… the end of persecutions and the official recognition of the new religion as, first, having full rights, and then as the dominant religion of the state certainly made an important change for the worse. Under Constantine the Great and Constantius pagan masses adopted Christianity wholesale not from conviction but from slavish imitation or self-interest. There appeared a type of feigned Christians, hypocrites, that had not existed before. It multiplied further when under Theodosius and, finally, under Justinian paganism was legally suppressed and every subject of the Graeco-Roman Empire, with the exception of a scattered handful of half-tolerated Jews, was compelled to be a Christian under the threat of severe penalties. … The former truly Christian community was merged with the mass that was Christian in name but pagan in reality. The overwhelming majority of superficial, indifferent and feigned Christians not merely preserved in practice pagan principles of life under a Christian name, but tried in everyway — partly instinctively and partly consciously — to establish the old pagan order beside Christianity, to perpetuate and legalize it, deliberately ruling out the problem of renewing it from within in the spirit of Christ. That was how the first foundations were laid of the compromise between Christianity and paganism which determined medieval thought and life.

When, however, the pagan world accepted Christianity, it was a question not of the inevitable compromise with facts, but of compromise with principles. The majority of the new converts wanted everything to remain as before. They acknowledged the truth of Christianity as an external fact and entered into certain formal and external relations with it, but only on condition that their life should be pagan as before, that the secular kingdom should remain secular and the Kingdom of God, being not of this world, should remain outside the world, without any vital influence upon it, i.e. should remain as a useless ornament, as a mere appendix to the secular kingdom. But surely Christ came into the world in order to save it and not to enrich secular life by a few novel ceremonies. By His death and resurrection He saved the world in principle, at the root, at the centre, but it is only together with mankind that He can spread that salvation to the whole circumference of human and cosmic life and reahze the principle of salvation in the whole of our reality, for no one can be really saved without his own knowledge and consent. True salvation is regeneration or a new birth; but new birth presupposes the death of the old false life — and no one wants to die. Before deciding to accept true salvation as its own task, its own heroic endeavour, the pagan world wanted to try the easy, cheap salvation, salvation through dead faith and works of piety — works and not work; outer performance was meant. But true Christianity, however, is first and foremost work — the work of life for humanity; works come later. But work is difficult, and works are easy; and the easiest of all is abstract faith in incomprehensible objects, i.e. in one's own verbal confession of such faith. It was in this form that Christianity was accepted by the masses.

… To preserve that pagan life as it was, merely anointing it with Christianity from outside — that was the real desire of those pseudo-Christians who had no need to shed their own blood, but had already begun to shed the blood ofothers.

It is the essence of reUgion that its truth is not abstractly theoretical, but is affirmed as the norm of reality, as the law offife. If, for instance, I beUeve not merely verbally buf in fact in the Trinity of Godhead as a religious truth, I must understand and accept its vital moral meaning. All our dogmas have such a meaning, and at first this was clearly felt in the Christian world, even if not fully understood.

После Ездры и Неемии пророчество вскоре умолкает; пророков сменяют книжники, и идеал национального царства временно уступает место идеалу теократического строя, который дисциплинирует религиозную жизнь Израиля. Закон, который принес Ездра из Вавилона, тот закон, который отчасти предносился уже духовным очам Иезекииля, тора священников и левитов заменяет собою живого судию, национального князя, помазанника из рода Давида. [Иезекииль, как мы видели выше (стр. 225), еще говорит о «князе» из дома Давида (характерно определение его религиозных функций в теократическом государстве Иез. 45:13–17).] «Помазанником», облеченным в пурпур и тиару, является первосвященник, наряду с которым не остается места для национального царя. Первосвященник представляет народ и носит на наплечниках своих камни с именами 12 колен Израилевых.

Артаксеркс дает свою санкцию закону Моисея; таким образом, при помощи персидского царя закон Моисея, принесенный книжниками, становится в Иерусалиме законом государственным: его нарушение есть не только грех, но и преступление, влекущее за собой уголовную кару (1 Езд. 7:26). В этом законе и в той иерократии, с которой он связан, уже нет места для мессианического царя в прежнем политическом смысле. Идеал национального царства лежит не в будущем, а в прошедшем. В настоящем царство Бога Израилева в Его народе есть духовное царство, осуществляющееся посредством организации священства и посредством закона этого священства. Верховная светская власть надолго переходит к язычникам, и, поскольку народ добивается относительной автономии, эта власть сосредоточивается в руках священников и книжников.