Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/210

 the second place, and the Holy Ghost is the Holy Ghost and occupies the third place, although by their divinity they are entirely equal among themselves. To each of us the Creator has given, in addition to the properties which we all have in common by our human nature, special properties, special talents, by which our special calling and place is defined in the circle of our friends. To know these faculties and talents in ourselves, and to use them for our own benefit and for the benefit of our friends and for the glory of God, so as to justify our calling in this way, is the unquestionable duty of each man. (2) Differing from each other in their personal properties, all the persons of the Most Holy Trinity are, none the less, in a constant mutual communion: the Father is in the Son and in the Holy Ghost; the Son is in the Father and in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Ghost is in the Father and in the Son (John xiv. 10). Even thus we, with all our differences according to our personal qualities, must observe the greatest possible communion and moral union among ourselves, being bound by the unity of essence and the bond of brotherly love. (3) In particular, let the fathers among ourselves keep in mind whose great name they bear, even as the sons, and all those who are begotten from the fathers,—and, keeping this in mind, let them see to it that they sanctify the names of father or son which they bear, through an exact performance of all the obligations imposed upon them by these names—(4) Finally, keeping in mind, to what disastrous results the Eastern Christians have been led through their arbitrary reasoning on the personal essence of God the Holy Ghost, let us learn to cling as fast as possible to the dogmas of faith of the teaching of the word of God and the Orthodox Church, and not to cross the eternal boundaries which our fathers in faith have set.”

Thus it remains incomprehensible why this dogma is