Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/395

 will be applied to all the sacraments. The deception consists in the following: in the definition of the sacrament it was said that it is an external action which communicates actual grace, that is, a special spiritual power, given to him who receives the sacrament as established by Christ, and then it is pointed out that Christ has prescribed to the believers and to his disciples (but only in the case of baptism) a certain external action, and from this the conclusion is drawn that Christ has established the sacraments, that is, such actions as, when they are performed by the hierarchy, communicate to the believers a special spiritual power. The deception consists in this, that the assertion is made that Christ established the sacrament, that is, an external action which communicates internal grace, or, to speak more correctly, that Christ established the dogma of the sacrament, that is, the teaching that the immersion into water or the eating of bread and drinking of wine communicates some especial power to him who is immersed, or who eats bread and drinks wine. In order to prove the establishment of the Christian dogma of the sacraments, it is necessary to show that Christ ascribed to those external actions, to which the hierarchy points, calling them sacraments, those properties which the hierarchy ascribes to them, whereas there is not only no indication, but not even the slightest hint at such an understanding of the sacraments as practised by Christ. In asserting that Christ commanded men to bathe and sup in remembrance of him, the hierarchy has not the slightest foundation for the assertion that Christ established the sacraments of baptism and of the eucharist with all the meaning which the hierarchy ascribes to them, and about which there is, and there can be, no hint in Christ’s teaching. Thus Art. 202 proves the divine origin of baptism as a sacrament by pointing out that Christ said to his disciples: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all