The Gospel in Brief
by Leo Tolstoy
(translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude)
(from Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org)
Prologue
Jesus
Christ's announcement replaced the belief in an external God by an understanding of life.
THE
announcement of welfare by Jesus Christ, the son of God.
The
announcement of welfare consists in this, that all men who believe that they
are the sons of God obtain true life. The understanding of life is at the basis
and the beginning of all. The understanding of life is God. And by the
announcement of Jesus it has become the basis and beginning of all things.
All things
have come to life by understanding, and without it nothing can live.
Understanding gives true life. Understanding is the light of truth, and the
light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it.
The true
light has always existed in the world and enlightens every man who is born in
the world. It was in the world, and the world only lived because it had that
light of understanding.
But the
world did not retain it. He came unto his own, and his own retained him not.
Only those
who understood the enlightenment were able to become like him because they
believed in his reality. Those who believed that life lies in the understanding
became no longer sons of the flesh, but sons of understanding.
And the
understanding of life, in the person of Jesus Christ, manifested itself in the
flesh, and we understood his meaning to be that the son of understanding, man
in the flesh, of one nature with the Father the source of life, is such as the
Father, the source of life.
The
teaching of Jesus is the full and true faith, for by fulfilling the teaching of
Jesus we understand a new faith instead of the former. Moses gave us a law, but
we received the true faith through Jesus Christ.
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