Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/122

 foundation of everything, without mentioning it except in passing, as something well known, and not as is done in Filarét’s Catechism, Chapter III., where it says that God’s revelation is preserved in the church by means of tradition. The church is composed of all who are united by faith in tradition, and it is they who are united by tradition that keep the tradition.

Tradition is always preserved by those who believe in the tradition. That is always so. But is it right,—is it not a lie? And that care with which, without saying anything about the dogmas, they want to catch in advance my agreement to every dogma, compels me to be on guard. I do not say that I do not believe in the holiness and infallibility of the church. At the time when I began this investigation I fully believed in it, in it alone (it seemed to me that I believed). But it is necessary to know what is to be understood by the church and in any case, if everything is to be based on the dogma of the church, to begin with it, as Khomyakóv has done. But if they do not begin with the dogma of the church, but with the dogma of God, as is the case in the Symbol of Faith, in the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, in the Catechism, and in all Dogmatic Theologies, they ought to expound the most essential dogmas, the truths revealed by God to men.

I am a man,—God has me, too, in view. I am searching after salvation, how then could I refuse to receive that one thing which I am searching after with all the powers of my soul! I cannot help accepting it, I certainly will accept it. If my union with the church will strengthen it, so much the better. Tell me the truths as you know them! Tell them to me at least as they are told in the Symbol of Faith which we have all learned by heart! If you are afraid that in the dimness and feebleness of my mind, in the corruption of my heart, I shall not understand them, help me (you know these