Transcriber's Note:
All obvious errors have been corrected.
Archaic and alternate spellings have been retained.
| By DMITRI MÉREJKOWSKI | ||
THE DEATH OF THE GODS. Authorized EnglishVersion by Herbert Trench. 12o | ||
THE ROMANCE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI:THE FORERUNNER. (The Resurrection ofthe Gods.) Authorized English Version from theRussian. 12o. With 8 Illustrations | ||
——Artist's Edition, with 64 illustrations. 2 vols.,8o | ||
PETER AND ALEXIS. Authorized English Versionfrom the Russian. 12o | ||
| G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS | ||
| New York | London | |
Christ and Antichrist
By
Dmitri Mérejkowski
Translated by
Herbert Trench
Sometime Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
Authorised English Version
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
IICopyright 1901
by
G. P. Putnam's Sons
Made in the United States of America
The Knickerbocker Press, New YorkIII
Dmitri Mérejkowski is perhaps the mostinteresting and powerful of the younger Russiannovelists, the only writer that promises to carry on thework of Tolstoi, Turgeniev, and Dostoievski. Hisbooks, which are already numerous, are animated by asingle master-idea, the Pagano-Christian dualism ofour human nature. What specially interests him inthe vast spectacle of human affairs is the everlastingcontest between the idea of a God-Man and the idea ofa Man-God; that is to say, between the conception of aGod incarnate for awhile (as in Christ) and the conceptionof Man as himself God—gradually evolving highertypes of splendid and ruling character which drawafter them the generations.
The novelist's own doctrine seems to be that boththe Pagan and the Christian elements in our nature,although distinct elements, are equally legitimate andsacred. His teaching is that the soul and the senseshave an equal right to be respected; that hedonismand altruism are equals, and that the really full man,the perfect man, is he who can ally in harmoniousequilibrium the cult of Dionysus and the cult of Christ.
Mérejkowski conceives that European civilisationhas been born of the tremendous conflict between thesetwo main ideas. And he has embodied this conflict ina trilogy of novels,—three great historical romances.The first is entitled The Death of the Gods, and dealswith the extraordinary career of the Roman Emperor.IVJulian the Apostate, who in the fourth century ...