Leo Tolstoy: May 2006 Archives

I am spending a considerable amount of time this summer preparing to teach a class this fall on the book of Hebrews. I found myself reading a little of Leo Tolstoy in connection with my meditation upon Hebrews 2:14-18. If you want to set yourself up to see some of the gospel-beauty of Hebrews 2:14-18, first read the following lengthy quotation from Tolstoy and then read Hebrews 2...

“All this was happening to me at a time when I was surrounded on all sides by what is considered complete happiness: I was not yet fifty, I had a kind, loving and beloved wife, lovely children, and a large estate that was growing and expanding with no effort on my part. I was respected by relatives and friends far more than ever before. I was praised by strangers and could consider myself a celebrity without deceiving myself. Moreover I was not unhealthy in mind or body, but on the contrary enjoyed a strength of mind and body such as I had rarely witnessed in my contemporaries. Physically I could keep up with peasants tilling the fields; mentally I could work for eight or ten hours at a stretch without suffering any ill effects from the effort. And in these circumstances I found myself at the point where I could no longer go on living and, since I feared death, I had to deceive myself in order to refrain from suicide.

“This spiritual condition presented itself to me in the following manner: my life is some kind of stupid and evil joke that someone is playing on me. Despite the fact that I did not acknowledge any such ‘someone’, who might have created me, this concept of there being someone playing a stupid and evil joke on me by bringing me into the world came to me as the most natural way of expressing my condition.

“I could not help feeling that out there somewhere somebody was amusing himself by looking at me and the way I had lived for thirty or forty years, studying, developing, maturing in mind and body. And how no, with a fully matured intellect, having reached the precipice from which life reveals itself, I stood there like an utter fool, believing so firmly that there is nothing in life, that there never has been, nor ever will be. ‘And he laughs…’

“But whether or not this someone laughing at me really existed did not make it any easier for me. I could not attribute any rational meaning to a single act, let alone to my whole life. I simply felt astonished that I had failed to realize this from the beginning. It has all been common knowledge for such a long time. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (and they had already arrived) to those dear to me, and to myself, and nothing will remain other than the stench and the worms. Sooner or later my deeds, whatever they may have been, will be forgotten and will no longer exist. What is all the fuss about then? How can a person carry on living and fail to perceive this? That is what is so astonishing! It is only possible to go on living while you are intoxicated with life; once sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere trick, and a stupid trick! That is exactly what it is: there is nothing either witty or amusing, it is only cruel and stupid.

"The delusion of the joys of life that had formerly stifled my fear of the dragon no longer deceive me. No matter how many times I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life, do not think about it but live, I cannot do so because I have already done it for too long. Now I cannot help seeing day and night chasing me and leading to my death. This is all I can see because it is the only truth. All the rest is a lie” (Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings, 30-32).