That conception of the Church is quite correct if it does not include those that make a verbal expression of religion instead of its expression in the whole of life—for religion cannot be expressed in words.
The idea of a true Church was also used as an argument against dissenters. But till the time of the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, the Church was only an idea.
Since the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea the Church becomes a reality, and a fraudulent reality,—that fraud of metropolitans with relics, and priests with the eucharist, Iberian Mothers of God,[1] synods, etc., which so astonish and horrify us, and which are so odious that they cannot be explained merely by the avarice of those that perpetuate them. The fraud is ancient, and was not begun merely for the profit of private individuals. No one would be such a monster of iniquity as to be the first to perpetrate it, if that were the only reason. The reasons which caused the thing to be done were evil: "By their fruits ye shall know them." The root was evil—hatred, pride, enmity against Arius and others; and another yet greater evil, the alliance of Christianity with power. Power, personified in the Emperor Constantine, who, in the heathen conception of things, stood at the summit of human greatness (he was enrolled among the gods), accepts Christianity, gives an example to all the people, converts the people, lends a helping hand against the heretics, and by means of the Ecumenical Council establishes the one true Christian religion.
The Catholic Christian religion was established for all time. It was so natural to yield to this deception that, to the present day, there are people who believe in the saving efficacy of that assembly. Yet that was the moment when a majority of Christians abandoned their religion. At that turning the great
- ↑ The Iberian Mother of God is the most celebrated of the miraculous ikons in Moscow.—Tr.
relic was merely a bag stuffed with straw. This is only a specimen of many similar tales, some of which are true and others invented.—Tr.
