The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy: A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What I Believe, Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, The ... Kind Youth and Corresp by Leo Tolstoy

Author:Leo Tolstoy [Tolstoy, Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788026852469
Publisher: e-artnow
Published: 2016-04-05T07:00:00+00:00

In addition to these twelve chapters an introduction from the first chapter of the Gospel of John is added, in which the writer of that Gospel speaks, in his own name, as to the meaning of the whole teaching, and a conclusion from the same writer's Epistle (written probably before the Gospel) containing a general deduction from all that precedes.

These two parts do not form an essential part of the teaching, but though they both might be omitted without losing the sense of the teaching (the more so as they come in the name of John and not of Jesus) I have retained them because in a straightforward understanding of Christ's teaching these parts, confirming one another an the whole, furnish, in contradiction to the queer interpretation of the Churches, the plainest indication of the meaning that should be ascribed to the teaching.

At the beginning of each chapter, besides a brief indication of its subject, I have given the words which correspond to that chapter from the prayer Jesus taught his disciples.

When I had finished my work I found to my surprise and joy that the Lord's Prayer is nothing but a very concise expression of the whole teaching of Jesus in the very order in which I had arranged the chapters, and that each phrase of the prayer corresponds to the meaning and sequence of the chapters:

1. Our Father, Man is a son of God 2. Which art in Heaven, God is the infinite spiritual source of life. 3. Hallowed be Thy Name, May this source of life be held holy 4. Thy Kingdom come, May his power be realized in all men 5. Thy will be done, as in heaven, May the will oft his infinite source be fulfilled as it is in himself 6. So on earth, so also in the bodily life. 7. Give us our daily bread, Temporal life is the food of the true life. 8. Each day. True life is in the present. 9. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, And let not the mistakes and errors of the past hide that true life from us. 10. And lead us not into temptation, And may they not lead us into delusion, 11. But deliver us from evil, And so there shall be no evil. 12. For thine is the kingdom the power, and the glory, And may thy power, and strength, and wisdom, prevail.

In the full exposition, in the third part, everything in the Gospels is set down without any omissions. But in the present rendering the following are omitted: the conception and birth of John the Baptist, his imprisonment and death, the birth of Jesus, his genealogy, his mother's flight with him to Egypt; his miracles at Cana and Caperaum; the casting out of the devils; the walking on the sea; the blasting of the fig-tree; the healing of the sick; the raising of the dead; the resurrection of Christ himself, and the references to prophecies fulfilled by his life.

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