Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/267

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OLOV'EV'S views upon the philosophy of ecclesiasticism necessitate a comparison with the teachings of the slavophils. Solov'ev was greatly influenced by the founders of slavophilism, and above all by Homjakov. After his materialistic crisis, it was by the slavophils that Solov'ev was led to religion and the church, it was their trend which he followed throughout. He was at one with them in recognising the cultural primacy of religion, of mysticism, in the approval he gave to eastern theology, and in the importance he attached to the Russian church. Being guided by the same tendency, he was led on occasions to the same or to similar judgments in points of detail. The slavophils and Solov'ev, moreover, sat at the feet of the same teachers (Plato, Schelling, etc.); whilst Solov'ev had personal and literary relations with Ivan Aksakov, and wrote for the latter's periodical "Rus'!"

In the course of his mental development, Solov'ev came to recognise the value of Catholicism, came to consider that it possessed ecclesiastical advantages as compared with the eastern church. This made him diverge in certain details from the slavophils, though his general trend remained the same. Where Solov'ev differed as a philosopher from the Slavophils was that he attempted to found an independent theosophical system, whereas the slavophils were content with the philosophical idealisation of official orthodoxy.

Solov'ev subsequently diverged from the slavophils, and above all from Homjakov, in his exposition of the history of Christendom and of the severance of the churches, Solov'ev who upon historic and dogmatic grounds acknowledged the supremacy of the pope of Rome, referred the schism to antecedent heretical endeavours in Byzantium, and considered that the fault lay with Byzantium, not with Rome. We may say that in general, in his studies of ecclesiastical history, Solov'ev was far more influenced than were the slavophils by the idea of evolution; and we may say, too, that Solov'ev was more critical, though only towards the east.

For Solov'ev was of opinion that the Catholic church, in contrast with the eastern, and above all with the Russian church, had evolved and progressed. The Roman church had in especial promoted the evolution of dogma, and had made reiterated attempts to lead the cultural development of the Rh