Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/147

 derful among his saints (Matt. x. 40). The pagans used to make sculptured figures of their gods and builded idols, and in their extreme blindness recognized these idols as gods, offering them divine worship: let not any of the Christians fall into similar idolatry! We, too, use and worship the representations of the true God and of his saints, and bend our knees before them; but we use and worship them only as holy and worshipful representations, and do not deify them, and, in making our obeisances to the holy images, we worship not the wood and paint, but God himself and his saints, such as are represented in the images such ought to be the true worship of the holy images, and then it will not in the least resemble idolatry.” (pp. 89 and 90.)

That is, according to this preceding discussion, we are given a lesson to do precisely as the idolaters are doing, but to remember certain dialectic distinctions, as here expounded.

“It is well known that the pagans personified all human passions and in this shape deified them; we do not personify the passions in order to deify them; we know how to value them, but, unfortunately, Christians frequently serve their passions as though they were gods, though they themselves do not notice that. One is so given to belly service and in general to the sensual pleasures that for him, according to the expression of the apostle, God is his belly (Phil. iii. 19); another is so zealously concerned about acquiring treasure and with such love guards it that his covetousness can, indeed, not be called otherwise than idolatry (Col. iii. 5); a third is so much occupied with his deserts and privileges, real and imaginary, and places them so high that he apparently makes an idol of them and worships them and makes others worship them (Dan. iii.). In short, every passion and attachment for anything, even though it be important and noble, if we abandon ourselves to it with zeal, so as to forget God