The Gospel in Brief

The Life of Jesus

Leo Tolstoy, Dustin Condren

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780061993459
• eBook ISBN: 9780062064165
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

The greatest novelist of all time retells the greatest story ever told, the life of Jesus Christ, in The Gospel in Brief—Leo Tolstoy’s riveting, novelistic integration of the four Gospels into a single, twelve-chapter narrative. Virtually unknown to English readers until now, Dustin Condren’s groundbreaking translation from the Russian opens a precious new world of Tolstoy’s masterful literary talent to fans of War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

The Gospel

A Proclamation on Goodness from Jesus Christ, the Son of God

Introduction

KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE

Jesus Christ’s proclamation replaced faith in an external God with a knowledge of life.

The Gospel proclaims that the source of all things is not an external God, as people think, but a knowledge of life. And therefore, in place of that which people call God, the Gospel posits a knowledge of life.

Without knowledge there is no life. Every man is living only because he has knowledge. Those people who do not understand this and propose the flesh as the source of life deprive themselves of true life. But those who understand that they live not by the flesh but by knowledge are the ones who have true life. And Jesus Christ demonstrated this true life. Realizing the truth that man’s life comes from knowledge, he gave people a teaching and a model life of knowledge in the flesh.

Previous doctrines expressed themselves as laws dictating what one must do and not do in order to serve God. The teaching of Jesus Christ is based on a knowledge of life. No one has seen and no one can know the external God, and therefore the service of an external God cannot govern life. The path of life can only be seen when one recognizes that the knowledge located within, as it arises from the source of all knowledge, is the basis for everything.^*

In the beginning stood the knowledge of life, as the foundation of all things. Knowledge of life stood in the place of God. Knowledge of life is God. According to Jesus’s proclamation, it stands as the basis and source of all things, in the place of God.

All that lives was born into life through knowledge. And without it, there can be nothing living.

Knowledge gives true life.

Knowledge is the light of life. It is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it. The true light has always been in the world and it illuminates every person born into the world. It was in the world and the world is living only because it had that light of knowledge within itself, but the world did not hold on to it.

It revealed itself to its own, but its own did not keep it. Only the ones who understood the knowledge, they alone were given the opportunity to become like it, by virtue of their belief in its essence. Those who believed in the fact that life is based in knowledge did not become sons of the flesh, but became sons of knowledge.

And the knowledge of life manifested itself in the flesh, through the person of Jesus Christ, and we understood his meaning—that the son of knowledge, a man in the flesh, the only begotten of the father, begotten from the source of life, is the same as the father, the same as the source of life.

The teaching of Jesus is the perfect and true faith. Because by fulfilling the teaching of Jesus we have come to understand a new faith in place of the old. The law had been given through Moses, but we have come to understand the true faith, based on the attaining of knowledge, through Jesus Christ.

Nobody has seen God and nobody ever will; only the son, the one who is within the father, he alone has shown the path of life.

Chapter One

THE SON OF GOD

Man, the son of God, is powerless in the flesh and free in the spirit.

OUR FATHER

Jesus was the son of an unknown father. Not knowing his own father, he referred to God as his father during his childhood. In Judea at that time there was a prophet named John, who prophesied the coming of God to earth. He said that if people would change their lives, consider all people equal among themselves, not harm each other but instead help one another, then God would come down to earth and his kingdom would be established on earth. Hearing this sermon, Jesus leaves the company of people and goes into the desert in order to understand the meaning of the life of man and his relationship to the endless source of all things, that which is called God.

After a few days in the wilderness without food, Jesus begins to wither from hunger, and he thinks, “I am the son of the almighty God and therefore should be as almighty as he is; but here I am, hungry, and bread does not appear according to my will. So it would seem that I am not almighty.” After this, he says to himself, “I cannot turn these rocks into bread, but I can abstain from eating bread. And therefore, if I am not almighty in the flesh, I am almighty in spirit—I can conquer the flesh. Therefore I am the son of God, not in the flesh but in spirit.”

“But if I am the son in spirit,” he says to himself further, “I can renounce the flesh and destroy it.” And to that he answers, “I was born by the spirit in the flesh. Such was the will of my father, and therefore I cannot oppose his will.”

“But, if you cannot satisfy your desires in the flesh and cannot renounce the flesh,” he says to himself further, “then you should work for the flesh and savor all of the pleasures that it gives you.” And to that he answers, “I cannot satisfy the desires of the flesh and cannot renounce the flesh, but my life becomes almighty within the spirit of my father and therefore in the flesh I should serve and work for the one spirit alone—the spirit of the father.”

And convincing himself that the life of man can only be within the father, Jesus leaves the wilderness and begins to preach to the people. He says that the spirit is within him, that from now on heaven is wide open and that the heavenly powers are united with man, that free and endless life has begun for people, and that all people, no matter how unlucky they might be in the flesh, may be blessed.

The birth of Jesus Christ happened like this: His mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph. But before they began to live as husband and wife, it happened that Mary became pregnant. This Joseph was a good man and did not want to disgrace Mary; he took her as his wife and had no relations with her until she gave birth to her first son and named him Jesus.

And the boy grew up and became a young man. And he was intelligent beyond his years.

Jesus was already twelve years old when, once, Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem for a holiday and took the boy with them. The holiday passed and they departed for home, having forgotten the boy. Then they remembered him and thought that he must have run off with the other boys, so they asked about him along the road. The boy was nowhere to be found and so they returned to Jerusalem after him.

And after three days they found him in a church, where he sat with the teachers, asking them things and listening. And everyone was amazed at his intelligence.

His mother saw him and said, “What have you done to us? Your father and I are full of grief, searching for you.”

And he said to them, “Where did you look for me? Don’t you know that you should look for the son in the house of his father?”

And they did not understand his words; they did not understand who it was that he called his father. After that Jesus lived with his mother and obeyed her in everything. And he developed in both age and knowledge. And everyone thought that Jesus was the son of Joseph.

And so he lived until he was thirty years old.

At that time the prophet John made himself known in Judea. John lived in the Judean steppes, on the Jordan. John’s clothing was made of camel hair and was tied with a belt, and he subsisted on tree bark and wild plants.

He challenged the people to change their lives in order to free themselves of error, and as a sign of this life change, he bathed the people in the river Jordan.

He said, “A voice is calling to you; pave God’s path in the wilderness, make the path that leads to him level. Make all things even, let there be no dips and no rises, nothing high and nothing low. Then God will be within you and everyone will find their own salvation.”

And the people asked him, “What should we do?”

He answered, “Whoever has two articles of clothing, give them to him who has none. And whoever has food, give it to him who has none.”

And the tax collectors came to him and asked, “What should we do?”

He said to them, “Do not collect more than you are required to.”

And the soldiers asked, “How should we behave?”

He said, “Do not offend anyone, do not cheat. Be content with what you have been granted.”

And the citizens of Jerusalem came to him, as did all the Jews in the vicinity of Jordan. And they repented to him for their evil actions, and as a sign of their change of life, he bathed them in the Jordan.

And the orthodox and old believers also came to John, but secretly.

He detected their presence and said, “You snakelike breed, apparently you have already sensed that it is impossible to withstand God’s will. So then, alter your thinking and change your faith. And if you want to change your faith, then let it be visible by your fruits that you have altered your thinking.

“The axe has already been placed near the tree. If the tree produces bad fruit, it is cut down and thrown into the fire. As a sign of the change in your faith, I purify you with water, but after this bathing you must still be purified with the spirit. The spirit will purify you like the master purifies his threshing floor: he gathers the wheat and burns the chaff.”

Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan in order to be bathed by John, and he was bathed and listened to John’s sermon.

And from Jordan he went into the desert, where he came to know the power of the spirit. Jesus spent forty days and forty nights in the desert with no drink and no food.

And the voice of the flesh said to him, “If you were the son of the almighty God, then you could, of your own will, make bread from these rocks, but you cannot do that, so it would seem that you are not the son of God.”

But Jesus said to himself, “If I cannot turn rocks into bread, then that means that I am not the son of the God of the flesh, but the son of the God of the spirit. I live not on bread, but on spirit. And my spirit can disregard the flesh.” But all the same, hunger tormented him and the voice of the flesh spoke to him more, “If you live on spirit and can disregard the flesh, then you can renounce the flesh and your spirit will remain living.”

And he imagined that he stood on the roof of the temple and the voice of the flesh said to him, “If you are the son of God, then when you throw yourself from the temple, you will not be killed. But an unseen power will preserve you, support you and deliver you from any evil.”

But Jesus said to himself, “I can disregard the flesh, but I cannot renounce it entirely, because I was born into the flesh by the spirit. Such was the will of the father of my spirit and I cannot oppose him.”

Then the voice of the flesh said to him, “If you cannot oppose your father in the matter of throwing yourself off the temple and renouncing the flesh, then you also cannot oppose your father in the matter of going hungry when you want to eat. You should not disregard the lusts of the flesh. They have been placed in you and you should serve them.”

And all the kingdoms of the earth and all of its people were presented to Jesus, how they live and labor for the flesh, expecting from it some reward.

And the voice of the flesh said to him, “There, you see, they work for me and I give them everything that they want. If you work for me, you will get that as well.”

But Jesus said to himself, “My father is not flesh, but spirit. I live by it, I sense it in myself at all times. I respect it alone and work for it alone, and I expect rewards from it alone.”

Then the temptation ceased and Jesus came to know the power of the spirit.

Having come to know the power of the spirit, Jesus left the desert and came to John again and stayed with him. And when the time came for Jesus to leave John, John said of him, “That is a savior of people.”

At these words from John, two of John’s students left their former teacher and followed after Jesus.

Jesus saw that they were following him, stopped, and said to them, “What do you need?”

They said to him, “Teacher! We want to be with you and learn your teaching.”

He said, “Then come with me and I will tell you everything.”

They set off with him and remained with him, listening to him until the tenth hour.

One of these students was called Andrew. Andrew had a brother, Simon. Having listened to Jesus, Andrew went to his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the one that the prophets and Moses wrote about, the one who will proclaim our salvation to us.”

Andrew took Simon with him and brought him along to Jesus. Jesus named this brother of Andrew’s Peter, which means “rock.” And both of these brothers became students of Jesus.

Then, just as they entered into Galilee, Jesus met Philip and called for him to come along. Philip was from Beth-saida, the same village as Peter and Andrew.

When Philip recognized Jesus, he went and sought out his brother Nathaniel and said to him, “We have found God’s chosen one, about whom the prophets and Moses wrote. It is Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

Nathaniel was amazed by this, that the one the prophets had written about was from the neighboring village, and he said, “Strange that this messenger of God is from Nazareth.”

Philip said, “Come with me, you will see and hear for yourself.”

Nathaniel agreed and went with his brother and met with Jesus. And when he had heard him out, he said to Jesus, “Yes, now I see that it is true, that you are the son of God and the King of Israel.”

Jesus said to him, “You must learn what is even more important than that. From now on you will learn that heaven is open and that people can communicate with the powers of heaven. From now on, God will no longer be separated from his people.”

And Jesus returned to the place of his birth in Nazareth. And on the holy day he went, as always, to the meeting and began to read. He was given the book of Isaiah. He opened it and read what was written in the book: “The spirit of the Lord is within me. He chose me to proclaim goodness to the unhappy and the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom to the bound, light to the blind and salvation and rest to the exhausted. To announce to all that this is the time of God’s mercy.”

He closed the book, gave it to the attendant, and sat down; and everyone waited to hear what he would say.

And he said, “Now this verse has been fulfilled before your eyes.”

Chapter Two

GOD IS A SPIRIT

And therefore man should work, not for the flesh, but for the spirit.

WHO ART IN HEAVEN

Considering themselves to be orthodox believers, the Jews revere the external God, the creator of the flesh. According to their teaching, this external God had made an agreement with them, wherein he promised to help the Jews, and the Jews had promised to reverence him, and the main condition of this agreement was the observance of the Sabbath. Jesus rejected the observance of the Sabbath. He says, “The Sabbath is an institution of man. A living man is more important in his spirit than all external rituals. Observance of the Sabbath ritual, like all external worship, contains a fallacy at its core. It is impossible to do nothing on the Sabbath. A man should do good deeds at all times, and if the Sabbath is preventing the doing of a good deed, then that means the Sabbath is a lie.”

The orthodox Jews considered another condition of this agreement to be the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• The Gospel
• Verse Index
• About the Author and the Translator
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher