The purpose of Tolstoy’s investigation into the Christian Gospel was to find the practical, pure teaching of Jesus Christ, to free it from the linguistic patina of ritual and scripture, removing both the dogmatic and the supernatural. In illustration of this approach, Ivakin recalls an 1881 conversation in which Tolstoy said to him: “What is it to me if [Christ] was resurrected? If he was resurrected, then God bless him! The questions important to me are: What should I do? How should I live?”
