Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/298



following place, “Section 2,” as it is called in the Theology, is especially important, although in the middle of the exposition it is called only the 2d Section from Chapter II., Part 2: About God the Saviour in his especial relation to the human race.

In general, the division of the Theology into parts, divisions, chapters, sections, articles, into (1), (2), (3), (a), (b), (c), and so forth, is to such a degree complicated and arbitrary and based on nothing that there is absolutely no possibility of remembering all the subdivisions, and it is necessary to consult the book every minute or learn everything by heart. This place is especially important because here, in this very spot, we find the key to all contradictions. Here is to be found the radical, internal contradiction from which resulted the tangle of all the other parts. Here, in this place, is made the substitution of its own teaching in place of the teaching of Christ, and it is done in such a way that it is not possible at a first glance to discern this substitution, and that it appears as though to the teaching of Christ, which is clear and manifest to all, there were only attached certain revealed truths, which, far from impairing the teaching of Christ, only enhance the greatness of Christ and of his teaching.

The contradiction, which is here imperceptibly carried into the teaching, and which later will form the subject of elucidation in the division on grace, consists in this, that Christ the God saved men by descending upon earth