Chapter 3

CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY BELIEVERS.

Meaning of Christian Doctrine, Understood by a Minority, has
Become Completely Incomprehensible for the Majority of Men--
Reason of this to be Found in Misinterpretation of Christianity
and Mistaken Conviction of Believers and Unbelievers Alike that
they Understand it--The Meaning of Christianity Obscured for
Believers by the Church--The First Appearance of Christ's
Teaching--Its Essence and Difference from Heathen Religions--
Christianity not Fully Comprehended at the Beginning, Became
More and More Clear to those who Accepted it from its
Correspondence with Truth--Simultaneously with this Arose the
Claim to Possession of the Authentic Meaning of the Doctrine
Based on the Miraculous Nature of its Transmission--Assembly of
Disciples as Described in the Acts--The Authoritative Claim to
the Sole Possession of the True Meaning of Christ's Teaching
Supported by Miraculous Evidence has Led by Logical Development
to the Creeds of the Churches--A Church Could Not be Founded by
Christ--Definitions of a Church According to the Catechisms--
The Churches have Always been Several in Number and Hostile to
One Another--What is Heresy--The Work of G. Arnold on Heresies--
Heresies the Manifestations of Progress in the Churches--
Churches Cause Dissension among Men, and are Always Hostile to
Christianity--Account of the Work Done by the Russian Church--
Matt. xxiii. 23--The Sermon on the Mount or the Creed--The
Orthodox Church Conceals from the People the True Meaning of
Christianity--The Same Thing is Done by the Other Churches--All
the External Conditions of Modern Life are such as to Destroy
the Doctrine of the Church, and therefore the Churches use
Every Effort to Support their Doctrines.

Thus the information I received, after my book came out, went to
show that the Christian doctrine, in its direct and simple sense,
was understood, and had always been understood, by a minority of
men, while the critics, ecclesiastical and freethinking alike,
denied the possibility of taking Christ's teaching in its direct
sense. All this convinced me that while on one hand the true
understanding of this doctrine had never been lost to a minority,
but had been established more and more clearly, on the other hand
the meaning of it had been more and more obscured for the
majority. So that at last such a depth of obscurity has been
reached that men do not take in their direct sense even the
simplest precepts, expressed in the simplest words, in the Gospel.

Christ's teaching is not generally understood in its true, simple,
and direct sense even in these days, when the light of the Gospel
has penetrated even to the darkest recesses of human
consciousness; when, in