Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/310

 “If one of us should ask, not from love of controversy, but from a desire to know the truth: ‘Why did the Lord suffer death on the cross rather than any other?’ let him know that that particular death, and no other, could save us, and the Lord suffered precisely that for our salvation, for, if he came for the purpose of taking upon himself the curse which had been upon us, then how else could he become a participant of the curse, if he did not suffer the death which was under the curse? And that is the death on the cross, for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree (Gal. iii. 13). In the second place, if the death of the Lord is the redemption of all, if by it the middle wall of partition is broken down (Eph. ii. 14) and the calling together of the tongues takes place, then how could he have called us to the Father, if he had not been crucified? For it is only on the cross that one can die with extended hands. And so that is the reason why the Lord had to suffer death on the cross and on the cross to extend his arms, in order with one hand to attract to himself the ancient nation, and with the other the pagans, and thus to unite them in himself. He predicted that about himself when he wanted to show with what kind of a death he meant to redeem all: If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me (John xii. 32). And again: the enemy of our race, the devil, having fallen from heaven, is wandering here in the aerial sphere and ruling over demons who are like him in disobedience, and by means of them he entices with visions those who fall victims to his deception, or in every way tries to hinder those who are tending upwards; thus speaks of him the Apostle Paul, calling him the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Eph. ii. 2). For this reason the Lord came to depose the devil, to clear the air of him, and to open a new path for us to the heavens, as the apostle has said, through a curtain, that is, through his flesh; but that he