Such a view of Christ and His teaching results from my book, but, to my surprise, out of the large number of criticisms upon my book, there was not one , either Russian or foreign, which treated the subject from the same side from which it is expounded in my book, that is, which looked upon Christ’s teaching as a philosophical, moral, and social doctrine (again to speak in the language of the learned). This was not the case in a single criticism.
The Russian lay critics, who understood my book in such a way that all its contents reduced themselves to nonresistance to evil, and who understood the teaching about nonresistance to evil itself (apparently for convenience of refutal) as meaning that it prohibited any struggle against evil, furiously attacked this teaching and very successfully proved for the period of several years that Christ’s teaching was incorrect, since it taught us not to resist evil. Their refutals of this supposed teaching of Christ were the more successful, since they knew in advance that their views could