Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/211

 confirmed. Not only is it senseless and not based on Scripture or on Tradition, and nothing comes of it; in reality, according to my immediate observation of the believers, and according to my own personal recollection of the time when I myself was a believer, it turns out that I never believed in the Trinity and never saw a man who believed in the dogma of the Trinity. Out of a hundred men and women among the people not more than three will be able to name the persons of the Trinity, and not more than thirty will be able to say what the Trinity is, and will not be able to name the persons, but will include among them St. Nicholas the Miracle-worker and the Mother of God. The others do not even know anything about the Trinity. Among the masses I have not come across any conception about the Trinity. Christ is called the God-man, as it were, the eldest of the saints. The Holy Ghost is entirely unknown, and God remains the incomprehensible, almighty God, the beginning of everything. Nobody ever prays to the Holy Ghost, no one ever invokes him. In the more cultured circles I have also not found any belief in the Holy Ghost. I have met very many who very fervently believed in Christ, but never have I heard the Holy Ghost mentioned except for the purpose of theological discussion. The same was true of me: during all those years when I was an Orthodox believer the idea of the Holy Ghost never entered my mind. The belief in and definition of the Trinity I have found only in the schools, and thus it turns out that the dogma of the Trinity is not rational, not based on anything, is good for nothing, and no one believes in it, while the church professes it.

In order to comprehend why the church does that, it is necessary to investigate the further exposition of the church, and I proceed to do this. It would be a useless labour in the consequent investigation to point out all the errors, contradictions, senseless statements, and lies, for