On the Abundant Life

Autobiographical note

Nikolai Sergeyevich Arseniev through his father's family and his mother's family (Shenshina) is closely connected with Moscow and with the Tula (partly with Ryazan) province, but he was born in Stockholm, in Sweden (since his father was a Russian diplomat) on May 16/28, 1888. He was greatly impressed by life in the Russian village, in the summer - in the Novosilsky district of the Tula province. He graduated from high school in Moscow (Moscow Lyceum, where he was especially fond of the Greek language) in July 1906. Further, he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, which he graduated in June 1910 with a diploma of the 1st degree and with "retention at the university to prepare for the title of professor." In preparation for the master's exam, in 1910-1912 he attended lectures at the German universities: Munich, Freiburg and Berlin (a semester at each university). During the winter of 1912, he passed the master's exams at Moscow University, in March 1914 he gave trial lectures and was elected a privat-docent of Moscow University in the Department of Western European Literature.

From September 1914 to September 1916, he was on the North-Western Front as an assistant to the plenipotentiary (and then plenipotentiary) of the Red Cross. In September 1916, he began to give lectures at Moscow University and at the Moscow Higher Women's Courses and at the Shanyavsky Moscow City University on the culture and literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (especially Italy) and on the history of religions (the ancient world and early Christianity). In 1918, he was elected professor of the newly founded Saratov University. In March 1920, he left Russia.

In November 1920, he became a lecturer in the Russian language at the University of Königsberg (East Prussia). In the summer of 1924, he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy there and became a privat-docent, then an associate professor, then an extraordinary professor (ibid.) for Russian culture and Russian religious life. At the same time, he was an assistant professor at the University of Riga (Higher School of Latvia) in 1921 and a professor (in the history of religions and in the New Testament) at the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the Warsaw State University for 12 years (1926-1938).

In addition, he gave many individual lectures at various Swiss (Lausanne, Berne), German and English (Oxford, Cambridge, London) universities. From 1927 to 1937 he was a member of the "Continuation Committee" of the Ecumenical Movement (World Union of Christian Churches) and participated in the conferences of Lausanne (1927) and Edinburgh (1937). In May 1945 he moved to Paris, where during 1946 and 1947 he lectured at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes of the Sorbonne and at the Institut Catholique on Russian religious life and spiritual culture, and from where he went to lecture in Switzerland (University of Lausanne) and Belgium. In February 1948, he moved to New York, where he is a professor at St. Vladimir Orthodox Theological Academy; at the same time, for a number of years, he was a professor (in the history of Russian culture) at the Université de Montréal in Canada. In the summers of 1955 and 1957, he was a Gast-professor at the University of Bonn during the summer semester and lectured on the history of Russian culture and Russian religious life. In the winter of 1960-61 he lectured at the University of Vienna, in the summer of 1963 at the University of Graz (Austria) and in the summer of 1965 at the University of Munich.

In September 1965, he was a "guest" at a series of sessions of the 4th session of the Second Vatican Council.

A few introductory remarks

This book contains articles written at different times. They are united by one common theme: Man before the immeasurable greatness of the Supreme from which he lives. There is an invisible Center of our spiritual eyes. To Him, to our search for Him, to our contemplation of Him, even if it is vague and distant, to our longing for Him, and, finally, to His touch with us, to His pre-existent and life-giving power, which nourishes and regenerates our soul, this book is dedicated, both in its individual parts and in its entirety.

Nikolay Arseniev January 1966

God and Us

1

In our days there are many reasons for religious and moral confusion and perplexity, which stir and painfully strike the soul. How, for example, can we explain that inhuman and godless forces, which may have no equal in the world in terms of inhumanity, trampling on all the foundations of truth and justice, trampling on all the deepest foundations of human life, continue to develop and spread on earth by deception or violence? Is it not also embarrassing that the adherents of this trend comment on all scientific discoveries and achievements: the mysteries of the world are no more, they say, or rather, they will soon be gone, if one advances at this pace? Therefore, there is no God, or "we have not seen Him anywhere" – this is how the representatives of aggressive atheism try to convince themselves and us during the interval. And a number of simple souls are confused, and they are not alone. Is it true that man is great in his extra-divine and anti-divine autonomy, that there are no limits to the growth of his collective mind and knowledge—and that he has no need of God?