The Gospel in Brief

The Gospel in Brief (Russian: Краткое Изложение Евангелия) is a work by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It is a shortened and unified version of the four gospels of the New Testament, presented as one story of the life and teaching of Jesus. Tolstoy first created this synthesis in 1892 and later published it in book form as The Gospel in Brief in 1896.^[1]

The 1896 book is based on material that Tolstoy had included in a longer work in 1892. In The Gospel in Brief, Tolstoy leaves out many of the supernatural elements of the original biblical gospels, such as Jesus's divine birth and his miracles. Instead, he concentrates on Jesus's moral and spiritual teachings, especially those that Tolstoy himself thought were most important. Because of this, many readers see The Gospel in Brief as a clear expression of Tolstoy's own understanding of Christianity.^[2]

Tolstoy’s version is often said to be the result of his detailed study of the original Koine Greek text of the New Testament.^[3]

Tolstoy’s reading of the life and teaching of Jesus was very different from the official teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church. He strongly criticized the Church and its connection with the state. In 1901, partly because of books like The Gospel in Brief and other writings on religion, the Church excommunicated him.^[4]

In 1892, Tolstoy published a long work titled A Translation, Harmony, and Analysis of the Gospels. This book compared and arranged the four New Testament gospels, but it was complex and aimed more at serious students than at ordinary readers. Tolstoy worried that this large and detailed volume would not reach laypeople. To make his ideas easier to understand, he took only the introductions and summaries of the twelve chapters from A Translation, Harmony, and Analysis of the Gospels. He combined these shorter parts into a new, much more compact version. This shorter book was published in 1896 as The Gospel in Brief.^[5]

Austrian–British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was deeply influenced by The Gospel in Brief. He called it a "magnificent work". After finding the book by chance in a Polish bookshop, he began to carry it with him "constantly, like a talisman".^[6]

Wittgenstein took the book with him during his service in World War I and recommended it to other soldiers. His passion for the book was so strong that other soldiers came to know him as "the man with the Gospels".^[7] In a letter to Ludwig von Ficker, Wittgenstein wrote:

"Are you acquainted with Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief? At its time, this book virtually kept me alive... If you are not acquainted with it, then you cannot imagine what an effect it can have upon a person."^[8]

Some modern scholars suggest that the twelve-part structure of The Gospel in Brief may have influenced the numbered structure of Wittgenstein's own major work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.^[6]

In 2014, playwright Scott Carter wrote a play titled The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord. The play shows Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy together in purgatory. All three had written their own versions or interpretations of the gospels: Jefferson wrote The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (often called the Jefferson Bible), Dickens wrote The Life of Our Lord, and Tolstoy wrote The Gospel in Brief. In the play, the three men must argue about their religious views and reach a shared theological understanding before they can enter heaven.^[9][10]