“In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” –John 1:1
“The Gospel In Brief: The Life of Jesus” by Leo Tolstoy, a fusion of the four Gospels into one, according to the real sense of the teaching.”
Herein an outline thereof and synthesis of teaching therein.
Outline Thereof
Introduction: Knowledge of Life
1. The Son of God
2. God is Spirit
3. The Source of Knowledge
4. The Kingdom of God
5. True Life
6. False Life
7. The Father and I are One
8. Life Outside of Time
9. Temptations
10. The Struggle with Temptations
11. The Farewell Conversation
12. The Spirits Victory over the Flesh
Conclusion: The First Epistle of John the Evangelist
Synthesis Therein
Division of the teaching in the Gospel into the above twelve chapters (or six, since each pair of the twelve may be taken as one):
Jesus Christ’s proclamation replaced faith in an external God with a knowledge of [true] life:
- Man, the son of God [infinite source], is powerless in the flesh and free in the spirit,
- And therefore man should work not for the flesh, but for the spirit.
- Every person’s life sprang from the spirit of the father [and is of divine source],
- And therefore the will of the father [truth] is life [of reason] and goodness for all people.
- The satisfaction of personal will [is not necessary for true life and] leads to death, the satisfaction of the father’s will favors true life,
- And therefore, in order to receive true life, Man must renounce the false mortal life on earth and live by the spirit.
- The true food of everlasting life is the fulfillment of the father’s will and communion with him [mortal life is food for true life],
- And therefore only life in the present is true life [outside of time].
- The illusions of temporal life conceal from people the true life of the present,
- And therefore, in order to not fall into temptation, one should be united with the father every hour of one’s life [and strive to destroy the deception of the temporal life of past and future].
- Individual life is a delusion of the flesh. True life is [life outside the individual,] a common life for all people [and is expressed in love],
- And therefore, there can be no ill for the man within the father’s will, who lives in common with others and not his own individual life. The death of the flesh is unification with the father.
The Lord’s Prayer:
As Christ’s whole teaching, stated in most concise form,
| Our Father | Man is the son of the Father |
| Which art in heaven | God is the infinite spiritual source of life |
| Hallowed be Thy name | May the Source of Life be held holy |
| Thy kingdom come | May His power be established over all men |
| Thy will be done, as in heaven | May His will be fulfilled, as it is in Himself |
| So also on earth | So also in the bodily life |
| Give us our daily bread | The temporal life is the food of the true life |
| This day | The true life is in the present |
| And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors | May the faults and errors of the past not hide this true life from us |
| And lead us not into temptation | And may they not lead us into delusion |
| But deliver us from evil | So that no evil may come to us |
| For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory | And there shall be order, and strength, and reason |
Select etymology:
spirit Middle English “life, the animating or vital principle in man and animals,” from
esperit Old French “spirit, soul” from
spīritus Latin, original meaning “breath, breathing” and hence “spirit, soul, courage, vigor,” “a breathing (of respiration, also of the wind), breath;” also “breath of a god,” hence “inspiration; breath of life,” hence life itself from
*(s)peis Porto-Indo-European (PIE) root “to blow”
Compare with:
Lung (Tibetan: རླུང rlung) “wind or breath” and a key concept in the Vajrayana traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, a concept that is particularly important to understandings of the subtle body and the trikaya (body, speech and mind).
The distinction between “soul” (that which gives life to body) and “spirit” (that which transcends the body) mirrors that between “psykhē” and “pneuma” in Classical Greek:
psykhē “cold air”, hence “breath of life” and “soul” from PIE root *bhes- “to breathe”
pneuma “breath, motile air, spirit” from verb pnéō “to breathe”.
God Old English “supreme being, deity” from
*guthan Proto-Germanic (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Dutch god, Old High German got, German Gott, Old Norse guð, Gothic guþ) of uncertain origin; perhaps from
*ghut- PIE “that which is invoked” (source also of Old Church Slavonic zovo “to call,” Sanskrit huta-“invoked,” an epithet of Indra), from
*gheu(e)- PIE “root “to call, invoke”
Word Old English “speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word,” from
*wurda- Proto-Germanic (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian word, Dutch woord, Old High German, German wort, Old Norse orð, Gothic waurd), from
*were- PIE “speak, say”
Logos “the divine Word, second person of the Christian Trinity,” from
logos Greek “word, speech, statement, discourse,” also “a computation, account,” also “reason, judgment, understanding,” from
*log-o- PIE suffixed form of root *leg- “to collect, gather,” with derivatives meaning “to speak,” on notion of “to pick out words”
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” – John 1:14