Herein lies the real significance of that striking picture which we see in the history of Christian nations, and which seemed impossible in the fate of the world before Jesus Christ. But what is the reason for this respect for the rights of younger brothers, the compassion of the chosen ones of fortune for the destitute mounds of fate? First of all, by spreading the teaching about the equality of all people before God, the teaching about salvation. The belief that each of the poorest of the most humiliated has an immortal duta, which is created in the image of God, which is called to eternal bliss and which Jesus Christ came to save with His blood; This faith makes us see a brother in every person, recognize his right to our respect, deprives us of the opportunity to neglect his dignity and well-being with a clear conscience. "Take heed," said Jesus Christ, "despise not one of these little ones" (Matt. 18:10). Take away this faith, and man will cease to be a brother, a neighbor to man, he will be only a new figure in a huge sum, an extra wheel in a huge mechanism, a figure and a wheel that will be valued not in themselves, regardless of everything, but only according to the amount of benefit they bring. Take this example. Suppose the greatest scientist, writer or artist says: Pasteur, Shakespeare or Murillo saves a dozen simple men and women; At the same time, while saving, he himself dies. From the point of view of commercial calculation, it would be a reckless business, an unprofitable barter: for the life of a dozen rough workers, the life of a world genius is given; The Rare Game Diamond is exchanged for a handful of copper nickels. From the Gospel point of view, it will be a majestic feat, a manifestation of the highest love. "Greater love hath no man," said the Saviour, "than this, that a man lay down his life for his neighbors" (John 15:13). And we, glorifying Peter the Great for saving the dying soldiers at Lakhta, after which he fell seriously ill and died, thereby clearly say that in the eyes of the modern (European, at least) world, the life of every person, regardless of his social status, has an equal irreparable value. Science cannot prove such a proposition, and sometimes does not even agree to recognize the equality of all people. Letourneau, a member of the Paris Anthropological Society, writes in his work "Sociology according to Ethnography": "There is a certain kind of hierarchy among human races... In terms of organization, the races of man differ greatly from one another: while some are undoubtedly worthy of the name of the chosen, others are just as certainly a distinct class of rejected races. That is why Kidd says: "The idea of the innate equality of men, which plays such a great part in the social development of our civilization, is not in its essence a conquest of reason. Reason and experience do not sanction it; it is only a characteristic product of the religious system of morality on which our civilization is based," that is, Christianity. In a word, Christianity is not only a source of moral regeneration for individuals, but a good for all mankind, the main force for the unremitting growth of culture and social progress. Take the best, brightest dreams about the future of all the noblest and most self-sacrificing friends and leaders of mankind, strengthen them in any degree, and yet you will not find a more tempting prospect than that indicated in the Gospel: the establishment and coming of the Kingdom of God on earth. When we comprehend the essence of Christ's gospel, then we will understand that mankind does not and will never have a more important task than that outlined in the Gospel: "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." The exception was a handful of philosophers who rejected folk mythology; but philosophers also fought only against the anthropoid representation of the deity; against polytheism, expressed the idea of the need to recognize one God; of the Divinity itself, they resolutely refused to give any definite concept. "We are all madmen in divine things," they say, "and we know nothing: the knowledge of the Divine is closed to men." "All my speeches about God," confesses Xenophanes, "are alien to the full truth; it is not given to man to know the truth" ^ Be healthy, Caesar! Those who are going to death greet you! ^ Japan, which has made such amazing progress in the last 20 years in the sense of introducing it to European culture, is no exception: it shines not with its own light, but with its own light, but with that borrowed from Europe; it successfully transplants to itself the foreign, but it has contributed nothing of its own to the treasury of universal culture ^ Metchnikoff, "Civilization and the Great Historical Rivers", pp. 86-87 ^

V. The Kingdom of God

"Jesus said unto them that believed on him... if ye abide in my word... you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." (John 8:31-32). There is a well-known aphorism that says that every person is by nature a philosopher. The meaning of this aphorism is that man, as a thinking and rational being, no matter how low a degree of mental development he may be, cannot but ask himself certain questions, one or another solution of which constitutes an attempt to know the truth, that is, philosophy. These questions are about the meaning of life and the purpose of man. Oh, solve me the riddle of life, An eternally anxious and terrible question. Give me the answer that the mystery is from the ages? What is the essence of man? What is it? Where is he going? Who lives up there, above the stars? This is how the young man asks with plea in Heine's famous poem. This young man is a symbol of all mankind, and his questions are old, but eternally new questions of all thinking people. People of all countries and times have languished and are languishing over their solution. The mighty king-ruler of many nations also languishes over them; the eternal toiler-ploughman also languishes, wandering after the plow in his meager nurse field; they are inquisitively solved by a brilliant scientist - a great sage, glorified by the world; the coarse savage, the simple-minded son of the forests or the desert, racks his brains, listening to the vague voice of the Great Spirit. In order to understand these eternal perplexities of the mind and heart, the best people of the world in ancient times in wise Greece, under the shadow of the pyramids of Egypt, on the banks of the wide Ganges, under the sultry sky of Arabia, on the stones of the rocks, on the scrolls of papyrus, on copper tablets, on pieces of goat and sheep skin, were written a huge number of extensive books, individual sayings and all kinds of laws. rules, instructions. Hundreds of the greatest minds exerted every effort to open the sealed book of life, to solve the dark riddle of existence, but life still stubbornly guarded its great secret, like the sphinx. Until the time of Jesus Christ, the sought-after truth was not given to people like a treasure: mankind sought it in the wrong place. People realized that without the Supreme Being they could not think of themselves or the world; but only the Deity was presented to the ancient world in a perverted form. Pagan antiquity, with forty centuries of its cultural development, was unable to rise above the physical world. The religious worldview of ancient peoples sought God in the diversity of the world, in the stars of the sky, in the forces of the earth; bowed down before the greatness of heroes, raising them to the assembly of gods [1]. The idea of deity was here degraded to the last degree. Man was not required to exert moral forces in order to rise to the level of divinity. The deities were obsequious to man. Xenophanes of Colophon is deeply indignant that every nation creates gods for itself in its own image. "Red and blue-eyed among the Thracians, gods are black and snub-nosed among the Ethiopians." "If bulls, lions and horses could draw and sculpt," our poet-philosopher ironically says, "then they would also depict the gods as similar to themselves, would give them the body that they themselves possess." Such a crude naturalism of religion inevitably led to a coarse morality: sensuality was rooted in the very source and center of life, in religious ideas. Marked by such a sensual character, the religions of the ancient world were more likely to indulge than to oppose the base instincts of human nature, and therefore religion itself was the deification of the natural forces of nature, so the requirements of morality were in fact only the legitimization of the coarse instincts born in man. Open hostility reigned between the peoples. The Egyptian, from the top of his pyramids, looked with haughty pride at all the surrounding countries; Abraham's descendants, the Jews, considering themselves to be Jehovah's chosen people, despised the rest of the world as rejected by God; the refined and enlightened Greek called every foreigner a barbarian, and the stern Roman looked upon all of them as the rightful prey of his sword. Brutal violence and inhuman cruelty were the basic law of international relations. The peaceful inhabitants of the conquered country were enslaved, and, without distinction of ability, education, or former social position, were reduced to the level of the domestic draught animals of the victor. Secured by the labor of millions of slaves, the victors spent most of their lives in corrupting idleness, drowning in insane luxury. There was not a single coarse sensual pleasure which the flower of the civilized nations of that time did not enjoy to the point of satiety. "Everything here," says one historian, "was cold inhumanity, refinement of taste, satiety of luxury, and shameless pleasure." "What is truth? - said the pagan world with contempt. - Is it worth bothering yourself with such an empty question? Life is short, hurry up to enjoy it." Carpe diem - seize the minutes of pleasure - this is the motto of ancient mankind. Spiritual needs were not awakened, and if individual glimpses of higher aspirations flared up in someone from time to time, then, not finding an appropriate environment for their realization, they gave rise only to heavy dissatisfaction with life. "Why complain about trifles? - asks Seneca. - The whole life of a person in general is deplorable." "Death," cries the emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius, "do not delay your coming." All those who could not reconcile themselves to the suffocating atmosphere of moral depravity, general violence and vile servility, lived only in the hope that one day the dawn of a new life would dawn on the world. They have been waiting for this day, painfully searching for the word of eternal truth, and it has finally been heard. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden," said a voice from the banks of the Jordan, "and I will give you rest. Learn from me, and you will find rest for your souls." Hearing this call, people, exhausted by the fruitless search for the true ideal of life, followed Him by the thousands, despite persecution, torture, and death itself. The teaching of Christ, like the glow of a great fire, enveloped the entire world of that time, and no streams of the blood of the martyrs, shed by the persecutors of the cross, were able to extinguish it. Christianity passed through the earth like a majestic, crushing everything before it, mighty stream. The Gospel law of love for God and people, like a beacon, has been lit high above the world and has become the guiding star of mankind in the impenetrable darkness of life. The struggle of the pagan system of life that had developed over tens of centuries against the new teaching was stubborn, but the moral force of Christianity is so great that nothing can resist it. "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24), proclaimed the Gospel, and thus for the first time tore the Divinity away from the earth and the earthly, elevated the thought of Him above the world and human passions, and showed the path of service to Him in moral perfection. God is Spirit; not a force of nature, not a divine hero, but a personal, spiritual Being; He is the Higher Mind, the Highest Love, the Highest Truth, the Highest Holiness. This idea alone powerfully elevates man. The charm of the physical nature is destroyed; the crown of divinity is removed from her; it is given its proper place; it must embody the thoughts of the Divine. The animal needs of man are now represented as the service of gross matter; they should not dominate in man. Man carries within himself the chalice of the Divine, and God is Spirit, therefore spiritual interests must henceforth have the greatest value for people. For spiritual purposes, for truth and goodness, for the highest rational aspirations, man is obliged to renounce the most precious desires inspired by the flesh: he must renounce all the base pleasures of animal nature, and the ties of kinship, if the interests of people close to his heart and their demands run counter to the requirements of the moral sense. "If any man will come after me," says the Saviour, "let him deny himself. He is not worthy of Me who loves more than Me, or father, or mother, or daughter, or son." Man is usually a greedy creature, greedy for self-interest and coarse pleasures. To enjoy, to possess, to gather - this is the desire that eats us, destroys our soul and makes us destroy the souls of others. And now the order of life is still significantly colored by this feeling of self-love. Take, for example, the entire modern industry. It is basically guided mainly by the spirit of gross self-interest. I recall Kasatkin's painting "Coal Miners. Change" as a successful symbol of industry itself and, perhaps, to a large extent, of our entire life. The painting shows the interior of a huge worker's barracks above the mine. Early morning; the dawn is barely dawning; The night shift of miners goes out of the mine to the surface of the earth. They go tired, black; only the whites of the eyes are visible. The faces are somehow gloomily calm, as if they keep a great secret - the secret of resignation to inevitable fate. With such a face, probably, the ancient Roman gladiators walked, when, passing by the imperial box, they exclaimed: "Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutant" [2]. Another shift is waiting for the turn of the descent. A short nap did not restore exhausted strength; the workers yawn, stretch. The frosty boy could not resist the temptation of a few free minutes, curled up on the floor in a ball and dozed off. A drunken, pale face says that he will not have long to go to his shift; the candle of life burns out quickly; But the work will not stop without him: need will bring new victims here. Do you remember Pushkin's words: But a man Sent a man to the anchar with an authoritative look, And he obediently flowed on his way, And in the morning returned with poison... He came, and weakened, and lay down Under the arch of the hut on the bast. And the poor slave died at the feet of the Invincible Lord. Here both the words of the poet and the brush of the artist agree that our blessings of the earth, all these billions of poods of coal, gold and steel, under the present system of life, are bought at a dear, terrible price - the price of untimely deaths and ruined millions of lives. In front of this picture one involuntarily thought in the words of the Saviour: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and destroy his own soul?" To clarify this last great thought before people, to make them feel the whole truth and its meaning is a task immeasurable in its morally beneficial consequences, which the Gospel takes upon itself and fulfills in the best possible way. Consider at least the words of the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father, Who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!" May everything in life be as Jesus taught to pray, and everything will be perfect. There will be no more evil, no more hatred, no more people dying of exhaustion with excessive work, no more idle rich people who are satiated to the point of bestial stupefaction. There will be God in man and man in God; Heaven will come on earth. It is here, in this divine world, in heaven, where the Father, Jesus Christ, dwells, and directs the hearts of his disciples. A disciple of Christ should not be attached with all his heart to the earth, or to man, or to anything created. His thoughts must be completely owned by the Heavenly Father. "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven... for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt. 6:19-21). A person's heart must inseparably belong to God, and two exceptional loves cannot coexist in one heart. "No one can serve two masters: for he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will be zealous for the one, and not care for the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matt. 6:24). These words do not mean, however, that Jesus condemned all activities that are the source of private and public welfare. He Himself worked at the carpenter's loom. He condemned only attachment to the goods of this world, when they completely absorb a person, ousting all other thoughts and interests from his heart. Foolish children, simple-minded savages, may still be forgivable to be carried away by trinkets, to sacrifice their valuable possessions for the sake of some beads or glasses; But for a reasonable person, who is aware of the strength of a powerful spirit, it is both shameful and criminal to waste oneself in the service of the body, when the highest spiritual interests remain aside. "Therefore I say to you," Jesus Christ preached to the people, "seek first of all the Kingdom of God and righteousness, and all other things will come to you of their own accord." This is the main and only thing that is needed. Service to the Kingdom of God is at the same time service to God. No other service without this, without service in spirit and truth, is pleasing to God. "God does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor requires the service of human hands" (Acts 17:24-25). He needs neither fat sacrifices, nor incense smoke, nor altars shining with gold and precious stones; He does not require prostrations, pilgrimages, or fasts. If we have all this, it is for ourselves, as a means and an environment that contributes to the strengthening of lofty pious moods in us. In the eyes of God, "a heart purer than gold, and a strong will is good" are valuable in man. Only the pure in heart can see God. The heights of Zion are accessible only to him Who has not weighed his deeds at the price of gold, Has not weighed, has not sold, Has not contrived against his brother, And has not slandered his enemy. Nor is our prayer pleasing to God, if it comes from a heart that is not illumined by truth and love. "If you bring your gift to the altar," says the Saviour, "and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matt. 5:23-24). People had never heard anything like this before Jesus Christ. The Gospel for the first time gave the world such a sublime and perfect concept of God, and thus set before man such an ideal that can never be attained, but approaching which, mankind will become purer, more moral, and more perfect. Here it is not the Divinity that is reduced to man, but man undertakes to rise to the Most Perfect Being. The best among the sages suggested to man: "Listen to the voice of conscience": Moses repeated: "Be faithful to the commandments of Jehovah your God, for He is terrible"; Jesus Christ said to His disciples: "Conscience errs, the law is a yoke for servants, but you look at the image of the Godhead given to you. Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. His example is your law; His Spirit is your strength." From now on, the Spirit of God must be the supreme lawgiver of all human life, the true master of human thoughts, desires, and actions. Neither a dead letter nor a fossilized form will any longer fetter or delay the living thought of man. A free, enlightened spirit, unfettered by permanent forms ("for the Son of man has become Lord of the Sabbath"), will create and destroy, passing from the lower to the highest, from the highest to the more perfect. In this spirituality, which belongs exclusively to the Christian religion, thus lies the pledge of the endless future of the progressive movement in humanity. Look at the East, which is alien to Christianity (Turkey, Persia, India, China and other countries) [3]: The human race has been sleeping deeply there for many, many years. Compare then this age-old spiritual slumber of the non-Christian East with the uninterrupted progress of social life among the Gospel-sanctified Western peoples, and you will have to admit that it is Christianity, its spirit, that is the main factor in this extraordinary process of social development. Only the Gospel, preaching the God of love, the Father of all men, laid the foundation for true brotherhood in mankind, broke down international boundaries, removed the chains from slaves, exalted the personality of man, taught in every person to respect his moral dignity, no matter what tribe or class of society he may be. "From now on there shall be neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave, nor master, nor male nor female; "For all in Christ are equal." Thus wrote the great apostle to the Gentiles, opening in these words a new period in the history of mankind. This recognition of the equality of all people before God has had a decisive, indelible influence on our entire European civilization. It constantly softened and mitigates the humiliating distinctions of class, and soon raised the slave to a higher position by instilling in him a sense of innate dignity. Benjamin Kidd, the author of a remarkably clever and original book, Social Evolution, remarks: "If we ask ourselves what is the history of the legislation of European nations over a long period extending to our own times, we shall stumble upon curious things. The whole history of this period can be summed up in a few words. It is simply the history of a series of concessions demanded by a party incomparably much weaker in its position, consisting mainly of the lower classes, leading a hard working life, and receiving from another party of power, capital, leisure and social influence, which we can unmistakably consider incomparably stronger.

Herein lies the real significance of that striking picture which we see in the history of Christian nations, and which seemed impossible in the fate of the world before Jesus Christ. But what is the reason for this respect for the rights of younger brothers, the compassion of the chosen ones of fortune for the destitute mounds of fate? First of all, by spreading the teaching about the equality of all people before God, the teaching about salvation. The belief that each of the poorest of the most humiliated has an immortal duta, which is created in the image of God, which is called to eternal bliss and which Jesus Christ came to save with His blood; This faith makes us see a brother in every person, recognize his right to our respect, deprives us of the opportunity to neglect his dignity and well-being with a clear conscience. "Take heed," said Jesus Christ, "despise not one of these little ones" (Matt. 18:10). Take away this faith, and man will cease to be a brother, a neighbor to man, he will be only a new figure in a huge sum, an extra wheel in a huge mechanism, a figure and a wheel that will be valued not in themselves, regardless of everything, but only according to the amount of benefit they bring. Take this example. Suppose the greatest scientist, writer or artist says: Pasteur, Shakespeare or Murillo saves a dozen simple men and women; At the same time, while saving, he himself dies. From the point of view of commercial calculation, it would be a reckless business, an unprofitable barter: for the life of a dozen rough workers, the life of a world genius is given; The Rare Game Diamond is exchanged for a handful of copper nickels. From the Gospel point of view, it will be a majestic feat, a manifestation of the highest love. "Greater love hath no man," said the Saviour, "than this, that a man lay down his life for his neighbors" (John 15:13). And we, glorifying Peter the Great for saving the dying soldiers at Lakhta, after which he fell seriously ill and died, thereby clearly say that in the eyes of the modern (European, at least) world, the life of every person, regardless of his social status, has an equal irreparable value. Science cannot prove such a proposition, and sometimes does not even agree to recognize the equality of all people. Letourneau, a member of the Paris Anthropological Society, writes in his work "Sociology according to Ethnography": "There is a certain kind of hierarchy among human races... In terms of organization, the races of man differ greatly from one another: while some are undoubtedly worthy of the name of the chosen, others are just as certainly a distinct class of rejected races. That is why Kidd says: "The idea of the innate equality of men, which plays such a great part in the social development of our civilization, is not in its essence a conquest of reason. Reason and experience do not sanction it; it is only a characteristic product of the religious system of morality on which our civilization is based," that is, Christianity. In a word, Christianity is not only a source of moral regeneration for individuals, but a good for all mankind, the main force for the unremitting growth of culture and social progress. Take the best, brightest dreams about the future of all the noblest and most self-sacrificing friends and leaders of mankind, strengthen them in any degree, and yet you will not find a more tempting prospect than that indicated in the Gospel: the establishment and coming of the Kingdom of God on earth. When we comprehend the essence of Christ's gospel, then we will understand that mankind does not and will never have a more important task than that outlined in the Gospel: "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." The exception was a handful of philosophers who rejected folk mythology; but philosophers also fought only against the anthropoid representation of the deity; against polytheism, expressed the idea of the need to recognize one God; of the Divinity itself, they resolutely refused to give any definite concept. "We are all madmen in divine things," they say, "and we know nothing: the knowledge of the Divine is closed to men." "All my speeches about God," confesses Xenophanes, "are alien to the full truth; it is not given to man to know the truth" ^ Be healthy, Caesar! Those who are going to death greet you! ^ Japan, which has made such amazing progress in the last 20 years in the sense of introducing it to European culture, is no exception: it shines not with its own light, but with its own light, but with that borrowed from Europe; it successfully transplants to itself the foreign, but it has contributed nothing of its own to the treasury of universal culture ^ Metchnikoff, "Civilization and the Great Historical Rivers", pp. 86-87 ^

Part 1

"Thy Kingdom come!" The human mind is usually polluted with many false ideas that are far from corresponding to reality; in comparison with the original, they turn out to be not a real image of him, but an imaginary image, nowhere but in our imagination not existing, a chimera, an idol, as the famous English philosopher Bacon expresses it. One of these idols, which can lead the seeker of truth away like a will-o'-the-wisp, is the mistaken belief that they have never been seriously acquainted with them. Such persons think that they are clearly aware of the meaning of things, because they have signs for them that are passed off as their meaning. These signs of things are their names and words, with which we become acquainted before we become acquainted with the nature of things themselves; by means of them men communicate to each other their conceptions of things.

A sad confirmation of such a sad phenomenon can be found in the usual, widespread, more than vague, sometimes downright perverse, understanding of what the Gospel expression "the Kingdom of God" means. This word is familiar to every Christian from early childhood. Not yet able to read, we repeat the petition in the Lord's Prayer from the words of our elders: "Thy Kingdom come!" In the Gospel, nothing else is spoken of in such detail and for a long time as the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the basic idea of the entire teaching of Jesus Christ, a thought that grows and becomes clearer with each new page of the Gospel. In the Gospel narrative there is not a single word, not a single action of the Savior that would not relate to the Kingdom of God.

In a word, the concept of the Kingdom of God contains all the teaching of Christ the Saviour, all of His economy; it constitutes His glory, the whole meaning of His appearance on earth, and His entire divine mind. Hence, to be a Christian, or at least to consider oneself entitled to judge the Gospel authoritatively and not to understand clearly and definitely what the Kingdom of God is, is an impossible thing for a sensible person. This is the same as considering oneself an expert in philosophy and having no idea of Plato, Aristotle, Kant and Hegel. Nevertheless, the majority of those who reverently read the Gospel and critically analyze it are distinguished by an extremely vague, erroneous idea of the Kingdom of God.

"The Gospel directs the gaze of the believer exclusively to heaven," they usually say in such cases, "it forgets that man is created from the earth, chained to matter by his very body; This cannot be ignored. The birds to which the Gospel refers, and they build nests, take care of their chicks. Can we, who are endowed with material needs greater than birds, be completely indifferent to the immediate needs of the body? To insist on such a demand is not to go against nature, to demand the impossible with excessive rigorism? We are warmed by the bright sun, caressed by the aroma of the fields, enchanted by the starry glitter, captivated by the trills of the nightingale. Can admiration for the beauty spilled in nature, delight in the blessings of the world scattered around us be criminal? Why then was all this created, why are certain instincts invested in us"? In response to a long series of questions posed, we have to say one thing: all these convincing arguments strike into space, not into the Gospel, but into an empty place. First of all, the Gospel strictly and clearly distinguishes between the concepts of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God. In the speech of Jesus Christ about the fate of the righteous beyond the grave we read: "Then shall the King say to those who are on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34). In a farewell conversation with His disciples at the Last Supper, Jesus Christ, reassuring them before the impending separation, says: "Let not your heart be troubled... In My Father's house there are many mansions. And if it were not so, I would say to you, I am coming to prepare a place for you" (John 14:1-2). In both cases it is equally clear that the kingdom of heaven - the kingdom of the glory of the righteous, already "prepared" - is a fait accompli. But the Kingdom of God, which is spoken of in parables, in the Lord's Prayer, and in the indication of the ultimate goal of man's activity, has not yet come in its entirety; it is a matter of a more or less distant future; founded on earth by Christ the Saviour, this Kingdom is subject to further dispensation, and has yet to come. We do not say, "Thy kingdom come," or "Thy kingdom be made," but "let it come," because it has already begun, but it has not yet embraced all mankind, has not yet included us within its limits; we are still beyond its boundaries, outside the sphere of the grace-filled action of its laws. It will come when our worldview will be imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, when the whole structure of our life will contribute to the demands of divine truth, when our sympathies will breathe with the pure love of Christ; It will come for those who are oppressed by a reality depressing with vulgarity and filth, who await the blossoming of truth and goodness, who hunger and thirst for truth, who wish to conquer evil. Whether society, a whole people, or all of humanity are imbued with these aspirations, the Kingdom of God will come for a given circle of people, for a nation, for the whole world; if individuals are imbued with them, the Kingdom of God will come only for them. For those who are happy and content with the twilight of the lawlessness of the weak who reign over the earth, who place egoism and their own passions above all else, who find the striving for the infinite ridiculous and incomprehensible, for all such the Kingdom of God is incomprehensible and inaccessible. The Kingdom of God is the organization of persons, forces, and phenomena realized in history, in which God reigns and His rational holy will reigns exclusively, or, in other words, more simply: the Kingdom of God is the righteous, morally perfect life of people on earth, awakened by Christ the Savior and built according to His Gospel covenant. The triumph of such a kingdom consists in the complete victory of good over evil in the human heart. When Jesus Christ came out to preach, surveying the world life with His mind's eye and evaluating it from the moral point of view, He defined the general impression as follows: "The whole world lies in evil" (1 John 5:19). Evil in the form of widespread violence, the lack of rights of the weak, the insolent licentiousness of the rich, the bestial stupefaction of the crowd, the unbridled of egoism and base passions was a universal fact, was a law of the world. The struggle against this kingdom of evil, its overthrow and the creation of the Kingdom of God in its place became the main work of the Savior. The time has come for the fulfillment of God's first promise to people: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent" (Gen. 3:15). "People who languish under the burden of unrighteousness and iniquity," Jesus Christ seems to say to the world, "the life that you have created for yourselves cannot give you the happiness you seek and possible. Evil begets only evil, and true happiness, the highest is good, which is born exclusively of love and goodness. If you want to find it, if you are burdened by the oppression of the evil that reigns in the world, come to Me and learn from Me. My words will pour a healing balm into your tormented, aching hearts. I will show you the path that will bring peace to your soul. Submit wholeheartedly to My teaching, walk in the path which I have laid out before you, put My yoke upon yourselves, and you will see that My yoke is easy and My burden is light. In place of the long, hopeless, suffocating night, with My entry into the world, the dawn of a bright, quiet day dawns. Hitherto, in the midst of the general depressing lawlessness, only like a spark in the hearts of the few chosen ones of the earth lurked great hope for a better future. Now it is destined to come true. Times have come true. The Kingdom of God is at hand. It is near, it is here, beside you, around you, but it is necessary that it penetrate and embrace your heart, the source of all activity and the guiding principle of human life. Clear the place for God in your heart, give space to truth and goodness in your life, free yourself from the lies, violence and gross selfishness that reign in you, repent." "Repent" was the first word with which the Gospel addressed humanity. The possibility of the desired renewal of life, the coming of the Kingdom of God among people, is conditioned primarily by repentance. If you do not repent, said the Divine Herald of a new life, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God." The Russian word "repent" is not sufficiently expressive, does not set off the necessary thought with the proper relief; It does not have the desired brightness. In the original, in the Greek text of the Gospel, the meaning of the word is outlined more prominently, its content appears more sharply. There we read: "methanofatef"; Literally, it means: change your mind, change your thoughts, change your basic point of view. In this case, the words of Jesus Christ, His requirement of repentance for entry into the Kingdom of God, acquire the following meaning.

If they are not systematically stifled in oneself, if they are given space, development and strengthened in the soul, they will illuminate life with a dazzling, enchanting brilliance. Life will become unrecognizable: the power of evil will be replaced by the charm of love. And this Kingdom of God in people can come at any given moment. Only such people as are available are not fit for a new life; they need to be renewed in spirit. It is necessary that they make a radical reassessment of all their aspirations, be imbued with a new trend, the spirit of all-embracing evangelical love, the pacifying meekness of Christ, an irrepressible and insatiable attraction to the truth. The future bright life depicted by Jesus Christ sets an indispensable condition for people to reflect in themselves the Gospel image of man, to become accustomed to relate to life and respond to its various manifestations as Jesus Christ Himself treated and responded to it. The Gospel has brought to the fore with special force the idea, unfortunately often not understood even now, that just as the potter determines the quality of his pots by his skill, his diligence and attention to work, so man determines the character and direction of his life by his own strength, his qualities, and the nature of his nature. The latter cannot take on a different character unless the basic properties, the very nature of man, change, take on a different character. No coercive influence from outside, no blind obedience to authority is capable of producing a complete and, above all, irreversible change in life. For a radical change in life, for its complete turn towards the Kingdom of God, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the greatness of the moral ideal of the Gospel, a vividly felt disgust for the former way of life, based on serving the animal inclinations of our coarse, base nature, and a thirst to find satisfaction of the higher needs of the spirit. For the clarification and substantiation of this idea, the conversation between Jesus Christ and Nicodemus is especially characteristic and instructive. One of the leaders of the Jews, a man named Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi! we know that you are a teacher who came from God; for no one can do such miracles as you do, unless God is with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:1-3). If we think more carefully about the above passage of the conversation, compare the content of Nicodemus' words with the speech of Jesus Christ, we will see that Jesus does not respond to Nicodemus, does not further develop the thought of his nocturnal interlocutor, but abruptly interrupts him, giving the conversation a sharp turn in the other direction. Nicodemus says: "Although my fellow Pharisees hate You, are hostile to Your teaching among the people, I cannot but acknowledge You as a Divine Teacher, and bow down before You. Your miracles convince me that you are sent by God; I am Thy disciple, and I have come to Thee to bear witness to it." - "If you think so," Jesus interrupts him, "I cannot recognize you as my disciple.

My task is to suppress the evil, depraved will in people and to subordinate the entire structure of their personal and social life to the most holy will of the Higher Mind and the Highest Love, the will of the Heavenly Father. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord! Lord!" shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). Have you understood all this? Whoever wants to follow Me must renounce all that is base, shameful, evil, die to sin, and enter into a new life purified, imbued with an exalted spirit; "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Life is what people create it; its distinctive character is determined by the properties of the spiritual nature of man. If humanity wants life to change for the better, so that the sum of goodness and truth in the world increases, it must be reborn spiritually, raise its own level, and strengthen its energy in the service of truth and love. That is why Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount emphasizes with particular insistence the rise of moral obligations that is obligatory for the sons of the Kingdom of God.

Part 2

Ye have heard that it was said unto them of old time, saith he, Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not deprive a man of life. But I say to you: Do not offend your neighbor with vain anger, be afraid to offend him even with speech, to deprive him of the dignity of a person in words. You have heard that it was said to them of old time: Do not be dissolute, do not turn the body, which was destined to be the receptacle of the Spirit of God, into an instrument of service to the worst instincts of the flesh. But I say to you, beware of even filthy thoughts, turn your eyes away from that which may defile the purity of your thoughts. Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt keep thy oaths before the Lord, and fear to appear as a transgressor of them. But I say unto you, that ye keep every word of yours sacredly, that ye may always speak one truth without an oath; if yes, then yes, and if not, then no. You have heard that it is said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that is, if you take revenge on your neighbor, do not take revenge on him with interest; Do not repay a wound with death, as Lamech did, seventy times seven times for an injury (Gen. 4:24), but for a wound with a wound, and for a wound with a plague. But I say: do not pay evil for evil at all; When someone strikes you on your right cheek, do not respond in kind, but without fervent challenge, without offensive reproaches, give yourself over to the will of the offender. Revenge adds evil to evil, pours oil into the fire and fanns the flames of enmity; meekness and gentleness disarm hatred, subdue rage, and confuse brutal violence. Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy. But I say unto you, Love all men, and hate only their evil deeds; drive away malice, destroy lies, smash violence and pharisees like a fiend of hell, and have pity on those who serve all this; the persecutors are more miserable than the persecuted: the Kingdom of God is no longer accessible to them; their hearts are hardened, their minds are hardened; they do not know what they are doing. Pray for them and do good to those who hate you. Remember that in life, as in a common treasury, not a single human deed, not a single word, not a single thought, not a single movement of the heart is lost without a trace. Everything leaves its mark, everything in one way or another, for better or for worse, affects the general character of the life around us. Therefore, be faithful to the moral law in small things, as well as in great things. "Always and everywhere seek first of all the Kingdom of God and his righteousness." This, in a few words, is the legislative work of Jesus. If it does not enter into the flesh and blood of man, does not transform his spiritual nature, does not become his life force, and if this power does not spring up, the Kingdom of God will not come for this. For the Kingdom of God, one repentant publican, one sinner who washes the feet of Jesus with tears, is a greater gain than ninety-nine majestically calm, haughty righteous men who imagine themselves to have reached the pinnacle of virtue. In them, the stream of life stopped its movement, froze and had already managed to twitch with mud; in the publican and the sinner, the spring of eternal life, long restrained, littered with a heap of vicious passions and desires, broke through to freedom at the touch of the Savior's hand, suddenly overflowed in a wide stream, washed away all the spiritual impurity accumulated over the years, and in its crystal streams reflected all the brilliance, all the beauty of the Gospel life, and the farther, the deeper it lays its channel into the heart of the villain and harlot. The Gospel is sparse in words for details that do not directly relate to the work of Jesus, but even those few features that we find in the story of the repentance of the publican or the forgiveness of the harlot are enough to vividly imagine the act of complete spiritual rebirth that took place in them. Let us recall the parable of the publican and the Pharisee. Two people entered the church to pray; One was a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee is an honorable regular visitor to the temple; He knows everything here and everyone knows him. With his head majestically raised, with a majestic step, he passes among the pilgrims parting before him and stands on a dais, in the first place. His deeds of virtue, like he himself now, are in the sight of everyone: he is in church at prayer, and in fasting, and in charity always and everywhere in front. Aware of this, with a feeling of deep self-satisfaction, he says: "God, I thank You that I am not like others, like the publican at the doorstep." Here the goal is achieved: the wretched moral and religious ideal is realized; There is nowhere else to go, he remains in frozen immobility to proudly admire himself. He Who said of Himself, "I am Life," does not find His life in the Pharisee; the Pharisee was not born for the Kingdom of God. The publican is a different matter. He is undoubtedly a vicious man; his whole life is full of grave crimes; Everyone despises him, and he does not think highly of himself. Under some accidental suggestion, he entered the church today together with others. He had not been here for a long time; everything is alien to him, unfamiliar to him. He surveyed the vaults and walls of the church and, not daring to go further, timidly stopped at the threshold. From these sacred walls, which had not been seen for a long time, a swarm of past memories flooded over him. He remembered how he had come here with his parents every holiday as a child; here his mother first taught him to fold his hands in prayer; he then loved to merge with the crowd of thousands in one prayerful cry of Israel, in the singing of the touching psalms of David. How clearly his childish voice sounded, how much spiritual purity, ecstatic love for God was heard in every sound! With what sinking heart he listened to the fiery words of the writings of the ancient prophets; how he was indignant with them at the iniquities of the wicked, and in the spirit and power of Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, he dreamed of serving Jehovah! What happened to all this? Years after years rush through my memory in a string, and the further time passes, the darker my soul becomes. Both the mother's speeches and the church with prayer are forgotten; Both conscience and childhood dreams are forgotten. Like leaves, picked up by bad weather, images of the past flash in the memory and crush it like a heavy stone, oppressing the head on the chest. A callous heart trembled, Remembered the forces that died shamefully, Youth was a pity; Burning tears welled up in his eyes, and, pouring down in an irrepressible stream, like a rainstorm in a hot season, refreshed the weary soul of the publican; malice and hatred for people melted away in him, spiritual dirt was washed away with tears, the vicious heart was renewed, reborn. The publican came to the temple as a great sinner, and came out as a son of the Kingdom of God. "Verily, truly," teaches the Gospel, "unless you turn and repent like the publican, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Consequently, the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth, the improvement of human life is possible only under the condition of the spiritual rebirth of people; without the penetration of individuals by the spirit of Christ, the renewal of society is impossible, and no social progress is conceivable. "The kingdom of heaven," says its Founder, "is like leaven, which a woman took and put into three measures of flour, until all was leavened" (Matt. 13:33). And "the Kingdom of God shall not come in a visible way, and they shall not say, Behold, it is here, or, behold, it is there. For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). Thus, the history of the Kingdom of God, strictly speaking, is the history of the human soul. It originates in the recesses of the human heart and must first take root within us. The external conditions of life play a secondary role in the fate of the Kingdom of God; The success of its emergence and growth depends primarily on the internal qualities of a person. A certain moral preparation is necessary, as if it were a spiritual means. "No man can come to me," says Jesus Christ, "if thou shalt come unto me? the Father shall not draw him" (John 6:44), if he himself does not have at least a vague attraction to the Father. This explains why sometimes, despite all the seemingly advantageous conditions for the perception of truth, one person does not recognize it, and, on the contrary, another, under all the most disadvantageous conditions, without any apparent reason, gives himself entirely to it. The parable of the sower serves as a beautiful illustration (Matt. 13:3-8 and 18-23). The sower scatters the seed over the clearing with a wide swing of his hand; The seed is equally viable, but the result is different. On the trampled road, the seed did not penetrate the ground and was trampled; on a stony place withered; The thorns died out. And only the fourth seed, which fell on good ground, bore abundant fruit. The reason for the difference in success is not in the grain, but in the soil. So it is with the Kingdom of God, with his seed! Once sown in the world, it will not die out. We may not notice its development (for us, the slaves of the moment, the work that has been going on for centuries may seem to have stopped in development), but it is growing. "The kingdom of God is like this, as if a man cast seed into the ground, and he sleeps, and rises night and day; and how the seed sprouts and grows, he does not know, for the earth of itself brings forth first greenery, then an ear, then a full grain in the ear" (Mark 4:26-28). The seed is full of powerful vital juices; it is fraught with immense powers; In a small seed lies the germ, the beginning of the life of a large tree, and through it a whole shady grove, if only the seed finds a suitable environment, an appropriate soil. It is exactly the same with the word of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is "like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown in the ground, is the least of all the seeds on the earth; but when it is sown, it sprouts, and becomes greater than all crops, and sends forth great branches, so that the birds of the air may take refuge under its shade" (Mark 4:32). A few decades ago, a pharaoh's mummy was found in one of the pyramids of Egypt. In the room where the remains of the once powerful lord of the Nile rested, there were many items of ancient Egyptian utensils and, by the way, a vessel with wheat grain. A papyrus scroll found there stated that this wheat had lain in the pyramid for more than three thousand years. When it was sown, it gave a wonderful harvest. The seed of the Kingdom of God, the seed of truth, the inspired word of the call to good, preserves in itself, of course, not less, but greater vitality. Received by the heart, sooner or later it will bear rich fruit. The whole question is: is only the heart capable of accepting this seed, is the inner world of man, his inclinations, a convenient soil for the growth of Christ's seed? If not, this soil must be created: the road trampled by the feet of passers-by should be loosened with a plough and harrow, a stony place should be covered with a layer of alluvial fat earth, thorns and weeds should be cleared from an abandoned wasteland. It is the most sacred duty of all those who consciously desire the coming of the Kingdom of God in relation to those who are indifferent to its fate and dispensation, both in word and deed, to repeat to them tirelessly, like John, the Forerunner of Christ: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight" (Luke 3:4). True, there are people who are irretrievably lost to the Kingdom of God; the world of bright ideals and lofty impulses is inaccessible to them; their souls are eaten through by the vulgarity and coarseness of base instincts. Jesus Christ Himself said of them: "Do not give holy things to dogs, and he does not know, for the earth of itself brings forth first greenery, then an ear, then a full grain in the ear" (Mark 4:26-28). The seed is full of powerful vital juices; it is fraught with immense powers; In a small seed lies the germ, the beginning of the life of a large tree, and through it a whole shady grove, if only the seed finds a suitable environment, an appropriate soil. It is exactly the same with the word of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is "like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown in the ground, is the least of all the seeds on the earth; but when it is sown, it sprouts, and becomes greater than all crops, and sends forth great branches, so that the birds of the air may take refuge under its shade" (Mark 4:32). A few decades ago, a pharaoh's mummy was found in one of the pyramids of Egypt. In the room where the remains of the once powerful lord of the Nile rested, there were many items of ancient Egyptian utensils and, by the way, a vessel with wheat grain. A papyrus scroll found there stated that this wheat had lain in the pyramid for more than three thousand years. When it was sown, it gave a wonderful harvest. The seed of the Kingdom of God, the seed of truth, the inspired word of the call to good, preserves in itself, of course, not less, but greater vitality. Received by the heart, sooner or later it will bear rich fruit. The whole question is: is only the heart capable of accepting this seed, is the inner world of man, his inclinations, a convenient soil for the growth of Christ's seed? If not, this soil must be created: the road trampled by the feet of passers-by should be loosened with a plough and harrow, a stony place should be covered with a layer of alluvial fat earth, thorns and weeds should be cleared from an abandoned wasteland. It is the most sacred duty of all those who consciously desire the coming of the Kingdom of God in relation to those who are indifferent to its fate and dispensation, both in word and deed, to repeat to them tirelessly, like John, the Forerunner of Christ: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight" (Luke 3:4). True, there are people who are irretrievably lost to the Kingdom of God; the world of bright ideals and lofty impulses is inaccessible to them; their souls are eaten through by the vulgarity and coarseness of base instincts. Jesus Christ Himself said of them: "Give not holy things to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine" (Matt. 7:6). Once you have finally become convinced [1] that a person is deaf to any good call, does not yield to any moral influence, do not waste your enthusiasm on him; direct the heat of your soul to another, more grateful goal. But such moral freaks are few; They are not a common phenomenon in humanity, but a sad exception - cripples, monsters, idiots. Usually people are always people and nothing human is alien to them; if they often display the extreme coarseness and vulgarity of their base nature, they are also at times capable of displaying extraordinary greatness of spirit. It is not for nothing that Pascal called man both the pride and the abomination of the universe. It happens that the life of desperate villains and ordinary vulgars flashes for a moment with such moral beauty that it is impossible not to bow down and not to think seriously. Just as volcanic eruptions reveal to us the secrets of the interior of the globe, so these accidental, exceptional outbursts of noble enthusiasm speak of the presence in the spiritual world of man, albeit hidden, luminous forces of love and goodness. You just need to be able and willing to call them to life, to give them space. We know that "tearing a heap of manure, the rooster found a pearl seed." In the soul of a person, probably, a more valuable find can be made. Let the human heart often be a disgusting moral cesspool, but if we diligently rummage through it, we will find there not one, but a handful of pearls of rare play and beauty. That is why the Saviour said: "Take heed, despise not one of these little ones" (Matt. 18:10). If, with the appropriate expenditure of labor and skill, we transform swampy swamps into flowering fields by drainage and drainage ditches, and sun-scorched deserts into cultivated lands by irrigation, then will it be possible that by proper work on the souls of our neighbors corresponding successes will not be achieved in this field as well? The great geometer and mechanic Archimedes said: "Give me a foothold outside our planet, and I will turn the earth over for you." The Gospel also says: "Give me in people a heart imbued with love for man and for truth, and I will turn your morals, customs, and entire social life upside down." The modern, even intelligent masses in their moral development are strikingly behind their intellectual and aesthetic development. One cannot be sufficiently surprised at how little attention is paid to the terrible contrast between rapid intellectual and artistic progress on the one hand, and the almost complete immobility of the moral level on the other. With a smile of regret, not to say the least, we look at the scholasticism of the Middle Ages; admiring the art of Raphael, the virtuosity of Rubinstein and Sarasate, we consider the harmony of the Suzdal bogomoses to be a relic of uncultured antiquity; and at the same time, in our moral views, we are guided and content with the ancient pagan law of the fist. Not long ago, one might say, the other day we heard how the royal representative of the nation of Kant and Hegel sent a brother to the pagans to defend the Gospel with a fist dressed in armor. There is nowhere to go further than this. Jesus Christ, sending His disciples out to preach, said: "I send you out as sheep among wolves; be ye meek as doves" (Matt. 10:16). In the modern peculiar apostolic mission, sheep are replaced by armadillos, and pigeons are replaced by the product of Krupna. And the attitude of the cultural world to such a blasphemous perversion of the basic commandments of Christ is characteristic. If someone were to pour sulphuric acid on the Sistine Madonna, as was done with one of Vereshchagin's paintings in Vienna, if he smashed the statue of Apollo Belvedere or the Venus de Milo, if he destroyed the Vatican, the whole enlightened world would be horrified, how he would be indignant at gross vandalism; what thunder and lightning he would throw at the new Herostratus! An insolent insult to the Highest Truth and Love, thrown openly before the whole world for the sake of idle chatter, does not disturb anyone's conscience, does not distort the moral sense; at best, it causes a shrug of the shoulders. Is this not convincing proof of the moral stupidity of our cultured crowd? How, consequently, the entire mass of mankind is still far from the Kingdom of God, and how workers imbued with the spirit of Christ are needed in order to carry this mass along with them, to clarify in their consciousness the charm of the life of the Gospel! "Love, as much love as possible! The Kingdom of God has already begun on earth, but it is still hidden from the majority of people by a thick canopy of lies, violence and egoism. May the sun of unselfish, self-sacrificing love dispel this darkness before them.

Such work to prepare the ground for the Gospel, to explain to the environment what the Kingdom of God is, and to awaken an exciting interest in it, is all the more necessary since, along with the Savior's preaching about the nearness to us of the Kingdom of God on earth under the condition of repentance, there is a teaching about the possibility of achieving a golden age of general contentment and well-being by means of a radical reorganization of social life by means of an external, legislative (peaceful or violent, revolutionary) way. Supporters of this opinion assert that it is enough to change the laws regulating life, to rebuild society on new economic and political principles worked out by them, and people will change themselves, that social progress invariably entails moral improvement. In short, they shift the center of gravity from inside to outside. In their opinion, it is not a person, not his moral personality that determines the surrounding life, but on the contrary, the external conditions of life: political rights, economic dependence are developed by this or that type of citizens. By themselves, by nature, people differ little from one another. Their distinctive features derive from differences in upbringing and living conditions; In reality, however, the difference in innate faculties in men is not at all so great as we imagine. The difference between men who devote themselves to the most opposite occupations, such as a philosopher and an ordinary porter, depends much less on their nature than on their education, and in general on the conditions in which they are placed. Therefore, if all people are placed in the same conditions of life, if they are surrounded from childhood by a common environment, the whole of humanity will be the same as only a select minority is now. The Gospel reveals in detail the method of influencing man in order to convert him to the Kingdom of God. If your brother sins, rebuke him in private, and if he hearkens to you, you have gained your brother. If he does not listen, take with you one or two more, you may not have been able to approach him, resort to the help of others. If he does not listen to them, tell the church, ask for the assistance of all the members of the community of Christ; and if even then he will not listen, then let him be to you as a heathen and a publican (cf. Matt. 18:15-17)^