would be saved must participate. While they rejected Jesus as the Saviour of mankind, and deny the efficacy of His death upon the cross, they recognize Him and His apostles as precursors of Selivanov, and assert that mutilation was taught by them in secret. This doctrine was the hidden Eleusinian mystery of Christ's teachings; as in time it became corrupt, or was forgotten, the redemption of the world demanded a new Saviour to preach and practice the true Gospel in all its purity and might, and the Son of God became again incarnate in the person of their prophet.
This impostor appeared during the reign of Catherine II.; of his previous history and antecedents nothing positive is known; he was ignorant and illiterate, unable to read or write, and was probably a peasant who had escaped military conscription by taking refuge with the Khlysti, among whom he became prominent. An aged prophetess, Akoulina Ivanovna, who presided over one of their communities, recognized him by inspiration, and proclaimed him to be the Son of God; his followers rapidly increased, and attracted suspicion; he was arrested, knouted, and exiled to Siberia, from whence he was allowed to return by Paul I. Besides his divine character, he assumed that of temporal lord, and like the Raskolnik Pougatchev, claimed to be Peter III., who had not been put to death, as supposed, but had escaped to Irkutsk, and a soldier had suffered in his place. Selivanov declared that Peter was the incarnation of Christ, who had never died, but was immortal, and wandered over the world, variously and at various times, manifest in the flesh, without sex, consecrated by God; the fulfilment of divine grace ("ispolnen blagodati"), speaking by inspiration; the Son of God, but not God; revealed in due season by the Father to His true children, and who now
