Solov'ev, like Tolstoi, is at odds with the Orthodox church; Solov'ev, like Tolstoi, assigns a modest role to the understanding; both thinkers have a special fondness for Schopenhauer and Kant; Solov'ev, too, stresses, above all, the moral aspects of religion and philosophy—and yet Solov'ev discerns in Tolstoi the figure of antichrist!
It seems to me that the antichrist embodies large elements of self-criticism. Solov'e'’s polemic writing is often strongly worded precisely because the author is endeavouring to convince himself, Tolstoi is his own uneasy conscience.
During the closing years of his life, Solov'ev succumbed to a pessimistic mood, and this can be discerned in the antichrist figure. In fact, Solov'ev completely abandoned his earlier policy of ecclesiasticism. In the Three Discussions the messianic mission of the Russian people and of the tsar has completely disappeared. We do not find that a union of the churches is effected as a precondition for theocracy. The three churches are reconciled during the last days, those immediately preceding Christ's second advent; and the reunion takes place without any assistance from the state. The tsar, meanwhile, and the tsarist realm, have disappeared with the formation of the democratic United States of Europe. No more than forty-five millions of Christians remain, a comparatively small body of believers, who stand firm, however, in the faith, and can therefore effect the union of the churches—just before the closing of the gates.
It is obvious that the earlier ecclesiastical policy has been wholly abandoned, and that the union of the churches takes place in accordance with the principles of Protestant ecclesiastical policy à la Schelling. Russians and the Russian church are somewhat scurvily treated in Three Discussions. In further proof of this assertion, I may mention that at the council Solov'ev makes the emperor win over the Russians by providing them with funds for the construction of a universal museum for Christian archeology. In return for this, most of the hierarchs of the east and the north, half of the old believers, and more than half of the Orthodox priests, monks, and laymen, espouse the emperor's cause.
Manifestly a precise census would notably reduce the forty-five millions of "genuine Christians."
In actual fact, Solov'ev had lost his vigorous faith, not only in the tsar but also in the Russian people. We learn from his
