Peter felt the monks to be the worst enemies of his reforms, and he saw the institution of monasticism to be socially harmful in two ways: the monasteries held a large part of the land of Russia, and the monks were rich in the midst of the poverty of the peasants. Russia was suffering, as the Roman Empire had suffered in its later days, by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from the service of their country. The tsar did not venture to deal directly with the first of these evils. He did not dare to confiscate Church land. But he made some attempt to lessen the second by not permitting anybody to become a monk under the age of thirty. Then he crippled the power of the monasteries by restricting their literary influence. He forbade monks to have ink or pens in their cells. Men were not to shut themselves up to write; they were to work at trades. On the other hand, Peter encouraged the literary activity of bishops, and in his reign Dmitri Touptalo, the metropolitan of Rostoff, re-edited the Menologium (the Lives of the Saints) and wrote theological works of his own. Other writers of less account also flourished in the hothouse atmosphere of an exotic culture which Peter had introduced into Russia.
It must not be supposed that Peter's masterfulness led him into narrow intolerance. The raison d'être of his policy was rationalistic liberalism. He was in constant opposition to the prevalent inert conservatism of Russian life and religion. Accordingly we may be prepared to see in him a certain amount of indifference to varieties of religious belief, and this was the case. He did not interfere with the greater part of the sect of the Raskolniks,[1] who lived in the remote forests. He would protect the peaceable schismatics from popular persecution. "God has given the tsars power over the nations," he said, "but Christ alone has power over the conscience of men."[2] But he imposed on those members of the sect who lived at Moscow a double capitation tax, and required them to
- ↑ See pp. 441 ff.
- ↑ Rambaud, p. 394.
