Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/60

 In this lies the difference between Christ's teaching and all other religious teachings; a difference not in the demands made, but in the guidance afforded. Jesus did not lay down rules of life. He established no institutions, and did not institute marriage. But men (not understanding the character of Christ's teaching, and accustomed to external teachings) wished to feel themselves justified—as the Pharisee felt himself justified—and from the letter of his teaching, but contrary to its whole spirit, have constructed an external code of rules called Church doctrine, and with it have supplanted Christ's true teaching of the ideal.

This has been done concerning government, law, war, the Church, and Church worship; and it has also been done in relation to marriage.

In spite of the fact that Jesus not only never instituted marriage, but (if we must seek external regulations) rather discountenanced it ('Leave thy wife and follow me'), the Church doctrine (called Christian) has established marriage as a Christian institution. That is to say, it has defined certain external conditions under which sexual love is supposed to be quite right and lawful for a Christian.

As, however, the institution of marriage has no basis whatever in true Christianity, the result has been that people in our society have quitted one shore, but have not reached the other. They do not really believe in the ecclesiastical definitions of marriage, for they feel that such an institution has no foundation in Christ's teaching; yet as they do not perceive Christ's ideal (which the Church doctrine has hidden)—the ideal of striving towards complete chastity—they are left, in relation to marriage, quite without guidance. This explains the fact (which seems so strange at first sight) that among Jews, Mohammedans, Lamaists, and others professing religious doctrines much lower than the Christian, bat having strict external regulations concerning marriage, the family principle and conjugal fidelity are far firmer than in so-called Christian society. Those people have their regular systems of