t or a dangerous
superfluity. Ritual to the Starovere is as much an integral part of
traditional Christianity as doctrine: it, is equally the legacy of
Christ and the apostles; and the sole mission of the Church and the
clergy is to preserve both intact. This leaning to symbolism saves his
scrupulous fidelity to outward forms from degenerating into a slavish
superstition. On the other hand, the allegorizing tendency which clings
fast to the letter sometimes takes odd liberties with the spirit of
ceremonies and texts. It is the peculiarity of the symbolizing temper
scrupulously to respect the form while arbitrarily dealing with the
spirit. Thus, the ritual and the sacred books become a kind of heavenly
charade, whose answer must be found by the imagination. And so, in their
hunt after the hidden sense of narratives and words, some of the
Raskolniks have allegorized the histories of the Old and New Testaments,
and changed the gospel records into parables. Some have gone so far as
to see in the greatest of the gospel miracles nothing but types.[005]
Such a system of exegesis easily leads to a kind of mystic rationalism:
the forms of religion tend to gain more consistency than the essence,
and public worship to be placed above doctrine. Some of the extreme
sects of the Raskol have actually reached this point. A perfect carnival
of wild interpretation prevailed among this ignorant rabble, and crazy
doctrines and grotesque tenets were not slow in following in its train.

The Old Believer loves his peculiar rites, not only for the meaning he
puts into them, but also for the sake of the authority on which he holds
them: the moral and social _rationale_ of the schism is a deep
respect for traditional customs and for the habits handed down from his
forefathers. But even in his slavish devotion to ancestral ritual and
prayers the Starovere simply exaggerates a feeling which, if not
properly religious, commonly links itself with religion and adds to its
influence. All men and all nations set great store by the maintenance of
their hereditary faith, and even the common rhetorical abuse of such
phrases demonstrates its power. When thus intertwined with the
associations of family and country, religion assumes the guise of an
inheritance solemnly committed to our trust by the departed. This
feeling is singularly powerful in Russia from linking itself with a
superstitious veneration for antiquity. You can often get no other
reason from