The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy; The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...also conclusive. Jesus says, One has to be a mendicant, a vagrant, in order to enter the kingdom of God, that is, to renounce all the forms of life. The vagrant has always been a detested being, to whom, as it were, everything is permitted, who is outside of the law. In verses 15 and 16 Jesus said, One must be a voluntary vagrant and not against one's will; in these two verses he again says that one has to be a vagrant, not one who is outside of the law, for whom there is no law, and to whom everything is permitted, but a vagrant who fulfils the law, that is, certain rules. The word vo'/io? with the article is to be understood as the hi morale. The context in Luke, which Eeuss adduces so frivolously in confirmation of his discussion, shows as clearly as possible, from the very passage where it is found, what is to be understood by v6fios and by the phrase, Not one jot of the law shall pass. Luke xvi. 16. The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. It says, The law and the prophets, that is, the written, Jewish law was needed before John, but now, The kingdom of God is announced, and so forth, and soon after, It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. Either Luke purposely put together two verses that contradict each other, or he understood by, The law and the prophets, what was destroyed since the time of John, or by the law, without the addition of the prophets, he meant that other thing which can never be destroyed as long as there are men. The understanding of the law as the loi morale, and the writing it without the article, are particularly clear in the following passages from Paul's epistles to the Komans: Rom. iii. 27. Where is boasting t...