Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/19

Rh 'What do I care for the Holy Scriptures? We know that anything you like can be deduced from them, and that they are all rubbish.'

But this is unreasonable. Surely the Holy Scriptures are not to blame because people interpret them falsely; and a man who says what is true, is not to blame because the truth he utters is contained in the Holy Scriptures.

One must not forget that, if it be granted that what are called the Scriptures are human productions, it has still to be explained why just these human writings, and not some others, have come to be regarded by men as the words of God Himself. There must be some reason for it.

And the reason is clear.

Superstitious people called the Scriptures Divine because they were superior to anything else that people knew; and that is also the reason why these Scriptures, though always rejected by some men, have survived and are still considered Divine. These Scriptures are called Divine and have come down to us because they contain the highest human wisdom. And, in many of its parts, such is really the character of the Scriptures called the Bible.

And such, among these Scriptures, is that forgotten, neglected, and misunderstood saying which Bóndaref has explained and set at the head of the corner.

That saying, and the whole story of Paradise, are commonly taken in a literal sense, as though everything actually happened as described; whereas the meaning of the whole narrative is, that it figuratively represents the conflicting tendencies which exist in human nature.

Man fears death, but is subject to it. Man seems happier while ignorant of good and evil, yet strives irresistibly to reach that knowledge. Man loves idleness, and wishes to satisfy his desires without suffering, yet only by labour and suffering can he or his race have life.

The sentence Bóndaref quotes is important, not