or mountains where the leader of the new spiritual army lived-be it the pustyn' of St. Seraphim, the wanderer center near Yaroslavl, or the perennial sectarian center of Tambov.
Catherine viewed all of this with a mixture of disgust and patronizing sympathy. Her attitude toward religion was the typically modern one of toleration-through-indifference. She had been born a Lutheran, educated by Calvinists and Catholics, and welcomed into the Orthodox fold. She was deeply suspicious of Jews and sectarian extremists; but was otherwise ruled by considerations of raison d'etat in matters of religion. She welcomed Jesuits for their intellectual and pedagogic abilities, encouraged the immigration of agriculturally skilled German pietists, and started the 'one faith' (edinoverie) movement whereby Old Believers were permitted to rejoin the official Church, preserving most of their old rites so long as they recognized the authority of the established hierarchy.
But she correctly sensed that popular religious sentiment was deeply offended by her rule; and she may have felt that the secret groups meeting under Novikov in Moscow were, or would become, a focal point of opposition. Beginning with her edict of 1785, ordering supervision of the Masonic presses and interrogation of Novikov, she repeatedly expressed the fear that 'Martinists' were fostering some concealed schism (raskol) in Russian society. In January, 1786, she referred to the Masons as 'that crowd of the notorious new schism' and in a special note to the Metropolitan of Moscow, she suggested that there lay 'hidden in their reasonings incompatibilities with the simple and pure rules of faith of our Orthodox
and civil duty.'110 Although briefly reassured by the Metropolitan's vote of confidence in Novikov, she must have been disturbed by his statement that he could not pass judgment on Novikov's occult books, because he could not understand them. Her steady war on Masonry continued through both satiric writings and increased administrative pressure, particularly after the appointment of a new chief commandant for Moscow in February, 1790. A measure of her special concern about Novikov is the fact that his arrest in April, 1792, was carefully staged at a time when he was outside of Moscow, and carried out by an entire squadron of hussars. 'A poor old man plagued with piles,' said Count Razumovsky of Novikov, 'was besieged as if he were a city!'111 He was sent under guard to Yaroslavl; and then, apparently realizing that this metropolis on the Volga was a center both of Masonic activity and of sectarian agitation, transferred to a more distant and secluded place of confinement.
The term 'Martinist,' which Catherine repeatedly used for Novikov's circles, was well chosen, for it highlights the central importance within higher order Masonry of the mystical teachings of Henri de Saint-Martin, the last of the long line of French thinkers to establish an overpowering influence on Russian thought in the eighteenth century. Saint-Martin was the anti-Voltaire of French thought, and his first and greatest work, On Errors and Truth, was a kind of Bible for the mystical counterattack against the French Enlightenment. Published in 1775, it became known almost immediately in Russia and was translated, copied, and widely extracted within higher Masonic circles.
Saint-Martin was in many ways a caricature of the alienated intellectual: a small, sickly bachelor with an oversized head, no real occupation, and few friends. As a wealthy aristocrat he had ample time to read and travel; but he appears to have found a sense of purpose and identity only when he met Martinez de Pasqually, said to be a Portuguese Jew, who introduced him to spiritualism through his own secret order of 'elected Cohens (priests).' It was under the spell of this order that he wrote his On Errors, signing it mysteriously 'the unknown philosopher.'112
The meaning of the book is deliberately obscure, heavily draped with portentous talk of spiritual forces and sweeping attacks on the alleged sensualism and materialism of the age. 'I was less the friend of God than the enemy of his enemies, and it was this indignation that impelled me to write my first book.'113 The opposite of the animal man is the man of intelligence, whom he later also calls the 'man of desire,' the 'man of spirit.' Thus Saint- Martin gives to the term 'intelligence' an even broader meaning than Schwarz. Intelligence can alone save the world, for it is impelled by desire and spirit and its object is a return to God. Following the Neo-Platonists,
Saint-Martin insists that all beings are emanations from God. The original perfection of man has been lost only because his spiritual nature has been diluted with matter; but 'the reintegration of beings in their primal wholeness'114 is now possible through the use of 'intelligence' within the new spiritualist fraternities.
Saint-Martin attracted many Russian followers through his promise to lead men to this reintegrating principal, or-as he also called it-'the thing' (la chose). Nobody knew exactly what 'the thing' was; but the place to look for it was in occult writings and the higher Masonic lodges. More than any other single man, Saint-Martin established the idea among Russian thinkers that the real world was the world of spirit, and that the key to truth lay in establishing some kind of contact with, or understanding of, that world. This introduction of spiritualism within the intellectual community gave it a potential community of interest with sectarian 'spiritual Christianity.' Catherine seems to have sensed instinctively that some such unified opposition to her might develop on a religious basis under the 'Martinists,' and that firm action was necessary to defend the strength of the state.
Whatever her reasoning, Catherine's arrest of Novikov and dispersal of the Moscow Martinists also brought an end to her program of enlightenment. For Novikov had combined within himself both aspects of the Russian Enlightenment: the St. Petersburg and Moscow, practical philanthropy and theoretical mysticism. His early career shows the predominance of satire, moralism, and Anglo-French influences. All of this was typical of the early, casual forms of English Masonry and of the cosmopolitan and activistic capital.
With his move to Moscow, he became preoccupied with religious themes. From the world of Addison and Steele, he moved to that of Bunyan and Milton. Novikov encouraged the translation of Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress, and began his own Selected Library of Christian Readings in 1784 with the first Russian translation of a Kempis' Imitation of Christ. He involved himself less in practical activities than in the search for a new esoteric religion through studying the theosophy of Boehme and the older religious traditions of the Russian people.
The later struggle between 'Westernizers' and 'Slavophiles' is anticipated in the difference of perspective between lower and higher order Masonry. In both cases the Westernized activism of St. Petersburg contrasts with the more contemplative Eastern preoccupations of Moscow. But in both cases, there was a close bond between the parties. Herzen said of the Westernizers' relationship with the Slavophiles: 'Like Janus or like a two-headed eagle we looked in different directions while the same heart throbbed
within us.'115 In like manner the rationalist Radishchev dedicated his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow to the mystic Kutuzov a half century earlier: 'My opinion differs from thine … but thy heart beats as one with mine.'116
Thus, the real sense of solidarity among the alienated, aristocratic intellectuals lay not so much in the mind as in the 'heart': in their common sense of caring. The word 'intelligence' included 'desire' and 'spirit' for Saint- Martin, and these qualities were important to men whose heirs were to call themselves collectively the intelligentsiia. It was Catherine's lack of concern, rather than her lack of intelligence, that alienated the intellectuals.
The quality most highly valued by these dedicated aristocratic circles in the late years of Catherine's reign was 'love of truth' (pravda-liubov'). This was the pen name of Novikov and a favorite inscription on gravestones. The aristocratic intellectuals believed that there was such a thing as Truth; in search of it they joined higher Masonic orders, set off on travels, and read new books from the West with special intensity. Following Boehme and Saint-Martin, they attributed their failure to read the 'hieroglyphics' of truth to their own fallen sinfulness. Reading came to be regarded not as a casual form of leisure activity but as part of an over-all program of spiritual and moral regeneration. Foreign books became sacred objects that were thought to possess redeeming powers; key sections
