God-formliness of man. On either side of this is however the God-manly
truth. But it is denied by the Thomist anthropology and by the Barthian anthropology, and
also by the monistic humanist anthropology. Alien to Western Christian thought is the
idea of God-manhood (theoandrism), which was given emphasis by the Russian Christian
thought of the XIX and XX Centuries. The mystery of God-manhood is simultaneously
contrary to both monism and dualism, and in it only can there be rooted the Christian
anthropology. 8

II.

The problem of man can be integrally posited and resolved only in light of the idea
of God-manhood. Even within Christianity it is only with difficulty that the fullness of
the Divine-human truth is accommodated. Naturalistic pondering has readily tended
either towards monism, in which the one nature swallowed up the other, or towards
dualism, under which God and man were completely cut off and separated by an abyss.
The stifling of man, conscious of himself as a being fallen and sinful, can at the same
time assume the form of both monism and dualism. Calvin was able simultaneously to
interpret the limits dualistically and the limits monistically. Humanist anthropology, in
acknowledging man as a self-sufficient being, was a naturalist reaction against the stifling
of man in the traditional Christian consciousness. Man was debased, as a sinful being.
And this has often produced suchlike an impression, that man in general is a degraded
being. Not only from the sinfulness of man, but from the very fact of his creatureliness
they deduced that the self-consciousness of man should be suppressed and debased. And
from this, that man was created by God and does not possess in himself his own
foundation, they made the inference not about the greatness of the creature, but about its
nothingness. Not infrequently is it heard, and the conclusion made, from both Christian
theologians and simple pious people also, that God does not love man and does not want,
that the purely human should be affirmed, He wants instead the abasement of man. And
thus man abases himself, reflecting his own fallenness, and periodically he rises up
against this suppression and abasement in proud self-exaltation. In both cases he loses the
balance and does not attain to an authentic self-consciousness. In the dominant forms of
the Christian consciousness of man, there was acknowledged exclusively a being to be
saved, and not a creative being. But the Christian anthropology always taught, that man is
created in his image and likeness to God. From the Eastern Teachers of the Church, St.
Gregory of Nyssa did the most with anthropology, and he understands man first of all as
in the image and likeness of God. This idea was quite less developed in the West. There
was the anthropology of Bl. Augustine, and from this anthropology primarily and
simultaneously was defined both the Catholic and the Protestant understanding of man, --
almost exclusively this was an anthropology of sin and the saving by grace. From the
teaching about the image of God in man, essentially, there was never made the ultimate
conclusions. There were attempts to reveal within man features of the image and likeness
of God: they discerned these features in the reason and in this they followed upon Greek
philosophy, they revealed within the freedom that which moreover was connected with
Christianity, they revealed in general these features within the spirituality of man. But
never did they reveal the image of God within the creative nature of man, in the likeness
of man to the Creator. This signifies a crossover to a completely different self-
consciousness, the surmounting of the suppression and degradation. In the Scholastic
anthropology, in Thomism, man does not appear as a creator, he is of a second-rate
intellect, insignificant. 9 It is curious, that in the rebirth of Christian Protestant thought in
the XX Century, in the dialectical theology of K. Barth, man is rendered a nullity,
transformed into nothing, between God and man there opens up an abyss and in actual
fact God-manhood becomes incomprehensible. The God-manhood of Christ remains
sundered and for naught. But the God-manhood of Christ bears with it also the truth
about the God-manness of the human person.

Man is a being capable of rising up above himself, and this rising up above himself,
this transcending of himself, this going out beyond the encircling limitations of his own
self, -- is a creative act of man. In creativity especially man surmounts himself, creativity
is not a self-affirmation, but rather a self-overcoming, it is ecstatic. I have already
mentioned, that man as subject is act. M. Scheler likewise defines the human person, as a
concrete unity of acts. 10 But the mistake of M. Scheler was in this, that he regarded
spirit as passive, and life as active. Actually the reverse is true, spirit is active, and life
passive. But the active can only be termed creative act. The very least act of man is
creative and in it is created something not formerly existing in the world. Every live and
warm relationship of man to man is the creativity of new life. And it is particularly in
creativity, that man is in the greatest likeness to the Creator. Every act of love is a
creative act. Non-creative activity is however essentially passive. Man can produce the
impressions of great activity, he can make very active gestures, he can spread round
about him loud motions and together with this all the while be passive, he can find
himself in the grip of the powers and passions possessing him. The creative act is always
the dominion of spirit over nature and over soul and it presupposes freedom. The creative
act cannot be explained from nature, it is explicable but from freedom, it is always
accompanied by freedom, which is not determined by any sort of nature, it is not
determined by any sort of being. Freedom is prior to being, pre-being, it has its source not
in being, but in non-being. 11 Creativity is a creativity from out of freedom, i.e. it includes
in itself nothing of a determinising element, and it introduces also something new. They
sometimes object against the possibility for man to be a creator on this basis, that man is
a being that is sick and divided and impaired by sin. This argument does not have any
strength to it. First of all, it would be completely correct likewise to say, that this sick,
sinful, divided being is incapable not only of creativity, but also of salvation. The
possibility of salvation is grounded in the grace sent to man. But for creativity also grace
is also sent to man, it is given to him as gifts, genius and talent, and he hearkens herein to
the inner calling of God. It might moreover be said, that man creates, especially so,
because he is a being sick, divided, and of itself insufficient. Creativity is similar to the
Platonic Eros, it has its own source not only in wealth and abundance, but also in dearth
and insufficiency. Creativity is one of the ways of the healing of the sick existence of
man. In creativity is surmounted his dividedness. In the creative act man goes out beyond
himself, he ceases to be absorbed by himself and to rend at himself. Man cannot define
himself only in relation to the world and other people. From suchlike, he would not be
able to find in himself the strength to lift himself up over the surrounding world and
would be but its slave. Man ought to define himself first of all in relation to the source of
his excelling, in the relationship to God. Only in turning to God does he find his own
image, raising him up over the surrounding natural world. And then only does he find in
himself the power to be a creator within the world. They might say, that man would be a
creator even then, when he has denied God. This is a question of the makeup of his
consciousness, sometimes very superficial. The capacity of man to raise himself up over
the natural world, and over himself, to be a creator, depends upon facts more deep, than
the human faith in God, than the human acknowledgement of God, -- it is dependent
upon the existence of God. This always it is proper to keep in mind. The fundamental
problem of anthropology is the problem of person, to which also I shall move on to.

III.

If man were only an individual, then he would not raise himself up over the
natural world. 12 The individuum is a naturalistic, and first of all a biological, category.
The individuum is indivisible, an atom. All the things of a relatively organised
arrangement, distinguishing them from the surrounding world, like a pencil, a chair, a
clock, a precious stone, etc, can be termed individuums. The individuum is part of a
genera and is subordinate to the genera. Biologically one proceeds from the loins of
natural life. The individuum is likewise a sociological category and in this capacity one is
subordinate to society, one is part of society, an atom of the social whole. From the
sociological point of view the human person, conceived of as an individuum, is presented
as part of society and is indeed a very small part. The individuum retains its own relative
autonomy, but all the same it dwells within the loins of the genus and society, it is
compelled to consider itself as a part, which though it can revolt against the whole cannot
set itself opposite to it, as an whole in itself. Person signifies something completely other.
Person is of the category of spirit, and not nature, it is not subordinate either to nature or
to society. Person is not at all part of nature or of society, and it cannot be thought of, as a
part in relation to some sort of the whole. From the point of view of existential
philosophy, from the point of view of man, as existential centre, person is not at all part
of society. On the contrary, society is part of the person, merely its social side. Person is
likewise not part of the world, of the cosmos; on the contrary, cosmos is part of the
person. The human person is an essence both social and cosmic, i.e. it possesses a social
and a cosmic side, a social and a cosmic makeup, but therein particularly it is impossible
to think of the human person, as a part in relationship to a social or cosmic whole. Man is
a microcosm. Person is an whole, it cannot be a part. This is a basic definition of person,
though it be impossible to give any one definition of person, for it is possible to give an
whole series of definitions of person from its various sides. The person as whole is not
subordinated to any other whole, it is outside the relationships of genus and individual.
Person ought to be thought of not as subordination to the genus, but in a correlation and
community with other persons, with the world and with God. The person is not at all of
nature and to it there can be ascribed no sort of categories, relating to nature. Person
cannot at all be defined as substance. The understanding of person, as of a substance, is a
naturalisation of person. Person is rooted within the spiritual world, it does not belong to
the natural hierarchy and cannot be jumbled in together with it. It is impossible to think
of the spiritual world, as part of the hierarchical cosmic system. The teachings of Thomas
Aquinas are a clear example of the understanding of the human person, as a step within
hierarchical cosmic system. The human person occupies a middle rung betwixt animals
and angels. But this is a naturalistic understanding. It mustneeds moreover be said, that
Thomism makes a distinction between the person and the individuum. 13 For existential
philosophy, the human person has its own unique extra-natural existence, though in it
there is a natural makeup. Person is contrary to thing, 14 contrary to the world of objects,
it is an active subject, an existential centre. And this is only because the human person is
non-dependent on the realm of Caesar. It possesses an axiological, a valuative character.
To become person is the task of man. To define someone as a person, is a positive
evaluation of a man. The person is not begotten of one’s parents, as is the individuum, it
is created by God and creates itself and it is God’s idea about every person.

Person can be characterised by an entire series of signs, which between them are
connected. Person is the unchanging amidst change. The subject of change remains one
and the same person. For the person it is destructive, if it chills down, becomes stunted in
its developement, does not grow nor become enriched, does not create new life. And
likewise disastrous for it is, if the change in it is a betrayal, if it ceases to be itself, if it
becomes impossible anymore to recognise the human person. This is a theme of Ibsen’s
“Peer Gynt”. Person is an unity of destiny. This is its basic definition. Together with this,
person is unity in multiplicity. It cannot be comprised of parts. It has a complexly
manifold makeup. But the whole in it comes before its parts. The entire spirit-soul-bodily
composition of man presents itself as an unique subject. It is essential for person, that it
presupposes the existence of the supra-personal, that which surpasses it and to which it
raises itself in its realisation. Person is not, if there be no being standing higher than it.
Then there is only the individuum, subordinate to the genus and to society, and then
nature would stand higher than man and he would be but part of it. Person can contain
within itself an universal content and only person possesses this capacity. Nothing
objective can contain universal content, for it is always partialised. There mustneeds be
made a deep-rooted distinction between the universal and the general. The general is an
abstraction and does not have an existence. The universal however is concrete and does
possess existence. Person accommodates within itself not the general, but the universal,
the supra-personal. The general, the abstracted idea, always denotes an intellectual
culture of the idol and idolatry, of making person its own tool-implement and means.
Such things as statism, nationalism, scientism, communism, etc, are always a
transforming of person into a means and a tool. But this is never done by God. For God
the human person is an end, and not a means. The general is an impoverishment, whereas
the universal is an enrichment of the life of the person. The definition of man, as a
rational being, makes of him an implement-tool of the impersonal reason, it is
disadvantageous for person and does not discern its existential centre. Person possesses a
propensity of feelings for suffering and for joy.

Person can be conceived of only as act, it is contrary to passivity, it always signifies a

creative resistance. Act always is creative act, for passivity is not, as has already been
said, a creative act. Act cannot be a mere repetition, it always bears within it something
new. In the act always there is an excelling of freedom, which also bears forth this
something new. Creative act is always connected with the depths of the person. Person is
creativity. And as was already said, on the surface man can produce the impressions of
great activity, he can make very active gestures, very loud motions even within, but in his
depths be passive, he can altogether lose his personness. We often observe this in mass
movements, both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary, in the pogroms, in the
appearances of fanaticism and zealotry. Genuine activity, defining the person, is activity
of spirit. Without inner freedom, activity is rendered into passiveness of spirit, an inner
determinism. Obsession, serving as a medium can produce the impression of activity, but
in it there is no genuine act nor person. Person is resistance, resistance to the determinism
of society and nature, an heroic struggle for self-definition from within. Person possesses
a volitional core, in which every stirring is defined from within, and not from without.
Person is contrary to determinism. 15 Person is pain. The heroic struggle for the
realisation of person is painful. It is possible to flee pain, in having forsaken to be a
person. And man too often does this. To be a person, to be free is not easy, but is difficult
rather, a burden, which man ought to bear. From man ever and again they demand a
renouncing of person, a renouncing of freedom, and for this they promise him an
alleviating of his life. They demand from him, that he subject himself to the determinism
of society and nature. With this is connected the tragedy of life. No man can consider
himself a completed person. Person is not something completed, it has to realise itself,
this is the great task put to man, the task to realise the image and likeness of God, to
accommodate within oneself in the individual form the universal, the plenitude. Person
creates itself throughout the expanse of the whole of human life.

Person is not self-sufficient, it cannot be satisfied with itself. It always presupposes

the existence of other persons, the emergence from oneself to the other. Therein exists the
opposition between person and egocentrism. Egocentrism, the immersion in one’s own
“I” and the beholding of everything exclusively from the point of view of this “I”, the
referring of everything to it, destroys the person. The realisation of person presupposes
the seeing of other persons. Egocentrism however shatters the function of reality in man.
Person presupposes diversity, the setting of a variety of persons, i.e. seeing realities in
their true light. Solipcism, the affirming that nothing exists besides my “I” and that
everything only is my “I”, is a denial of person. Person presupposes sacrifice, but it is
impossible to sacrifice the person. It is possible to sacrifice one’s life and a man
sometimes ought to sacrifice his life, but no one has the right to renounce his own person,
everyone ought to in-sacrifice and through-sacrifice remain to the end a person. To
renounce one’s own person is impossible, since this would signify a renouncing of God’s
idea about man, in effect the non-realising of God’s intent. It is not necessary for person
to be renounced, as an impersonalism might imagine, in regarding the person as a
limitation, 16 but rather there should be renounced the hardened selfness in stirring the
person to unfold itself. In the creative act of man, which is the realisation of person, there
ought to occur a sacrificial pouring off of selfness, in defining a man from other people,
from the world and from God. Man is a being in himself insufficient, dissatisfied but
surmounting himself by his life in the most remarkable acts. Person is forged out in this
creative self-definition. It always presupposes the vocation, the singular and unrepeated
calling of each one. It follows an inner voice, calling it to realise its own task in life. Man
only then is a person, when he follows this inner voice, rather than external influences.
Vocation always bears an individual character. And no one other can decide the question
about the vocation of a given man. Person possesses a vocation, in that it is called to
creativity. Creativity however is always an individual matter. The realisation of person
presupposes ascesis. But it impossible to conceive of ascesis as an end, as something
hostile to the world and to life. Ascesis is but a means, a drilled work-out, a concentration
of inner powers. Person presupposes ascesis in that it is an intensifying and a resistance, a
non-accord to be defined by nature or society. The attainment of an inner self-definition
demands ascesis. But ascesis easily degenerates, it becomes transformed into an end-in-
itself, so as to embitter the heart of man, and make him ill-disposed towards life. And
then it becomes hostile towards man and the person. The needs for ascesis is not in
denying the creativity of man, but for this, to realise this creativity. Person is diverse yet
unified, unrepeatable, original, not the same as others. Person is the exception, and not
the rule. We stand afront a paradoxical combination of opposites: of the personal and the
supra-personal, of the finite and the infinite, of the unchanging and the changing, of
freedom and of fate. Ultimately, there is a fundamental antinomy, connected with the
person. Person ought the more to realise itself and no one can say of themself, that they
are already fully a person. But for person to be able creatively to realise itself, it ought
already to be, it mustneeds be this active subject, which realises itself. This creative act
moreover is connected with the creative act in general. The creative act realises the new,
something not formerly in the world. But it presupposes the creative subject, in which is
given the possibility of self-determination and self-uplifting within creativity of the
formerly non-extant. To be a person is difficult, to be free means to take upon oneself a
burden. The easiest thing of all would be to renounce the person and to renounce
freedom, to live under deteminism, under authority.

IV.

There is within man a sub-conscious elemental basis, connected with cosmic life and
with the earth, a cosmic-tellurgic element. The very passions, connected with the natural-
elemental basis, would seem to be the material, from which also are created the greatest
virtues of the person. The intellectual-moral and rational denying of the natural-elemental
within man leads to the desiccation and stoppage of the wellsprings of life. When
consciousness chokes off and squeezes out the sub-conscious element, there then occurs a
dividing of the human nature and its petrifying and ossification. The path of the
realisation of the human person runs from the sub-conscious through the conscious to the
supra-conscious. Simultaneously impropitious for the person is both the force of the
lower sub-conscious, wherein man is wholly defined by nature, and also the petrifying of
the consciousness, the locking off of consciousness, the closing away for man of the
whole world, limiting his horizon. Consciousness mustneeds be thought of dynamically,
and not statically, it can shrink or it can expand, it can hide away whole worlds or it can
reveal them. There is no absolute nor impassable boundary, separating the conscious
from the sub-conscious and the supra-conscious. That which presents itself to this
median-norm consciousness, with which is connected the commonly-binding and the
measure of law, is but a certain degree of petrification of the consciousness, relative to
certain norms of social life and the sociality of mankind. But an egress from this median-
norm consciousness is possible and with it is connected all the utmost attainments of
man, with it is connected sanctity and genius, contemplation and creativity. Only therein
can man be termed as a being which surmounts itself. And in this egress beyond the
limits of the median-norm consciousness, of being drawn into the social ordinary, in this
egress there is formed and realised the person, before which always there ought to be
realised the perspectives of infinitude and eternity. The importance and the interesting
aspect in man is connected with this opening up in him of the path towards the infinite
and the eternal, with the possibility of breaking through. It is very mistaken a thing to
connect person primarily with the limited, with the finite, with definition obscuring off
the indefineable. The person is diversity, it does not permit of getting dissolved and
mixed away into the impersonal, but it likewise is a stirring within the indefineable and
infinitude. Wherefore only with person is there also a paradoxical conjoining of the finite
and the infinite. Person is a going out from itself, beyond its limits, but not allowing of
dissolution and being mixed away. It opens up, it permits within itself whole worlds and
goes out into them, whilst remaining itself. Person is not a monad with closed-off doors
and windows, as with Leibnitz. But the opened doors and windows never signify a
dissolving away of the person into the surrounding world, never the destruction of the
ontological core of the person. There is therefore within the person a sub-conscious
foundation, there is the conscious and there is the egress to the supra-conscious.
 Of tremendous significance for anthropology is the question about the relationship
within man of the spirit to the soul and the body. It is possible to speak about the triadic
makeup of Man. To present himself as man constituted of soul and body, while bereft of
spirit, -- this is a naturalisation of man. There undoubtedly has been suchlike of the
naturalistic in theological thought, and it is for example characteristic to Thomism. The
spiritual element was as it were alienated from human nature and transferred exclusively
to the transcendental sphere. Man, constituted exclusively of soul and body, is a natural
being. The basis for such a naturalisation of Christian anthropology appears to be in this,
that the spiritual element within man cannot at all be posited alongside and compared
with the soul and body element. Spirit cannot at all be set opposite soul and body, it is a
reality of another order, it is reality in another sense. The soul and body of man belong to
nature, they are realities of the natural world. But spirit is not nature. The opposition of
spirit and nature -- is the fundamental opposition, which namely is of spirit and nature,
and not of spirit and matter, nor of spirit and body. The spiritual element within man
signifies, that man is not only a natural being, but that within him there is a supra-natural
element. Man unites himself with God through the spiritual element, through spiritual
life. Spirit is not in opposition to soul and body and the triumph of spirit does not at all
signify the negation or lessening of soul and body. The soul and body of man, i.e. his
natural being, can be in spirit, brought into the spiritual order, spiritualised. The
attainment of the integrality or wholeness of human existence also signifies, that spirit is
possessed of by soul and body. Quite especially it is, that through the victory of the
spiritual element, through spiritualisation is realised the person within man, there is
realised his integral image. As regards the archaic and very ancient meaning of the word
spirit (pneuma, rouakh), it signified breath and breathing, i.e. it had almost a physical
meaning, and only later was spirit spiritualised. 17 But the comprehension of spirit as a
breathing also signifies, that it is energy, coming into man as it were from an higher
plane, and not from the natural substance of man.

Completely false is that abstract spiritualism, which denies the genuine reality of the
human body and its belonging to the integral image of man. It is impossible to defend this
dualism of soul and body, or of spirit and body, as sometimes they express it, and which
derives from Descartes. This point of view has been abandoned by modern psychology
and is inconsistent with the currents of contemporary philosophy. Man presents himself
as an integrally whole organism, which includes soul and body. The very body of man is
not a mechanism and it cannot be conceived of materialistically. At present there has
occurred a partial return to the Aristotelian teaching about the entelechies (“innate-
ends”). The body belongs inalienably to the person, the image of God in man. The
spiritual principle vivifies both the soul and the body of man. The body of man can
become spiritualised, can become a spiritual body, whilst not ceasing to be a body. The
eternal principle within the body is not in its physical-chemical constitution, but its form.
Without this form there is no integrally whole image of the person. Flesh and blood do
not inherit life eternal, i.e. the materiality of our fallen world does not inherit, but the
spiritising bodily form does inherit. The body of man in this sense is not only one of the
objects of the natural world, it has also an existential meaning, it belongs to an inner,
non-objectivised existence, it belongs to the integrative subject. The realisation of the
form of the body leads to the realisation of person. This means precisely the liberation
from the a rule of body, having subordinated its spirit. We live in an epoch, when man,
and foremost of all his body, seem unsuited for the new technical means, conceived of by
man himself. 18 Man is fragmented. But person is an integral spirit-soul-body being, in
which the soul and the body are subordinated to spirit, spiritised and by this conjoined
with the higher, the supra-personal and supra-human being. Suchlike is the inner
hierarchy of the human being. The shattering or keeling-over of this hierarchy is a
shattering of the integrality of the person and is in this ultimately its destruction. Spirit is
not a nature within man, distinct from the nature of soul and body, but rather an
immanently acting within it gracious power (breath and breathing), the utmost quality of
man. Spirit manifests itself as the genuinely acting and creative in man.

Man cannot define himself only afront life, he ought also to define himself afront
death, he ought to live, knowing, that he will die. Death is a most important fact of
human life, and man cannot worthily live, not having defined his relationship towards
death. Whosoever structures his life having closed his eyes to death, that one loses at
playing the deed of life, even if his life were to be a success. The attainment of the
fullness of life is connected with the victory over death. Modern people are inclined to
see a sign of bravery and strength in the forgetting about death, and to them it seems a
matter of indifference. In actuality the forgetting about death is not bravery and
indifference, but vileness and superficiality. Man ought to surmount the living fear of
death, for the dignity of man demands this. But a profound attitude towards life cannot be
connected with a transcendent terror afront the mystery of death, as having nothing in
common with a living fear. It is vileness to be forgetful about the death of other people,
not only about the death of those close to one, but about the death of every living being.
In this forgetting there is a betrayal, since all are responsible for all and all have a
common fated lot. “The fated lot of the sons of men and the fated lot of living things --
this is the same fated lot: as these die, so also die those”, -- says Ecclesiates. The
obligation in regards to the dead was most acutely sensed by N. Fedorov, who saw the
very essence of Christianity to be in the “common task” of a struggle against death. 19
Without a decision about the question about death, without the victory over death, person
cannot realise itself. And the attitude towards death cannot be twofold. Death is the
greatest extremity of evil, the source of all that is evil, the result of the Fall into sin, in
that every being had been created for eternal life. Christ came first of all to conquer
death, to remove the sting of death. But death in the fallen world has also a positive
sense, since as a negative pathway it serves to witness to the existence of an higher
meaning. Endless life in this world would be bereft of meaning. The positive meaning of
death is in this, that the fullness of life cannot be realised in time, in not only a finite span
of time, but neither in endless time. The fullness of life can be realised only in eternity,
only beyond the limits of time, because in time life remains without meaning, if it has not
received its meaning from eternity. But the egress from time to eternity is a leap across
the abyss. In the fallen world this leap across the abyss is termed death. There is another
egress from time into eternity -- through the depth of the moment, comprising neither a
fragmented part of time nor subject to numeric quantity. But this egress is neither final
nor integral, and constantly again one falls back into time. The realisation of the fullness
of the life of the person presupposes the existence of death. Only a dialectical attitude is
possible towards death. Christ by His death hath trampled down death, and therefore
death has come to have also a positive significance. Death is not only the decomposition
and annihilation of man, but also his ennobling, a sundering from the dominion of the
ordinary. The metaphysical teaching about the natural immortality of the soul, based on
the teaching about the substantiality of the soul, does not resolve the question about
death. This teaching detours past the tragedy of death, the falling-apart and fragmentation
of the integrally whole human being. Man is not an immortal being in consequence of his
natural constitution. Immortality is attained by virtue of the spiritual principle in man and
its connection with God. Immortality is an end-task, the realisation of which presupposes
a spiritual struggle. This is the realisation of the fullness of the life of the person. The
immortal is in regard particularly to the person, and not to the soul as a natural substance.
Christianity teaches not about the immortality of the soul, but about the resurrection of
the integrally whole human being, of the person, of the resurrection of the body of man
also, as belonging to the person. Mere immortality is partialised, it leaves man
fragmented, whereas resurrection is integrally whole. Abstract spiritualism affirms only a
partialised immortality, an immortality of soul. Abstract idealism affirms only the
immortal ideal principles in man, only the ideal values, and not the person. Only the
Christian teaching about resurrection affirms immortality as the eternity of the integral
wholeness of man, of the person. In a certain sense it can be said, that immortality is a
conquest of spiritual creativity, the victory of the spiritual person, endowed with body
and soul, over the natural individuum. The Greeks considered man mortal, whereas the
gods were immortal. Immortality at first was affirmed for heroes, demi-gods, the supra-
human. But immortality always signified, that the Divine principle penetrated into man
and was possessed of by him. Immortality -- is Divine-human. It is impossible to
objectify and render immortality into something natural, it is existential. We ought to get
completely beyond the aspects of pessimism and optimism, and affirm the heroic efforts
of man to realise his person for eternity, irrespective of the successes and defeats in life.
The realisation of person for eternal life has moreover a connection with the problem of
sex and love. Sex is an halfness, a fragmentedness, a non-fullness of the human person,
an anguish of incompleteness. The integrally whole person is bi-sexualised, androgynic.
The metaphysical meaning of love is in the attainment of the integral wholeness of person
for life eternal. And in this is the spiritual victory over the impersonal and death-bearing
process of natural-begetting. 20

V.

The human person can realise itself only in community with other persons, in
communality (Communautй, Gemeinschaft). Person cannot realise the fullness of its life
while locked up within itself. Man is not only a social being and cannot belong entirely to
society, but he is also a social being. Person ought to stand up for its uniqueness, its
independence, its spiritual freedom, to realise its calling of a vocation within society in
particular. It is necessary to make a distinction between communiality (communautй) and
society. Community (communality) is always personalistic, it is always an encounter of
person with person, the “I” with the “thou” in a “we”. 21 In authentic communality there
are no objects, for the person another person is never an object, but is always a “thou”.
Society is an abstraction, it is an objectification, and in it the person vanishes.
Communality however is concrete and existential, it is outside of objectification. In
society there is a conforming oneself into the state, and man enters into the sphere of
objectification, he becomes abstracted from himself, he undergoes as it were an alienation
from his proper nature. About this there was many an interesting thought from the young
Marx. 22 Marx discerns this alienation of human nature in the economics of the Capitalist
order. But in essence this alienation of human nature occurs in every society and state.
Both existentially and humanly, the only community is the “I” with the “thou” in the
“we”. Society, I grant, is in its form the objectification into the state, and it is an
alienation, a falling-away from the existential sphere. Man is transformed into an abstract
being, into one of the objects, set amidst other objects. This poses the question about the
nature of the Church in the existential meaning of the word, i.e. as an authentic
community, of the communality or Sobornost’ of the “I” and the “thou” in the “we”, in a
Divine-human body, in the Body of Christ. The Church is likewise a social institution,
acting within history, and in this sense it is objectivised and is a society. The Church was
transformed into an idol, as is everything in the world. But the Church, in an existential
and non-objectivised sense, is communality (communautй), is Sobornost’. Sobornost’ is
the existential “we”. Sobornost’ rationally is not expressible in concept, is not subject to
objectivisation. The objectivisation of Sobornost’ transforms it into a society, likens it to
a state. Thereupon the person is transformed into an object, as found in the relation of the
state towards its subjects, i.e. the very reverse of the Gospel words: “you know, that the
princes of the nations rule over them and as mighty ones lord it over them, but amidst ye
let it not be such”. Existential communality is communion, a true communism, distinct
from the material communism, which is based upon an admixture of existential
communality with an objectified society, coercively organised into the state. The society
at the foundation of which would be posited personalism, the avowal of the supreme
value of every person and of the existential relationship of person to person, such a
society would be transformed into communality, into communautй, into true
communism. But communality is unattainable by way of the compulsive organisation of
society, and by this way may be created a more just order, but not the brotherhood of
people. Communality, Sobornost’, is a society that is spiritual, which is hidden away for
an externalised and objectivised society. In communality, the “I” with the “thou” in the
“we” imperceptibly passes over into the Kingdom of God. It is not identical with the
Church in the historical and social sense of the word. In the sphere, to which society
belongs, there would most correspond to a Christian anthropological avowal of a system,
that which I would term a personalist socialism. This system presupposes a just
socialisation of the economic order, the surmounting of economic atomism and
individualism, set amidst the acknowledgement of the supreme value of the human
person and its right to the realisation of the fullness of life. But a personalist socialism
itself and of itself does not however create communality, the brotherhood of people, for
this remains a spiritual task. Christian anthropology is embedded in the problem of a
Christian sociology. But the problem of man takes primacy over the problem of society.
Man is not a creation of society in its image and likeness, man is a creation of God in His
image and likeness. Man possesses within himself an element independent of society, he
realises himself within society, but he is not wholly dependent upon it. Sociology ought
to be grounded upon anthropology, and not the reverse.
 The final, the ultimate problem, upon which philosophic and religious anthropology
devolves is the problem of the relationship of man, of the human person to history. This
is an eschatological problem. History is the fated-destiny of man. It is a tragic fate. Man
is not only a social being, but is also an historical being. The point of the fate of history
coincides together with my own human fate. And I cannot throw off from myself the
burden of history. History is a creation of man, he consents to go the way of history. But
together with this, history is indifferent towards man, it pursues as it were not human
aims, and it is interested not by the human, but by the state, by the nation, by civilisation;
it is inspired by power and expansion, and it makes common cause first of all with the
average man, with the masses. The human person is trampled down by history. There
exists a most profound conflict between history and the human person, between the ways
of history and human ways. Man is drawn into history, he becomes subject to its fate and
together with this he finds himself in conflict with it, he opposes to history the value of
person, its inner life and individual destiny. Within the bounds of history this conflict is
irresolvable. History in its religious meaning is movement towards the Kingdom of God.
And this religious meaning is realised only when there is a breaching through of history
by the meta-historical. But it is impossible for there to be situated within history a
continuous Divine-human process, as for example Vl. Solov’ev sought to find, in his
“Lectures on God-manhood”. History is not sacralised, the sacralisation of history is a
false symbolisation, the sacral within history possesses a conditional-symbolic, and not a
real sense. History in a certain sense is a non-succeeding to the Kingdom of God, it is a
prolonging wherein the Kingdom of God is not realised, is not come. The Kingdom of
God comes unperceived, outside the bombast and glitter of history. The transgression of
history in tormenting the concrete man means also, that the Kingdom of God is not
realised and so there is endured the immanent punishment for this non-realisation.
Christian history happened only because that the eschatological expectations of the first
Christians was not realised. The First and the Second Coming of Christ sundered,
between them was formed historical time, which can be prolonged indefinitely. The task
of history is immanently and inwardly unresolved. History does not have a meaning in
itself, it possesses meaning only beyond its limits, in the supra-historical. And therefore
inevitable is the end of history and a judgement over history. But this end and this
judgement occur within history itself. The end is always nigh. There is an inner
apocalypse to history. The apocalypse is not only the revelation of the end of history, but
likewise revelation of an end and judgement within history. Revolutions are such an end
and a judgement. Christian history has never realised true Christian personalism, it has
realised the opposite. Christians were inspired not by sublime preaching, but by the
power and glory of the state and nation, by the military will towards expansion.
Christians justified oppression and injustice, they were inattentive towards the lot of the
earthly concrete man, they did not consider the person to be of utmost value. And
therefore Christian history had to end and have begun instead a non-Christian and anti-
Christian history. And in this there was a great truth from the Christian point of view.
There has been many a revolution within history, which was a judgement over the past,
but all the revolutions were infected with the evil of the past. There has never been a
personalist revolution, a revolution in the name of the human person, of every human
person, in the name of the realisation of the fullness of life for it. And therefore the end of
history is inevitable, the ultimate revolution. Anthropology is likewise the philosophy of
history. The philosophy of history however is inevitably eschatology. The philosophy of
history is not so much a teaching about the meaning of history through progress, as rather
the teaching of the meaning of history through the end. Hegel’s philosophy of history is
completely unacceptable for us, it is impersonal, and it ignores man. And therefore
inevitable was the revolt against Hegel by such people as Kierkegaard, and inevitable was
the revolt against the world spirit for having transformed the concrete man into but its
own means. Christian anthropology ought to be posited not only in the perspective of the
past, i.e. oriented towards Christ Crucified, as up to the present has been done, but also to
the perspective of the future, i.e. oriented towards Christ Coming Again, Risen in power
and glory. But the appearance of Christ Coming is dependent upon the creative deed of
man, it is prepared for by man.

____________________

The insufficiency and defect of humanist anthropology was not at all in that it
emphasised man too much, but rather in that it insufficiently affirmed his finality of end.
Humanism had Christian sources and at the beginning of the modern period there existed
a Christian humanism. But in its ultimate developement, humanism assumed the forms of
affirming the self-sufficiency of man. At the very moment when they proclaim, that there
is nothing higher than man, that for him there is nowhere up to go and that he is sufficient
unto himself, man then begins to take on and be subject to the lower nature. In its furthest
developement, during the XVIII and XIX Centuries, humanism was forced to
acknowledge man as a product of the natural and social mediums. As a being exclusively
natural and social, as a creation of society, man is deprived of inner freedom and
independence, he is defined exclusively from without, and in him there would be no
spiritual principle, which should serve as the source of creativity. The acknowledgement
of the self-emphasis and self-sufficiency of man is a source of the negation of man and
leads invariably to the inner passivity of man. Man can be raised up only by the
awareness, that man is in the image and likeness of God, i.e. is a spiritual being, exalted
over the natural and social world and summoned to transfigure it and be master over it.
The self-affirmation of man leads to the self-destruction of man. Suchlike is the fatal
dialectic of humanism. But we ought not to deny every truth of humanism, as is done by
many a reactionary theological tendency, but the rather to affirm a creative Christian
humanism, an humanism that is theandric, connected with the revelation about God-
manhood.

In what is the meaning of human creativity? This meaning is quite more profound
than the usual justification of cultural and social creativity. The creative act of man
essentially does not demand a justification, and this is an external positing of the
question, for it justifies, and is not justified. 23 The creative act of man, presupposing a
freedom external to being, is in answer to God’s call to man and it is needful for the
Divine life itself, wherein man possesses not only an anthropogonic, but also a theogonic
significance. The ultimate mystery about man, and which he is able to comprehend only
with difficulty, is connected with this, that man and his creative deed have significance
for the Divine life itself, they represent a fulfillment for Divine life. The mystery of
human creativity remains hidden and unrevealed in the Holy Scripture. In the name of
human freedom, God provides man himself the opportunity to uncover the meaning of his
creativity. The idea of self-sufficiency, of the self-unperturbedness (Aseitas) of the
Divine life is exoteric and ultimately it is a false idea, and it is substantially contrary to
the idea of the God-Man and God-manhood. Through the God-Man Christ human nature
is a communicant in the Holy Trinity and in the depths of Divine life. There exists a
from-all-eternity humanness within the Trinity and it signifies also the Divine within
man. The creative act of man therefore is a self-discovery within the fullness of Divine
life. But not every creative act of man is such, for there can also be an evil and diabolic
creativity, but it is always a pseudo-creativity, always oriented towards non-being. The
authentic creativity of man is Christological, though this be not evidently perceived.
Humanism does not comprehend this depth of the problem of creativity, it remains at the
secondary. The Christian consciousness however, bound up with the social everyday
ordinary in life, has remained closed off from the creative mystery of man, it was
oriented exclusively towards the struggle with sin. And thus it has been up to the present.
But the appearance of a new human self-consciousness within Christianity is possible.
Anthropologic investigations ought to prepare for it from various sides. The traditional
Christian anthropology, as also the traditional philosophic anthropology, both the
idealistic and the naturalistic, ought to be surmounted. The teaching about man, as a
creator, is a creative task for modern thought.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1936

© 2000 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1936 - 408 - en)

PROBLEMA CHELOVEKA. (K postroeniiu khristianskoi antropologii). Journal Put’,

Mar./Apr. 1936, No. 50, p. 3-26.

i “In the midst of the world hath I put thee, so that thou might freely look about all sides
of the world, to keep hold of as thou art able and might use, as doth please thee. Neither
heavenly, nor earthly, not mortal and also not immortal hath I created thee. For thou
thyself in accord with thine will and thine honour wilt be thine own creator and fashioner
and from the stuff that thou choose to form be thee free, from the lowest stuff of the
brute-work to sink. But thou canst also lift thyself up to the highest spheres of the
Godhead”.
Pico della Mirandola

ii “From no religion but the Christian is it known, that man is the most excellent
creature and at the same time the most miserable”.
Pascal
iii “Man, see now, how thou be earthly and yet also heavenly in one person put together,
and thou bearest the earthly, and also yet the heavenly image in the selfsame person: and
then art thou from the grimmest agony and bearest an hellish image on thee, which
greeneth in God’s wrath from the agony of Eternity”.
Jacob Boehme

1
Max Scheler in particular emphasised this.
2
Vide the brilliantly written, though also very incomplete history of anthropologic
teachings: Bernhard Groethuysen: “Philosophische Antropologie”.
3
Vide the remarkable essay of Christian anthropology by Nesmelov: “Nauka o
cheloveke” (The Science of Man”).
4
Vide Pico della Mirandola: “Ausgewaehlte Schriften”. 1905.
5
Vide my book: “I and the World of Objects” (trans. note: published in English under
title “Solitude and Society”).
6
I. Kireevsky and A. Khomyakov had a presentiment of this truth, when they based
knowledge upon the integrality and totality of the spiritual powers of man. There is an
affinity to this in the existential philosophy of Heidegger and Jaspers, for whom being is
known within human existence.
7
Vide L. Feuerbach: “Philosophie der Zukunft”.
8
Vide Fr. S. Bulgakov: “Agnets Bozhii” (“The Lamb of God”).
9
This hostility towards the understanding of man as a creator can be met with in the
newest of Catholic books, in Theodore Haecker’s “Was ist der Mensch?”
10
Vide his book: “Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik”.
11
Vide my books, “Philosophy of the Free Spirit” (published in English under title
“Freedom and the Spirit”, and “The Destiny of Man”).
12
Much of my thought about the person and the individual was expressed in my article,
“Personalism and Marxism”, and likewise in my books, “I and the World of Objects”
(published in English under title “Solitude and Society”), and “The Destiny of Man”.
13
Upon this in particular, J. Maritain insists upon.
14
This is a basic thought of Stern, who created a philosophical system of personalism,
which however is not free from naturalism.
 15
Le-Senne in his remarkable book, “Obstacle et Valeur”, opposes existence to
determinism.
16
Thus thinks L. Tolstoy, thus thinks the Indian religious philosophy, E. Hartmann and
many another.
17
Vide Hans Leisegang: “Der Heilige Geist”, 1919.
18
Vide my article “Chelovek i mistika” (“Man and the Mystic”) and the book of Carrel
“L’Homme cet inconnu”. [trans note: this seems to be a misprint in original text for
Berdyaev’s widely circulated 1933 Put’ article “Chelovek i mashina” (“Man and
Machine”) -- included in book “The Bourgeios Mind”, Ch. 2). Enigmatic also is
Berdyaev’s citation of the French title of Alexis Carrel’s book, first published in 1935 in
English under title “Man, the Unknown”; it was not published in French until 1937, the
year after the present Berdyaev article.] .
19
Vide the book of N. Fedorov, “The Philosophy of the Common Task” (“Philosophia
obschego dela”).
20
Vide my books, “The Destiny of Man” and “The Meaning of Creativity” (published in
English under title “The Meaning of the Creative Act”), and also the article by Vl.
Solov’ev, “The Meaning of Love”.
21
Vide my book, “I and the World of Objects” (published in English under title
“Solitude and Society”), and also the book of Martin Buber, “I and Thou” (“Ich und
Du”). [trans. note: “I” and “thou” and “we” are all non-object subject forms, in contrast to
the object-forms of the “me” and “thee” and “ye/you” and “us”. It is an aspect of what in
Hegelian Idealism is termed “bad faith”].
22
Vide K. Marx: “Der historische Materialismus”. Die Fruehschriften.
2 Volumes. See also A. Carnu, “Karl Marx”, and Lukas, “Geschichte und Klassen
Bewustsein”. [In English, vide “The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, by
Karl Marx”].
23
Vide my book, “The Meaning of Creativity. Attempt at a Justification of Man”
(published in English under title “The Meaning of the Creative Act”).

Concerning Authority, Freedom and Humanness

(1936 - #409)

_______________
 I. Reply to V. Lossky

"The Spirit breatheth, whence it will,

and its voice thou dost hear, and thou
know not, from whence it doth come
nor whither it doth go".
from John 3:8.

We, evidently, belong to totally different spiritual worlds from V. Lossky than, I
fear, even to different religions. In vain merely does he think, that he fully understands
my setting, whereas I on my part do not want to understand the declarations of the Fotiev
(Photiev) brotherhood. It is not so difficult to understand the declarations as being very
far-flung and esteeming itself as preeminently traditional. The misunderstandings,
however, of my point of view are already evident from the letter of V. Lossky. How can
he in actual fact have understood my denial of the charism of power in that sense, that I
should deny every manifestation of power, including being editeur of a Journal, though
this power be of very small effect? A journal usually has this or some other drift of ideas
and the editeur essentially has to manifest power of guidance in conformity with this
drift. But my editorial power is roughly the same thing, as my power not to invite myself
home persons of hostile a wont. Suchlike a sort of power is bereft of any sort of
repressiveness. And otherwise I think, that for the defense of freedom sometimes it is
necessary to recourse to force, e.g. for forestalling the victory of Fascism. Letters to the
top church hierarchy concerning the hereticalness of whatever the views in this but
instance would not be denunciatory, if the hierarchs were not to liken themself to "princes
of peoples" and "magnates", i.e. were not to possess a will to domination and rule, were
not a ruling authority, capable of recoursing to repression. But the hierarchs of church
quite readily are wont to liken themself to an army command, since sometimes also they
tend to say: "we are the generals" or "we are the commanders". The question about power
of authority is basic. V. Lossky belongs to a generation, which is fond of power foremost
of all. The world at present worships power and hates freedom. I am transfixed with
contempt and disgust for this slave-like world and tend not to be shocked, that the greater
part of mankind were to become such. And indeed it has always been such. Freedom is
something aristocratic and only but few have loved and defended it. I well enough know,
that our fallen world cannot go round without the grip of power, total powerlessness is
possible only in the Kingdom of God. But the grip of power is nowise sacred a matter, it
is of early an origin and relates to the sphere of sociology, not theology, it belongs to the
lower, and not to the supreme stages of being. It has become totally impossible to employ
quotes from the Apostle Paul, in which he asserts the Divine origin of the rule of
authority and demands, that slaves should submit to their masters, whilst bestowing this
with the character of Divine a revelation. The words of the Ap. Paul are not eternal truths
and quite obviously are connected to the historical setting of the early Christians in the
Roman Empire. That slaves ought to be obedient to their masters, this "truth" is of the
same sort, as the "truth" of the catechesis of metropolitan Philaret concerning the
sacredness of the right for serfdom, which was expunged from the catechesis after the
emancipation of the peasants. And decidedly everything said about the rule of authority
belongs to suchlike "truths", very human, not Divine. V. Lossky and his like-minded sort,
obviously, want not at all to see, that the creaturely limitation and depravity, which they
are so insistent upon, also affects the rule of authority and its bearers. And even moreso it
mustneeds be said, that in addition to the general sinfulness of human nature for the
bearers of the rule of authority there gets added in moreover the "sin of power", of the
"lust for rule". This transpires both within church and within state. Representatives of the
rule of authority tend often to be the most distrustful of people, with them the
consequences of the original sin of self-assertion, pride and the will to run things gets
augmented by their position. All the history of the world teaches this. The rule of
authority is a domination of man over man, inevitably passing over into violence and
coercion. But spirit does not know of being the master, spirit is freedom. The imagining
to oneself of God as the administrator of the world order, as a monarch, as a ruling power
is a distorted human conception about God, clearly taken from the social relationships of
people. To God is not applicable the category of a ruling power, since it is too lowly a
category for God, and it is taken from the lower spheres of social life. God has no sort of
ruling power, He has less power, than a policeman. God is endowed of strength of power,
and not authoritative rule of power. The authoritative rule of power exists only because,
that there is not the strength of power to take hold in the souls of people, to transform and
enlighten them. Evidently, those of the same mind and feeling of heart with V. Lossky
tend to confuse harmony and accordance with the rule of authority. But the most
incomprehensible thing is their connecting of the knowledge of truth with the rule of
authority. What can the knowing of truth have in common with the rule of authority? The
whole of history teaches this, that the rule of authority has but wrought violence upon
knowledge and has but distorted truth. The rule of authority has been guided by socio-
utilitarian motives, by interests supportive of the rule of authority, and not by knowledge
of truth, which always represents a danger for the established orders of the ruling
authority.

V. Lossky demands a submission, an obedience to truth in contrast to the insistance

upon one's own, in his opinion, upon one's own mere truth. Amidst this, evidently, he
accuses Fr. S. Bulgakov of this, that he persists in the defense of his own truth. This is a
very weak spot in the letter. Every genuine philosopher, every erudite man of knowledge
upholds his understanding of truth nowise because, that it is merely his understanding,
but because, that he is convinced of the truthful veracity of this understanding.
Demonstrate to him the falsity of this understanding and he will have done with it. The
obedience to truth for me is an absolute demand of knowledge, but the obedience is to
truth, and not to ruling authority, not to ukaz decrees and injunctions, the obedience is to
God, and not to men, not to human ruling authorities. A man, who would defend his own
understanding of truth, exclusively because it is merely his own, would deserve
banishment not only from church, but also from philosophy, from science, from the right
to cognition. To struggle against a false understanding and application of authority in
church can be in the name of truth, in the name of God. And the whole question is, who
decides it, upon what side is the truth. V. Lossky and all the worshippers of authority are
convinced, that there exists suchlike an infallible tribunal, which should decide, in what is
the truth and on what side it is. But suchlike a tribunal does not exist, about this testifies
the whole of history, suchlike an infallible tribunal Orthodox does not acknowledge, and
even in Catholicism the admitting of suchlike a tribunal represents a vicious circle. There
is no guarantee. In this is the mystery of Christian freedom. Patriarchs, popes,
metropolitans, synods, and councils a thousand times have erred and their judgements
then been overturned. To say however, that an infallible authority resides within the
Church, as a whole, in churchly Sobornost', means also to say, that an infallible tribunal
does not exist and that suchlike is the nature of spirit and spiritual life in distinction to the
life of the state, the lawful realm of Caesar. In the letter of V. Lossky there slips in an
incomprehensible pretension to the infallibility of certain members of the Church. He has
evidently in view the members of the Fotiev brotherhood. But such a sort of pretension
does not merit even a rebuttal. But then too, the defenders of authority have always been
such, always they have defended their own infallibility. The Orthodox Church does not
know such a teaching, which would bestow the possibility of admitting infallibility to
metropolitan Sergii or whatever the metropolitan. Truth, the essential truth namely, and
not this or some other subjective opinion, demands freedom for its revealing and without
freedom it is not disclosed to people. Without freedom there exists merely the useful lie,
useful for the strengthening of this or some other authoritative lie. The teaching of Fr. S.
Bulgakov concerning Sophia and kenosis whether true or mistaken cannot be decided
whether by the ukaz decretals of metropolitan Sergii, in which he invests his disputable
personal theological opinions, or less so even by the letters and declarations of the Fotiev
brotherhood. And Fr. S. Bulgakov not only can, he must fight for his own understanding
of Christian truth, he has the right to repudiate it only in the instance, if he himself, freely
becomes persuaded of the mistakenness of this understanding. No one knows, what the
churchly consciousness will acknowledge over the course of time as true or false, and
perhaps the opinions of contemporary metropolitans or of members of the Fotiev
brotherhood will be acknowledged not only as false, but also heretical. For this there have
been no few examples from history. Churchly judgements frequently were later
acknowledged as totally mistaken.

It is needful, finally, to rise up against that hideous distortion of the idea of

freedom, to which the enemies of freedom avail themself. The modern world evidently
has altogether lost the capacity to understand, what freedom is. Freedom is not pretension
and a demanding by man, freedom is not a lazing about and dissipation in life. Freedom
is not a demand put forth by man to God, but the rather, a demand put forth by God to
man. Freedom is not a right, but rather an obligation. God demands this from man, that he
be freed in spirit, and to Him is nothing needful, not issuing forth from freedom. Man
himself however very readily tends to refuse freedom and is afraid of freedom, he prefers
slavery, reckons it easier a thing. Freedom is not easy, it is terribly difficult, it is a burden,
it is severe. In the modern world people are wont to refuse freedom and instead follow
after an authority, a dictator, since they are afraid of the severity, the harshness, the
burden of freedom. Freedom gives rise to suffering. And those afraid of suffering tend to
renounce freedom and give in to authority and whatever perchance tyranny. It is authority
namely that wants to create an easy life for people, to snatch away the burden, thus
bribing people with this. And people commit an act of betrayal regarding the dignity of
man. It is up to a man namely, in going the path of freedom, not to permit himself
leeway, not to allow himself to become prodigal and recourse merely to an easy and
pleasant life. It is freedom namely that demands a self-surmounting, just like creativity
demands a self-surmounting. Creative freedom is an incessant transcending of man, a
regeneration, an ascent. Life under authority and the rule of power however indulges the
weaknesses of man, it bribes him, it demands not heroism, but instead obedience.
Freedom reflects the maturity of man, and life of the mature however is more difficult,
more severe, more answerably responsible, than the life of children. The refusal of
freedom is a fear of responsibility, is a wish to pass it off from oneself onto others. Only
slaves possess such an understanding of freedom, as a self-indulging, as a giving in to
their own lower nature, as the temptation to do whatever one desires. People, consciously
aware of the dignity and responsibility of man, understand freedom, as a severe imposing
upon oneself of responsibility, as a demand for self-surmounting and ascent, as a consent
to suffering in the name of the supreme dignity of man, as a struggle, which can demand
heroism. Freedom is heroic a matter and therefore they love it not and fear it. All too
often humility and obedience are employed to veil over a low cravenness of character and
cowardice. Freedom is spiritual a matter, it is a disclosing of spirit in man and by this is
set its terrible demanding for man. But people of slave-like instincts never grasp, that
freedom is such, they will always tend to malign freedom. In the modern world with
extraordinary force have awakened herd instincts, and the herd however does not know
freedom. The Christian revelation is not oriented towards the herd, but to rather the
human person, conscious of God-like a dignity. The sin is also in a renouncing of the
dignity of freedom, a submitting to slavery.

I have still several remarks. V. Lossky says, that theologising ought to be apophatic.
But his own theologising namely is nowise apophatic, it is kataphatic in a very bad sense
of this word. V. Lossky as it were does not understand, that the transferring to God and of
the relationship of God to man and the world of categories, taken from the social
relationships of people, from the relationships of governance and the rule of power, is as
such a denial of apophatic God-knowing, a denial of the mystery of Divine life, which
cannot have semblance to the lowlymost human social activity. To ascribe to God
something taken from the life of the state, from the kingdom of Caesar, is also very
contrary to apophatic a method. If for God it be impossible even to say, that He is being,
then even less so is it possible to say, that God is a ruling power of authority, that God is
a monarch and that the relationship of God to man and the world is a relationship of the
power of an authoritative ruler. When monarchy everywhere in the world will have
vanished, then it would lose all real sense of thinking about God, as a monarch. Only in
Divine love and sacrifice is caught a glimpse of the truth concerning God, highly
surpassing everything, which might be imputed to Him from the base social and state
activity. What is shewn is the humanness of God, i.e. that which is most Divine, most
dissimilar to the inhumanness of the human world. God namely is of authentic
humanness, whereas man tends to be frightfully unhuman and wants to impute his own
unhumanness to God. I am very grateful to V. Lossky for his indulging me, as a person
not clergyman, to express whatever the heretical opinions. But I do not presuppose to
avail this indulgence. I presuppose to avail myself of my freedom for this, to seek and to
defend Truth, though in this great quest by no means do I consider myself inerrant. I
cannot refrain from saying, what indignation was evoked in me by the cited words of
Met. Sergii as regards the aberration of Fr. S. Bulgakov. In those words there was
something inhuman, Inquisition-like, not Christian, not Gospel-like, with a total absence
of love and mercy. Met. Sergii, if he actually spoke the cited words, sets the Sabbath
higher than man, i.e. defends the legalistic religion of the Pharisees. But to put the
Sabbath higher than man is a betrayal of the commands of Christ. Christians have often
become suchlike betrayers. Everyone for whom an ortodoks teaching stands higher than
man and his human fate betrays the Gospel commands. The legalism within Christianity
is a distortion of Christianity, a victory of non-Christian principles. There is nothing
higher than the humanness, which likewise is the Divine, the testimony of the God of
love and sacrifice.

II. Reply to Archpriest Sergii Chetverikov

I quite esteem the critical letter to me by Fr. S. Chetverikov, as a voice of churchly

spirituality, which has greater an existential significance, than the voice of official
theologians. But the most recent letter has left in me a grievous impression, since it is in
the forms of questions, which whether or not purposive of literary polemics, essentially
would see me excommunicated from church for wrongful understanding as incriminating
for me in many places in my articles. Fr. S. Chetverikov, obviously, totally fails to
understand the irony of form, to which I recourse in many places within my articles.
When I, for example, say, that to the "shopkeepers" and "consistory officials" are
revealed mysteries of Orthodoxy, closed off and hidden to the intelligentsia sort, this is
what I am wanting to say: here is something demeaning for Orthodoxy. This is a matter
of irony. As regards "arrogantly prideful contempt", Met. Sergii and quite many people of
churchly a consciousness, esteeming themself Orthodox preeminently, speak with
arrogantly prideful a contempt concerning the intelligentsia and they employ the word
"intelligent" in disparaging a sense. This rouses me to indignation and evokes in me
natural a reaction.1 Why about shopkeepers is it impossible to speak with contempt, but
possible about the intelligentsia? I see a very great prideful arrogance and incredible
scornfulness namely in their esteeming themself the humble bearers of an absolute and
ortodoks churchly truth. The prideful arrogance of the humble is one of the temptations
of spiritual clergy life. This nowise relates to Fr. S. Chetverikov himself. But many of the
young chaps of our era have invested upon themself this pretension to be the bearers and
proclaimers of absolute a truth. And upon this basis they employ the word "intelligentsia"
in derogatory a sense. The erudite, seeking truths, are more modest and humble, less self-
asserting, than these "humble" bearers of ortodoks a truth. I do not regard myself a bearer
of absolute ortodoks a truth, whereas the zealous for ortodoxness consider themself such.
It is more modest a thing to say -- "this I say, this be my thought, with the help of which I
attempt to discern and defend truth", than to say -- "this I do not merely say, this rather
through me is speaking the church, the Holy Spirit, God". The theological opinions of the
hierarchs of the Church is not the Existent Truth. The arrogance of hierarchs, opining
themself bearers of the conclusive Truth, is likewise an human, a purely human arrogant
pride. In the world there tend not to be people more arrogant, than people of power. To
accede is needful before Existent Truth, i.e. in the final end to accede to God, but not to
people, abrogating themself identical with Truth. It is impossible to term pridefulness the
indignation against untruth. Fr. S. Chetverikov reproaches me, for speaking unwontedly
harsh about the Russian Church and its hierarchs. He counters me with Dostoevsky. But
Dostoevsky was the one who said, that "the Russian Church is in a state of paralysis".
Dostoevsky wrote "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor", in which were said things far
more acrid and more terrible concerning the principle of authority in religious life, and
which he regarded as the temptation of the Anti-Christ. and this was nowise only
regarding Catholicism, this is about every authority. About the low level of Russian
bishops, which have been transformed into state officials, adorned with ribbons and stars,
about the downfalling of Christian spiritual life into an official Orthodoxy, about the non-
Christian character of all our churchly structure, about a total negation of Sobornost' and
much else -- those among us who wrote the most harshly were Orthodox believers
namely. Suffice it to mention I. Aksakov, whose articles regarding the church question
within churchly consistories can produce impressions of a denial of Russian Orthodoxy.
How the bishops have reacted to the starchestvo institution, the practice of recoursing to
spiritual elders, this is something that Fr. S. Chetverikov, as a specialist on this question,
knows better than me. The upper hierarchy have usually attempted to stifle the spiritual
life, both in Orthodoxy and in Catholicism. When I wrote, that after the censuring of the
whole of Russian religious thought of the XIX and early XX Centuries, there remains a
"vacuous wasteland", I posited this in limited a sense. It is perfectly clear, that I am
speaking about a "vacuous wasteland" in regard to theological and religio-philosophic
thought, and not in regard to religious life in general, which hardly indeed can be
exhausted by thought and knowledge. Spiritual life is possible even without significant
and creative thought. But in the ukaz decretal of Met. Sergii the discussion namely
involves theological thought. Our official episcopal theologising is distinguished by an
extreme scantiness, an absence of all creative thought, in it was not even anything
specifically Orthodox, just the ordinary seminary scholastics. The squalidness of the
official theologising is vividly illustrated by the critique of the teaching concerning
Sophia by Met. Sergii and the Karlovtsi bishops. Fr. S. Chetverikov tends to simplify
somewhat the question concerning the understanding of the mysteries of the Incarnation
and Redemption and concerning Soteriology. He speaks about the spiritual experience,
connected with sin, and salvation, and with the sacrament of the Eucharist, but this
includes within it no sort of a theological teaching that covers these religious experiences.
Fr. S. Chetverikov indeed, is aware, that certain soteriological teachings, having
attempted to make sense of the mystery of the Redemption, tend to include within them
an element demeaning to God. Thus, for example, the juridical theory of making
recompense, in which and not without foundation Met. Antonii sees remnants of Roman
and feudal concepts concerning honour. Fr. S. Chetverikov is oriented chiefly towards the
ascetic holy fathers literature, towards the "Dobrotoliubie". But the Greek Patristic
thought upon the mystery of the Incarnation of God is otherwise, than Met. Sergii and the
exclusively soteriological teachings tend to think. St Athanasius the Great conceives of
the mystery of the Incarnation of God in the sense, that God became man, so that man
might become divinised, deified. Herein also this is not a soteriological understanding. St.
Athanasius posits this in physical (in ancient understanding) a sense, i.e. ontological, and
not moralistic or juridical a sense, i.e. he sees in the Incarnation of God a new stage of the
world-creation. The New Adam is also the new creation. It would be possible to mention
further St Gregory of Nyssa and many others. A purely soteriological teaching views the
appearance of Christ the God-Man instrumentally and by this diminishes the mystery of
the Incarnation of God. Patristics has always been alien to the official Russian theology.
 And now I turn to a chief and most delicate question. I am not convinced, that such
a question can properly be put to a man. The question typically already consists with it
seeking a reply under interrogation. Am I Orthodox, am I in the Russian Church?
Sometimes I myself puzzle over this question, not because, that I inwardly have
entertained thoughts on this, of who I am and where I am, -- since scepticism is foreign to
my nature, but the rather because, that I consider very dubious and disputable the word
application of "Orthodox" and "Russian Church". This is nowise so clear and simple a
matter and cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. If one posit formal a point of
view, then namely I am in the Russian Church, whereas Fr. S. Chetverikov is not in the
Russian, but rather in the Greek Church. But I do not think, that this formal side of the
question will have interested him, and which I too regard as secondary. I shall speak very
candidly, though this even prove inauspicious for me. I have to admit, that I have always
more esteemed the appellation of Christian, than the title of Orthodox. The name
Christian is more closely bound up with the primal-source and purpose of our faith, than
the name Orthodox, which conveys formal a character, corresponding fully to the foreign
word "ortodoks/orthodox"2 , and which can be applied as well to non-Christians. There
can be orthodox Mahometans, orthodox Jews, and even orthodox Marxists, -- this
signifies the confessing of a considered-correct faith-teaching and yet says nothing about
the content of this faith-teaching. Fr. S. Chetverikov, just like many Russian Orthodox
people of moreso conservative a bent, quite esteem the national-historical tradition and
organically they connect it with their own faith. Orthodoxy thus becomes a splicing
together of Christianity with this national-historical tradition. Orthodoxy in this sense is
an historical individualisation of Christianity, just as there exist other historical
individualisations of Christianity. Such an individualisation itself per se is legitimate and
can be to the enrichment of the spiritual life of mankind, but often it has become a
distortion of the purity and universality of Christianity. The individual and the particular
has passed itself off as the universal and all-general, and often Christian truth has gotten
interlaced with pagan superstitions. And thus in Orthodox Muscovite Rus' were many
pagan elements. I have never felt any sort of affinity to this type of the Moscow manner
of Orthodoxy with a state church, with cultic ritualism, with "venerable" Ivan the
Terrible, or with the Domostroi [i.e. "Home-Disposition"], with its hostility to thought
and to knowledge, a tediousness and total absence of freedom, spaciousness and distance.
This world in its sources for me is connected with savagery and the fateful figure of Iosif
Volotsky. Churchly nationalism has been a temptation within Russian Orthodoxy.
Russian Christianity indeed stood higher during the Kievan period, during the period of
the Tatar Mongol Yoke, and during the XIX Century at its spiritual summits. An answer
to the question of Fr. S. Chetverikov for me is difficult, because that in all my being I am
convinced, that Christianity constantly has gotten distorted within history, constantly an
human tradition, connected with human limitedness and slave-like denigration, with
human social interests, often of class, has been passed off as sacred a tradition, wherein
the human has been passed off as being of God.

I always felt and considered myself within the Universal Church, and not
specifically the Russian or Byzantine, and always I hoped, that the Universal Church
would finally, moreso be manifest, than it has been up to the present within history.
Always, from the first days of my awareness of myself as a Christian and up to the
present day, I desired creative reform within the Church, always I believed, that within
Christianity will ensue a new era. Therefore I never have been a conservative Orthodox
and never reverted to that faith, which is reckoned a traditional "Orthodoxy".
Involvement with the history of Christianity has convinced me, that an invariable and
once forever given, pure "Orthodox" churchly teaching is a myth and that it is least pure a
matter, i.e. is quite most dependent upon social influences, upon historical epochs, upon
the cultural level, upon the condition of human awareness. There is the eternal meta-
historical Gospel basis and revelation, there is the eternal image of Christ, there is the
breaking-through of another world into this world, the Gospel good-news announcing
about the Kingdom of God, there is the eternal command of love for God and for
neighbour, there are the sacraments. But the refracting of the revelation within the human
element bears within it the imprint of an historical relativeness, as conditioned by the
human subject. Theological doctrines and moral teachings tend to be dependent upon the
philosophical currents of this or that era, and upon the moral level of people. Christianity
within history is dynamic a process, an interaction, altering that human element, which
assimilates the revelation. Within Christianity there exist various eras and varied
problems are presented. In the Russian religious thought of the XIX and early XX
Centuries obtained possibilities of creative reform in the Church, i.e. of bringing
Christianity into correlation with the consciousness of the man of the XIX and XX
Centuries. Christianity is nowise obligatorily bound up with archaic man, for this would
be demeaning to Christianity. In Russian religious thought there were made efforts
religiously, Christians pondered over the great experience of humanism. In Western
Christianity this task was not so essential a matter, since there the initial Christian
revelation fell upon humanistic a soil, in Russia however it fell upon the soil of age-old
Russian paganism. The Catholic Thomists of our time speak about an integral humanism
and this is considered fully "orthodox" a matter for them. With us, however, the word
humanism is employed in a negative, almost derogatory sense. Not I myself merely, but
also many of us, Russian Christians, have participated in the spiritual renaissance at the
beginning of the century, have esteemed the integrality of the human and believed, that it
is lodged within Christianity and issues forth from Christianity. The zealots of
orthodoxness have always attempted to dissuade us of this and have argued, that the dear
to us integral humanness is connected not with Christianity, but with an impious and
godless humanism. They have attempted to persuade us, that Orthodoxy nowise affirms
the utmost dignity of man and to this end they have recoursed to the ascetic literature.
Bishop Theophan Zatvornik/Hermit thus has become reckoned the greatest authoritative
spiritual representative of the XIX Century and always they have alluded to him, as an
example of authentic a traditional Orthodoxy. In my own time I attentively did read him
and was struck by the low level of his moral consciousness, in that it was oriented not
towards God, but towards people, especially his social morals (I have in view chiefly not
his "Path to Salvation", but rather the "Outlines of Christian Moral Teaching"). St.
Tikhon of Zadonsk, whom I have much read, stands immeasurably higher than Bishop
Zatvornik in this regard, but he undoubtedly was under the influence of the Western
Christian humanism. I was spiritually nourished upon the Russian great literature,
nourished upon its extraordinary humanness, its Christian humanness, principally in L.
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. In the Gospel I imbibed and was nourished with humanness.
The humanisation of personal and social life, the humanisation of nature, the
humanisation of the very representations concerning God is a fundamental process of life
and God also demands this of man. Unallowable, certainly, is a considering of
Christianity as identical with humanism; this is a false humanism, asserting the self-
sufficiency of man, but needful rather it is to derive humanness from the Christian
teaching concerning God-manhood. And yet the moral consciousness of humanism in
regard to human life is quite loftier than the moral consciousness of Theophan Zatvornik,
moreso human and thus in this closer to the Gospel, to the primal wellsprings of
Christianity. People of conservatively "orthodox" a mindset, esteeming themself as
bearers of Orthodox truth, have defended the right to serfdom, to a despotic state, army
and military, the death sentence and flogging, nationalism, total enmity towards other
peoples and anti-Semitism, they have defended the injustice of man, have denied freedom
of conscience and thought, have expelled from the Church all human creativity, have
been cruel and pitiless towards man on the basis, that he is a sinner. Naturally preferable
would be Khomyakov and Vl. Solov'ev, cultivating humanness in themself, than such
teachers of Orthodoxy. Even in the starchestvo, the startsi-elders, which I much respect,
there have been elements not standing at the heights of a Christian humanness. Thus, for
example, the alarming approval by starets Amvrosii of the works of K. Leont'ev, whom I
am fond of because of his tragic fate, for his acuity of thought and about whom I wrote a
book, but whose views cannot be acknowledged as Christian. I am convinced, that
Christianity is revolutionary a matter, and not conservative. With the question about
humanness is connected also the question over the eternal torments of Hell. On this
question I wrote an entire chapter in my book, "The Destiny of Man" ("O naznachenii
cheloveka"), where I attempted to reveal the complex dialectics of the problem of Hell. It
is not so simple a matter to resolve the question by reference to the Gospel text. The
Gospel speaks in the form of symbolic a language and in it Divine truth descends to
human a level, to the language of the era. In the Gospel is employed the expression aeon,
which sooner signifies an age, rather than eternity, can be interpreted as torments,
continuing for an age of ages, i.e. for prolonged a time. A dogma about the eternal
torments of Hell does not exist. It disturbs me, that churchly people, and theologians too
with such satisfaction have accepted the teaching about the eternal torments of Hell and
have so manipulated it. And this is because, that they have accepted inhumanness as an
inseparable part of the official teaching of the Church. And still more on freedom and
truth. I likewise think, that highest of all stands truth, and it is truth namely that I desire to
strive for. But there exists a Christian Truth concerning freedom. Knowledge of the Truth
gives us freedom, and such is one side of the question, but there is also another side --
knowledge of truth demands freedom, without freedom truth is not given us nor has
value. To God, to God namely, and not for man, nothing is of interest or needful without
freedom. Truth and freedom are inseparable and it is impossible to deny freedom in the
name of truth. The German Catholic, Father Lippert, writes concerning the Church: "the
Church is quite moreso, than whatever the visible organisation, it is an actuality, which
first begins beyond the visible manifestation; beyond the visible aspect of pope, bishops,
monasteries, believers and church-buildings begins the initial first true actuality. There
originates first the Church, where the organs of sense do cease. And originates thereof
other-worldly". Thus also thought Khomyakov concerning the Church. These are words I
should want to repeat. And it is namely in this sense that I consider myself Orthodox and
a member of the Church.
 Nikolai Berdyaev.

1936

© 2009 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1936 - 409 - en)

OB AVTORITETE, SVOBODE I CHELOVECHNOSTI. Journal Put', mar.-avr.

1936, no. 50, p. 37-49.

1
I recollect, that in past I tended much to criticise the traditional type of the intelligentsia
and its world view, vide my book, "The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia".
2
Translator note: "orthodox" in its generic sense implies "right-belief" (in Russian
"pravoverie") in contrast to the Russian word for religious Orthodox Christianity (in
Russian "pravoslavie", which implies "right-glory/doxology"). In Greek language the
word "orthodoxia" preserves the New Testament times idiomatic nuance of "right-glory"
(correctly translated in Church Slavonic by Sts Cyril & Methodios), -- in contrast to its
later generic nuance of "right-believers" vs "wrong-believers", i.e. "heretics" far beyond
mere Christian a scope. The term "ortodoks" in Russian tends to assume rather pejorative
a tone, applied to narrow-minded zealots. To distinguish between these two words, this
Berdyaev translator typically renders the word "pravoslavni" as capitalised word
"Orthodox", and the generic "ortodoks" as uncapitalised "orthodox" or "ortodoks".

LEV SHESTOV
(On Occasion of His 70th Year)

(1936 - #410)

We are old friends with L. Shestov and here already for 35 years we have led with him
a dialogue about God, about good and evil, about knowledge. This dialogue often was a
fierce, though also friendly dispute. Dialogue with L. Shestov is difficult, since he is not a
man of dialogue, he is a man of monologue. L. Shestov -- is a man of one idea, a man of
a single theme, of a single all-engulfing idea, and he can only with difficulty engage a
perspective foreign to him, to immerse himself in a different problematics, in order that a
dialogue struggle should ensue on one and the selfsame level. But this trait, an hindrance
to dispute and a narrowing down of consciousness, comprises also an unique strength in
L. Shestov, it makes his thought focused and concentrated. L. Shestov is first of all a
thinker, possessing his own theme, not merely thought out by him, but also profoundly
lived. He is one of the thinkers that is most faithful to himself. He stands outside of all the
currents, the trends, outside the bookish effects. His thought is bound up with a whole
series of great writers and thinkers -- Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, Pascal, Luther,
Kierkegaard, with whom he became acquainted only in his later years, but it was
determined not so much by the books and thoughts of these Shestovian heroes, as rather
by their inner life experience and their tragic fate. L. Shestov is a solitary, he is not at all
social, he wants to resolve his vital theme himself before God and before the mystery of
existence. A transfer of L. Shestov over into the social sphere makes his thought
uninteresting. He likewise is not at all a psychologist, as sometimes he is regarded, it is
not over the psychology of his heroes that he occupies himself, it is upon them, upon their
example in resolving all one and the selfsame theme, to which he has dedicated all his
life. He therefore often inaccurately and incompletely investigates others. Through others
he wants to express himself, such being his method. L. Shestov has profoundly pondered
over this, how that the once occurring might instead be rendered non-occurring.

The theme of L. Shestov is religious, and Biblical. His orientation towards the Bible
is quite clearly evident in the final period of his creativity. L. Shestov seeks for God, in
God he wants to find free life, to be freed from the fetters of necessity, from the laws of
logic and morals, which he makes responsible for the tragic fate of man. What torments
him most of all is the problem of the fall through sin, such as is related in the book of the
Bible. Man plucked the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. L. Shestov
investigates this from the perspective, that knowledge also is the source of the fall
through sin. Reason is the product of sin. Man has lost his freedom, has subjected himself
to necessity and the measure of law, binding not only upon him, but also upon God
Himself. And man has ceased to eat off the fruit of the tree of life, he is cast out from
Paradise. L. Shestov wants to return to Paradise, to authentic life, which is situated on the
other side of the knowledge of good and evil. The influence of Nietzsche was the most
strong perhaps in the life of L. Shestov, it determined in part the very manner of his
writing, although he was not at all a Nietzschean in the customary, banal sense of the
word. And it seems to me, that the Biblical theme in L. Shestov is too very combined
with the theme of Nietzsche, too much expressed in the language of Nietzsche. And a
verymost difficulty for L. Shestov consists in this, that what is a purely religious theme
he instead tends to express and deal with upon the territory of philosophy. This impels
him at the same time to wage a struggle against philosophy, as an hindrance for breaking
through to God. He is always setting in opposition Hellenic philosophy vs the Bible,
Athens and Jerusalem, but he orients himself chiefly in the sphere of Hellenic
philosophy, in the Athenians, whereas his Biblical thoughts and words are comparatively
brief. It sometimes seems, that he puts forth philosophic demands, which can only be put
forth in religious life. But these things are an indicator of the inner turbulence of spirit in
L. Shestov himself. This too contributes in rendering his writings interesting and
remarkable. He is an eloquent writer. This quality sometimes can get in the way of
discerning the vital experience. But in L. Shestov what is always evident is the vital
character of his philosophising. His philosophy belongs to the existential type of
philosophy, although I myself tend to understand existential philosophy somewhat
differently.

It is impossible to deny the significance of the Shestov theme. L. Shestov belongs to

the sort of people, whom God torments, and who with a greatest of exertion seek God. He
never actually reveals his positive faith, although faith for him is the chief thing,
everything even. But the quest of seeking God sometimes stands higher than finding God.
The positive faith of people has become so rationalised, so caught up in concepts, so
subordinated to the generalised, that Shestov's protest against such a faith can have a
liberating significance. More than once it has been shown, that the negation of
philosophy itself is philosophy, that the negation of reason can benefit reason. But this
argument holds only a relative significance. Breaking out beyond the bounds of reason is
possible only in an instance, if a man still makes use of reason. L. Shestov is poorly
understood, and many mistakenly regard him as a sceptic. But L. Shestov merits quite
closer an attention, than what up to now has been granted him. He has done much for the
acquisition of an experiential philosophy, such as has not been revealed by specialist
philosophers, and a philosophy to which insufficient attention has been devoted.
Philosophy is an experiential knowledge and the tragic experience of life possesses an
enormous significance for this knowledge. I am most at odds with L. Shestov in the
appreciation of cognitive knowledge. He likewise is in the service of the act of cognition.
Cognition too possesses a liberating significance. And sometimes it seems, that here in
the dispute with L. Shestov too great a role is played by the question of terminology. And
the most captivating aspect in L. Shestov, is that throughout the extent of his literary
activity he never accommodated himself to anything nor anyone, he never vulgarised his
thought, he never tried to socially conform it. In this is a mark of his nobility. Without
having belonged to any current he nonetheless belongs to the Russian spiritual
renaissance of the early XX Century and he is one of the most unique thinkers of this
epoch. He is quite pervaded with the themes of Russian great literature, which he
passionately loves and profoundly comprehends.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1936

© 2002 by translator Fr. S. Janos. For Ariane.

(1936 - 410 - en)

LEV SHESTOV. PO SLUCHAIU EGO SEMIDESYATILETIYA. Journal Put', mar/apr.

1936, No. 50, p. 50-52.
 LEV SHESTOV AND KIERKEGAARD
(1936 - #419)

The book of L. Shestov about Kierkegaard, 1 beautifully translated into the French
language, -- is perhaps the finest of his books. It was brilliantly written, just like the
greater part of the books of this author. In it his fundamental thought is expressed with
the greatest of concentration, but also with the greatest of clarity, if perchance it be
possible to demand clarity of a thinker, who negates thought and struggles against
knowledge. The formal deficiency of the book is in the fatiguingly frequent repetition
time and again, of certain of those phrases, expressing evidently great importance for the
author. I consider L. Shestov a very remarkable and original thinker and I quite esteem
his problematics, I much sympathise with his struggle against the force of the “general”
over human life, the struggle against necessity, and his thirst for freedom. But only his
negative philosophy is rich and diffuse, his positive philosophy is indigent and short, and
it could perhaps fit on half a page. It cannot be otherwise, -- that which he is about cannot
be expressed in thought and word, since this is pure apophatics. But together with this he
remains in the realm of thinking and reason. In the book on Kierkegaard I even come
upon a cosmogonic end, though but briefly expressed. This is nonetheless a construct of
mind, though at the basis of this construct lies the tragic experience of the life of L.
Shestov himself and his beloved heroes. And as might be expected, as regards the book
of L. Shestov it is impossible to learn of Kierkegaard himself, and one learns only of the
author of the book. Kierkegaard was however a fine subject for the unraveling of themes,
which torment him himself and to which he devoted all his creativity. Though there is
much of Kierkegaard that he does not take note of. But Kierkegaard is especially close to
him, he is shaken by his fate, and the encounter with him was an important event for him.
L. Shestov -- is an existential philosopher. But existential philosophy, i.e. a philosophy
which is oriented towards the subject and not towards the object, cannot be only a
narrative about the survivings of human misfortune. A survived tragedy can be a source
of knowledge, but the survived tragedy itself is not yet philosophy. Philosophic
knowledge is an act of cogitation, effected by the thinker in regard to the survived
tragedy. L. Shestov negates this cogitative act as being inspired by the serpent of old. But
with inconsistency he does it all the same, and this saves him as a thinker. The
difficulties, those which stand before L. Shestov, when he wants to express his theme, are
so great, that they could make for his position as a philosopher of the hopeless. He,
perhaps, might be reduced to silence. But all this resolves itself in the books of L.
Shestov, and it receives even the illusion of clarity. This can be explained by the literary
talent of L. Shestov, by the irony, to which he constantly resorts in his exposition, and by
the suborned lyricism, by the extraordinary sensitivity, all which impart an especial
humanness to his writings. Only in an emotive language is that which he says
understandable, in a language indeed intellectual, which for L. Shestov very
characteristically moreover is conveyed with difficulty. It becomes impossible to part
with the impression, that L. Shestov fights first of all against himself, against a peculiar
rationalism, against peculiar rationalistic hindrances to faith. And he wants to persuade
us, that all these rationalistic obstacles -- that all of them are situated within the force of
the wicked reason. This can prove convincing since it is a matter almost exclusively of
philosophers, with people’s knowledge, and it is with them that he contends, without
resort to the witnesses of faith. In essence, Shestov’s thought is very despotic. Despotism
of thought is always the result of a bi-polar action of the world and direction of thought.
One polarity of this action is a dark kingdom -- Greek philosophy, Socrates, Aristotle,
Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, knowledge, reason and morals, general obligatory truths, necessity.
The other polarity of action is a bright kingdom -- the Bible, or more exactly certain
aspects of the Bible, Tertulian, Pascal, Luther, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, faith,
the unbounded possibilities of “beyond good and evil”, life, freedom. For the dark realm
of reason, morals and knowledge, there is essentially no salvation, there is none for
almost all the philosophers, for the greatest of them. When I finished the last book of
Shestov, a very tumultuous book, I had the painful impression, that it was all set together
based on conditions, and that the author was not convinced of the actual existence of this
set of conditions. If God is, then there exist unbounded possibilities, and then that which
once was -- whether the poisoning of Socrates, the progressive crippling up of Nietzsche,
the losing of his bride for Kierkegaard -- all can be undone. Thereupon is made possible a
victory over necessity, of the crippling up of life for us, and there is made possible a free
and paradaisical life. But the thought of L. Shestov bears a particularly tragic character in
that God, for Whom all is possible, Who is above all sorts of necessity and all
universally-binding truths, remains conditionally hypothetical. God is postulated for a
salvation from the force of reason and morals, similar to how Kant postulated morality
for salvation. L. Shestov is strong with his negation, but not with his affirmation, with his
anguish for faith, but not with his faith. His books give sooner the impression, that the
ultimate world belongs to reason, to universally-binding truths, morals, necessity, and the
impossibility of deliverance for Nietzsche and for Kierkegaard.

The chief thing for L. Shestov is faith. In this he was close to Luther. The opposite to
sin is not virtue, but faith. Faith alone can save, faith alone in God, for Whom everything
is possible, Who is not bound by any sort of necessity, Who could return to Job his oxen
and his children, to Abraham his Isaac, to Kierkegaard his Regina Olsen and suchlike.
Outside of faith there is no salvation from the force of necessity. But how is faith possible
and of whom is it possible? Reading L. Shestov gives the impression, that faith is
impossible and that no one has it, with the exception of Abraham alone, who held the
knife over his beloved son Isaac. L. Shestov does not believe, that so-called “believers”
have faith. Even the great saints do not have it. No one that moves mountains. Faith does
not depend on man, it is sent by God. To nearly no one does God give faith, for He did
not give it to Kierkegaard, nor did He give it to any of Shestov’s tragic heroes. The sole
pathway appears hidden. L. Shestov composed for himself a maximalist concept about
faith, under which it is rendered impossible and that no one can have it. But this
conception of faith does not correspond with all the greatest witnesses of faith in the
history of the human spirit, with the witness of the Apostle Paul and of all the apostles
and saints, and prophets and religious reformers. For L. Shestov faith is the end of the
human tragedy, the end of the struggle, the end to the sufferings, the ensuing of boundless
possibilities and paradaisical life. This is an erroneous conception of faith, and for many
it appears as a pretense, a justification of unbelief. Faith is not an end, it is not
paradaisical life, but rather it is the beginning of the arduous path, the beginning of heroic
struggle, that L. Shestov does not want. The believer perseveres to take upon himself the
burden of the world of necessity, he shares in the burden of unbelievers. The believer
proceeds on through tribulations and doubts and divisions. Human nature remains active,
not passive. L. Shestov concocted his own understanding of faith, since he connected the
bliss of paradise with the passivity of human nature. The activity of human nature for him
is reason, knowledge, morals. And freedom for him is received only from God, man has
no part in it, he merely uses and delights in freedom, he contemplates the morning star,
and in love unites himself with a princess. Nothing so appeals to L. Shestov, as heroism.
The passivity of human nature in regard to God is always another form of quietism. L.
Shestov appeals to the Bible and to revelation, so as to liberate man from the domination
of Socrates and Greek philosophy, from the domination of reason and morals, from the
domination of universally-binding truths. But from the Bible he appropriates only that,
which he needs for his theme. He is not a Biblical man, he is a man of the XIX and
beginning XX Centuries. Nietzsche is closer for him than the Bible and remains a chief
influence on his life. He makes a Biblical transcribing of the Nietzschean theme, of the
Nietzschean struggle with Socrates, with reason and morals in the name of “life”. The
Bible for him almost exhausts itself with speaking about the Fall into sin, about Abraham
and Job. He as it were forgets, that the chief and central figure of Biblical revelation is
not Abraham, but rather that one with speaks face to face with God, -- Moses. But the
Biblical revelation of God through Moses, which comprises the foundation of Judaism
and Christianity in the Old Testament, is a revelation of law, of the Ten Commandments.
It is quite clear, that Moses was not useful for L. Shestov, he was not his man, and he
haplessly puts him into the lineage of Socrates. And with all this, what could be more
Biblical, than Moses? Abraham, holding the knife over his beloved son, is for both
Kierkegaard and for L. Shestov is only a literary figure, illustrating their theme about
faith as the sphere of unlimited possibilities. The image of Abraham is disturbing, but in
it is revealed the yet primordial belief about the propitiation of Divinity through human
sacrificial offerings.

In what is the fundamental idea of L. Shestov, if it be permissible to speak about ideas

in regard to him? This idea is expressed in his latest book with great talent and brilliance,
and with a great power of concentration. L. Shestov relates his myth about the world-
creation and the Fall into sin. This is a whole concise cosmology. God is absolutely free,
by no sort of truths is He bound, and for Him everything is possible, and He created the
world and man. And everything was “exceedingly good”. The genesis was from God, the
worldly and the human life from God was beautiful. Life was paradaisical. Life in
paradise was nourished off the tree of life. But herewith from the abyss of non-being
came the serpent, and the voice of the serpent seduced man. He tempted man with the
fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Knowledge dominates the world, and
paradise is ended, and fear and suffering begin. The abyss of non-being (nйant) through
the temptation of knowledge transforms itself necessity (the eternal truths of knowledge),
necessity transforms itself into reason and morals, reason and morals transform
themselves into eternity. L. Shestov is hostile to eternity, he sees in it the ultimate
transformation of non-being: eternity is from the serpent, and not from God. He is hostile
likewise to spirit and the mystical. Eternity, spirit, the mystical, the other world -- this is
all but the fictitious fabrications of reason in consequence of the loss of the sole reality of
the earthly life, wrought by God. L. Shestov is hostile to eternity because, under eternity
he understands it to be the eternal truths of reason, the eternal laws of nature, i.e.
necessity. And indeed how can there be with this eternal life the concretely living
existences, the eternal life of Job, Socrates, the hapless Nietzsche and the hapless
Kierkegaard, and L. Shestov himself? Hostility towards this eternity would in effect be an
acknowledgement of death as having the last word on life. But what sort of paradaisical
life can there be afront the gravity of death? So also is the hostility of L. Shestov towards
spirit. Under spirit, he understands it as reason, and the necessity begotten by it. But
under spirit it is possible to conceive of freedom, the liberation from the realm of
necessity, and this is an uniquely eternal concept. However strange it might seem, but in
L. Shestov there can be discerned a very strong element of Manichaeism. For him the
world is situated in the interminable power of the serpent. The world is governed by
necessity, which is a transformation of non-being, i.e. the world is governed by the
serpent, it is governed through reason with its immutable truth and good. Nowhere and in
nothing is there any evidence, that God has acted within the world. God acts exclusively
through faith, but as we have already seen, no one at present has faith. It is impossible to
find freedom anywhere. The highest point of worldly life -- is the torments and spasms of
man, the despair of suchlike people as Kierkegaard. No sort of pathway opens up for L.
Shestov. Every pathway belongs to the realm of the everyday ordinary. It is interesting to
fathom, what L. Shestov thinks of, when he speaks about God. In his book on
Kierkegaard this is almost completely made clear. God is unbounded possibilities, and
these limitless possibilities are necessary for the fulfilling of human desires, for this, -- to
make the great misfortunes that are lived through by man, non-existent. God is the
restoring of his beloved son Isaac to Abraham, of oxen and children to Job, the restoring
to health of Nietzsche, Regina Olsen to Kierkegaard; God is in that of the poor youth
dreaming about a princess should receive the princess, and in order that the underground
man can “drink tea” (“nor be there peace either for me to drink tea”). But why is L.
Shestov so convinced, that God as absolutely free (the freedom of God is almost
identified with arbitrariness), should want to return Regina Olsen to Kierkegaard and to
give the princess to the poor dreamy youth? But can it not be that God not at all desired
this, and rather He preferred, that Kierkegaard be bereft of bride, and the poor youth not
receive his princess? In this instance, in vain would be the hopes of Kierkegaard and L.
Shestov on God. Amidst the number of the boundless possibilities of God there enters in
also the possibility, that God does not desire, that Kierkegaard should get Regina Olsen,
or the poor youth the princess. It is very possible, that it is not the serpent, not necessity,
not reason and knowledge, not Hegel, but rather God which deprived Regina Olsen of
Kierkegaard. I even venture to think, that this perhaps may not have been such a bad
thing. Regina Olsen in all probability was a very typical petty bourgeois type and amidst
happy family life Kierkegaard might perhaps have produced virtuous pastoral sermons
and written perhaps banal theological books, but we would not have had his works of
genius, and L. Shestov would not have had opportunity to write his fine book about him.
“Life”, so very enthralling an enemy of reason and knowledge, of spirit and eternity, is
not all entirely a beautiful thing. God is not the fulfillment of human desires. God
actually is something quite other. Something indeed but that the question about desires is
an addendum to. There is a certain poor youth who dreams about a princess. L. Shestov
repeats this a thousand times in his book and on this he constructs his knowledge of God.
But of course there is another poor youth. And he dreams about the knowledge of the
mysteries of being or about scientific discoveries of the mysteries of nature. It would
seem, that God cannot grant the desires of this other youth, whose desires can only be
satisfied by the serpent, since knowledge would be derived from the serpent, and not
from God. L. Shestov does not take notice, that by this he terribly limits the freedom of
God and His possibilities. All this is grounded in an idealisation and apotheosis of life,
and in this regard he is in the lineage of Lebensphilosophie. Klages, without having the
significance of Shestov’s religious problematics, likewise wants exclusively a nourishing
off the tree of life, and he sees spirit and reason as parasites, sucking out the sap of life.
But life is everything. Why is life not knowledge? Knowledge is likewise part of life, it is
an event within being. And the youth, dreaming about knowledge, is no wise worse, than
the youth dreaming about a princess.

In the book about Kierkegaard, perhaps the first such for L. Shestov, are some
unfriendly pages about Christianity. Christianity is given to fall under the lineage of
Socrates, of Stoicism, of Idealism, i.e. into the lineage of the serpent, into the lineage of
non-being transformed into reason and morals, into eternity. The mystery of Redemption
is completely foreign to L. Shestov, and for him redemption is a fabrication of reason. He
forgets, that the Cross was for the Jews a scandaled-temptation, and for the Hellenes a
folly. In contrast to L. Shestov, it would be far easier for reason to accept God Almighty,
for Whom everything be possible, but it is very difficult to accept God Suffering and
Crucified. For L. Shestov nothing is said of the Divine sacrifice of love, the Divine
crucifixion, and for him this would seem a limiting of the freedom and almightiness of
God. This is in consequence of his Judaism. For L. Shestov, the humanly-incarnated God
is inadmissible. For God to become Man -- to him this seems admissible for reason and to
be fabricated by reason, while at the same time for reason this is an unfathomable
mystery and paradox. Permit me here to be a struggler against reason, but I espy within
him the rationalist. How strange this be nonetheless, but L. Shestov sees in religion,
particularly the Christian religion, “the opium of the people”, masking as reason and
morals, encouraging the everyday prosaic through promises of a fabricated eternity, of a
fabricated spiritual world. Most unacceptable is how L. Shestov decides the question
concerning death, which always has disquieted him. Is there an ultimate existence of the
concrete being. Does L. Shestov deny merely the eternal truths of reason and morality, or
does he likewise deny eternal life? This is a fundamental question. What is to become of
the endless strivings of man? On what is it possible to hope? On this, that God is limitless
possibilities? But indeed Kierkegaard died, not receiving Regina Olsen, Nietzsche died,
without being healed of his terrible illness and not tasting at present the fruits of the tree
of life, Socrates was poisoned, and beyond that nothing. We all die without the fulfilling
of our endless desires, not tasting at full the fruits of the tree of life. No one in paradise
falls out down upon the earth, at this time. What sort of sense is there in Shestov’s
appeals to God, for Whom everything be possible, Who can deliver Kierkegaard from his
torments, if God cannot grant resurrection to eternal life? Shestov’s struggle against
reason and ethics proves itself just as powerless before the tragic destiny of man, as do
reason and ethics. I repeat, I am often together with L. Shestov in his problematics, in his
revolt against the force of the “general”, fabricated by reason and ethics over human
destiny. But L. Shestov preaches the passivity of man. Man for him is sinful, but not
culpable because he is not responsible, because he is passive. God alone is active, but
God discloses nothing about Himself in the world. Knowledge however is one of the
manifestations of human activity. Reason can be an enslaver of man, but it can also be the
servant of man. It is not from knowledge that there occurred the adversity of man and the
world, it is altogether unlikely, that it happened from knowledge. Knowledge comes to
know of necessity, but it does not create it. Necessity is begotten of objectivisation. The
chief philosophical error of L. Shestov that I see is in this, that he does not make
distinctions in the forms and levels of knowledge. He likewise believes in the universality
and homogeneity of reason, and so also are his rationalistic defenses, though at a point
when reason has been altered, differentiated, and reflects the qualities of the condition of
man and the relationship of man to man.

NIKOLAI BERDYAEV.

1936

LEV SHESTOV I KIRKEGAARD. In Journal “Sovremennye zapiski”, 1936, No.62,

p. 376-382.

Reprinted by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection: “Tipy religioznoi

mysli v Rossii”, (Tom III), ctr. 398-406.

1
Leon Chestov. “Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle”. Librarie J. Vrin. Paris.
1936.

Concerning Fanaticism, Orthodoxy and Truth

(1937 - #430)

[translator note: Russian useage has two different words both which translate as
“orthodoxy”. The word “ortodoksiya”, which we render throughout in uncapitalised form
as “orthodox”, bears a generic and pejorative sense of a narrow-minded adherence to a
“right-belief” of whatever the teaching, be it an orthodox Marxism or an orthodox
atheism even. In contrast, the Russian word “pravoslavniya” (“right-glory” or “right-
doxology”) refers to Orthodox Christianity, and is capitalised throughout as “Orthodoxy”,
which as Berdyaev observes, properly precludes fanaticism].

The theme of fanaticism, connected with an adherence to orthodox teachings, is very

relevant. History is rhythmic, in it the shifting of psychical reactions plays an enormous
role. And we are entering a cycle, when there is prevalent the inclination towards an
obligatory orthodoxy for all, towards an arrangement, stifling for freedom. This is a
reaction against the XIX Century, against its love of freedom and humanity. The mass
psychology of intolerance and fanaticism is being perfected. Amidst this, the sense of
balance is shattered and man allows himself a maniacal obsession. The individual man is
rendered a sacrifice of collective psychoses. There then transpires a strange effect of
consciousness, the smothering and erasing of many essential human features, within all
the complex of the emotional and intellectual life of man. Unity is attained not through
fullness, but through ever greater and greater an impairment. Intolerance has an affinity
with zeal. Zealotry is a psychosis, amidst which there is lost the sense of realities. The
inner emotional life becomes distorted and fixates itself upon a single point, but that
point, upon which the fixation occurs, is perceived altogether in an unreal way.

The man, in whom intolerance reaches the point of flaming up, of fanaticism, is like a
jealous person, and he sees everywhere only one thing, only the treason, the betrayal,
only the breaking of fidelity to this single thing, he becomes suspicious and mistrustful,
he discovers everywhere conspiracies against his beloved idea, against the object of his
faith and love. The man fanatically intolerant, just like the jealous person, is very difficult
to bring back to reality. The fanatic, obsessed with a maniac pursuit, sees all around the
snares of the devil, but he is always the one who himself persecutes, torments and
executes. The man, in the grip of a persecution mania, and who senses enemies all around
him, -- is a very dangerous being, he always becomes the persecutor, he it is that
persecutes, rather than that they are persecuting him.

Fanatics, acting with the greatest of malice, coercion and cruelty, always sense
themselves surrounded by dangers, and always they are beset by fear. A man always
reacts with force out of fear. The emotion of fear is deeply connected with fanaticism and
intolerance. To the fanatic, the devil always seems terrible and strong, and he believes in
him moreso, than he believes in God. Fanaticism possesses religious roots, but it readily
passes over into the national and the political sphere. The national or the political fanatic
likewise believes in the devil and his snares, though the religious category of the devil be
completely alien herein. Against the powers of the devil there is always created an
inquisition or a committee of the common salvation, an omnipotent secret police, a
Cheka. These dreadful institutions are always created out of fear of the devil. But the
devil has always proved himself to be the stronger, for he penetrates into these
institutions and guides them.

There is nothing stronger than fear. The spiritual healing from fear is necessary for
every man. The intolerant fanatic acts with force, he always excommunicates, imprisons
and executes, but in essence he is weak, and not strong, he is smothered by fear and his
consciousness is terribly narrow, for he less believes in God than do the tolerant. In a
certain sense it might be said, that a fanatic faith is a weakness of faith, a lack of faith.
This is a negative faith. Archimandrite Photii in the epoch of Alexander I believed chiefly
in the devil and the Anti-Christ. The power of God seemed to him as nothing in
comparison to the power of the devil. There was as little a belief in the power of Christian
truth within the Inquisition, as there is in the Communist truth within the Soviet GPU
[State Political Department]. Fanatic intolerance involves always a profound lack of faith
in man, in the Image of God within man, a lack of faith in the power of truth, i.e. in the
final end, a lack of faith in God. Lenin indeed lacked faith in man and in the power of
truth, just like Pobedonostsev did: they were of one and the same sort. The man, having
allowed himself to come under the obsessive grip of the idea of a worldwide peril and
worldwide conspiracy of Masons ,of Jews, of Jesuits, of Bolsheviks or of an occult
society of killers, -- such a man ceases to believe in the power of God, in the power of
truth, and he trusts only in his own coercions, cruelties and murderings. Such a man is, in
essence, an object of psychopathology and for psychoanalysis.

A maniacal idea, inspired by fear, also is quite extreme a danger. At the present time
fanaticism, the pathos of an universally-obligatory orthodoxy of truth is to be seen in
Fascism, in Communism, in extreme forms of religious dogmatism and traditionalism.
Fanaticism always divides the world and mankind into two parts, into two hostile camps.
This is a war setting. Fanaticism does not permit of the co-existence of various ideas and
world-outlooks. There exists only the enemy. The hostile powers become blended
together and present themselves as a single enemy. This is entirely like, as if a man were
to make the division not into the I and a multiplicity of other I’s, but rather into the I and
the not-I’s, wherein the not-I presents itself to him as a single being. This strange
simplification facilitates the struggle.

For the Communists there is at present [1937] only one enemy in the world --
Fascism. Every antagonist of Communism is thereby already a Fascist, and vice versa.
For the Fascists every antagonist is thereby already a Communist. Amidst this setting the
quantity of Fascists and Communists in the world has grown immeasurably. People
hostile to Communism are placed on the side of Fascism and those hostile to Fascism --
are made out to be on the side of Communism. It is an union that transpires as regards
one’s attitude of the devil, which is the other half of the world. They put before you an
uneasy either/or choice, either Fascism or Communism. It is inconceivable, why I should
have to choose between the two powers, both which deny the worth of the human person
and freedom of spirit, both indeed practise making use of the lie and coercion, as methods
suited to the struggle. It is clear, that I ought to be on the side of some sort of third power:
as in France happens with the trend, connected with “Esprit” and “La Fleche”,
simultaneously hostile to Capitalism, Fascism and Communism. Fanatic intolerance
always presents one a false choice and produces a false line of division. But it is
interesting, that the pathos of fanatic intolerance in our time is the result not of a
passionate faith and conviction, but rather instead a contrived air of tension, often a
stylisation, and it is the result of a collective agitation and demagoguery. There are,
certainly, individual Communists and Fascists, believing and convinced to the point of
fanaticism, particularly among the Russian Communists and the German Nazis, while
rather less so amongst the Italian Fascists, who are more sceptical and susceptible to
economic politics. But with the Communist and Fascist masses there are no sort of firm
and thought-out beliefs and convictions. This is a mass, which is stylised under Fascism
in consequence of agitation and imitation, but which also is interesting.

The contemporary pathos of intolerance is very distinct from the Medieval; back then
there was actually a deep faith. The average man of our time possesses not ideas, he
possesses instincts and affections. His intolerance is bound up with military matters and a
thirst for order. He knows only whatever the truth, useful for organisation. The twofold
division of the world, evoked by demands for war, has its own inevitable consequences.
Our epoch does not know critical and intellectual dispute nor does it know the struggle of
ideas. It knows only exposing, expelling and chastisement. Those thinking differently are
looked upon as transgressors. With the transgressor they do not dispute. In essence, there
are no more intellectual enemies, there are only military enemies, belonging to mutually
hostile domains. Dispute means tolerance, the most dangerous disputant -- is the tolerant
man, he allows for the co-existence of ideas different than his own idea, he thinks, that
from the colliding of ideas the truth can better be revealed. But at present in the world,
there occurs no sort of struggle of ideas, there occurs rather the struggle of special
interests and pugilists. The Communists, the Fascists, the fanatics of an “orthodox” be it
Orthodoxy, Catholicism or Protestantism, dispute not with any sort of ideas, they rid
themselves of the antagonist off into the opposing camp, upon which they then direct
their polemic tirade.

The pathos of having an orthodox doctrine, which renders itself useful for the
struggle and for the organisation, leads to the complete lack of interest for thoughts and
for ideas, for cognition, for intellectual culture, and a comparison with the Middle Ages is
very hapless for our times. No sort of ideational creativity amidst all this is to be
discerned. In this regard, our intolerant epoch is dramatically ungifted and wretched, in it
creative thought has become placid, and it parasitically feeds on former epochs. The
thinkers of the greatest influence in contemporary Europe, -- like Marx, Nietzsche,
Kierkegaard, -- belong to that XIX Century, against which at present the reaction occurs.
The sole area, in which is to be found a dizzying level of creativity, is the area of
technical discoveries. We live under the banner of the social, and in this area transpires
much that is positive, but there are no sort of social ideas, there is at present no creating
of social theories, and they all belong to the XIX Century. Marxism, Proudhonism,
Syndicalism, even Racism, -- all issue from the thought of the XIX Century. The chief
advantage of our century is in this, that it is more oriented towards realities, it unmasks
the reality. But, having unmasked the old idols, the new century then creates new idols.

For the fanatic there does not exist a manifold world. This is a man, obsessed by one
thing. He has a merciless and malevolent attitude towards all and everything except for
this one thing. Psychologically, fanaticism is connected with the idea of either salvation
or perishing. This idea in particular takes fanatic hold upon the soul. There is one thing,
which saves, and all the rest causes to perish. It is therefore necessary to devote oneself
completely to this one thing, and mercilessly to eradicate everything else, the whole
manifold world, which threatens the perishing. With the perishing perdition, connected
with the manifold multiplicity of the world, there is connected also the emotion of fear,
which always lies at the root of fanaticism.

The inquisitors of old were perfectly convinced, that the cruel things done by them,
the beatings, the burnings on the bon-fires and other things, -- they were convinced that
this was a manifestation of their love for mankind. They contended against perdition for
the sake of salvation, they guarded souls from the allure of the heresies, which threatened
with perdition. Better be it to subject one to the brief sufferings in the earthly life, than
the perishing of many in eternity. Torquemada was a non-avaricious and unselfish man,
he wanted nothing for himself, he devoted himself entirely to his idea, his faith; in
torturing people, he made his service to God, he did everything exclusively for the glory
of God, and in him there was even a soft spot, he felt malice and hostility towards no one,
and he was of his kind a “fine” man. I am convinced, that such a “fine” man, convinced
in his faith and unselfish, was also Dzerzhinsky, who indeed in his youth was a
passionately believing Catholic and indeed wanted to be a monk. This is an interesting
psychological problem.

A believing, an unselfish, an intellectual man can become a fanatic, and commit the
greatest of cruelties. To devote oneself without reservations to God or to an idea,
substituting for God, whilst ignoring man, is to transform a man into a means and a
weapon for the glory of God or for the realisation of the idea, and it means to become a
fanatic -- wild-eyed and even a monster. The Gospel in particular revealed to people, that
it is impossible to build one’s relationship to God without a relationship to man. If the
Pharisees put the Sabbath higher than man and were denounced by Christ for this, then
also every man, who puts an abstract idea as higher than man, in effect confesses a
religion of the Sabbath, which was repudiated by Christ. It is all the same regarding this,
whether this be an idea of churchly orthodoxy, or of the state and nationalism, or the idea
of revolution and socialism.

A man, mindful to the searching out and detection of heresies, intent upon the
excommunicating and pursuing of heretics, is a man long since accused and judged by
Christ, though he be not concerned over this. The pathological hatred for heresy is in the
nature of an obsession by an “idea”, which is set higher than man. But all the orthodox
doctrines of the world are nothing in comparison with that one least amongst mankind
and his fate. Man is the Image and Likeness of God. Every system however of ideas is
the product begotten of human thought or thoughtlessness. Man is not to be saved nor
perish, by cleaving to some sort of system of ideas. The sole authentic heresy is an heresy
of life.

The unmaskers and persecutors of heresy therein at the same time become heretics
of life, heretics in relation to the living man, to mercy and to love. All the inquisitors
were heretics of life, they were traitors to the life-vital dogma about man. Cyril of
Alexandria in this regard was moreso an heretic of life, than the heretics denounced by
him. Behind the unmasking of heretics there is always concealed a sinful lust for
domination, a will to might.

The pathological obsession with ideas of salvation and perdition, which medically
should be attended to, can also be transferred to the social sphere. And therein this
panicky idea begets revolutionary fanaticism and creates political institutions of
inquisition. Intolerance and inquisitions justify themselves by the threat of social ruin.
And thus, the Moscow Trials of the Communists are very reminiscent of witchcraft trials.
In both the one and the other, the accused confesses to having criminal dealings with the
devil. The human psyche changes little. And essentially, fanaticism always bears a social
character. Man cannot be a fanatic, when he is set before God, he renders himself a
fanatic, only when he is set before other people.

The fanatic always has need of an enemy, he always needs someone to execute.
Dogmatic formulae that are “orthodox” are formed not in relation to God, but in relation
to other people, they are formed because heretical opinions have arisen. Fanaticism
always signifies social compulsion. Or one can take into account the forms of Self-
Immolation, as for example, in the extreme currents of the Russian schismatics, but in
this instance it likewise signifies social coercion under the reverse standard. Fanaticism
of an extreme “orthodoxy” in religion bears a sectarian character. The feeling of
satisfaction from belonging to a circle of the chosen is a sectarian feeling. Fanaticism
quite fires up the will and readies it for the struggle, for inflicting torture and for bearing
torture. Even with the most meek and mild of fanatics, conscious of the love for mankind
within himself, and concerned for the salvation of his soul and society, there is an
element of sadism. Fanaticism is always connected with the manifestation of torture.
Ideologically, fanaticism is always a frenzy of “orthodoxy”.

The categories of “orthodoxy”, opposed to heresy, apply at present to types of

thought, having nothing in common with religion, -- for example, to Marxism; but it is of
a religious origin. Though it be of religious origin, all the same it is first of all a social
manifestation and it signifies the domination of the collective over the person.
“Orthodoxy” is a mental organisation of the collective and it signifies an exteriorisation
of consciousness and conscience. “Orthodoxy” defines itself in opposition to an heresy.
The heretic is a man, thinking not in accord with the mental organisation of the
collective. People, preeminently esteeming themselves “orthodox” whilst denouncing
heretics, i.e. those that think differently, love to declare that they are defending truth, and
they set truth up higher than freedom. This is a very great mistake and self-deception by
the “orthodox” mind-set.

The pathos of an “orthodoxy”, fed by fanaticism, has nothing in common with the
pathos of truth, being as it were actually contrary to it. Such an “orthodoxy” forms itself
around themes of salvation and perdition, and such orthodox are themselves frightened
and they frighten others. Truth however does not know fear. The guardians of
“orthodoxy” are the ones that most of all distort the truth and are afraid of it. The
guardians of various religious orthodoxies have distorted history. The guardians of a
Marxist of Racist “orthodoxy” likewise distort history. These people always create
vicious legends about a power hostile to them. Truth gets substituted for by what is
useful, by the interests of the organisational order.

The man, fanatical over some sort of idea, like a person who would save himself
alone, cannot be said to seek the truth. The search for truth presupposes freedom. Truth is
not external to freedom, truth is bestown only by freedom. Outside of freedom there is
only that which is useful, but not truth, there is only the interests of power. The fanatic of
some sort of orthodoxy seeks for power, and not for truth. Truth is not a ready given nor
is it received passively by man, it is an endless task. Truth does not fall down from above
upon man, like some sort of thing. And it is impossible to understand the revelation of
truth in a naive-realistic sense. Truth is likewise both the pathway and life, it is the
spiritual life of man. Spiritual life however is freedom and is not external to freedom.

The fanatics of an “orthodoxy”, in essence, do not know truth, since they do not know
freedom, they do not know spiritual life. Fanatics of a religious orthodoxy think, that they
are humble people, since they are obedient to churchly truth, and they accuse others of
pride. But this is a dreadful mistake and self-delusion. Granted, in the Church there is
enclosed the fullness of truth. But wherefore does such a religiously orthodox person
fancy, that he in particular is master of this truth of the Church, that he in particular
knows it? Wherefore in particular is he bestown this gift of the ultimate distinction of
churchly truth from heresy, where in particular is this chosenness rendered him? This is
pride and self-conceit, and no people are more proud and self-conceited, than the
guardians of a religious orthodoxy. They identify themselves with churchly truth. There
does indeed exist an orthodox churchly truth. But herein perhaps, thou as an orthodox
fanatic, knowest it not, thou knowest but fragments of it by virtue of narrow-mindedness,
ossification of heart, attachment to form and legalism, the absence of giftedness and
grace.

A man, permitting himself to come into the grip of fanaticism, never presupposes
such possible about himself. He, certainly, is prepared to acknowledge himself a sinner,
but can never acknowledge himself as having fallen into error, into self-deception, into
self-smugness. Which is why he considers it possible, amidst his own sinfulness, to
torment and pursue others. The fanatic is conscious of himself as a believer. But perhaps,
his faith may actually possess no sort of relationship to truth. Truth is first of all an egress
from oneself, but the fanatic is unable to go out from himself. He goes out from himself
only in malice against others, but this is not an egress to others nor to an other.

The fanatic -- is an egocentric. The faith of the fanatic, his unrestrained and
unselfish devotion to an idea helps him not in the least to overcome the egocentrism. The
asceticism of the fanatic (and fanatics often are ascetics) does not at all conquer the
absorption with himself, nor at all does it turn him to the realities. The fanatic of
whatever the orthodoxy identifies his idea, identifies its truth with himself. And he is this
idea, this truth. Orthodoxy -- this he is. And ultimately this is always rendered the sole
criterion of orthodoxy.

The fanatic of an orthodoxy can be an extreme adherent of the principle of

authority. But he always imperceptibly identifies the authority with himself and is never
subject to any sort of authority in disagreement with him. The inclination towards
authority in our epoch bears in particular suchlike a character. The authoritatively
disposed youth recognises no sort of authority over himself, and he is conscious of
himself as the bearer of authority. The ultra-Orthodox youth, who disdains freedom and
denounces heresies, esteems himself the bearer of Orthodoxy. This is an example of just
how far the idea of authority is contradictory and inconsistent. Authority in practice never
vexes its fanatical adherents, it vexes others, their opponents, and does violence to them.
In essence, no one subjects themselves to authority, if they consider it not to be in accord
with their understanding of truth. The faith-confession of some sort of extreme
orthodoxy, of some sort of totalitarian system, always signifies the desire to belong to a
circle of the elect, the bearers of a true teaching. This means the flattering of people with
pride and self-conceit. In comparison with this, the love of freedom signifies modesty.

It is very pleasant and flattering to esteem oneself as the solely knowing, of what such
is the true Orthodoxy or the true Marxism-Leninism (the psychology is the same).
Robespierre unrestrainedly loved the republican virtue, he was the most virtuous man in
revolutionary France and even moreover the only virtuous one. He identified himself
with the republican virtue, with the idea of revolution. This was a supreme type of the
egocentric. Herein this was a lunacy built upon virtue, this was an identification of
himself with it, and in him it was very hideous. The depraved Danton was a thousand
times better and more human.

The egocentrism of the fanatic of whatever the sort of idea, of whatever the sort of
teaching, expresses itself in this, that he does not see the human person, he is inattentive
to the human personal path, that he is unable to establish any sort of relationship to the
world of persons, to the living, concrete human world. The fanatic knows only the idea,
but he does not know the man, he does not know the man even then, when he struggles
for the idea of man. But he does not accept the world of the ideas of others rather than his
own, he is incapable of entering into the exchange of ideas. He usually understands
nothing and is incapable of accepting anything; this egocentrism namely deprives him of
the capacity to understand. He altogether is unwilling to induce the truthfulness of
something, he is altogether uninterested in truth. The interest for truth would lead one out
of the vicious circle of egocentrism. But egocentrism is not altogether the same thing, as
egoism.

The egoist in a vital sense of the word is quite able to egress outside himself, to turn
his attention to other people, to be interested in a world of foreign ideas. But the fanatic-
egocentric, unselfish, ascetic, unrestrainedly devoted to whatever the idea, -- is altogether
unable to emerge, the idea centres him upon itself. For our troubled epoch not only are
the flare-ups of fanaticism characteristic, but so too is the stylisation of fanaticism.
Modern people are not altogether so fanatical and they are altogether not so attached to
any orthodox teaching, as otherwise it might seem. They want to appear to be fanatics,
they mimic at fanaticism, they pronounce the words of fanatics, they wreak the violent
cruelties of fanatics. Yet all too clearly, this but veils over an inward empty void. The
imitation and affected stylisation of fanaticism is but one of the ways of filling the empty
void. This signifies likewise a creative impotence, an incapacity for thought. Pretensions
to knowledge of an orthodox truth result in a condition of ignorance. The love for
thought, for cognitive knowing, is likewise a love for criticism, for the developement of
dialogue, a love for thoughts foreign to one, and not only one’s own.

They set forth tolerance in contrast to fanatical intolerance. But tolerance is a

complex phenomenon. Tolerance can be the result of an apathetic indifference to truth, a
non-distinguishing of good and evil. This is the lukewarm, liberal sort of tolerance, and it
lacks the wherewithal to oppose fanaticism. There is possible a passionate love for
freedom and for truth, a fiery adherence to an idea, but -- it is all amidst a tremendous
attention to man, to the human path, to the human search for truth. Freedom can be
perceived, as an inseparable part of truth itself. And a man ought not to tolerate
everything. Towards the modern intolerance, towards fanaticism, towards the modern
mania for orthodoxy one mustneeds not at all relate tolerantly, on the contrary, one
mustneeds relate non-tolerantly. And to the enemies of freedom one mustneeds not at all
bestow limitless freedom. In a certain sense we need a dictator of real freedom. Modern
dictators however in all their forms rely upon a formation of soul, which discloses
likewise an impairment of soul. A course in spiritual healing is needed.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1937

O PHANATIZME, ORTODOKSII I ISTINE. In journal Russkie zapiski, 1937, No. 1,

p. 180-191.

Jean Grenier, Essai sur l'esprit d' orthodoxie. Gallimard.

(1938 - #435)

The book of Grenier mirrors the inner drama of French intellectuelles. The title itself
can lead to a misunderstanding.1 The book is written not about religious orthodoxness,
but rather about Marxist orthodoxness, which far more onerously weighs upon the
consciousness and conscience of the creators of spiritual culture. The French
intellectuelles still do not know that terrible tyranny, which accompanies the triumph of
orthodoxness in life, they know only the ideological preliminaries. Moreover, it
mustneeds be said, that every triumphing orthodoxness is tyrannical. The Marxist
orthodoxy, after Marx already taking form by means of the myth-creating process, bears
a formal affinity with the old religious orthodoxies, but it is more impudently brazen in
the realisation of its pretensions. The drama of the intellectuelles, sympathetic to the
social aspirations of Marxism and Communism, yet not consenting to accept the tyranny
of orthodoxness, was acutely experienced by A. Zhid and he with honour left off from the
contradiction, set before him. A man, who strives for truth and values truth, cannot accept
any sort of a binding social orthodoxness, even though he be sympathetic to the social
aims, with which this orthodoxness is connected. A man, not bereft of his conscience,
cannot accept lies, obligatory, as a social duty. Grenier is such a man of conscience, he
values truth, for him the knowledge of truth has value, irrespective of the social struggle
and practical aims. He is an idealist. It was with agitation that I read his book, since it
reminded me of my youth. I was moreso a Marxist, than Grenier, but I could not accept
the Marxist orthodoxy out of a love for truth, independent of the class struggle. In
philosophy I was not a materialist, I was pervaded by the ideals of German Idealism,
chiefly by Kant and partly by Fichte, I believed in the unconditional character of truth
and good, rooted in the transcendental consciousness. This led me to a break with
Marxism, which I fully sympathised with socially. Already then, though there still did not
yet exist the Communists, they demanded an orthodoxy, the acceptance of Marxism, as a
totalitarian system. The Marxist orthodoxy could tend to produce the impression of an
intellectual doctrine, but it was foremost a weapon of the revolutionary struggle.
Orthodoxy always was a weapon for struggle, and suchlike also was the Christian
orthodoxness. The orthodoxness bears a sociological character. Religious orthodoxness is
bound up with the social-organising side of religion. The purely religious experience of
the encounter of man with God does not beget dogmatism. Dogmatism is the by-product
of the socialisation of religion. The orthodoxy of Marxism is bound up not with the
scientific nor even with its political side, but rather with its religious, its religiously
inverted side. In Soviet Russia all the philosophic disputes transpire not under the
standard of the discerning of truth and error, but under the standard of a discerning of
orthodoxy and heresy. The categories of orthodoxness and heresy however are neither
scientific nor philosophic, but the rather religious, more specifically so theological. The
Marxist orthodoxy, one of the most intolerant orthodoxies in the history of human
thought, is a theological scholasticism. In the book of Grenier one can find many accurate
critical observations concerning Marxism and its orthodox pretensions. Yet his
opposition to Marxist orthodoxy is not a matter of agitation, only but purely intellectual.
He defends first of all the independence and freedom of culture and cultural values. And
in his defending of humanistic culture he is a typical Frenchman. His book ends with an
open letter to Malraux, who moreover is not so much a Marxist, as rather a Nietzschean.

All the thoughts of Grenier, evoking disquiet as regards modern orthodoxies and
totalitarianisms, lead to an acknowledging of the primacy of spirit. Consciousness for him
is determinative of being. But he does not get down at depth at the philosophic side of the
problem. He displays chagrin at the conformism of the intellectuelles, who get caught up
in the temptation of totalitarianism. I think, that this is determined not by that the
intellectuelles tend to sense the social truth of the totalitarian movements, but rather their
asocial character, their dread of struggle. The intellectuelles ought to realise, that they are
representatives of spirit, and not of society, not of the state, not of the people, not of a
class. They ought to speak words of truth and right, not dependent upon utility, nor
altogether socially indifferent. On the contrary, they ought to stand up for the socially
just-truth, and not consent to lies, though these be in the name of the realisation of this
just-truth. Marx and Nietzsche, two of the most influential thinkers in the modern world,
variously and in the name of differing aims have altered the understanding of truth. Truth
became a by-product of the social struggle or of the will to power. And herein arose a
crisis in the relationship of man to truth. Communism and Fascism alike deny the
existence of truth in the old sense of the word and they do this in the name of their
totalitarian principle. And one mustneeds understand, that this signifies a pretentiousness
to the totalitarian outlook, since in it there is a distorted truth. Christianity is likewise
totalitarian, it is a total truth embracing all the whole of life, but this sort of
totalitarianism has nothing in common with Marxist orthodoxy nor with totalitarian
states. Spiritual truth is totalitarian and it relates to the human person, not to society, the
state, the nation, the collective, the class, all matters in which everything is partial.
Society does not comprise it nor can it make pretense to integral wholeness and fullness,
only the person can make such a claim, and it is as a task, not as a given. From whence
also is evident the fatal error of an orthodoxy. An orthodoxy acknowledges society (be it
religious, or national or social a collective) as the bearer of the integral wholeness of
truth, which is bindingly obligatory for the person. But in society everything is partial,
not integrally whole, not totalitarian, whereas the integrally whole totalitarian truth is a
task, facing the person, which it has to resolve in common with other persons, in a
communitarian spirit. Christian totalitarianism, so very distinct from formal liberalism
and individualism, presupposes freedom, as the setting of the verymost totalitarian truth.
Totalitarianism be it Marxist or Fascist denies freedom, i.e. it admits only of such a
freedom as appears the offspring of necessity of the social or national organisation. The
perspective, which has to be set in opposition to the orthodoxness and totalitarianism, is
not individualism, as such egocentric and indifferent to truth, but rather personalism,
comprising in itself an universal content, i.e. a communitarian personalism. The pathos of
orthodoxness is nowise the pathos of truth, for it signifies moreso an indifference towards
truth and the manipulation of intellectual doctrine for purposes of struggle and the ends of
the organisation. An orthodoxy, as the fullness and integral wholeness of truth, is not a
given and cannot be as such bindingly obligatory with any sort of societies, even though
religious, for it reveals itself upon the "pathway" and in "life". The book of Grenier leads
towards these thoughts and in this is its merit.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1938

© 2005 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1938 - 435 -en)

(NOVIYA KNIGI:) JEAN GRENIER, ESSAI SUR L'ESPRIT D'ORTHODOXIE.

GALLIMARD. Under "New Books" section in Journal Put', aug./oct. 1938, No. 57, p.
84-86.

1
trans. note: Berdyaev uses here the term "ortodoksiya" for "orthodoxy" or
"orthodoxness" rather than the Russian Orthodox Christian term "Pravoslavniya" for
"Orthodoxy".

THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF THE PHILOSOPHY

OF LEV SHESTOV

(1938 - #439)

Several times already I have written in the pages of “Put’” about Lev Shestov. But
here is a demand to speak otherwise about him, and to honour his memory. Lev Shestov
was a philosopher, who philosophised with all his being, and for whom philosophy was
not an academic specialisation, but rather a matter of life and death. He was consistent of
mind. And it was striking, his independence from the surrounding tendencies of the
times. He sought God, he sought the liberation of man from the forces of necessity. And
this was his personal problem. His philosophy belonged to the existential type of
philosophy, i.e. it did not objectify the process of knowledge, it did not tear it asunder
from the subject of knowing, it tied it together with the integral judgement of man.
Existential philosophy signifies the remembrance of the philosophising subject, who
incorporates existential experience into his philosophy. This type of philosophy
presupposes, that the mystery of being is comprehendible only within the human
existential condition. For Lev Shestov the human tragedy, the terrors and suffering of
human life, the surviving of hopelessness, were all at the basis of philosophy. It ought not
to be exaggerated as something new, that which they term existential philosophy, or that
it derives from certain currents of contemporary German philosophy. This element is
something possessed by all genuine and noteworthy philosophers. Spinoza philosophised
via a geometric method and his philosophy can produce the impression of being a cold
objective philosophy. But philosophic knowledge was for him a matter of salvation, and
his amor Dei intellectualis in no way belongs to objective scientific-form truths. By the
way, the attitude of L. Shestov towards Spinoza was very interesting. Spinoza was his
enemy, one with whom he struggled all his life, as though a temptation. Spinoza -- was
representative of human reason, a destroyer of revelation. And at the same time, L.
Shestov very much loved Spinoza, constantly he had him in mind, and often he quoted
him. In his final years, L. Shestov had a very remarkable encounter with Kierkegaard. He
earlier had never read him, he knew him only by hearsay, and did not even consider
perchance the influence of Kierkegaard on his thought. But when he read him, he became
then deeply agitated, he was struck by the closeness of Kierkegaard to the fundamental
theme of his life. And he came to number Kierkegaard among his heroes. His heroes
were Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Luther, Pascal and the Biblical heroes -- Abraham, Job,
Isaiah. Just as it was with Kierkegaard, the philosophical theme of L. Shestov was
religious, and just as with Kierkegaard, his chief enemy was Hegel. He went from
Nietzsche to the Bible. And he all the more and more turned himself to Biblical
revelation. The conflict of Biblical revelation and Greek philosophy became a
fundamental theme of his pondering.

L. Shestov subordinated to the fundamental theme of his life everything, which he

thought, and which also he spoke and wrote. He could look upon the world, he could
produce evaluations of the thoughts of others exclusively within the context of his own
theme, and entirely towards this he regarded and remade the world in relation to this
theme. But how to formulate it? He was struck by the force of necessity over human life,
which begets the terrors of life. The vulgar forms of necessity did not interest him, but
rather the more subtle forms. The force of irreversible necessity has been idealised by
philosophers, as reason and morals, as self-evident and generally-observed truths.
Necessity is begotten by knowing. L. Shestov is completely caught up by this thought,
that the Fall into sin is connected with knowledge, with the knowledge of good and evil.
Man ceases to be nourished off the tree of life and begins to be nourished off the tree of
knowledge. And L. Shestov struggles against the force of knowledge, which makes man
subject under the law, in the name of the liberation of life. This is a terrible sundering for
paradise, for the free paradaisical life. But paradise is attained through the tension of
conflict, through disharmony and hopelessness. In essence, L. Shestov is not at all against
scientific knowledge, he is not against reason in everyday life. Not in this is his
problematic. He was against the pretensions of science and reason to decide questions
about God, about the liberation of man from the tragic anguish of human judgement,
wherein reason and rational knowledge want to circumscribe potentiality. God first of all
is limitless potentialities, and this is a basic definition of God. God is not bound by any
sort of truths of necessity. The human person is a victim of the truths of necessity, of the
law of reason and morals, a victim of the universal and the conventional.

God stands opposite the kingdom of necessity, the kingdom of reason. God is in no
way limited, to nothing can He be subordinated, and for God rather everything is
possible. L. Shestov posits here the problem, which yet disquieted the Scholastic
medieval philosophy. Is God to be subordinated to reason, to truth and the good, or is
truth and the good only that, which God posits? The first point of view derives from
Plato, and upon it stands St. Thomas Aquinas. The second point of view was that
defended by Dun Scotus. The first point of view is bound up with intellectualism, while
the second is with voluntarism. L. Shestov had kinship with Dun Scotus, but he posits the
problem far more radically. If God is, then there lays disclosed all possibility, then the
truths of reason cease to be incontrovertible and the terrors of life cease to be victorious.
Here we touch upon a chief matter in the Shestov theme. And with this is connected that
profound tremulation, which characterises all the thought of Shestov. Could God act thus,
so that what formerly was, might not be? This is something most incomprehensible for
reason. It would be very easy to misunderstand L. Shestov. The poisoned Socrates could
be resuscitated, and in this Christians believe. His bride could be restored to Kierkegaard,
while Nietzsche could be cured of his terrible illness. But this is not altogether what L.
Shestov wants to say. God could have done it thus, so that Socrates would not have been
poisoned, that Kierkegaard would not have deprived of bride, that Nietzsche would not
have been strickened with terrible illness. Is there possible an absolute victory over that
necessity, which rational knowledge invests upon the past? L. Shestov was tormented by
the irreversibility of the past, fear of the formerly occurred tormented him.

Indeed, everything connected with this theme about a necessarily compelling truth is
bound up with the setting in opposition of Jerusalem and Athens, the setting of Abraham
and Job in opposition to Socrates and Aristotle. When they attempted to unite reason, as
developed by Greek philosophy, together with revelation, there occurred then an
apostacising and stepping-away from faith, and theology has always done this. The God
of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, is replaced by the God of the theologians and the
philosophers. Philo was the first betrayer. God was subordinated to reason, to necessity,
to commonly-held truths. Therein perished Abraham, the hero of faith. L. Shestov was
very close to Luther, to the Lutheran theme of salvation by faith alone. The deliverance
of man cannot come from man himself, but only from God. God -- is the Deliverer.
Deliverance occurs not by intellect, not by morals, not by human activity, but by faith.
Faith signifies the miraculous for the necessary truths of reason. The heights bestir
themselves from their places. Faith demands the irrational. The Apostle Paul also says
this. Faith asserts a conflict, a paradox, as Kierkegaard loves to say. L. Shestov with great
radicalism gave expression authentically to the existential and eternal problem. The
paradoxicality of thought, the irony, to which L. Shestov constantly recoursed in his
manner to write, prevented its comprehension. Sometimes they have understood it, but
indeed backwards. This occurred, for example, with such a remarkable thinker as
Unamuno, who much sympathised with L. Shestov.

The philosophic thought of L. Shestov encountered tremendous perplexity in its

expression, and this engendered much misunderstanding. The difficulty was in the
inability to express by words that which L. Shestov pondered concerning the fundamental
theme of his life, the inexpressibility of the chief points. He often recoursed to a negative
form of expression, and this was more successful for him. It was the clear, against which
he led the struggle. Positive forms of expression were more difficult. Human language is
so very rationalised, so very predisposed to thought-forms engendered by the Fall-into-
Sin -- to the knowledge of good and evil. The thought of L. Shestov, directed against the
commonly-held, itself took on the form of the commonly-held. And this provided easy
ammunition into the hands of the critics. We stand here before a profound and little
investigated problem of communication of creative thought to an other. Is that which is
communicated something very primary and very consequential, or is it only secondary
and transitory? This at present is a problem posited by existential philosophy. For it, this
is a problem of the transference from the “I” to the “thou” in an authentic communality.
For philosophy, which imputes itself to be rational, this problem does not present
disquieting consequences as regards an universal reason. One way or another universal
reason makes possible an adequate transfer of thought and knowledge from the one to the
other. But in actuality reason is in steps, of varied qualities and dependent on the
character of human existence, of existential experience. Will determines the character of
reason. Whereupon then there is posited the question about the transfer of philosophic
thought through the non-rational concept. And indeed at present rational concepts do not
make for a communication from one to an other. L. Shestov frankly was not interested by
this problem and he did not write about it, since he was completely absorbed by the
relationship of man and God, and not by the relationship of man and man. But his
philosophy very acutely posits this problem, and he himself is beset by the problem of
philosophy. His contradiction was in this, that he was a philosopher, i.e. a man of thought
and knowledge, and he comprehended the tragedy of human existence, the negative
apperception. He struggled against the tyranny of reason, against the force of knowledge
which banished man out of paradise, yet he struggled upon the territory of that same
knowledge, and recoursed to the weaponry of that selfsame reason. In this is the difficulty
of philosophy, which wants to be existential. And in the thick of this difficulty I see the
merit of L. Shestov.

L. Shestov struggled for the person, for the individually unrepeatable, against the
force of the general. His chief opponent was Hegel and the Hegelian universal spirit. In
this he was akin to Kierkegaard, he was akin to the theme of Belinsky in his letters to
Botkin, and especially to Dostoevsky. In this struggle is the right-truth of L. Shestov. In
this struggle against the force of the commonly-held he was so radicalised, that what was
veritable and saving for one he regarded as not veritable and not obligatory for another.
In essence, he thought that each man has his own personal truth. But by this were posited
all those problems of communication. A matter whether there be communication between
people on the soil of true revelation, or is this communication only upon the ground of
the truths of reason, as conformed to the conventional, on the soil of that which L.
Shestov following upon Dostoevsky called the “allness”?

In the last days of his life Lev Shestov was embued of heated thoughts, agitated and
intense. And he shew the victory of spirit over the infirmity of body. His perhaps finest
books, “Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy”, and “Athens and Jerusalem, an Essay
of Religious Philosophy”, were written by him in the final period of his life. Here is not
the time to criticise the philosophy of my old friend Lev Shestov. One thing only I shall
say. I am very sympathetic to the problematics of Lev Shestov and I find close to me his
motif of the struggle against the force of the “common” over human life. But I always
parted with him over the value of knowledge, and I do not see in it the source of
oppressive necessity over our lives. Yet only in an existential philosophy can there be
explained, what the matter of concern is here. The books of L. Shestov help to give an
answer to the basic question of human existence, and within them there is existential
significance.

NIKOLAI BERDYAEV.

1938

© 2000 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1938 - 439 - en)

OSNOVNAYA IDEYA PHILOSOPHII L’VA SHESTOVA. Journal Put’, 1938,

nov./dec. 1938 / jan. 1939, No. 58, p. 44-48.

Reprint of article in 1964 was made by Paris YMCA-Press as preface to book

entitled: “L. SHESTOV. Umozrenie i otkrovenie. Religioznaya philosophiya Vladimira
Solov’eva i drugie stat’i”, 346 p. There likewise appeared 1963 German translation of
this work under title, “L. SCHESTOV. Spekulation und Offenbarung”. Trad. de Hans
Ruoff. Muenchen, Verlag Heinrich Ellermann, 1963, 458 p.

Reprinted by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection: “Tipy religioznoi

mysli v Rossii”, (Tom III), ctr. 407-412.

DOES THERE EXIST

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND CONSCIENCE
IN ORTHODOXY?

(1939 - #441)

“Ye became like the little and will be all

 the smaller: this Your teaching about
humility and obedience hath done”.
Paraphrase from Nietsche’s
“Also sprach Zarathustra”. N. B.†

It has become time already, when it is necessary to stop with the double-talk and
back-biting and to give a straight-forward and clear answer, -- does the Orthodox Church
recognise freedom of thought and of conscience? Is it equitably just on the part of the
Orthodox constantly to accuse the Catholics, that they have no freedom, an accusation,
based on the premise, that with the Orthodox themselves there is this freedom. And there
arises still another question: is Orthodoxy bound up with some definite political system,
e.g. with monarchism, with nationalism, with a class social order, on the sort of the
present day with Fascism, or does it permit of varied points of view? Can an Orthodox,
having become professor of an Orthodox theological school, be a democrat, a socialist,
can he be a defender of freedom, of social justice, of the dignity of man? This question
becomes very acute with the grievous circumstances regarding G. P. Fedotov. At the
suggestion of the metropolitan, the professors of the Theological Institute gave G. P.
Fedotov an ultimatum: either leave off being a professor at the Theological Institute or
stop writing articles on political themes in “New Russia” and other organs of a “leftist”
persuasion. This resolution was carried out by people, who had not actually read the
articles of G. P. Fedotov, and who were guided exclusively by meaning-distortive
citations in one newspaper, itself representing a very ugly example of a jaundiced yellow
press. I shall not dwell at length upon an analysis of this unsightly history, which
witnesses to a shocking absence of manliness and slave-like sentiments which, alas, are
very traditional. What interests me here is the question on principle. The matter involved
not articles on theological themes, but is on political articles. And the accusation was in
this, that the articles were “leftist” and that the author could not be numbered in amongst
“those thinking nationally”. It is considered improper for a professor of the Theological
Institute to get involved with politics. But this is not true. Professors of the Theological
Institute are permitted to indulge themselves as they may please with politics, but
exclusively with “rightist” politics. No one would have suggested to a professor of the
Theological Institute to resign his position as professor, had he written an article in
defense of the restoration of the monarchy and extremist national positions. One of the
professors has even headed a rightist nationalist organisation. The Church in the
emigration in the person of its hierarchs has constantly done political acts with
demonstrations of moliebens, panikhidas and preachings. And by this it has inflicted
grievous wounds on the Church inside Russia. The Church has not completed the great
act of breaking its bonds with the Old Regime, nor has it cleansed itself. No, the
prohibition to concern oneself with politics relates exclusively to “leftist” politics. G. P.
Fedotov -- is a Christian democrat and an humanist, a defender of the freedom of man.
He cannot tolerate Communism. He is likewise an undoubtable Russian patriot, which is
far worthier a thing, than to be of “those thinking nationally. He is not at all given to
extremist views. But it would seem, that the defense of Christian democracy and the
freedom of man is not allowable for a professor of the Theological Institute. An Orthodox
professor ought even to be a defender of Spain’s Franco, who betrayed his fatherland to
foreigners and drowned his people in blood. It is perfectly clear, that the censure of G. P.
Fedotov as a professor of the Theological Institute was a political act namely, an act
deeply compromising this institution, casting upon it a tone of reaction. They demand of
G. P. Fedotov, that he be of “those thinking nationally”, though he least of all can be
suspected of sympathies for internationalism. Nothing is more hideous than the very
expression “those thinking nationally”. We know, what it means to be of “those thinking
nationally”. In practice this means to be inhuman, greedy for gain, coercive, spiteful, a
provocateur of war and often of war against one’s own people. The world at present
perishes from nationalism, it is choking in blood from “those thinking nationally”. The
Church ought to condemn nationalism, and to its honour the Catholic Church is close to
this censuring. Nationalism is a paganism within Christianity, a debauchery of the
instincts of blood and race. Christians, who do not betray Christ and the Gospel (a large
part of Christians do betray it), do not have the right to be of “those thinking nationally”,
to be in accord with the Gospel morality or still in any case with human morality. And
indeed among the contemporary “those thinking nationally”, there is nothing rational,
they do not at all esteem the national culture, as for example “those thinking nationally”
among the Russians do not esteem the traditions of Russian literature, and “those thinking
nationally” among the Germans do not esteem the traditions of German philosophy.
About “those thinking nationally” amongst the Russians in the emigration it is best also
not to speak, for with great ease they would hand over Russia to its mortal enemy Hitler.
General Franco they would likewise reckon among “those thinking nationally”, although
he led a devastating war against his own people with the assist of the Italians and the
Germans. It is shameful to pronounce the words “those thinking nationally”, “national
politics”, for the vileness of the things concealed behind this. There is only one criterion
for a Christian attitude towards politics -- humanness, i.e. freedom, justice, mercy, the
dignity of the person. Communism comes under a Christian censure not because those
condemning it are “rightists” and “those thinking nationally”, but because of its denial of
humanness and freedom, for its absence of mercy and its cruelty. “Those thinking
nationally” would themselves with glee annihilate every freedom, nor in the least would
they have any regard for the dignity of man and assuredly they would show no less
cruelty. The hideous effects of the Russian Communist revolution is first of all the fault
of the “rightists” and “those thinking nationally” of the Old Regime.

There is still another accusation against G. P. Fedotov: he is of the Intelligentsia. It

appears thus, that his not being of “those thinking nationally”, and his “leftist”
inclination, is explicable by the nature of his being of the Intelligentsia. The obscurantist
reaction against the Revolution has perverted the word Intelligent and Intelligentsia into a
term of ridicule. The churlishly ignorant segment of the youth know neither the nuance of
meaning nor the history of the term employed, and they have no doubt about it, that it
was quite bad a thing to be of the “Intelligentsia”. But it is time for this nonsense to stop.
What was it that opposed the “Intelligentsia”? It was first of all the organic classes of
society: the nobility, the clergy, the merchantry, the petty bourgeoisie and moreover the
official ranks. The Russian Intelligentsia had no lack of deficiencies and in its own time I
more than once criticised it, when to do so meant it a matter not to be taken lying down.
But these classes of society were defending their own greedy interests, they were
immersed in their own narrow mode of life, and they outdid themselves in a servile
groveling before the powers of this world. The Intelligentsia in their own way sought for
truth and justice, they struggled for the dignity of man, for the freedom of the people,
they were not guarding any sort of class interests and they rose above class limitations.
The truth is, that from the Russian nobility of the XIX Century there emerged people,
striking in their lack of avarice, surmounting the prejudices and interests of their class,
and who were participants in the liberation movement. From the nobility also there
emerged creative artists of Russian great literature. But then they were transformed into
Intelligentsia and they followed the flow of the Intelligentsia, into which emerged also
those of other classes. I have greater grounds to be proud of this, that I was an
“Intelligent”, i.e. I sought for truth and righteousness, than that I am of aristocratic origin.
When they say, that the Orthodox ought to be of “those thinking nationally” and ought
not to be of the “Intelligentsia”, then always they are anxious to protect the old paganism,
which entered into Orthodoxy, with which sprouted forth and from which they do not
want it cleansed away. People of suchlike a formation can be very “Orthodox”, but they
are very little Christian. They even regard the Gospel as a book of the Baptists. They
have no true love for Christianity and they regard it as dangerous for their own instincts
and emotions. The customary everyday Orthodoxy also is a paganism within Christianity.

This paganism, long since having lost its ancient poetry, is defended as an old
tradition, and it is particularly opposed to humanism. In the Christian sense this tradition
is not very ancient, and in any case it did not arise prior to the sources of the Christian
revelation, prior to early Christianity, prior to the period of Greek Patristics. But in the
pagan sense it is very ancient, it arose for the tribal cults, for the cults of the domestic
hearth, even for the totemism of the primitive clans. Beloved prejudices, beloved lifestyle
habits are defended, as a sacred tradition. But there are no sort of grounds to assert, that
every tradition, is something fine. Tradition can be a betrayal of the present in the past, a
conformism with a very ugly merely human and slavish past. The Gospel is not at all
traditional, it is directed against traditionalism, and in this it is revolutionary.

In history every abomination has been regarded sacred under the impetus of “the
kingdom of Caesar”, under greedy social influences. Slavery, the owning of serfs, as
included in the Catechism of Philaret, a despotic form of governance, the backwardness
of scientific knowledge -- all this was by sacred tradition. There were no such forms of
slavery, despotism and obscurantism, not sanctified by tradition. There is nothing more
frightening than those inferences, which were made in historical Orthodoxy from the idea
of humility and obedience. In the name of humility they demanded obedience to evil and
injustice. This was transformed into a school of toadyism, forming in soul slaves bereft of
anything manly, trembling before the power and might of this world. The civil virtues of
bravery and the sense of honour were incompatible with such a sort of understanding of
humility and obedience. From whence also derives the cringing toadyism in Soviet
Russia. The Russian clergy, the Church hierarchs were always atremble afront the state
power, they adapted themselves to it and consented to subordinate the Church to it. This
remains so also at present, when there is no longer, glory to God, a pseudo “Orthodox
state”. And at present the Church people tremble before the rightist emigration, which
plays the role of the state power of authority, and they subject themselves to its
commands in questions of churchly politics, instead of teaching it Christianity. We see
this in the history of events with G. P. Fedotov, to his great honour. Such outstanding
people, as Father Sergei Bulgakov, have fallen victim to the prevailing atmosphere. With
sorrow it mustneeds be recognised, that the official Orthodoxy shows itself to be very
obscurantist and very inert a form of Christianity. There were only two exceptions --
Greek Patristics, and the Russian religious thought of the XIXth through beginning XXth
Centuries. From Greek Patristics, from Origen, St. Gregory Nazianzus, St. Gregory of
Nyssa, from St. John Chrysostom and others it is possible to gather up quotes, which
would serve as the distinct reason for being excluded from among the professors of the
Theological Institute. Thus for example, St. John Chrysostom was a genuine Communist
in his time, the representative of the Constantinople proletariat. The hapless Russian
religious thought officially is not acknowledged, it is accused of being un-Orthodox and
at present moreso now than when formerly it could lead to excommunication. But only in
Russian religious thought, in Khomyakov, Dostoevsky, Vl. Solov’ev, in thinkers of the
XX Century, has there been freedom of conscience and thought. It is not and it never was
within the official Orthodoxy, in the official churchliness. Such people, as Sts. Nil Sorsky
and Tikhon of Zadonsk were exceptions. Western Christians, however, are interested
namely and most of all by Russian religious thought, and frequently they confuse this
current of Russian thought with the official churchliness, not knowing our inner conflict.
This sometimes produces a genuine mystification. The “rightist” Orthodox all await a
“Caesar”, who will defend them and become their protector, wielding the sword upon
their enemies. This expectation is to the ruination of Orthodoxy. They await “Caesar” not
in the name of the Kingdom of God, to whom long since already they have bestowed
their worship in place of God. Let them take comfort, the wished-for “Caesar” can
appear, if the Christian spiritual powers do not oppose this, but he will be the fore-runner
of the Anti-Christ. Then pity the freedom-loving democrats. The false and servile
teaching about sin, the false understanding of humility and obedience leads also to an
ultimate kingdom of evil, to the triumph of the spirit of the Anti-Christ in the world.

We need most of all an intrepid honesty in the ultimate casting-down of the

conditional lie, in which rots both the official churchliness and also the world. It is
necessary to speak the truth. Within the authoritarian Catholicism there is more freedom,
than there is in Orthodoxy, which in its words continues to venerate Christ as its sole
Head. I shall offer an example. Jacques Maritain, a very outstanding Catholic thinker in
France, a professor of the Institut Catholique, defends Christian democracy, Christian
humanism, the dignity and freedom of the human person, he denounces the anti-Christian
falsehood of anti-Semitism, and with an especial fervour he denounces General Franco
for having screened himself behind a veneer of Catholicism, he speaks and he writes
almost the same things, that G. P. Fedotov does, and no one bothers him, no one suggests
that he quit the supreme Catholic school in France. And what has Pope Pius XI spoken?
He defended the freedom of spirit, the dignity of the human person, he denounced the
dictators, he denounced racism and anti-Semitism, he defended the peace of peoples. In
the emigre Orthodoxy his thoughts would probably be considered incompatible with
holding a professorship of the supreme theological school. It is quite clear, that they want
to transform Orthodoxy in the emigration into an obedient tool of reactionary politics,
and moreover a politics treasonous to the Russian people. Let them openly say, whether
Orthodoxy does recognise the personal freedom of conscience, which they have so
boasted of regarding us before the Catholics?

In actuality, the conscience is handed over to the collective, altogether just as in

Communism, and to the horrid demonically-dark reactionary collectives and to their
jaundiced yellow press. But there is no collegial-board that does not make bold to
infringe upon the sacred rights of man, upon the freedom of man. Freedom really exists
for us only in “modernism”, only in the current striving for reform, beginning with
Khomyakov, and to the woe of the stifling reactionary current of the official churchliness,
the government-chamber Orthodoxy. It is time to speak the truth on the city squares,
hiding nothing and glossing over nothing, the plain frank truth. Orthodoxy needs reform
and without a reform it begins to decompose and give off corpse-like vapours. That
which they call the “true” the “orthodoks” Orthodoxy, this is also a rot, moribund.
Reform does not at all signify reforms on the type of the Lutheran or the Catholic, it
should be otherwise. It should defend freedom of spirit, freedom of conscience, the
freedom of thought, moreso than did Luther and Calvin, who defended it insufficiently
and inconsistently. Reform begins with the acknowledgement of the supremacy of the
personal conscience, not subjected to alienation and exteriorisation, i.e. it is the freedom
of spirit and the independence of spiritual life from the influences of the “kingdom of
Caesar”. The communality of Sobornost’ has no sort of meaning, if it does not include
within itself the freedom of spirit and personal conscience. Without freedom, Sobornost’
is nothing more than an outward authoritarian collectivism.

Everywhere in the world at present there occurs divisions within Christianity and
these divisions threaten to deepen. There is happening a catastrophic path of the cleansing
of Christianity from those historical accretions, which have nothing in common with the
well-springs of Christianity and represent but inclusions of the social interests of the
kingdom of Caesar. This is a spiritising of Christianity, rendering it more inward and
sincere, more bound up with the commands of Christ and more creative. There ensues the
end of the “mere way of life”, i.e. of the pagan within Christianity, there occurs a
sundering off of the pagan traditions in Christianity, the false sacralisation of historical
entities, whose origins can be explained sociologically. There is ending the kingdom of
the mere conventionally rhetoric, declamatory word-only Christianity. But before its end
it can still make much havoc, it can still manifest much wickedness. Christians of a new
type, of a new sense of life, creative Christians of all faith-confessions call out both
amongst themselves and amongst others for a greater closeness, rather than merely within
each faith-confession. They want to get things together.

A Christianity that is cleansed, freed from servility, which is as yet impossible, will
be suspicious of the defending of class interests and social injustices, it will face a new
social reality and it ought to give creative response to the social problems of our times.
And first of all, Christians ought to forsake the bad and equivocating habit of not
answering the question, which is put before them. When they ask you, what is your
attitude towards a given conflict of workers with capitalists or towards collective
contracts, then it is unseemly merely to answer: “We believe in the immortality of the
soul”, or “we believe in the God-manhood of Christ”. It is proper to give a concrete
answer to the particular question set forth. These evasive answers dodging the point have
always produced impressions of wanting to defend whatever the injustice. Closer indeed
to Christian truth stand such currents, as the personalist community of the group “Esprit”,
and the religious socialism of L. Ragaz, Andre Philippe and others. In the politics of L.
Blum I see a greater Christian humanness, than with the “rightists”, who all the time are
calling for murder and deeds of violence. But herein is what presents itself to me as the
most essential point. It is time to stop talking about words and start talking about realities.
The “right” and the “left” -- these are conventional standards and these words in our
epoch are bereft of real meaning. It is important to determine, what sort of reality is
hidden behind the words and the slogans. They demand, that the Orthodox be “rightists”,
and they see in this an essential sign of “Orthodoxality”. What is it that is practically and
really hidden behind this? In reality, behind the “rightists” is hidden -- political
amoralism, the denial of the dignity and freedom of man, a grubby cult of power, the
practise of coercive violence in the relationships between people and nations, and the
making of a mockery of the Gospel morality in social life. I do not see in the “rightists”
any noble sitrrings of soul, they are always defending despotic might, national hostility
and war, the capitalists and the bankers against the workers, the injustices of privilege;
fierceness of punishment, violation of conscience and the suffocating of free thought. The
“rightists” readily render themselves traitors to their native land and their people. The
romantics of conservatism, the people of ideas, comprise an insignificant group, which
has no practical significance, for it is the realistically skilled in business that take the
lead. The “left” likewise often is phony, greedy and declamatory with mere words. And
even though it is the “leftists” betraying freedom and humanness, for example the
Communists, it does not infer from this that freedom and humanness are bad principles.
The “rightists” find nothing detestable in the “falsehood” of Communism, the inhumanity
and violence, to them it even seems justified and evokes envy. They detest the “truth” of
Communism, the principle of a classless brotherly society, not knowing the exploitation
of man by man, the ideal of peace between peoples. Christianity can stand only for a
politics, which acknowledges the supreme value of the human person, its freedom and
dignity and brotherly organisation of social life, and must stand opposed to the idolatry
afront the state, nationality, outward churchliness and inhuman collective communities,
which serve but as a screen for the real interests of the ruling classes. A cleansed
Christianity ought to return to the moral principle of life the sense of its worthiness
against the vogues of an Orthodox amoralism, against the pseudo-mystical and pseudo-
sacramental amoralism, which stands not higher but lower than the morality of
humanness. The supreme principle of the dignity of man shatters the false and immoral
theories of obedience, as have permitted such unsightly events in history, as have
transpired with the Theological Institute. Amidst all this it mustneeds be said, that the
level of standards of a professor of the Theological Institute is sufficiently high and a
significant portion of the professors there cannot be termed obscurantists. But they have
gotten entangled and proverbially gotten themselves caught in the middle. We come to
the conclusion, that it would be a mistake to defend the right of a Christian to defend
whatever the political idea that pleases them. Christians do not have the right to hold to a
political current that would trample down freedom and humanness, that would be
opposed to the Gospel spirit of love, mercy and the brotherhood of people. Christians
ought to unite in a struggle for the freedom of man.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1939

SUSCHESTVUET LI V PRAVOSLAVII SVOBODA MYSLI I SOVESTI?

In Journal Put’, feb./apr. 1939, No. 59, p. 46-54. Also Journal “Novaya Rossiya”, No.
68, 30 May 1939.

†
The author takes exclusively upon himself the responsibility for this article. This
responsibility extends neither to “Put’” at large, nor to individual contributors of “Put’”.
The Editor.

WAR AND ESCHATOLOGY

(1939 - # 452)

I.

"Ye shalt hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not troubled; for it is
necessary for all this to be. But this is not the end: for nation shalt rise up against nation,
and kingdom against kingdom, and there shalt be famines, plagues and earthquakes".
This is spoken in a small apocalyptic passage in the Gospel [Mt. 24: 6-7]. The Bible is
full of narratives about wars. The books of the Prophets, the summit of the religious
consciousness of the ancient Hebrews, has as one of its chief themes the reconciliation of
the terrors and injustices of wars with an almighty Jehovah, with the Providence of God.
And with the Hebrew people namely there was most of all a particularly acute and strong
sense of the almightiness of God. Great misfortunes in the fate of the Hebrew people they
attempted to explain as the inscrutable ways of the Providence of God, leading His
people to a final victory through tribulations, sufferings and chastisements for their
falling-away. The problem that was faced is the same, as the problem that faces also the
modern consciousness. Jehovah was initially a tribal God, a war-God. Only later did there
arise the consciousness of the universal God, the all-encompassing God. There occurred a
contention between the universal God and a merely pagan-like natural God. And in
essence the modern civilised consciousness also, having returned to the ancient
paganism, has withdrawn not far off from that ancient pagan aspect of the awareness of
God in the Jewish people. Modern Germany stands fully upon that ancient pagan
mindset.

The eschatological problem within Christianity facing us can assume two different
senses. All the Christian faith-confessions have their own eschatological aspect, all the
theological tracts have their eschatological chapters, although the eschatologies tend to be
shoved off to the background. But the problem can be put otherwise. There is possible an
eschatological understanding of Christianity. Many of the scientific historians of
Christianity, independent of any confessional grounds, insist upon the eschatological
understanding of Christianity, as the solely credible. At any rate, the earliest Christianity
was eschatological. The eschatological understanding of Christianity, which was the
Gospel good-news about the coming of the Kingdom of God, became confused with an
historical understanding. Christianity entered into history. Between the First and the
Second Coming of Christ was discerned a prolonged and tortuous historical process.
Historical Christianity rendered itself accommodating to this world, in compromise with
this world, a distortion of the true and eschatological Christianity, the Christianity of the
end-times, as the onset of the Kingdom of God, replacing it with a Christianity of the
personal salvation of the soul. But it is impossible to deny, that Christianity is essentially
eschatological. There can be naught other, besides the eschatological, without distorting
Christianity.

History has always been about the military aspect primarily, and full of wars. There
were only comparatively brief periods of peace, of relative quiet, which was easily
shattered. History has elapsed upon a volcanic soil and periodically the lava has erupted
out. History ought to have an end, to finish, since history is war. There is an
eschatological moment within history, as though an inner apocalypse of history. This
eschatological moment is sensed with an especial alacrity during catastrophic eras, during
the wars, during the revolutions, during the crises of civilisation. War is an historical
phenomenon primarily, and together with this, the terrors of war provide people a sharp
eschatological sense of the near closeness of the end. Thus also in the life of individual
people the eschatological sense becomes heightened in catastrophic tribulations, in
sufferings, in the closeness of death. War is a matter of history primarily, and together
with this, war is always a point of contact with the end of history. We tend to speak
conditionally about apocalyptic epochs and in such epochs people are readily tempted by
false prophecies about the ensuing end of the world in a certain year of historical time.
But in a more profound sense all epochs are apocalyptic and the end is always near. Only
in relatively tranquil times does the eschatological sensed become dulled for people. The
rise of apocalyptic dispositions does not however yet signify a chronological closeness of
the end of the world. And indeed it would be a mistake, chronological understanding of
the end of the world, its objectification within historical time. For 1,000 they have
awaited the end of the world. In the era of the Reformation there were strong
eschatological outlooks. After the French Revolution and during the era of the
Napoleonic Wars, intellectual Europe was saturated with apocalyptic and eschatological
currents. They awaited the end of the world, the appearance of the Anti-Christ. Jung-
Stilling predicted the end of the world in 1836. In the presentiments and predictions of
the impending end of the world there is an allure and people often find diversion in such
things as these. People often experience it as the end of the world, when there ends an
historical epoch, which they loved and to which they were connected, when the
customary social order is broken up, or when a social class is displaced, to which they
belonged. Shouts that the Anti-Christ is coming, when something is going badly, are very
much misused. Presentiments of the end of imperial Russia, flying it off into the abyss,
evoked eschatological outlooks and predictions. Presentiments of the end by K. Leont'ev
and by Vl. Solov'ev can retrospectively be interpreted as presentiments of the onset of the
end of old Russia, but not the end of the world. We see the same thing in the Russian
poetry of the pre-Revolutionary era, with A. Blok, A. Bely and others. "We live in an
apocalyptic epoch", at present say people, who not at all believe in any sort of
Apocalypse. One thing only is believable and indisputable. We live in an epoch of
catastrophic historical upheaval, when it is impossible to judge about contemporary
events according to the old categories. The weakness of the politicians in our time
frequently can be explained by this, that they too much remain under the sway of the old
historical categories, and are swept away by the transpiring struggle.

II.

Of the Books of the New Testament, the Apocalypse has always evoked towards
itself a wary attitude and generally has been hushed over. This book is an unpleasant
reminder about the catastrophic end, about which people prefer not to think, although all
make preparations for it. A special literature of interpretation of the Apocalypse exists,
which is of a rather low level. It usually presents a completely contrived interpretation of
the symbolics of the Apocalypse and bears an obscurantist character. In order to deal
critically with the Apocalypse, it is necessary to establish some principles of criteria in
regard to the text of Holy Scripture. We cannot still so naively avow the inerrancy of the
literal word for word text of the sacred books. The Voice of God, the Word of God,
reaches us through the mythic and obscured human means, i.e. corresponding to the
spiritual condition of the people and the structural composite of their consciousness. The
Word of God is not received by people automatically, as something always identical and
passive, independent of how the people are constituted. In the apperception of revelation
there is also man that is active. And often this activeness can be negative, reflective of the
lower aspects of people. In the human interpretation of the Word of God we find
elements of distortive sociomorphism. There is therefore necessary a gradual cleansing, a
spiritualisation and humanisation of the means, apperceptive of the Word of God. A
tremendous spiritual effort is necessary, to hear the Word of God in its purity. A
tremendous significance in this process of cleansing can be had by Biblical criticism, by
an impartial historical science, by creative philosophical thought. An anthropomorphic
and sociomorphic apperception of the Word of God, in the bad sense, corresponds to the
enslavement obtaining in the condition of human societies, it has set its own special seal
also upon the apocalyptic books, in the form of a vengeful eschatology. A most
interesting pre-Christian apocalyptic book, not included in the canon of the Bible, is the
Book of Enoch, and it is pervaded by motifs of revenge of the righteous, of the good
against sinners, the wicked. It describes the judgement trial over sinners, taking place in
the presence of the righteous, who as it were sit in the front rows and take delight at the
terrifying trial of the sinners, and who delight at the fierce punishments, to which the
sinners are sentenced. The end of the world becomes thus an horrid blood-letting, a fierce
war. And there is an element of a vengeful, fierce eschatology also in the Christian
Apocalypse. There is nothing more contrary, than the spirit and style of the Apocalypse
from that of the Gospel of John. And it is difficult to admit, that these books were written
by one and the same person. Vengeful eschatological motifs play a large role also in the
teachings of Bl. Augustine about the two cities. The earthly city for him begins with a
murder, with the deed of Cain, and it ends with murder, with war, death and hell. The
interpretation of the Apocalypse, which often is avowed as being in an orthodox
framework, was drawn upon the conditions of this world and received essentially a very
materialistic hue. This was an interpretation set within the mindset of the enslavement of
this world, in which reigns determinism and fate. And it cannot be otherwise, since the
Apocalypse is, first of all, the foresight of the immanent paths of evil, the paths opposed
to the search for the Kingdom of God. Therefore into the darkness of the end only seldom
does there break through rays of light of the new heaven and the new earth, and the vision
of chastisements predominates over any visions of transfiguration. But in this is the
conditional aspect of the apocalyptic prophecies, about which N. Fedorov speaks so
boldly and profoundly. The basic problem, which faces us here, is the problem of
Christian eschatology and progress.

III.

The Apocalypse prophesies about the paths of evil, about the appearance of the
Anti-Christ, about the destruction of this world. Pessimistic interpretations of the
Apocalypse indisputably predominate. The philosophy of the Apocalypse, which is a
philosophy of history, leads in summation to a basic problem. Is the Apocalypse to be
understood, as fate, as an inexorable pronouncing of condemnatory-sentence by God in
regard to human destinies, as a denial of human freedom? I think, that such a fatalistic
understanding of the Apocalypse is profoundly contrary to Christianity, as a religion of
God-manhood. The final fate of mankind is dependent upon God and upon man. Human
freedom and human creativity co-participate in the preparation of the end, and it is a
Divine-human process that leads up to the end of things. The end of history and of the
world not only is wrought over man, but also is wrought by man. Man goes forth to meet
the Second Coming of Christ in the preparatory deeds done by him, the acts of his free
creativity make ready for the Kingdom of God. Christ will come in power and glory to a
mankind, preparing itself for His Coming. It is impossible to consider the activities of
God in regard to mankind and the world, as being merely those of a deus ex machina.
The attitude towards the end of the world cannot be only an awaiting by man, it ought
also to be an activity of man, his creative deed. Least of all can there be justified the
passivity of man, a folding of the arms, a refusal of any creativity on the grounds, that the
catastrophic end of the world is nigh. This -- is a defeatist mindset, a betrayal of the task,
set before man. Each man is prepared for death, amidst poor health, and in his declining
years he cannot sustain before him the prospect of a prolonged time. But from this
personal eschatological awareness it cannot be concluded, that a man ought to give up on
every activity and every deed. Creative activity in view of this can even become
heightened. The acts, done by man, have no sort of connection with these cosmic and
historical times, they are connected with existential time.
 Alike false is both the idea of necessary progress and the idea of necessary regress.
There does not exist a law of progress and a law of regress. This is a product of a false
deterministic world-outlook, a transfer onto spirit of the naturalistic categories. The
problem of progress is a problem of spirit, and not a problem of a process within nature.
Progress, i.e. improvement and ascent, is a task set before the human spirit, and not some
sort of law-posited natural and historical process. Within empirical history there are alike
both progressive and regressive processes, and there is not some sort of law of necessity,
on the strength of which one process ought to win out over the other. The theory of
progress from the XIX Century, transformed into its own peculiar religion, is false, a
theory not corresponding to reality. But this no wise substantiates the right of the
reactionary antagonists of progress. Eschatological pessimism is often employed for
reactionary and anti-human ends. In this has been the negative side of apocalyptic
mindsets, their decadent aspect. And herein it is necessary to deal with a certain
equivocation. They tell us, that Christian truth, that the Kingdom of God upon earth,
cannot be realised, that no sort of progress is possible, that evil but grows more in the
world, that freedom merely begets the evil. And here the question arises, why do they
say, that Christian truth is unrealisable, is it because, that with grief and sorrow they
recognise that it cannot be realised, or is it, that they do not want its realisation, that they
take a wicked delight that it should not be realised? I am convinced, that at the basis of all
the reactionary dispositions, in asserting an eschatological pessimism, there lies a lack of
desire that the truth should be realised, an aversion to that man should move forward and
upwards, that in human life there should be a greater freedom, justice, humanness. The
tremendous merit of Konstantin Leont'ev was in this, that he was not afraid to say this
straight out, with the radicalism characteristic to him, that he was taking the
eschatological pessimism to its logical conclusion. K. Leont'ev did not wish, that
Christian truth should be realised in human life, whereby the social life of people should
become more human, and free and just, for to him this perspective represented something
repugnant, and contrary to his aesthetic mindset. For K. Leont'ev, the realisation of truth
was contrary to his aesthetics, while with others, with the majority, it was contrary to
their interests. When they tell me, that a more just and human social order cannot be
realised, then I always question, where moreso is their emphasis in talking, whether it be
upon the realisation of such an order or whether upon its unrealisabilty, since they seem
to doing everything they can that it not be realised. And I think, that in the majority of
instances, the second scenario is the more credible.

It is necessary to remember, that the very idea of progress, insofar as it is not

employed against Christianity, is of Christian origin and connected with the messianic
consciousness, with movement towards the Kingdom of God. The idea of progress was
foreign to ancient thought, it was absent in Greek philosophy. The utopias of a perfect
social order and of unending progress in the first half of the XIX Century are
representative of secularised forms of the religious messianic idea, of the messianic
expectation, that the Kingdom of God would come. It is striking, that the adherents of
eschatological pessimism distinctly believe in the possible realisation of their aims -- a
powerful state, an imperialistic expansion of nation, the domination over this earth by
their class. The eschatological pessimism no wise leads them to disavow this. The strong
and forceful rule of power, which they want to participate in, presents itself to them as an
act of God upon earth. Amidst the supposition, that the world lies in evil and that human
nature is hopelessly sinful, they want to hold under an iron grip not themselves and their
own, but others, oppressed by them. Amidst this condition, life does not present itself so
gloomy a thing for them. The practise of an imperialistic will to rule of might, a thing to
which are not loathe those eschatologically antagonistic to the liberating processes of
mankind, demands a vigourous energy.

The end of the world and history is a Divine-human deed and it presupposes the
activity and creativity of man. The end is not something merely awaited, but the rather
prepared for. It is impossible to consider the end merely as an immanent chastisement
and desolation. The end is likewise a task for man, the task of the transfiguration of the
world. "For lo all is made new" refers also to man. The end of the world is a new heaven
and a new earth. But the path to this transformation is not a worldly, gradual evolution,
this path lies through tragic catastrophes, through desolations. In order to accomplish the
transfiguration of the world, i.e. in order that God's design should succeed, man ought to
progress, ought to make creative acts, ought to respond to the call of God. There is a
fatalism to evil, i.e. its fatal consequences, but there does not exist a fatalism of good.
Evil is subject to necessity, the good is oriented towards freedom and is freedom.
Automatic good consequences in accord with principles of the laws of the world process
there cannot be. Eschatology sets before man a task, an orientation towards freedom. The
world will not be transformed and God will not transfigure it by way of coercive act of
force. Man ought to transform the world, to transfigure it with God, i.e. to make the
Divine-human deed. It is necessary therefore to cast away both alike the pessimistic and
the optimistic eschatology. The most accurate thing of all that might be said is that the
world has two ends: wars, the rising up of people against people, of kingdom against
kingdom, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, the awaiting of the immanent consequences of
evil, and -- the transfiguration of the world, the new heaven and the new earth, the
Second Coming of Christ.

IV.

Both mistaken and harmful is a sharp opposition between this world and the other, the
world beyond the grave. Amidst this perspective, the realisation of Christian truth is
wholly displaced over into the world beyond the grave, while yet for this world there
remains the beastly law of the jungle, receiving its supreme sanction from eschatological
pessimism. In actuality, "this world" does not at all possess untranscendable boundaries,
it is not a locked-in world, it is not at all simply a most real of real worlds, within it are
possible rifts, in it are possible breakings-through from the other world. In "this world"
the authentic world is situated in its modus of existence, characterised as weight of
gravity. But there is possible a transfigurative transformation of this world. In the
terminology of Kant one could say, that "this world" is appearance and it corresponds to a
certain structure of consciousness, whereas the "other world" is the thing-in-itself, which
discloses itself amidst a different structure of consciousness. But in distinction to the
opinion of Kant, the thing-in-itself is not hidden away in total by an impassable barrier, it
breaks through in the appearances, the phenomena, it is active in the world of
phenomena. That, which Kant calls a mentally-posited freedom, acts within the world.
Therefore it can be said, that in this world there are two worlds, there is in a particular
sense this fallen world and there is another world, acting within this world. The basic
dualism in essence is not a dualism of two worlds, amidst which every truth is rendered
identical in the other world, but rather a dualism of freedom and necessity, of spirit and
nature, comprehended as a genuine causal connection. But freedom works acts in the
realm of necessity, spirit works acts in the realm of nature. There is possible the struggle
of spirit and freedom against the slavery of man in the world, against the slavery of the
world itself. From this perspective, the end of the world is a spiritual revolution of the
world, a revolution of spiritual freedom. And it signifies, first of all, a transformation of
the structure of consciousness. The ossification and restriction of consciousness,
corresponding to the heaviness of gravity, ought to become uncongealed and broken
apart. If there is a patently false dualism, then it is the dualism which asserts, that
eschatology has no sort of relationship to historical actuality, to the social order.
Eschatology obtains for every relation, it possesses a relation to every significant act of
life. The search for the Kingdom of God encompasses all the fullness of life not only
personal, but also social, and the search for the Kingdom of God cannot be understood, as
merely the search for the personal salvation of the soul. The restriction of Christianity to
the personal salvation of the soul, whilst consigning all the world to falsehood, to evil and
the devil, was a distortion of Christianity, its adaptation to the condition of the world and
a great failure. The exclusively as such ascetic Christianity, despite its heroic
manifestations in the past, was opportunism, a renouncing of the path of the
transfiguration of reality.

Quite false is the distinction between the morality of personal acts and the morality
of social acts, and it had fatal consequences within the history of Christianity. Every
personal act is as such also a social act, it possesses a social effect to a certain degree and
extent. Every social act is as such also a personal act, since beyond it stands a man. Man
is an integrally whole being and he discloses himself in the acts of his life. A man cannot
be a fine Christian in his personal religious life, whereas in his social life, in the capacity
of father of a family, the owner of a firm, a representative of power, -- and then draft laws
in the spirit of the Anti-Christ, be inhuman, cruel, a despot and an exploiter. This twofold
manner of book-keeping has been a disgrace of Christian history. There exists only one
morality, one set of God's commandments, and it is not a morality, based upon obedience
to a fallen and enslaving world. Opposed to eschatology is morality, the conformity to
which is intended to uphold this world. But amidst a more profound perspective it
mustneeds be acknowledged, that no sort of morality is there nor can there be except the
eschatological, if under morality it be understood, that man makes an hearkening to the
Voice of God, and not to the voice of the world. Every authentically moral, every
authentically spiritual, authentically creative act is an act eschatological, it ends this
world and begins an other and new world. Every moral act is a victory of freedom over
necessity, of Divine humanness over natural humanness. If one feed the starving or
liberate the Negroes from slavery, to use here examples most elementary, then one makes
an eschatological act, one makes an end to this world, since this world is hunger and
slavery. Every genuine creative act is an onset of the end of the world, it is a passing over
into the realm of freedom, and an exit from going in vicious circles within the world.
 The Kingdom of God cometh imperceptibly, without theatrical effects. It approaches in
every triumph of humanness, in real liberation. In genuine creativity there comes nigh the
end of this world, a world of inhumanity, of slavery, of inertia. God acts within the
freedom of man, in freedom and through freedom. God is present by His energies not in
the Name of God, as assert the magic-like teachings of the Name-Praiser Imyaslavtsi, nor
in power, as assert the magic-like theories of the priestly realm, God is present by His
energies in freedom, in the free act, in the activator of liberation. God is revealed in
Christ, foremost of all the Liberator, and therefore the end of the world ought to be
understood anew, to be understood not exclusively as judgement and punishment, but as
deliverance and illumination. Certainly, the end of the world is the Dread Last
Judgement, but a judgement, as immanent consequence of the paths of evil, and not as
external chastisement from God. The creative freedom of man stands before the problem
of the end. And the approach towards the problem of the end ought to intensify the
exertion of creative activity. Vl. Solov'ev was incorrect in his passive understanding of
the Apocalypse, whereas N. Fedorov was so in his active understanding of the
Apocalypse. In the "Tale of the Anti-Christ", Vl. Solov'ev settled up accounts with his
own past, he expressed the collapse of his theocratic utopia, which was just as false, as is
every theocracy. But it is necessary to contend against the decadent apocalyptic moods,
reflected in the "Tale of the Anti-Christ", a work otherwise very remarkable. Quite higher
and more accurate an idea of God-manhood is in the article of Vl. Solov'ev, "Concerning
the Decline of the Medieval World Outlook", and it has an affinity to N. Fedorov. One
can relate critically to Fedorov's project of the resuscitation of the dead and see in it mere
fantastic elements. But the mindset of N. Fedorov was very lofty, one of the most lofty in
the history of Christianity. He more deeply than anyone saw in the Divine-human truth,
that the end of the world is dependent also upon the activity of man, dependent on his
common task, dependent upon directing of the integrally whole being of man upon the
universal restoration of life, upon a final victory over death. This common task is the
opposite of war, which sows death. N. Fedorov understands man, first of all, as a
resurrector, a bearer of life. But N. Fedorov was not a pacifist of the vulgar type, he
understood the inability to realise eternal peace within the spiritual and social conditions
of the modern world, a world based upon the triumph of death. War is a pre-eminent
phenomenon within history, it is an utmost denial of the value of the human person, even
though war be a struggle for the dignity of man, for his right to a free existence. Wars of
liberation do exist. Absolute good in the murky and evil cause of peace has paradoxical
appearances. I would thus formulate the eschatological problem, which war and the
catastrophes of history pose: history ought to end, since that within the bounds of history
the problem of person remains unresolved, there remains unresolved its unconditional
and utmost value. Within history there ought to begin a process of repentance not of
individual people only, which always there has been, but of the collectives, of states,
nations, societies, churches. The most terrible transgressions are committed in history not
so much by individual people, as rather by human, or more accurately, inhuman
collectives. It is namely through them and in their name that man has most of all tortured
his fellow man, spilled blood, created torment and hell upon the earth. This is a
repentance for the sin of the duplicious morality, governing the world and justifying the
torture of people. The most terrible tortures and crimes are committed in the name of
idols, to which man sometimes has become supremely devoted. And this usually has
happened with the idols of collective realities, or more accurately, the pseudo-realities,
which demand always the offering of human sacrifice. With the fashioning of idols is
connected the catastrophes and terrors of life. The idol-fashioning leads to an end, but it
is not to the end with transfiguration, rather to an end with destruction and ruin. And the
most dreadful of all idols, are those connected with the will to power.

V.

Eschatology is connected with the paradox of time. In this is the difficulty of the
interpretation of the apocalyptic prophecies about the end. The perverseness of these
interpretations is usually connected with this, that the end becomes objectified in time
and materialised in accord with the categories of "this world". The end thus ought to
ensue within this historical time. And hence the predictions of the end of the world in
some certain year. But the end of the world never does ensue in this historical time, and
historical time possesses a perspective of a bad infinitude. The end of the world can only
be thought of as an end of time, an egress from time, an exit from the time of this world,
and not as an end within time, within this time. 1 A naturalistic eschatology is
unthinkable and absurd, and the only possible is a spiritual eschatology. The end of time,
the end of the world, the end of history is a passing over into another frame of
consciousness. To the structure of consciousness, corresponding to cosmic and historical
time and sustaining this sort of time, there cannot be revealed the end of the world. It is
revealed for another structure of consciousness, not subject to necessity and the
massiveness of this world, but rather within another, an existential time, it is revealed in
spirit and reveals spirit. In the creative activity of spirit, in freedom, man emerges out
from the power of this world, subject as it is to necessity and endless time, he enters into
existential time, enters into meta-history. Man can make existential acts, which likewise
can be called eschatological acts. Then before him is revealed eternity, and not a bad
infinitude. Yet as not only spiritual, but likewise a natural and historical being, man
objectifies the perspective of the end. And therein he foresees frightening apocalyptic
pictures of the destruction of the world and the triumph of evil, he remains fettered to the
objectified and material world. In this is the twofoldness of man, the twofoldness of the
world, the twofoldness of the end. Man sees the end of the world in time rather than
seeing it as the end of time. Within time the end is seen only as destruction, but in
eternity -- as transfiguration.

History cannot not be of war and war is a contact-point towards the end, as an
immanent result of evil. All readily admit, that war of itself is evil, although perhaps a
lesser evil. In war here is a demonic principle. Yet together with this, when war has
broken out, people and nations cannot not face the question about the meaning of the war,
they try to make sense of it, just as in all the significant events in life. But
terminologically it is erroneous to posit the question of he meaning of war. War does not
have a meaning, there cannot be the appearance of a meaning, war is meaningless, it is an
outrage against meaning, and within it act irrational and fatal powers. The sole purpose of
war is victory over an enemy. But the question can be put otherwise. There can be put the
question about the causes of the war and about the tasks, which it puts before peoples and
nations. The war itself per se will not create new life, it is destruction. But the people,
living through the terrors of the war, the people, discerning within themselves a creative
freedom, can direct their powers to the creativity of a new, a better, a more human life.
Upon these paths they will prepare for the end, as transfiguration. Alike it can be said,
that the world will end by terrible war and by eternal peace. War has an affinity with
revolution. Revolutions are destructive and fatal. Yet together with this, in revolutions
can be perceived new creative powers and there can arise a new life. The necessary thing
to desire, however, is not destructive and fatal wars and revolutions, but rather the
creative and free transfiguration of life. And if the war be an act of fate, personified in the
enigmatic and horrid figure of the German dictator, then grant it to be that the life, arising
after the war, will be an act of freedom.

Nikolai Berdyaev.

1939

© 2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1939 - 452 - en)

VOINA I ESKHATOLOGIYA. Journal Put’, oct. 1939 / mar. 1940, No. 61, p. 3-
14.

1
This is an antinomy, similar to the antinomies of Kant. The teaching of Kant about
the antinomies is one of the most genius-inspired within the history of philosophic
thought.

THE PARADOX OF THE LIE

(1939-***)

“Your father the devil..., when he speaketh

a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar
and the father of lies” Jn. 8: 44.

“Il y toujours quelque mensonge dans l’order.

Le mensonge est une systemisation qui
recouvre une disharmonie.”
“Un Mensonge est la racine de l’existence en
tant qu’elle suppose la discordance utilisie
au profit de la systemisation”
Fl. Poulhan. “Le mensonge du monde”.*
 The lie plays a tremendous role in human life. The world is swallowed up in lies.
And to the problem of the lie philosophers have paid too little attention. Not only do
people that are by nature liars lie, but also uprightly truthful people. They lie not only
consciously, but also without awareness. People live in fear, and the lie is a weapon of
defense. The structure of consciousness is deformed by the function of lie, begotten by
fear. There exist several types of lies, but the most interesting is that type of lie, which is
conceived of not as a sin or a vice, but as a duty. Elementary in type is the greedy lie, as
the means for the attainment of egoistical aims. But there is a type of lie, non-greedy,
almost artistic, when man does not make a distinction between reality and his own
fictitious inventions. This type likewise does not here interest me. There is moreover a
type of lie out of sympathy, which can be to the saving of the life of another man.
Uprightness does not signify formalism and pedanticism. The moral act of man is always
creatively-individual and is worked for the concrete instances of life, singular and
irrepeatable. But most significant is the social lie, affirmed of as a duty. The life of states
and societies is full of it, it serves as a support for civilisation, this gives it pride, as being
the vanguard against chaos and anarchy.

Deeply rooted in the mass consciousness, myths are manifest by the expression of
this lie. Through the organising of these myths, lie runs the world, a watch-guard over
human society. Ancient myths arose out of a collective subconscious creativity, and at
their foundation was always some sort of reality. Contemporary myths are
characteristically and consciously an organised lie. In them is no naivete. This may sound
pessimistic, but it mustneeds be recognised, that lie is mortared into the foundation of the
organisation of society. The pure and nakedly unshielded truth can lead to the end of all
things, to the ruin of societies and states, -- say the defenders of the pragmaticism of the
lie. Politics is to a remarkable degree an art of directing the human masses, i.e. to spout
demagoguery, i.e. to spout the lie. This artifice is utilised by myths, which are no chance
product of fantasy, and which bear a consciously organising character. Myth is created
simultaneously about the object of love and the object of hate, and in it powerful
emotions reach great intensity and concreteness. Eros and anti-eros simultaneously evoke
a work of enflamed fantasy, that of a created image. The lie, avowedly socially-useful,
herein reaches within the myth such unprecedented proportions and so deforms the
consciousness, that there arises the question of a radical change of attitude towards truth
and the falsehood of lie, -- about the disappearance of the very criterion of truth. In
earlier times, lie played a small role in political life. Though in diplomacy they have
always resorted to cunning and slyness. With the beginning of the modern period,
Machiavellianism came into Europe as a system for the running of states. But all the
same, lie does not recognise ultimately the higher principle of life, in its striving towards
expansion and might. The change of attitude towards truth was there already with
Nietzsche, with Marx, and in pragmatic philosophy. Nietzsche indeed said, that truth is
begotten of the will to power. Marx taught, that the consciousness of truth is inseparably
bound up with the revolutionary class struggle and there cannot be truth cut off apart
from this class struggle. Pragmatic philosophy affirms, that truth is the useful and the
fruitional for the process of life. In such manner, truth is entirely made subordinate to the
vital process, and its criterion is the increase of the might in life. And in practise it leads
to this, that they cease to seek truth, they instead seek power. But for the finding of
power, the lie can seem more fruitful than truth. They seek power because they sense
themselves perishing in the world, which has gone into a fluid condition, in which there
is no longer a firmness of body. I remember, how at a certain international gathering in
Germany, shortly before Hitler came to power, there was read a report about the mindsets
of German students, and the basic thought of this report was, that the students should
cease to seek truth and instead seek power. Thence the extraordinary role of technology
in modern life.

The lie is the chief foundation of the so-called totalitarian states, and without an
organising lie they could never have been created. The lie is conceived of, as a sacred
duty, a duty in regard to the chosen race, in regard to the might of the state, in regard to
the chosen class. It is not regard as a lie -- that which intensifies dynamism, that which
serves to the growth of life, that which gives strength to the struggle. The lie can even
seem the sole truth. The “cunning of reason”, about which Hegel speaks, renders itself in
conscious practise as the useful lie. With Hegel there was already the danger of the
relativisation of truth, subordinating it to the relativeness of history. The lie, which on a
tremendous scale is practised in Soviet Russia and which receives monstrous expression
in the Moscow processes with the old communists, is a dialectical lie. The lie appears at
a certain dialectical moment in the realisation of the perfect Communist society. Each
moment of the dialectical process relativises the ultimate triumph of logic in this process:
for example, the old communist, faithful to the Communist idea, is transformed into a
fascist, and the preceding moment of this process is completely negated, but this is
avowedly necessary for the realisation of the aims of the given process, etc. The lie
within Fascism and National Socialism bears not a dialectic, but rather a vital-dynamic
character. The preaching of an exterminative hatred towards the Jews and the Marxists is
necessary for the intensification of dynamism, for the growth of vital power. Everything,
which is said about a racial or class enemy, is usually a lie. The enemy is a fiction,
needful for a drumming up of enthusiasm, for the justifying of force, for the increase of
might. The fronts, which are put together in the world, are pervaded by lie. The so-called
anti-Communist front is a lie and a fraud. In Germany this is simply international politics
and veiled wishes for the carving up of Russia. In general this is but a concentration of
greedy capitalistic and fascist powers. But the anti-Fascist front, despite the existence of a
real danger of Fascism throughout all the world, likewise has lodged within it a lie, since
as fascists they label everyone who is anti-Communist, which certainly is untrue. Many
an adherent of capitalism is a liberal, but not a fascist. Fascism liquidates private capital
and replaces it by the state. The lie shews itself by putting the world into two camps, and
this is an invitation for war. In actuality the world is quite more complex, it does not
consist merely of fascists and communists. Upon the lie likewise is the basis for the
political parties. Demagoguery, without which the parties cannot circulate, always
presupposes the lie. The slogans, which the parties drag out during the time of pre-
election agitations, usually have nothing in common with their real politics. And with all
the lofty aims, there is a veiling-over of non-lofty interests.

From a most profound truly backwards point of view there is what pragmatic
philosophy propounds, which is the affirming of every theory, subordinating truth to the
organic vital process. On strong grounds it can be asserted, that the lie is useful for
military life and the organisation of power in this world. Truth, the pure and unsought for
truth, can be harmful and destructive for the organisation of order, for every systematic
cover up of disharmony. This, essentially, is said by Poulhan, -- a singular thinker,
turning serious attention to the problem of evil. With this is connected a profound tragedy
within the fate of Christianity. Dostoevsky with genius revealed in his “Legend of the
Grand Inquisitor” not only the dialectic of freedom and authority, but also the dialectic of
truth and lie within the organisation of the kingdom of this world, within the organisation
of the Church and the state. The truth, revealed by Christ, is the truth about an infinite
freedom of spirit. The Grand Inquisitor, through the lips of whom essentially speak all
those wanting to organise the world order, acknowledged the truth of Christ as being
destructive and anarchic, and for the organisation of the well-being of people he wanted
to straighten out the deed of Christ. The argument of the Grand Inquisitor is almost
literally repeated by Charles Morras, who regarded the Gospel as a book destructive and
anarchic, but who praises the Catholic Church for this, that it knew how to transform the
destructive and anarchic book into power, an organising of order, i.e. “to straighten out
the deed of Christ”. It would be to the utmost degree unjust to write off the “Legend of
the Grand Inquisitor” as exclusively applicable only to Catholicism. The whole of
historical Christianity knew how to transform Christian truth, which is an apocalyptic
explosion of the world, into a power, adaptable to this world, to the vital interests of this
world. A thousand times over people have affirmed, that the world should be saved by lie
and only by lie, that truth is dangerous for the very existence of the world. And all ever
again and again is put before people the question: should it be so, is it permissible that the
world should be saved by lie? Can one give oneself over to the service of truth and risk
the existence of the world? And this would mean, is it possible in the name of truth to risk
perishing? The lie can sustain the organisation of society and the state. But inwardly it is
ruinous to he person. Truth however builds up the person.

Dostoevsky has posed a profound problem. But otherwise, the problem was put
just as radically by L. Tolstoy, a very truthful writer of world literature. The whole
creativity of L. Tolstoy was directed against the lie, it is a marvelous unmasking of the
lie, upon which rests civilisation, the state, and the organisation of society. In essence, L.
Tolstoy puts forth everything to risk, puts everything into the picture. The core of
Tolstoy’s teaching about non-resistance consists in this, that when man ceases to oppose
evil by force, then God Himself begins to act, there comes into its own right the Divine
nature. There is nothing easier, than to criticise the teachings of L. Tolstoy. It is very easy
to demonstrate, that amidst non-resistance evil always conquers. But Tolstoy trusted on
an historical miracle and in the name of faith in this miracle of a direct intervention by
God he sets forth to risk the perishing of society, the state and civilisation, the perishing
of the world, which is sustained on lie and coercion, upon law, contrary to the law of
God. Christians wanted to arrange their affairs in any case, such that matters would go
fine even if God were not. L. Tolstoy demands first of all the renouncing of the socially
useful lie. With this is connected the extraordinary love of truth in his literary creativity.
Man ought first of all to stop lying before himself and before God, to cease hiding
himself from the truth, which can cause suffering, which is not flattering to man, and
sometimes even threatens him outright. The love for truth is a fundamental virtue and the
world has great need for it. The world is so caught up in lies, that it has lost the criterion
of truth. Man ceases to distinguish reality from the products of the imagination, begotten
from the bosom of the subconscious, from myths, imbued with vital and social utility.
The creative imagination can be a pathway to the knowledge of truth. But very often and
suspiciously the workings of the imagination are socially advantageous and useful,
helpful to exterminate the enemy, and justifying force.

Science loves truth and seeks truth, it will not endure a lie. Such are its principles.
In this is the greatness of science. Genuine teaching -- is ascetic. But even scientific
theories, the unmasking of the illusions and falsehood of the subconscious (for example,
Freud and psychoanalysis), can themselves create myths, very remote from reality. Thus,
Freud created a genuine myth about the universal significance of the Oedipus complex,
by which to explain the active arising of human societies. He appears here not as
interpreter of the myth, but as the creator of the myth. It is of interest, that the creative
imagination of Freud here acts not in directions, useful for the vital process, but in
directions very pessimistic. The philosophy of Freud itself is so feeble (I speak not about
his great scientific merits), that it cannot give basis nor justify his love for truth, in
unmasking the lie of the consciousness. A certain French surrealist fashioned from Freud
this conclusion, that it is necessary to kill the father and appeals for this murder. Freud is
tempted not by an optimistic, but by a pessimistic myth. Science is inclined to deny
religious realities as being mythic, begotten of the collective unconscious. But it created
a myth about science, as an universal knowing, for resolving all questions. Science itself
loves truth, but scientism is a lie. The learned in solid rank practise the lie, useful and
advantageous for their scientific pride. The modern novel reveals very bitter truths about
man (Proust, A. Zhid, Lavrenev, the novel of psychological analysis). The literature,
essentially, speaks about the disassociation of person, about the loss of the personal
centre. Disassociation of person also begets the lie. But the most wondrous creativity
proves compromised in this process of the decomposition of person. The keen
discernment of reality is an act of integral person-ness, and it is necessary for
truthfulness. The growing increase of lying is a process both social and a process
individual-psychological.

In what is the cause of the exceptional role of lying in our epoch? This is
connected with a change in the structure of consciousness. The extraordinary increase of
lying in the world and of the justified lie, not considered a vice, is determined first of all
by an exteriorising of the conscience. When the conscience, producing moral judgements,
is carried over from the depths of person to the collectives and in the dynamic of the
collectives into history, then how readily the lie can seem justified. But even in the past
the lie was justified not by the personal conscience, but by the conscience of the
collective, by a conscience that is national, churchly, state, military, class, party, etc. But
never yet in such proportions has there occurred the withdrawal of conscience from the
depths of person and its transference to collective realities, as in our time. The personal
conscience, the personal moral judgement not only are paralysed, but they demand of
them that they be paralysed. The personal conscience would never recourse to suchlike a
lie, to which recourses the conscience of the state, the nation, the party, the class, etc. In
the name of the interests of the German race or of the proletariat can be permitted the
grand and organised lie, which would nauseate the personal conscience of the individual
German national-socialist or Russian communist. The denigration of the structure of
consciousness is explicable in this, that for the individual consciousness there is denied
the right furthermore to define the realities and distinguish them from the fictitious, and
this right is acknowledged only but for the collective consciousness. That which for the
individual consciousness appears a lie, for the collective consciousness is manifest as a
reality, even though it be contradicted by the clearest of evidence. To everyone, for
example, it is clear and evident, that the democratic states do not want war and are of a
pacifist mood. But for the collective consciousness of Germany and Italy it is clear and
evident, that in particular it is the democratic states that want war, and it is the dictators
however that do not want war and struggle for peace. This is a lie from the point of view
of the personal consciousness and conscience. But this lie is transformed into a reality
from the point of view of the collective fascist consciousness, since it furthers the might
of the dictators. For the personal consciousness and conscience it is clear, that in the
USSR the executed old communists were die-hard communists to the end, and not
fascists and not spies. But for the collective consciousness of the general line of the
Communist party, the lie about the old communists is a reality, necessary in the
dialectical struggle.

The lie of the contemporary world is not a lie in the subjective sense, in the sense
of the sin of the subject, this lie is the expression of a profound degeneration of the
structure of consciousness. From the world ever moreso disappears the personal
conscience and all the less is heard its voice. But this does not mean, that in general
conscience vanishes, it but alters its character. The collective consciousness has
crystallised with such power and in such proportions, that it completely smothers within
man the personal conscience. Man is forced into the lie in the name of this or some other
understanding of the collective welfare. The lie to a remarkable degree is the
manifestation of the social order. Man lies primarily to an other and to others. And even
when man lies to himself, then he does this, having others in view both consciously and
unconsciously. Man plays out a role before himself, so as then later to play out this role
before others. The dictator is always a man inwardly an incorrigible liar, but this lying
defines his role afront the world. The social attitudes of people are filled not only by the
evil lie, begotten of the will to power, but also by the innocent conditional lie. The
innocent conditional lie can be the condition for the possibility of human living-together.
Thus, for example, a man might polite with another man, whom he despises to the bottom
of his soul. The lie is wrought by evil, when there is the will towards domination and
might, not personal only, but collective also, in what it cannot realise of itself. The will to
power can be particular to an individual, but it always bears a social character. The
“super man” of Nietsche unfailingly must find himself in social acts. But these social acts
unfailingly demand the lie. The will to power cannot be realised otherwise, than with the
assist of the lie. Christ spoke with power, and in Him only was the pure truth. Caesar, the
dictator, can find power only with the help of the lie. Without the lie can be realised only
the feeling of freedom. Freedom is a principle, contrary to lie. And the authentic
liberation of man is a liberation from the domination of the lie. The extent of the lie in the
world defines itself by the manifestation of a centralising collective consciousness,
sustaining the will to power. To this ought to be opposed the heroic struggle for the
freedom of the spirit, i.e. for the truth, the unmasked lie. Not at all does this mean
individualism. Man is a communitarian being. The struggle cannot be directed against the
creation of a new society, of a new communality of people. But truth always means, that
spirit defines society, whereas the lie signifies, that society defines spirit. The new society
cannot be created by diplomacy, i.e. by adaption to the condition of the world. The world
is so full of the lie, the lie is so corrosive to the supreme human ideas, that by the unique
powers of the world, by which everything is relativised, it is impossible to conquer the
lie. Faith in the victory over the lie presupposes faith in the existence of a power exalted
above the world, of the power of a Truth over the world, i.e. God. Even if all the world be
infected by the lie, then all the same there is the Truth, pure from every blemish of lie,
and in the struggle against the lie we ought to unite with this Truth. The personal
conscience defines our relationship to this utmost Power -- the Truth, but this is not only
a conscience, isolated from other people, this is a conscience, pervaded by the sense of
the spiritual brotherhood of people, a brotherhood in the Truth, and not in the lie.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1939

© 2000 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1939 - **** - en)

PARADOKS LZHI. Published in “Sovremennye zapiski. Obschestvenno-politicheskii i

literaturnyi zhurnal”, LXIX, Paris, 1939.

N.B. This is an article missed by the authoritative 1972 YMCA Press Tamara Klepinine
Berdiaev Bibliographie.
Circumstances surrounding the “rediscovery” of this article and its Online republishing
by A. N. Bogoslovsky remain unexplained, as noted by Y Krotov in his Online citation
and Russian posting of the article. The A. N. Bogoslovsky Online Russian posting of this
article further indicates that its “orthography ... was reset corresponding with current
norms of the Russian language”, apparently with some typographic errors, as in initial
citation of name “Paulhan-Poulhon”.

* “In the love for order is always present a

moment of the lie. The lie -- is an unique kind
of systemisation, which regulates disharmony.”

“The lie is rooted in existence itself such that it

presupposes discord utilised to the profit
of systemisation”.
 Fl. Poulhan. “The Lie of the World”.

MY PHILOSOPHIC WORLD-OUTLOOK

(1952/1937 - #476)

At the centre of my philosophic creativity is situated the problem of man. And

therefore my philosophy is to an utmost extent anthropologic. To posit the problem of
man -- this means at the same time to posit the problem of freedom, of creativity, person,
spirit and history. Therefore I have chiefly concerned myself with the philosophy of
religion, the philosophy of history, social philosophy and ethics.

My philosophy is of the existential type, if contemporary terminology be used. But it

can be likewise regarded as a philosophy of spirit. In its basic tendency this philosophy is
dualistic, although the term is about dualism of a particular sort and to some measure is
not ultimate. This is a dualism of spirit and nature, of freedom and determinism, of the
person and the in-general, of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar. And in this
I sense myself closer to Kant, than to the monistic German idealism of the beginning XX
Century. The initial point of my weltanschaung-outlook is the primacy of freedom over
being. This provides philosophy a dynamic character and explains a basis for evil, as also
the possibility of creativity in the world of something new. Freedom cannot be a
determinisation by being, freedom is not delimited even by God. It is rooted in non-
being.

In this, as regards thinkers of the past, especially close to me were Heraclitus, Origen
and St. Gregory of Nyssa amongst the fathers of the Church, Jakob Boehme -- who had
tremendous significance for my spiritual developement, and to a certain degree also Kant.
As regards philosophers of our times those having points contingent with me were
Bergson, Gentile, Max Scheler. Amongst the representatives of existential philosophy the
closest to me is Jaspers. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, Nietzsche, one after the other they
played a large role in the working out of my weltanschaung-outlook, just as did Marx,
Carlyle, Ibsen and Leon Bloy -- in the forming of my social views.

The Tasks of Philosophy. Philosophy is the discipline or science, scientia, concerning

the soul. The scientia concerning the soul is however the scientia concerning human
existence. Particularly within human existence is revealed the meaning of being. Being
reveals itself through the subject, and not through the object. Philosophy therefore of
necessity is anthropologic and anthropocentric. Existential philosophy is a cognition of
the meaning of being through the subject. The subject is existential, existentialised. In the
object, on the contrary, the inner existence is concealed. In this sense philosophy is
subjective, and not objective. It is based upon spiritual experience.
 Cognition. It is impossible to set cognition in opposition to being. Cognition is an event
within being. Cognition is immanent to being, and it is not that being is immanent to
cognition. Cognition is not a mere mirrored reflection of being within the cognitive
subject. Cognition bears a creative character and itself represents an act of positing
meaning. The opposition of the cognitive subject to the object leads to an annihilating of
being both of the subject, and also of the object. The cognition of the object of necessity
transforms cognition into objectivisation. There exist various degrees of cognition and
corresponding to them degrees of objectivisation. The more objectivised the cognition,
the more remote it is from human existence, and is the more universally-binding. This
logical universal-obligatoriness possesses a social nature. The logical universal-
obligatoriness of objectivised cognition is connected with a lower degree of the spiritual
community of people, based upon communication. The sphere of the physico-
mathematical sciences can serve by way of an example. For the recognising of truth in
the sphere of the mathematical or natural sciences the spiritual community of people is
irrelevant. But this communalness has to be already the more noticeable, when the talk
turns to the social sciences. Philosophic cognition cannot abstract itself off from human
existence, for the positing of this or that truth there is necessary a spiritual in-
commonness, since metaphysical cognition cannot be to such a degree universally-
significative, as is mathematical cognition. And finally, truths of a religious order
demand a maximum of spiritual in commonness between people. On the inside religious
truths (the truths of religion) seem very subjective and very disputable, but for the
religious communities, which believe in them, these truths are universal and indisputable.
Penetration into the mystery of existence presupposes a creative intuition. Objectivised
cognition corresponds to a breaking-apart, a disassociatedness of the world, i.e. to its
fallenness. But within the limits of this world it has a positive significance.

The sociology of cognition possesses a significance of the first degree. Its scope is to
establish the connection between cognition, on the one hand, and the problem of society
(obschestvo) and in-commonness (obschnost’) of communication and community
(obschenie), on the other hand. Objectivised cognition is always involved with the “in
common” (“obschii”), and not with the “individual”, and therefore an objectised
metaphysics, based upon a conceptual system, is an impossibility. Metaphysics is naught
other, than a philosophy of human existence; it is subjective, and not objective, it rests
upon symbol and myth. Truth and reality are not at all identical with objectification.

Anthropologism. The fundamental problem of philosophy is the problem of man. Being

reveals itself within man and through man. Man is a microcosm and a microtheos. He is
created in the image and likeness of God. But at the same time man is a natural being,
and finite. In man there is a twofold aspect: man is the point of intersection of two
worlds, he reflects in himself the higher world and the world lower. As the image and
likeness of God, man is a person. Person is properly distinct from the individuum. Person
is a category which is spiritually-religious, the individuum however is a category
naturalistic-biological. Person cannot be a part of anything: it is an integral whole, it is
correlative to society, to nature and to God. Man is a spiritual being, but also physical and
fleshly. In the capacity of a fleshly being he is connected with all the cycles of worldly
life, and as a spiritual being he is connected with the spiritual world and with God. The
spiritual basis within man is dependent neither upon nature nor upon society, and it is not
defined by them. Freedom is inherent to man, although this freedom is not absolute. The
principle of freedom is determined neither from below nor from above. The freedom
inherent to man is a freedom uncreated and primordial. There is talk about an irrational
freedom: it is not about freedom in truth, but rather about the freedom to accept or deny
the truth. Another freedom is the freedom, issuing forth from truth and from God, a
freedom pervaded by grace. Only the acknowledgement of uncreated freedom, a freedom,
not rooted within being, can explain the emergence of evil, while at the same time it
explains the possibility of the creative act and newness in the world.

The Teaching about Creativity. The problem of creativity occupies a central place in
my world-outlook. Man was created for this, that he in his own turn should become a
creator. He is called to creative work in the world, he continues the creation of the world.
The meaning and purpose of his life is not accounted for merely as salvation. Creativity is
always a passing over from non-being to being, i.e. a creation from out of nothing.
Creativity from nothing is a creativity from freedom. In distinction to God, however, man
has need of material in order to create, and in his creativity there is enclosed an element
issuing forth from the freedom of man. In the fount of his creativity there is a soaring
upwards, a victory over the heaviness of the world. But in the results, in the products of
creativity, there is discovered a downwards tugging and pull. In place of new being they
create books, articles, pictures, social institutes, machines, cultural values. The tragedy of
creativity consists in the non-correspondence of the creative intended design with its
realisation. Creativity presents itself as the complete opposite of evolution. Evolution is
determinism, a matter of sequential effects. Creativity however is freedom, a primordial
act. The world has not ceased to be created, it is not finished, the creation is continuing.

The Philosophy of Religion. Revelation is twofold. It presupposes God, from Whom

issues forth the revelation, and man in receiving it. The acceptance of revelation is active
and dependent upon the breadth or narrowness of consciousness. The world of things
invisible is not forcefully compelling for us, it reveals itself in freedom. Man is not free in
his denial of the sensory world, which surrounds him, but he is free in his denial of God.
With this is connected the mystery of faith. Revelation does not contain within itself any
particular philosophy, any particular system of thought. Revelation however has to be
assimilated by human thought, which is made distinct by a constant activity. Theology is
dependent always upon philosophic categories. But revelation cannot of necessity be
bound up with any especial one philosophy. The capacity for changes and the creative
activity of the subject, receiving the revelation, justify an eternal modernism. In their own
time both the works of the fathers of the Church and of the Scholastics were regarded as
modernism.

Religious cognition is symbolic. It cannot express religious truth in rational

concepts. For the mind, truth is antinomic. Dogma -- is symbol. But this is a realist
symbolism, reflective of being, and not an idealist symbolism, reflective merely of the
condition of man. Metaphysics cannot find its completion in a system of concepts, for its
end-purpose is in myth, beyond which reality conceals itself.
 Religion is the connection between God and man. God is born within man, and man
is born within God. God awaits from man a creative and free answering. With this is
connected the mystery of God-manhood, of unity within duality. Christian philosophy is
a philosophy of God-manhood and Christology. Religious life, the primal source of
which is manifest by revelation, undergoes the influences and actions of the social
surroundings. This bestows on the religious history of mankind an especial complexity.
There is therefore necessary a re-working of it by a constant cleansing, working it
through and the reviving of it.

The Philosophy of History. The acknowledging of the meaning of history is an aspect

of Judaism and Christianity, but not of Greek philosophy. The relationship of Christianity
to history is twofold. Christianity is historical: it is the revelation of God within history.
But Christianity cannot be confused with history. It is a process within history. The
philosophy is history is connected with the problem of time. We live within a fallen time,
fragmented into the past, the present and the future. The victory over the death-bearing
current of time is a fundamental task of the spirit. Eternity is not an infinitude of time,
numerically immeasurable, but rather qualitative, a surmounting of time. The past for us
is always already a transformed past. The meaning of history is gained through tradition,
which presents itself as a creative connection between the past and the present. The
meaning of history ought to have meaning for each human person, it ought to be
commensurate with its individual fate. Progress however regards each man and each
generation as a means for succeeding peoples and generations. Ruptures are inevitable
within history, just as crises and revolutions are inevitable within it, which witness to the
lack of success of all human accomplishments. History ought to have an end, for the
meaning of history is bound up with eschatology.

The Philosophy of Culture. Culture is the creative activity of man. In culture the
creativity of man finds its own objectivisation. In theocratic societies, based on
sacralisation, the creative powers of man are not sufficiently free. Humanism is a
liberation of the creative person of man, and in this is comprised its truth. Beyond the
theme of culture lies concealed the theme of the relationship of man to God and to the
world. But either way it is God against man, or man rises up against God. Humanism in
its developement led to a secularisation of culture, and in this secularisation there was its
own truth and unmasking of lie. Humanism however finished up with a self-deification of
man, and with a denial of God. And therein the image of man, which is in the image of
God, began to disintegrate. Humanism passed over into anti-humanism. We see this with
Marx and with Nietzsche. The crisis of humanism presents itself as a movement towards
principles supra-human, either towards Christ, or towards the Anti-Christ. The force of
technology is one of the moments of the crisis of humanism. The incursion of the masses
modifies culture from above downwards, lowers its quality and leads to a crisis of
spirituality. Technical civilisation rends the integral wholeness of the human being and
transforms him into a function. Only a spiritual renaissance would allow man to
subordinate the machine to himself.

Social Philosophy. The fundamental problem is the problem of the relationship between
the person and society. Society presents itself as the objectivisation of human
relationships. In society the “I” can remain solitary and not meet up in encounter with the
“thou”. For sociology the person is an insignificant part, subordinate to society. For
existential philosophy, on the contrary, society assumes the appearance of being part of
the person, its social side. In the person there is inherent a spiritual principle, a depth,
which is not defined by society. Men belongs to two spheres: the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of Caesar. Upon this is grounded the right and the freedom of man. And thus
also, there exist limits to the domination of the state and society over man. Society is not
an organism. The reality of human society defines itself by the reality of the human
community. An objectivised society, suppressing the person, arises from the
disassociation of people, from their sinful egocentrism. In such a society there exists
communication between people, but not community. The highest type of society appears
to be the society, in which there are united the principle of the person and the principle of
community. Such a type of society might be termed a personalist socialism. In such a
society, for each human person there would be acknowledged an absolute value and
utmost worth as a being, called to eternal life, and therein the social organisation would
guarantee for each the possibility of attainment of the fulness of life. It is necessary to
strive towards a synthesis of an aristocratic, a qualitative principle of person, and a
democratic, socialist principle of justice and the brotherly collaboration of people.

In the epoch of the active incursion of the masses into history and the giddying
developement of technology society becomes technically ordered. Mankind forsakes the
organic rhythm of life and subordinates itself to a mechanical and technical organisation.
For man as an integrally whole being, this process is sickening and tormentive. The
tellurgic period of the life of mankind approaches its end. The might of the machine
signifies the beginning of a new period -- cosmogonic, since it subordinates man to a new
cosmos. Man already no longer lives amidst bodies inorganic and organic, but amidst
organised bodies. In such an epoch especially there is need for a strengthening of spirit
and spiritual movement for the preservation of the image of man. Without a spiritual
renewal it is impossible to attain social restructuring.

Ethics. Personalism is a basis for ethics. Moral judgements and acts are always personal
and individual, they cannot be defined by the concepts or choice of a collective or
society. The distinction between good and evil is a consequence of the fall into sin. The
paradisical existence was situated above good and evil. There exist three views of ethics:
the ethics of law, the ethics of redemption and the ethics of creativity. The ethics of law is
the most widespread amongst sinful mankind. The ethics of law is the ethics of a social
everydayness, it is based upon the subordination of man to norms, and for it there does
not exist the human individuality. For it man exists for the Sabbath. The “good” however,
which observe the law, shew themselves often to be “evil”. In this ethics it is the idea of
an abstract good that governs. The ethics of law found its most extreme expression in
Phariseeism. This is a normative ethics. The ethics of redemption issues forth from a
lived human existence, and not from an abstract idea of the good. The ethics of creativity
is based on the creative gifts of mankind. The creative act has a moral significance, and a
moral act is a creative act. The true moral act is unique, it cannot be repeated. The moral
act is not a fulfilling of the law, of norms, but is rather a creative newness in the world.
Every creative act has moral significance, though this be a creativity of cognitive or
aesthetic values. Ethics is bound up with the eschatological problem, the problem of
death and immortality, of heaven and hell. Hell is situated in the subjective, and not in the
objective, and it remains within time, within unending time, and does not pass over into
eternity. The ontology of an eternal hell is impossible. Hell is created by the “good” for
the “evil”, and therein they render themselves evil. The kingdom of God is on the other
side of our here and now “good” and “evil”, and the thought about it can only be
apophatic.

________________________

Basic works for the understanding of my philosophic world-view are: “The

Meaning of Creativity” (published in English title “The Meaning of the Creative Act”),
“The Meaning of History”, “Philosophy of the Free Spirit” (published in English under
title “Freedom of the Spirit”), “The Destiny of Man”, “I and the World of Objects”
(published in English under title “Solitude and Society”).

And in matters that touch upon the philosophy of culture, one might refer to
suchlike works of mine, as “The New Middle Ages” (in English text “The End of Our
Time”), “Christianity and Class War”, “The Truth and Lie of Communism” (in English
text “The Russian Revolution” Chapter entitled “The Religion of Communism”), and
“The Fate of Man in the Modern World”.

Nikolai Berdyaev

1937 / 1952

© 2000 by translator Fr. S. Janos

(1952/1937 - 476 -en)

MOE PHILOSOPHSKOE MIROCOZERTSANIE. First published 1937 in German as

entry in “Philosophen Lexicon” compendium under title “Die philosophische
Weltschaung N. A. Berdiaef”.

As journal article, first published posthumously in 1952 in Russian, in the journal

“Vestnik Russkogo studentcheskogo khristianskogo dvizheniya” (“Messenger of the
Russian Student Christian Movement”), No. 4-5.

We have not reproduced here the numerous bibliographic philosopher footnotes provided
in the 1990 Russian journal “Philosophskoe nauki” (Bk 6 p. 85-89). This was reprinted in
the 1994 A. A. Ermichev (editor) text, “N. A. Berdyaev: Pro and Contra”, p. 23-28.