Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/207

 HOW TO READ THE GOSPELS 191

ment, and not haphazard or mechanically, as though all the words were of equal weight.^

To understand any book one must choose out the parts that are quite clear, dividing them from what is obscure or confused. And from what is clear we must form our idea of the drift and spirit of the whole work. Then, on the basis of what we have understood, we may proceed to make out what is con- fused or not quite intelligible. That is how we read all kinds of books. And it is particularly necessary thus to read the Gospels, which have passed' through a multiplicity of compilations, translations, and transcrip- tions, and were composed eighteen centuries ago, by men who were not highly educated, and who were superstitious.*

Tlierefore, in order to understand the Gospels, we must first of all separate what is quite simple and in- telligible from what is confused and unintelligible, and must afterwards read this clear and intelligible part several times over, trying fully to assimilate it. Then, helped by the comprehension of the general meaning, we can try to explain to ourselves the drift of the parts which seemed involved and obscure. That was how I read the Gospels, and the meaning of Christ^s teaching became so clear to me that it was impossible to have any doubts about it. And I advise everyone who wishes

origin, far from being infallible expressions of divine truth, are the work of innumerable minds and hands, and are full of errors. Therefore the Gospels can in no case be taken as a production of the Holy Ghost, as Churchmen assert. Were that so, God would have revealed the Gospels as He is said to have revealed the Commandments on Mount Sinai ; or He would have transmitted the complete book to men, as the Mormons declare was the case with their Holy Scriptures. But we know how these works were written and collected, and how they were corrected and translated ; and therefore not only can we not accept them as infallible revelations, but we must, if we respect truth, correct errors that we find in them. — L. T.
 * The Gospels, as is known to all who have studied their