Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/290

 weakness, death,—all those are the consequences of his carnal passions. Just as correct is the statement that Christ was God in so far—as was actually the fact and as John says—as he made God manifest to us. But the moment men begin to assert that the form in which this thought is expressed is the only truth, I no longer can admit what they say, because their elucidations and assertions explain the meaning of the idea which they enunciate, and this idea excludes the possibility of all oneness of faith and clearly shows that the source of their stubbornness in their assertions is crudity and ignorance. It is precisely this that the church has been doing all the time in the name of its sanctity and infallibility.

After this follows Art. 134. The Lord Jesus has a human nature and is indeed the son of the Virgin Mary. Then Art. 135 proves that Christ was born in human form from the Virgin Mary, and that Mary, having given birth to him, remained a virgin. There are quoted proofs for what cannot be comprehended, and explanations of the fathers of the church.

“Not only did they teach so, but they frequently tried to disclose that such a miraculous manner of the Messiah’s birth was possible and exceedingly proper: in proof, or as an explanation of the possibility, they pointed to the almightiness of God and to certain other miraculous cases of the kind, as, for example, to the burning bush which did not burn up, and to the fact that the Saviour, after his resurrection, entered through closed doors into the room where his disciples were.” (p. 70.)

136. The Lord Jesus is a sinless man. “(1) The Word of God teaches us, in the first place, that the Lord does not partake of the original sin.” (p. 75.)

“(2) In the second place, the Word of God teaches us that our Lord Jesus is quite free from any personal sin.

“(3) In pursuance of so clear a teaching of the Word of God, the church has invariably believed that our Lord