懺悔錄A Confession Ch-1

by Leo Tolstoy

1882

Bill Lin 譯

1.

我是在東正教的信仰下，接受了洗禮和教養長大。我的宗教信仰從幼年、經過童年、到青年都是被這樣教導的。但是就在我十八歲，大學二年級輟學的時候，我不再相信以往所教給我的這一切。

由某些記憶看來，我從未認真的相信那些教導，僅有的，不過是對周遭的成年人所教給我的，和他們所宣稱的事物的信賴，而這種信賴是很不穩固的。

記得在我快十一歲的時候，有一個叫Vladimir Milyutin（早已去世）的中學生，星期日到我們家來，告訴我們學校最近發現的一件新鮮事。這新發現就是：上帝不存在，而且給我們有關神的教導全是捏造的（那時是1838年）。我記得，我幾個哥哥對這個消息很感興趣，他們叫我參加開會，我記得，我們都很興奮，把它當作是一件十分有趣和很有可能的事。

我還記得，我的哥哥Dmitriy突然在念大學的時候，以他熱情的本性，虔誠的信起教來，並開始參加禮拜，禁食，過起清高的生活，我們所有的人，甚至年長者，都不斷地取笑他，而且不知為何還稱他為諾亞Noah。我記得，那時的Kazan大學院長Musin-Pushkin邀請我們到他家參加舞會，還用大衛David也在方舟前面跳過舞來勸說我的哥哥(他不接受邀請)。我那時認為大人們開這種玩笑是可以的，還由此得出結論：雖然教義要背，教堂該去，但是不必太當真。我還記得，我很年輕的時候就讀過伏爾泰Voltaire的作品，他的嘲諷不僅沒有使我憤怒，反而使我非常高興。

我的背離信仰，在我們這種教育程度的人當中是尋常的。我想，多數情況是這樣的：他們和大家一樣的生活著，而大家的生活原則不僅與宗教教義毫無共同之處，反而，通常是對立的。宗教教義與生活無關，和他人交往，永遠不會用到它，在私人生活中也從來不用考慮到它。宗教教義是在遠離生活、獨立於生活之外的談論而已，如果會被觸及，也不過是當成一個表面的、與生活沒有聯繫的現象。

古今皆然，我們無法根據一個人的生活，行為，來判定他是否信教。假如一個公開宣稱信奉正教與否定信教的人會有不同，那個不同是對前者不利的。古今皆然，公開宣稱和認知信仰正教的大致會碰到一些無趣而且心硬的，和自以為了不起的人。不信的人卻經常碰到有能力的、誠實的、前後一致的，良善而有德行的人。

講授宗教教義問答catechism的學校，把學生送進教堂，公務官員得交出領受聖餐的證明。但是一個在我們圈子裡的人，已經離開學校，又不出任公職，現在可能甚至(以往更容易使他如此)一二十年來都不曾記得自己是生活在基督徒中間，而且不曾考慮到自己是正教教會的一份子。

因此，從過去到現在，因著信賴而被接受並由外部壓力支持著的教義，在與其對立的知識和生活經驗的影響下逐漸溶化掉了，而一個人還繼續活下去，推想自己還完整的保持著童年時代被傳授的教義，而實際上它早就一息無存了。

聰明而又誠實的S君，有一次他告訴我他如何不再信教的故事。當他過了26歲那時，有一次出遠門打獵，在他們過夜的地方，他跪下晚禱──自小養成的一個習慣。和他一起去打獵的哥哥躺在乾草堆上看著他。當S君做完了晚禱，準備安睡的時候，他的哥哥對他說："你還一直這樣做嗎？"

他們沒有再談下去。從那天以後，S君就不再禱告和上教堂了。現在他不禱告，不領聖餐，而且也不上教堂已經三十年了。這個並不是因為他知道他哥哥的信念，同意了他的觀點，也不是因為在他的靈裡已經做出了某種決定，只是因為他的哥哥講的這句話，就像一根指頭輕輕一點而推倒了一面因著本身的重量而隨時要倒塌的牆。這話只指出了他原來以為有信仰，實際上早就空無一物，因而禱告時所表達的話語、畫十字、跪拜，完全是毫無意義的舉動。一意識到他們的無意義，他再也做不下去了。

我想，過去和現在絕大多數的人都是如此。我指的是具有我們這種教育程度，而且表裡如一的人，而不是指那些把宣稱的信仰，當作達到生活上的目標的工具的人（那些人是最基本的異教徒，因為信仰對他們來說是贏得任一生活需要的手段，所以這絕不是信仰）。這些知識份子有這樣的處境，他們所具有的知識的光照和生活經驗已經使得一個人工建物溶化無踪，他們有的已經發覺這一點，並把它清除乾淨，有的還沒有注意到。

和其他人一樣，童年時代教給我的教義在我頭腦中消失了，只是有一點差別：由於我在15歲時就開始閱讀哲學的作品，我對教義的否定早就變成是有意識的。我從十六歲開始不作禱告，不上教堂，不禁食決志。我不再相信童年時教給我的一切，但是我還相信某些東西。究竟我信的是什麼，我一點也講不出來。我相信神，或者說，我不否認神的存在──但是我無法說是什麼樣的神。我也不否定基督的存在和他的教導，但是他的教導有什麼，我也不說不出來。

回觀那時，我現在看得很清楚，我的信仰──我的唯一真正的信仰──那除了動物本能之外推動我的生活的力量──就是一種追求自我完美的信仰。但是完美的本質是什麼，它的目的何在，我說不出來。我追求自己在心智方面的完美──我盡量研究所有能學的，只要是生活上碰到的；我追求自己在意志方面的完美，制定我努力遵守的規矩；我追求自己在體能方面的完美，藉著各式各樣的運動，培養我的體力和靈敏度，通過艱難困苦來鍛鍊自己的韌性和耐力。我認為這一切都是在追求完美。所有一切完美的起源當然是道德的完美，但是很快的它就被一般所謂的完美所代替：就是渴望在別人眼中變得更好，而不是在我自己的眼中或神的面前。而且很快這種成就又變成了一種要比別人強的慾望：就是要比別人更有名，更重要，和更富有。

I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox Christian faith. I was taught it in childhood and throughout my boyhood and youth. But when I abandoned the second course of the university at the age of eighteen I no longer believed any of the things I had been taught.

Judging by certain memories, I never seriously believed them, but had merely relied on what I was taught and on what was professed by the grown-up people around me, and that reliance was very unstable.

I remember that before I was eleven a grammar school pupil, Vladimir Milyutin (long since dead), visited us one Sunday and announced as the latest novelty a discovery made at his school. This discovery was that there is no God and that all we are taught about Him is a mere invention (this was in 1838). I remember how interested my elder brothers were in this information. They called me to their council and we all, I remember, became very animated, and accepted it as something very interesting and quite possible.

I remember also that when my elder brother, Dmitriy, who was then at the university, suddenly, in the passionate way natural to him, devoted himself to religion and began to attend all the Church services, to fast and to lead a pure and moral life, we all - even our elders - unceasingly held him up to ridicule and for some unknown reason called him "Noah". I remember that Musin-Pushkin, the then Curator of Kazan University, when inviting us to dance at his home, ironically persuaded my brother (who was declining the invitation) by the argument that even David danced before the Ark. I sympathized with these jokes made by my elders, and drew from them the conclusion that though it is necessary to learn the catechism and go to church, one must not take such things too seriously. I remember also that I read Voltaire when I was very young, and that his raillery, far from shocking me, amused me very much.

My lapse from faith occurred as is usual among people on our level of education. In most cases, I think, it happens thus: a man lives like everybody else, on the basis of principles not merely having nothing in common with religious doctrine, but generally opposed to it; religious doctrine does not play a part in life, in intercourse with others it is never encountered, and in a man's own life he never has to reckon with it. Religious doctrine is professed far away from life and independently of it. If it is encountered, it is only as an external phenomenon disconnected from life.

Then as now, it was and is quite impossible to judge by a man's life and conduct whether he is a believer or not. If there be a difference between a man who publicly professes orthodoxy and one who denies it, the difference is not in favor of the former. Then as now, the public profession and confession of orthodoxy was chiefly met with among people who were dull and cruel and who considered themselves very important. Ability, honesty, reliability, good-nature and moral conduct, were often met with among unbelievers.

The schools teach the catechism and send the pupils to church, and government officials must produce certificates of having received communion. But a man of our circle who has finished his education and is not in the government service may even now (and formerly it was still easier for him to do so) live for ten or twenty years without once remembering that he is living among Christians and is himself reckoned a member of the orthodox Christian Church.

So that, now as formerly, religious doctrine, accepted on trust and supported by external pressure, thaws away gradually under the influence of knowledge and experience of life which conflict with it, and a man very often lives on, imagining that he still holds intact the religious doctrine imparted to him in childhood whereas in fact not a trace of it remains.

S., a clever and truthful man, once told me the story of how he ceased to believe. On a hunting expedition, when he was already twenty-six, he once, at the place where they put up for the night, knelt down in the evening to pray - a habit retained from childhood. His elder brother, who was at the hunt with him, was lying on some hay and watching him. When S. had finished and was settling down for the night, his brother said to him: "So you still do that?"

They said nothing more to one another. But from that day S. ceased to say his prayers or go to church. And now he has not prayed, received communion, or gone to church, for thirty years. And this not because he knows his brother's convictions and has joined him in them, nor because he has decided anything in his own soul, but simply because the word spoken by his brother was like the push of a finger on a wall that was ready to fall by its own weight. The word only showed that where he thought there was faith, in reality there had long been an empty space, and that therefore the utterance of words and the making of signs of the cross and genuflections while praying were quite senseless actions. Becoming conscious of their senselessness he could not continue them.

So it has been and is, I think, with the great majority of people. I am speaking of people of our educational level who are sincere with themselves, and not of those who make the profession of faith a means of attaining worldly aims. (Such people are the most fundamental infidels, for if faith is for them a means of attaining any worldly aims, then certainly it is not faith.) These people of our education are so placed that the light of knowledge and life has caused an artificial erection to melt away, and they have either already noticed this and swept its place clear, or they have not yet noticed it.

The religious doctrine taught me from childhood disappeared in me as in others, but with this difference, that as from the age of fifteen I began to read philosophical works, my rejection of the doctrine became a conscious one at a very early age. From the time I was sixteen I ceased to say my prayers and ceased to go to church or to fast of my own volition. I did not believe what had been taught me in childhood but I believed in something. What it was I believed in I could not at all have said. I believed in a God, or rather I did not deny God - but I could not have said what sort of God. Neither did I deny Christ and his teaching, but what his teaching consisted in I again could not have said.

Looking back on that time, I now see clearly that my faith - my only real faith - that which apart from my animal instincts gave impulse to my life - was a belief in perfecting myself. But in what this perfecting consisted and what its object was, I could not have said. I tried to perfect myself mentally - I studied everything I could, anything life threw in my way; I tried to perfect my will, I drew up rules I tried to follow; I perfected myself physically, cultivating my strength and agility by all sorts of exercises, and accustoming myself to endurance and patience by all kinds of privations. And all this I considered to be the pursuit of perfection. The beginning of it all was of course moral perfection, but that was soon replaced by perfection in general: by the desire to be better not in my own eyes or those of God but in the eyes of other people. And very soon this effort again changed into a desire to be stronger than others: to be more famous, more important and richer than others.