The Rosicrucian
Influence on Eastern Christianity
V. V. Zenkovsky
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A 2017 Editorial Note:
The following
article is reproduced from
“A History of Russian Philosophy”, by V.
V.
Zenkovsky, a
two-volume edition, Routledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd.,
London, 1953, vol. I, pp. 109-111.
In the 19th
century, theosophist Helena Blavatsky
wrote that
Russia was the only country where the
pure ideal of
Christ was still preserved. A living,
unbureaucratic view
of Christian Mysticism has
been strong and
influential from the beginning in the
History of
Russia. It is present in the ideas of I.V. Lopukhin
(author of the
book “The Inner Church”), and the writings
of Alexei
Khomiakov, M.M. Speranski, Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Leo Tolstoy, N. Berdyaev
and N.O. Lossky, among others.
In order to
facilitate the reading, we divide some of the
paragraphs in the
article by Zenkovsky into smaller ones,
and add two
footnotes with extra information on Labzin.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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Aleksander F.
Labzin (1766-1825) very early displayed outstanding talent, especially in
mathematics (he studied higher mathematics to the end of his life).
At the age of sixteen he came under the influence of
Professor Schwarz, the freemason - founder of the Rosicrucian Order in Moscow -
under whose guidance he studied philosophy extensively, feeling himself
profoundly attracted to it. [1]
There is no definite evidence that Labzin was
enthusiastic about Schwarz’s occult ideas, although Pypin, for example,
considers Labzin a “continuer of Rosicrucianism in literature”.[2]
Labzin undertook the translation and publication of
mystical books, such as Eckartshausen’s Key
to the Mysteries of Nature, 1804, Vital
Hieroglyphics for the Human Heart, 1803, etc. In 1806, he began to publish
the Sionski vestnik [Zion’s Herald], which was an immediate
and widespread success.
However, this journal was soon closed and did not
resume publication until 1817, when Alexander I turned decisively toward
mysticism. [3]
A branch of the British Bible Society was formed in
Russia, and a kind of “universal Christianity” was implanted from above.
Criticism of Western sects was forbidden. The whole spiritual atmosphere of the
time exhibited a triumph of “non-ecclesiastical Christianity”. This was
strikingly represented by the Quakers, who had great success both with
Alexander I and in the general religious movement of the time. In this
atmosphere Labzin resumed publication of his Sionski vestnik, warmly developing the idea of “inner Christianity”,
and calling upon Russians to “awake”. But this “awakening”, according to
Labzin, required no “outward acts”; it is necessary, for the “perfection of the
soul and of the whole man”, for “union with the heavenly world”, to combat the
influence of the material world upon the soul. Magnetism, which frees the soul from the body, is, according to
Labzin, the means for doing this.
Labzin was resolutely opposed to creedal divisions; he
even asserted that the faith of Christ “does not separate believers from
nonbelievers” or “Old-Testament man from New”, that “Christianity existed from
the creation of the world”, that “the Church of Christ is boundless, embracing
the whole human race”. Labzin spoke of Holy Scripture as a “mute preceptor which points symbolically
to the living teacher dwelling within the heart”. “The outer church is a crowd
of public, inferior Christians, like Job on the dung-heap”. Labzin, in this
preaching of non-ecclesiastical Christianity, which shows clear signs of a
secularism verging on conflict with the Church, openly followed the Quakers. In
his justificatory letter (when he decided, in view of the obstructions of
censorship, to discontinue his journal) he wrote that his “models” were Boehme,
Stilling, and Saint-Martin.
It would be erroneous to conclude that Labzin gave no
place to reason. His mysticism did not deny the importance of reason in the “lower”
stages of spiritual enlightenment. “It is an offence to faith”, he wrote, “to
say that faith demands the sacrifice of reason; on the contrary, reason is the ground of faith, … but faith asserts
what reason understands confusedly”. “Reason leads man to the doors of the
temple, but it cannot bring him within. Faith may be dispensed with; but reason
is eternal, for man is a rational being.” [4]
These statements are an interesting revelation of
Labzin’s closeness to the rationalistic tendencies of the time [5], as well as to the first
germination of the theurgical conceptions, which sought in a knowledge of the “secrets
of nature” - for example, magnetism, in which everyone was interested at the
time - a key to higher revelations (outside the Church).
Labzin’s life ended unhappily. He was exiled to a
remote province - because of a sharp word concerning persons close to the Tsar.
However, he found warm admirers there who made his last days easier.
NOTES:
[1] N. O. Lossky writes about
this philosopher: “I.G. Schwarz (1751-1784), a German who was professor of
philosophy at the Moscow University from 1779-1782 (…) was a believer in the
Rosicrucian doctrines, and in the lectures which he delivered at his house he
explained obscure passages in the works of St. Martin by references to Jacob
Boehme’s Mysterium Magnum (…). He
preached the need for man’s moral and spiritual improvement and denounced
political and ecclesiastical abuses and defects of the clergy. His early death
saved him from government persecution.” (“History of Russian Philosophy”, by
N.O. Lossky, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1952, 409 pp., p. 11.) Regarding
Jacob Boehme and his influence on Russian philosophy, one must take into
consideration that Helena Blavatsky called him “the nursling of the genii
(Nirmanakayas) who watched over and guided him” (The Secret Doctrine, volume I, p.
492). (CCA)
[2] Pypin, Religioznyie
dvizheniya pri Aleksandre I [Religious Movements under Alexander I], p. 99.
(V. V. Zenkovsky)
[3] One can read in a book published
in 2013: “… Labzin was drawn into
freemasonry early in his life by the famous German masonic figure in Moscow,
I.G. Schwartz, who in the 1780s introduced Rosicrucian masonic lodges into
Russia. At the turn of the century, Labzin assumed a position in Petersburg as
secretary of the Academy of Arts. From that period and at the reopening of
masonic lodges, he became a leader within the Dying Sphinx, an exclusive and
separate Rosicrucian lodge. Sionskii
vestnik began in 1806 and featured translations of western mystical literature,
including the works of Jung-Stilling, Boehme, and Eckartshausen, among others.
The journal was suspended shortly after its inauguration because of complaints
about the mystical tenor of its publication. The broader interest in mystical
literature, however, developed with renewed strength after the Napoleonic
invasion, with the result that the popularity of Labzin and his journal
expanded greatly in the second half of Alexander I’s reign. Sionskii vestnik gave Labzin a renewed
platform for his message of moral awakening and religious conversion.” (See “Russian
Bible Wars: Modern Scriptural Translation and Cultural Authority”, by Stephen
K. Batalden, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New-York, 2013, 395 pp.,
p. 22.) (CCA)
[4] Quoted by Kolyupanov, Biografiya A. I. Koshelyova [A Biography of A. I. Koshelyov], I,
170-176. (V. V. Zenkovsky)
[5] Labzin’s friend Dmitriyev testifies to this in his
memoirs. “His reason”, he wrote of Labzin, “conceived everything clearly and
simply, grounded everything on strict necessity and on the law which unites
visible and invisible, earthly and heavenly. Such, I thought, is the science of
religion….”. (V. V. Zenkovsky)
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See in our
associated websites the article “Slavophilism
and Theosophy”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
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