‘The main reason for our poor social structure is false belief.’

‘We must pay the greatest attention to our public affairs; we should be prepared to change our minds, to renounce our old views and adopt new ones. We should cast prejudices aside and argue with a completely open mind. A sailor who raises the same sail regardless of changes in the direction of the wind will never reach his port.’ (Henry George)

We should understand Christ’s teaching, openly and simply, and the horrible deceit in which each and every one of us lives will become clear.

It is becoming more and more evident in our age that the true significance of the Christian doctrine is that the essence of human life is the evergrowing manifestation of the source of everything, indicated in us through love; and, therefore, that the essence of human life and the highest law governing it is love.

The fact that love is a necessary and happy aspect of human life was recognized by all the ancient religious beliefs. In all the teachings of the Egyptian sages, the Brahmins, the Stoics, the Buddhists, Taoists and others, amicability, pity, mercy, charity and love in general are considered the chief virtues. In the most superior of these teachings this recognition reached the point where love towards every living thing was advocated, and even recompense of good for evil, as is taught by the Taoist and Buddhist religions in particular. But not one of these doctrines made this virtue the basis of life, a supreme law that should be not only the chief, but the only, guiding principle in people’s conduct, as did the most recent religion: Christianity. In all the pre-Christian doctrines love was regarded as one of the virtues, but not as that which the Christian teaching acknowledges it to be: metaphysically the origin of everything, practically the highest law of human life, i.e. that which under no circumstances admits of exception. Compared to all the ancient teachings Christianity is neither new nor different; it is simply a more clear and precise expression of the basis of human life that was felt and vaguely expounded by previous religions. In this respect the peculiarity of the Christian teaching lies only in the fact that, being the last, it uses greater precision and clarity to express the essence of the law of love and the guidance for conduct that must follow from it. And thus the Christian teaching on love is not, as in former doctrines, merely a teaching about a certain virtue, but it is a definition of the supreme law of human life and the guidance for conduct that inevitably follows from it. Christ’s teaching clarifies why this is the highest law in life, and at the same time it indicates a series of actions which men must either commit or not commit as a consequence of accepting this teaching as the truth. The Christian dogma states very clearly that since it is the supreme law its fulfillment cannot admit any exceptions, as former teachings did, and that the love which defines these laws is only love when it admits no exceptions and when it is applied equally to foreigners, to all sectarians, and likewise to the enemies who hate us and wrong us.

The step forward achieved by the Christian teaching, as well as its most important significance and virtue, lay in the explanation of why this law is the supreme law of human life, and the precise definition of the actions which must follow from it.

The explanation of why this law is the supreme law of life is expressed with particular clarity in the Epistle of St John: ‘Beloved let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God… No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us… God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him.’ (I John, IV, 7,8,12,16) and: ‘We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death’ (I John, III, 14).

The teaching amounts to saying that what we call ‘our self’, or our life, is really the divine principle, limited in us by our body, and manifesting itself as love, and that therefore the true life of each man, divine and free, expresses itself as love.

The guidance for conduct that follows from this understanding of the law of love that admits no exceptions is expressed in many parts of the Gospels, and with particular clarity and precision in the fourth commandment of the Sermon on the Mount: ‘You have heard that it hath been said: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth [Ex., XXI, 24]. But I say unto you, That you resist not evil’ is said in verse 38 of the fifth chapter of St Matthew’s gospel. In verses 39 and 40, as if foreseeing those exceptions which might appear necessary when the law of love is applied to life, it is clearly and definitively stated that there are, and can be, no circumstances when it is permissible to deviate from the very simple and vital requirement of love: not to do to others that which you would not have them do to you: ‘… but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.’

In other words, violence performed against you can never justify violence on your part. This inadmissibility of justifying transgressions of the law of love on account of behavior from others is expressed even more clearly and exactly in the last commandment of the Sermon on the Mount, which makes a straightforward reference to the usual false argument used to justify breaking the law: ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love your neighbor and hate your enemy’ (Leviticus, XIX, 17–18), ‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the food, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans do the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans do so? Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’ (Matt., v, 43–8)

It is this recognition of the law of love as the highest law of human life, and the clearly expressed guidance for conduct that follows from the Christian teaching on love, applied equally to enemies and those who hate, offend and curse us, that constitutes the peculiarity of Christ’s teaching. The precise and definite meaning given to the doctrine of love and the guidance resulting from it inevitably involves a complete transformation of the established structure of life, not only among Christian nations, but among all the nations of the world.

In this lies the principal difference between the former teachings and the chief significance of the Christian teaching in its true meaning; and it is this that comprises the step forward in human consciousness achieved by the Christian doctrine. This step is based on the fact that all the former religious and moral teachings on love, while compelled to admit the virtue of love in human life, yet allowed the possibility of certain situations whereby the fulfillment of the law of love ceased to be obligatory and could be suspended. And as soon as the law of love ceased to be the highest, immutable law of human life, all it’s beneficence disappeared, and the teaching of love was reduced to eloquent homilies and words which were nonobligatory and left the whole way of the life of the nations as it was before the doctrine of love appeared: that is based on violence alone. But the Christian teaching in its true meaning, recognizing the law of love as supreme, and permitting no exceptions in its application to life, ruled out any form of violence and consequently could not but condemn the whole structure of the world founded on violence.

And this chief significance of the teaching was hidden from people by false Christianity, which acknowledged the law of love not as the supreme law of human life, but in the manner of the pre-Christian teachings – as just one of the rules of conduct which it is useful to observe when there is nothing to prevent one from doing so.

(Source: Translated from Russian by EarthlyFireFlies and Wikisource.)