Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/72

 truth and goodness; and as these are always the same, the way to them must also be the same, and the first steps on this way must inevitably be the same for Christian as for heathen.

The difference between the Christian and pagan teaching of goodness lies in this: that the heathen teaching is one of final perfection, while the Christian is one of infinite perfecting. Every heathen, non-Christian, teaching sets before men a model of final perfection; but the Christian teaching sets before them a model of infinite perfection. Plato, for instance, makes justice the model of perfection, whereas Christ's model is the infinite perfection of love. 'Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.' In this lies the difference, and from this results the different relation of pagan and Christian teaching toward different grades of virtue. According to the former, the attainment of the highest virtue was possible, and each step toward this attainment had its comparative merit—the higher the step the greater the merit; so that from the pagan point of view men may be divided into moral and immoral, into more or less immoral—whereas, according to the Christian teaching, which sets up the ideal of infinite perfection, this division is impossible. There can be neither higher nor lower grades. In the Christian teaching, which shows the infinity of perfection, all steps are equal in relation to the infinite ideal.

Among the heathens the plane of virtue attained by a man constituted his merit; in Christianity merit consists only in the process of attaining, in the greater or lesser speed of attainment. From the heathen point of view, a man who possessed the virtue of reasonableness stood morally higher than one deficient in that virtue; a man who, in addition to reasonableness, possessed courage stood higher still; a man who to reasonableness and courage added justice stood yet higher. But one Christian cannot be regarded as morally either higher or lower than another. A man is more or less of a Christian only in proportion to the speed with which he