Philosophy of Religion

What I Believe

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Leo Tolstoy

1884

Written shortly after his conversion and banned in Russia almost immediately, What I Believe is Tolstoy's first and most personal statement of his reformed Christianity. The book is structured as a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, arguing that Christ's five commandments — be not angry, be not lustful, do not swear oaths, do not resist evil, love your enemies — constitute a complete and practicable programme for individual and social life, not a set of impossible ideals. Tolstoy charges that the institutional Church has systematically suppressed these commandments in order to accommodate the requirements of empire and state power. What I Believe is less systematic than The Kingdom of God but more intimate — a record of Tolstoy's own reading, struggle, and conviction, written in the first person with unusual directness.