Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/467



So there it is, the whole disclosure of the divinely revealed truths. They have all been disclosed. There is nothing else left. And it is not permitted to understand them in any other way. He who understands them differently: anathema.

A man asks what this world is in which he finds himself. He asks what the meaning of his existence is and what he is to be guided by in that freedom which he feels within himself. He asks all that, and God through the lips of the church established by him replies to him: Do you want to know what this world is? Here it is: There is a God, one, omniscient, all-good, almighty. This God is a simple spirit, but he has will and reason. This God is one and yet three. The Father begot the Son, and the Son sits in the flesh at the right of his Father.

The Spirit emanates from the Father. All three of them are Gods, and they are all different and all one. This trine God has existed eternally one in three, and suddenly it occurred to him to create the world and to create it from nothing with his thought, will, and word. At first he created the spiritual world, the angels. The angels were created good, and God created them solely for their own good, but, being created good, these beings suddenly of their own will became bad. Some angels remained good, while others became bad and were turned into devils. God created a very large number of angels and divided them into nine orders and three classes: angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, powers, dominions,