Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/280

Rh soul from the influence of the senses, and, by destroying the carnal appetites, to make the mind independent of the body; this they inculcate as a solemn obligation. They teach that man should be like the angels, without sex and without desire. Their poetry and hymns are filled with allusions to this ideal excellence. They call themselves the "White Doves," "Belye Goloubi;" the "Holy Ones," the "Pure and Saintly" in a world of sinners; the "Virgins," who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth (Rev. xiv., 4).

Marriage and the relations of the sexes have in Russia given rise to the most contradictory opinions, with diametrically opposite results—unbridled license and enforced continency by mutilation.

The Skoptsi, on this question, agree with the most radical sects of the Raskol, and resemble them also in some other particulars, and in the tendencies of the doctrines they profess. Like the Feodocians and the Stranniki, they disregard consequences, and push their logical deductions, without faltering, to the end. They manifest ' the realism inherent to the Russian character, and, with it, the reverence for the letter of the law which distinguishes the Old Believer; they materialize asceticism, reducing it to a surgical operation, and giving a literal interpretation to scriptural injunctions. They lay great stress on the Saviour's commands: "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off;" and, "if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee" (Matt. xviii., 8, 9). They base their peculiar tenet on Christ's saying: "There are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it"