I

A strange book: it cannot be read; no matter how much you read, it seems that you have not finished reading, or you have forgotten something, you have not understood something; and if you read it again, it's the same thing again; And so on endlessly. Like the night sky: the more you look, the more stars you get.

The clever and the foolish, the learned and the ignorant, the believer and the unbeliever – whoever has only read this book – lived it (and there is no other way to read it) will agree with this, at least in the secret of conscience; and everyone will immediately understand that we are not talking here about one of the human books, not even about the only Divine one, or even about the entire New Testament, but only about the Gospel.

II

"Oh, the miracle of miracles, the wonder is endless! Nothing can be said, nothing can be thought of that would surpass the Gospel; there is nothing in the world to compare it with." [1] This is what the great Gnostic of the second century, Marcion, says, and this is what the average Catholic Jesuit of the twentieth century says: "The Gospel stands not next to or even above all human books, but outside of them: it is of a completely different nature." [2] Yes, it is different: this book differs from all other books more than from all other metals – radium, or from all other fires – lightning, as if it were not even a "Book" at all, but something for which we have no name.

III

NEW TESTAMENT

Our Lord

Jesus Christ

In Russian translation

St. Petersburg, 1890

Small, 32-part sheet, in a black leather binding, a book, 626 pages, in two columns of small print. Judging by the pen inscription on the pretitle page: "1902", I have had it for 30 years until the current 1932. I read it every day, and I will read it as long as my eyes see, in all the lights that come from the sun and the heart, on the brightest days and in the darkest nights; Happy and unhappy, sick and healthy, believer and non-believer, feeling and insensitive. And it seems that I am always reading something new, unknown, and I will never read it, I will never know it to the end; I can only see it out of the corner of my eye, I feel it out of the corner of my heart, and if I did at all, what then?