Tolstoy’s Views on Religion, Jesus and the Council of Nicaea
Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian author and pacifist, became a deeply religious person in his later life. He believed himself to be a fully committed Christian in the sense that he believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah sent by God to establish a New Covenant with God’s creation and to enlighten each individual as to the possibilities of their individual spirituality. Tolstoy believed that the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth contained the eternal truths that would help each individual to strive towards their personal salvation. Tolstoy acknowledged that other non-Christian traditions and beliefs were valid and had contributed to the moral and spiritual evolution of Mankind. The foundation stones of Tolstoy’s belief was that God the creator of all things existed and that each individual was endowed with a spiritual soul with the gift of ‘free will’ to know the difference between ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
He eventually came to believe that all the true religions of the world held the same basic principles and were moving towards the recognition of what he termed the fundamental ‘Law of Love’. This ‘Law of Love’ was, according to Tolstoy, the direct opposite to the ‘Law of Violence’ which was the prevailing dominant law of society. Tolstoy’s criticism of the contemporary moral values of his society were compounded by his belief that the ‘Law of Violence’ was concealed and preached as the ‘Law of Love’. It was not simply a question of ambiguity about moral and ethical values: it was, for Tolstoy, a deliberate perversion of basic moral principles as outlined in the Gospel of Christ. Tolstoy believed that the message of Jesus of Nazareth had not only been misinterpreted, but also that it had been turned completely around and now it was being used to support principles which were the very opposite of those from which it sprang.
Tolstoy believed that a New Covenant between God the creator and Mankind had been created with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. This New Covenant embroidered within its teaching the highest principles that were needed for individual salvation. By this analysis, Tolstoy argued that the teachings of Jesus reflected the highest principles, above those of all other traditions. But he came to believe that Christian ethical values as taught by Jesus of Nazareth were continuously manipulated by those in authority to create the ethical norms that were required to maintain them in their positions of dominance within whichever institutions they created.
… the government, in order to have a plausible basis for its domination of the people, has to pretend that it holds the highest religious teaching known to man (i.e. the Christian) … . That [Christian] teaching, however, is in its nature opposed not only to murder, but to all violence, and, therefore, the governments, in order to dominate the people and to be considered Christian, had to pervert Christianity and to hide its true meaning from the people. … This perversion was accomplished long ago, in the time of that scoundrel the Emperor Constantine, who for doing it was enrolled among the saints.[1]
Tolstoy recognised that the central message of the Christian faith was the resurrection of Christ. Remove belief in the resurrection, then Jesus was just an individual who did extraordinary things and lived a good life. The belief in the resurrection of Christ from the dead was stated plainly and clearly in the Nicene Creed. But for Tolstoy, even allowing for the clarity of this central message, each individual still needs guidance along their pilgrim path through life. Each individual is challenged to search for their own meaning and salvation. Tolstoy believed that the actual teachings of Jesus through the parables he told are the key for each individual to finding meaning and salvation. For Tolstoy the Nicene Creed ignores all of these teachings and jumps from the birth of Jesus to his death in one line. For Tolstoy this ‘missing paragraph’ of the actual teachings of Jesus was a deliberate and calculated decision for the sake of political expediency. Tolstoy was aware that one of the main purposes of the council was to clarify an agreed and unified Christian doctrine but for Tolstoy this did not and should not have excluded the fundamental teachings of Jesus.
‘That Scoundrel, The Emperor Constantine’
Tolstoy blamed ‘that scoundrel, the Emperor Constantine’ for corrupting the original and true teaching of Jesus of Nazareth the son of God sent to earth as the Messiah. Tolstoy identified the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) where the corruption of the original and true teaching of Christ was finally betrayed and pushed aside in the interest of political pragmatism. Tolstoy’s identification of this ‘Great Betrayal’ had little to do with the controversies that dominated the theological debates at Nicaea. Most of the recorded debates centred around a number of so-called ‘heresies’ surrounding the interpretation of the relation between Jesus of Nazareth as a human individual to that of God the Almighty Farther and the Holy Spirit. The interpretation and understanding of these issues put forward by Bishop Arius and the related teachings were seen as heretical by the majority of bishops and thus inimical to the true understanding of the nature of Christ. At the end of the council, the Nicene Creed that was agreed by an overwhelming majority rejected the teaching of Arius and its related interpretations and declared these to be heretical. The rejection of what were called heretical beliefs did not put an end to these ‘heresies’. Non-Nicaean beliefs lingered on for generations in different forms after the council within various Christian communities.
But for Tolstoy the ‘Great Betrayal’ of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth went much deeper than the debate about the Christological understanding of Jesus’s relationship to God the Father and to the Holy Spirit. For Tolstoy the teachings contained in the Gospels of Jesus were radically and fundamentally different from any of the issues raised at Nicaea. Tolstoy had no real problem with the Nicene Creed as it was adopted and with what it said. His main problem with the council at Nicaea was what the council did not say. In his opinion, the true teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were deliberately ignored. To Tolstoy the reasons that the true teachings of Jesus were intentionally overlooked and disregarded at Nicaea were very simple. Such fundamentally radical teachings did not suit the requirements of the Emperor, the Empire or the evolving bureaucracies of the administration of the Christian churches.
But to be fair to the bishops and all the Christians who attended the council at Nicaea it is necessary to take some account of the historical circumstances of the age. Many of the bishops and individual delegates at the council had personally experienced persecution for their Christian beliefs. The council was seen as a golden opportunity to put an end to the persecution and at the same time as a council that could make a significant contribution in spreading the message of Christianity throughout the known world. Some of the delegates would have been well aware that there was a price to be paid for what the Emperor was offering. Again, to be fair to the delegates, they may well have believed that the price to be paid was more ‘administrative’ than ‘theological’.
The Emperor wanted an ‘administrative’ solution to a unified belief system that would help the administration and government of the Empire. There is no doubt that Constantine and his advisers knew what they were doing. One strong unified system of beliefs throughout the Empire would put an end to the endless disputes and quarrels between and within various religious belief systems. These religious disputes had a tendency to overflow into civil and political society and create endless instability within the Empire. Constantine, either cynically or with some faith, believed that ‘Christianity’ was the religion that would unite the Empire and create the stability that would be very helpful in the administration of the Empire.
The Price of Acceptance
From the Emperor’s perspective the needs and requirements of the imperial administration of the Empire would have to be the framework within which any religious belief system would evolve. The Christian Church, which was being given such a dominant role within the Empire, would have to or would be expected, as a ‘quid pro quo’, to support the administrative framework of the Empire. From a Christian perspective, the acceptance of the Christian religion by the Emperor was an almost miraculous occurrence. Many of the delegates who attended Nicaea had personal experience of persecution within the Empire for their Christian beliefs. It looked like a brand new day was opening up for the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. But the Gospel contained principles and beliefs that were fundamentally contrary to what was required by the Empire and its administration. There are inherent and fundamental conflicts of interests between the Christian Gospel and the civil and military structures and administrations of society. These conflicts of interest are to be found in the relationships in every culture between principles of belief systems and the practicalities of political and social organisation. The relationships between principles of belief systems and civil and military organisations have been a key factor in the dynamic development of some of the most important civilizations. In many ways the relationship is symbiotic in a positive sense. Religious belief systems can give an impetus to dynamic developments of society that are generally not part of the DNA of civil or military administrations or structures.
The Summons to the Council of Nicaea 325 AD: What was the Emperor Up to?
In the early spring of the year 324 AD the Roman Emperor Constantine sent out a very polite and respectful letter to all the bishops of the Christian Church inviting them to attend without delay at the Emperor’s Palace in the city of Nicaea to participate in a council of the Church. To encourage the bishops to attend, the Emperor ordered that all public conveyances and posts of the Empire should be placed at the disposal of the bishops and their attendants. Constantine also let it be known that while the council lasted the Empire would provide abundantly for the support of the attendees. Constantine arranged for this council to be held in the city of Nicaea, which made it accessible to the bishops travelling from the various parts of the Empire, but in particular from Asia, Syria, Egypt and Palestine. Even apart from the enticements, this was an invitation that few bishops could risk refusing.
All this enticement would seem to show that the Emperor was a very decent fellow and his motives were in the best interest of the evolving Christian faith. But the Emperor Constantine was an extremely able politician and had many different motivations and priorities. In the years before the council the Roman Empire had gone through one of its periods of internal turmoil. There were two claimants to the supreme authority within the Empire. Civil war had broken out between Constantine and Licinius. At a crucial time in this civil war, when the outcome of the conflict was still very unpredictable, it is said that Constantine had a dream or a vison. In this dream the Emperor believed that he was given a sign to fight under the emblem of the Christian cross. In the decisive battle of The Milvian Bridge that followed, he and his army were victorious. At the end of this period, Constantine was triumphant and became the uncontested civil authority within the Empire.
At the same time as this period of political and civil unrest, there were bitter religious and theological disputes within the evolving Christian religion. One of these theological disputes concerned what was termed the heresy of Arius (Arianism). This ‘heresy’ concerned among other issues the divinity of the personhood of Jesus of Nazareth in relation to God the Father. Some of the most fundamental theological beliefs of the Christian faith were still being interpreted and clarified. Many of these disputes had their roots in the early beliefs of the Christian faith. In general Arian theology held that Jesus was begotten by God the Father and was not co-eternal with God. The more accepted theology believed that ‘Jesus’ and God the Father were co-eternal. But this difference was only the tip of the iceberg in relation to the various related theological interpretations and beliefs that were evolving in various parts of the Christian world.
As Christian theology evolved over time in the early Christian world a number of fundamental questions had to be addressed and some conformity had to be introduced into the belief system that was recognised as Christian. Everyone within the Christian belief system believed that there was only one God and this God was ‘Almighty’ in the full meaning of the word and in relation to the process of creation. But Jesus of Nazareth was an individual who appeared in history at a certain time, in a certain place. This individual man claimed to be, and Christians believed him to be, the son of God the ‘Almighty’. From a theological perspective the challenge was to try and explain the nature of this relationship.
Jewish history and tradition recognised a number of great prophets who had a special relationship with the God of the Jewish people. None of these prophets claimed to be the son of God and for many people within the Jewish tradition such a claim would be seen as blasphemous. The Jewish tradition had the concept of a ‘Messiah’ who was to come and fulfil a number of specific tasks. It was believed that this ‘Messiah’ would be a powerful leader of his people who would fulfil certain earthly requirements. In this sense the ‘Messiah’ would not come from a lowly background in a very backward part of society. There was also a tradition in the Jewish narrative that this ‘Messiah’ from God would appear at the end of time when God would judge his human creation.
The Council of Nicaea had the attraction and the possibility of creating a win-win outcome for both the social and political needs of the Empire and the unity and coherence of the Christian faith. The Emperor and his officials hoped to put an end to the instability that had been caused by the various disputes within the Christian belief system itself. Constantine had a secondary motivation that he hoped would come from a unified set of Christian beliefs. He saw the great advantage to the future stability of the Empire to have established one undisputed set of religious beliefs throughout the Empire. At the same time, the bishops and the leaders of the evolving theological understandings of the Christian faith would be able to use the council to finally put an end to what they considered heretical beliefs.
But the Council of Nicaea could also be seen as a ‘devil’s bargain’ as far as the future of the Christine religion was concerned. The statement of theological beliefs and practicable principles that would become the ‘Nicene Creed’ had to balance itself between the challenging message of the Christine faith and the social and political requirements of the Empire. These two core requirements were at many levels totally incompatible. But the Creed itself can be seen as a serious attempt to co-ordinate and agree the fundamental theological principles of the true teachings handed down by the Apostolic Church. In the centuries since the Nicene Creed was adopted the Creed itself has served the institutional church well. But the compromises that were necessary to address the needs of the Empire laid the foundations for obscuring and undermining the very radical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. These teaching challenged the fundamental principles of power and authority within the structures of any social, cultural and political system. The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth challenged each individual in their fundamental understanding of the knowledge of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in their personal lives.
Tolstoy believed that each new generation of Christians was challenged to confront the dynamic forces between the administrative necessities of a universal church and the radical and world-shattering teachings in the Gospels of Jesus. During the long history of the Christian Church there has always been a dynamic conflict between the requirements of administration of the Church and the revolutionary nature of the teachings contained in the Gospels. At one period of time the administrative requirements seem to dominate and overwhelm the core beliefs but again and again individuals in each generation have been able to identify with and pursue in their own way the radical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Missing Paragraph
The Nicene Creed outlines the chronological and theological understanding of the life of Jesus of Nazareth in the following words… (the full standard text of the Creed is in the appendix).
By the power of the Holy Spirit
He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary
And was made Man.
(The Missing Paragraph)
For our sins he was crucified
Under Pontius Pilot.
Suffered death and was buried.
On the third day He rose again
In accordance with the scriptures.
For Tolstoy the Nicene Creed was very clear in relation to the events surrounding the miraculous birth of Jesus but the very next sentence in the Creed referred to the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus. In that context the Creed leaves out the whole life experience and the teachings of Jesus. It seemed manifestly obvious to Tolstoy that the whole of the ministry of Jesus and all of his teachings had been deliberately left out of the Creed. The Nicene Creed jumps from the birth of Christ to his death and ignores everything in between. Tolstoy was aware that the authors of the Creed were trying to establish the belief in the miraculous birth of Jesus and his death and resurrection. These articles of faith are the cornerstone of Christian beliefs.
For Tolstoy the Nicene Creed puts forward a very restricted, distorted and dishonest representation of the teachings and the radical insights contained in the Gospels of Jesus. Where in this Creed is the challenge for each individual to become aware of the actual teachings of Jesus? Where in this Nicene Creed are ‘The Beatitudes’, where are the radical teachings associated with the teachings of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’? There is no exact record of the teachings of Jesus that Tolstoy felt should have been part of the Creed. But for Tolstoy there is a significant and substantial gap between the birth of Jesus and his death. The following paragraphs reflect some of the truths that Tolstoy believed were deliberately left out. Because there is no direct evidence from Tolstoy’s writings these can only be outlines of possibilities.
The Missing Paragraph: Proposition One
The Beatitudes
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:3–12[2]
Tolstoy accepted that it would be an almost impossible task to summarise the Gospel of Jesus in a statement like the Nicene Creed. But he felt that it should have been possible to identify some of the essential teachings of the ministry of Jesus. The beliefs contained within the Beatitudes encompassed some of the central messages of the new insights preached by Jesus. The Beatitudes could have been included without making the Creed too long. The teachings contained in the Sermon on the Mount also contain some of the central messages of the ministry and could have been included instead of or with the Beatitudes.
For Tolstoy some of the most radical messages contained within the preaching of Jesus were to be found in what has been called the Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoy believed that the principles contained within this sermon contained the fundamental principles of the Gospel of Jesus. In particular, Tolstoy identified what he called the ‘Law of Love’ contained within the sermon. This law is a central part of the ‘Good News’ of the ministry of Jesus. The ‘Law of Love’ as preached by Jesus is the exact opposite to the ‘Law of Violence’ that has traditionally dominated human relationships. Tolstoy believed that we must take the principles of the Sermon on the Mount to be as much a law as the Theorem of Pythagoras.
The Missing Paragraph: Proposition Two
He opened the book and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
… “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke 4:17–19, 21
The Sermon on the Mount
You have heard that it was said,
‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’
But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil.
But if any one strikes you on the right cheek,
turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you
and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well:
and if any one forces you to go one mile,
go with him two miles.
Matthew 5:38–41
You have heard that it was said,
‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you, … .
Matthew 5:43–44
For Tolstoy, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount and many of the other teachings of Jesus contained fundamental challenges to the structures of power and hierarchy that had a tendency to evolve in most human cultural organisations. The teachings of Jesus contained revolutionary principles of how each individual should be behave in their relationships to themselves and to others. These principles outlined the belief that the powerless were as important if not more important than the powerful. They stated clearly that the poor in any society were as important as the wealthy and the ‘poor’ in spirit were more open to the possibilities of belief than the wealthy. These principles and beliefs were not ones that would be attractive to powerful individuals or to those interested in maintaining the structures of empire.
The Missing Paragraph: Proposition Three
‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’
And he said to him,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it.
You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 22:36–40
I am the way, and the truth, and the life;
no one comes to the Father, but by me.
John 14:6
For what will it profit a man,
if he gains the whole world
and forfeits his life?
Or what shall a man give
In return for his life?
Matthew 16:26
I am the resurrection and the life;
he who believes in me, though he die,
yet shall he live,
and whoever lives and believes in me,
shall never die.
John 11: 25–26
These three selected propositions are put forward on a purely personal basis to try and reflect the revolutionary nature of the Gospel of Jesus. They could be seen by some as the elephant in the room at the Council of Nicaea or they may have been the beliefs and principles that were taken for granted and as such were hidden in plain sight. But Tolstoy believed in his own conspiracy theory that these teachings were deliberately left out of the Nicene Creed because they would challenge and undermine the fundamental foundations of the political and social structures of the Empire. To be fair to the Emperor and to the administrators of the bureaucracy they have also quoted from the teachings of Jesus in particular the advice to:
Render to [the Emperor] the things that are [the Emperor’s],
and to God the things that are God’s.
Mark 12: 17
Tolstoy saw himself as a philosopher in the classical sense of the term. He sought to find or to produce ‘a universal explanatory principle’[3] which would help to define and explain the predicament of Mankind. Like many other philosophers, he hoped to discover an indestructible core of knowledge which would produce a set of unifying principles by which man could live and flourish. Most of his critics would say that Tolstoy failed to discover any such principles, and most would say that no such principles exist. But Tolstoy himself believed that he had rediscovered the basic principle of life in the uncorrupted message of Christ in the Gospels. Tolstoy tried to do what many other saints and sinners had done before him, to strip away the dogma of the institutional Church and get to the central moral teaching of the prophet Christ. He believed that the institutional Churches had deliberately perverted and distorted the simple message of the Gospel. Tolstoy called this the perversion of religion and it was very clear to Tolstoy just how this perversion happened.
By 1885 Tolstoy had become a vegetarian and a teetotaler, and had given up smoking and hunting. Many of Tolstoy’s literacy critics are very cynical about this particular phase of his life. Wilson (1988) says:
it is also possible to read the next thirty years as an extraordinary demonstration of the fact that the Sermon on the Mount is an unlivable ethic, a counsel of craziness which, if followed to its relentless conclusion as Tolstoy tried to follow it, will lead to the reverse of peace and harmony and spiritual calm … .[4]
Tolstoy himself felt that the critics who had praised his earlier works had praised them for the wrong reasons and had not understood the central message contained in them. In a letter to M. P. Pogodin he says that these
are not casual thoughts … . These thoughts are the fruit of all the mental labor of my life and are an integral part of my view of life, which I worked out with a labor and a suffering that God alone knows … .[5]
How relevant are Tolstoy and his ideas to the world that we live in today? How relevant is his philosophy of pacifism or his attempt to construct a philosophy of pacifism around the teachings of Jesus? Leo Tolstoy died in 1910, before the First World War, before the demented ideologies of the twentieth century, before the insanity of nuclear weapons, etc. It is tempting to answer this question with another. How relevant is any peace theory to conflicts that are deeply rooted in historical and social grievances? Or how do we try to understand and deal with the aggression and violence that may have its source deep in the human psyche?
Tolstoy continually examined and criticised the social and economic roots of human misery. He believed that he had rediscovered the roots of violence and aggression in the soul of Man; for him, the Christian message bearing these truths had been distorted and lost over time and were only now being rediscovered. Even the people who, for cultural and historical reasons were not Christian, or the people who could not accept Christianity, these people could acknowledge ‘the perception of human equality and respect for human dignity which flow from Christianity … .’[6] The problems of social injustice and the conditions of human misery were for Tolstoy manifestations of the weaknesses inherent in human nature. For any real improvements to be made in the human condition, changes must be made in the consciousness of Man. For Tolstoy, the prime human function was the progressive changing of individual human consciousness. For him, the blueprint for how these changes might evolve is contained in the teachings of Jesus and not in the Creed as outlined at Nicaea. Tolstoy believed that the Nicene Creed fulfilled one important doctrinal function. But by ignoring any reference to the revolutionary truths contained in the Gospels, it set a precedent, Tolstoy believed, within the belief system of Christianity that the Church as messenger was more important than the message.
Appendix
The Nicene Creed
This is the Catholic Nicene Creed, as used in the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgy. The Creed is usually called just the ‘Nicene Creed’. It is also called the ‘Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed’, after its origin in the first two Church ecumenical councils in 325 and 381 AD. There are a number of other Creeds that have come down from the early history of the Church such as the Athanasian Creed dated around 373 AD and the Apostles’ Creed sometimes called the ‘Apostolic Creed’ which has been dated to around the fifth century.
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation,
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge
the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he
is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic
and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
The Nicene Creed
(A Second Translation)
I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
[1] Leo Tolstoy, Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence (Philadelphia PA: New Society Publishers, 1987), 160–161.
[2] All quotations from the New Testament are taken from The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1966).
[3] Henry Gifford, ed., Leo Tolstoy A Critical Anthology (London: Penguin, 1971), 255–256.
[4] A.N. Wilson, Tolstoy (London: W. W. Norton, 1988), 300–301.
[5] Leo Tolstoy, War And Peace: The Maude Translation Backgrounds and Sources Essays in Criticism, George Gibian, ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1966), 1362.
[6] Leo Tolstoy, Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence (Philadelphia PA: New Society Publishers, 1987), 176.
