Character guide

Jesus Christ

major

Also known as Christ, innocent Jesus, Lord Jesus Christ

Tolstoy treats Jesus not as a divine miracle-worker but as the hinge of humanity's slow passage from animal self-interest through social loyalty to a divine life-conception grounded in love. The tension is sharp: churches that claim his name have, in Tolstoy's reading, buried his plain commands under Trinity, redemption, and sacrament. His teaching matters because it supplies the book's central test — whether a man can sacrifice personal and national good to do God's will.

Adin Ballou

supporting

Also known as Ballou

Ballou belongs to the small company of men who took the divine life-conception seriously enough to refuse violence in a nation that celebrated it. Where most Christians dismissed non-resistance as impractical, he organized a community around it, and Tolstoy leans on that example to prove the teaching is livable, not merely sublime. He matters because he shifts the argument from exegesis to evidence: someone, somewhere, actually tried this.

Peter Sidorov

supporting

Also known as Peter, Sídorov

Sidorov stands among the ordinary men — peasants, soldiers, sectarians — whose refusals Tolstoy cites against the charge that non-resistance is a philosopher's fantasy. His world is the barracks and the village, where obedience is survival and dissent means prison or worse. He matters because his quiet no dramatizes the book's wager: that the transition from social to divine life-conception is happening now, in actual bodies, under actual threat.

William Lloyd Garrison

minor

Also known as Garrison

American abolitionist and pacifist whose non-resistance views are cited as a modern example.

Petr Chelčický

minor

Also known as Chelčický

15th-century Czech reformer who rejected state violence and military service.

Farrar

minor

Theologian whose interpretation of Christ's teachings on non-resistance is discussed.

Leo Tolstoy

major

Also known as Count Tolstoy, Tolstoy

Tolstoy writes as both aristocrat and penitent, mapping humanity's moral history as a slow climb from the savage's self-love through the patriot's glory to a life rooted in God. His tension is personal as much as doctrinal: he indicts the very institutions that educated and protected him, and he knows his readers will recognize their own compromises in the indictment. He matters because the book is his argument with himself and with a world that calls itself Christian while preparing for war.

Napoleon

minor

Historical figure cited as an example of power based on violence and deception.

Joseph de Maistre

minor

Also known as Maistre

Catholic philosopher whose defense of state violence is critiqued by Tolstoy.

Nicholas I

minor

Russian emperor whose authoritarian rule is referenced in discussions of state power.

Catherine the Great

minor

Also known as Catherine

Russian empress mentioned in context of state violence and hypocrisy.

Moses

minor

Biblical prophet whose law of retaliation is contrasted with Christ's teaching.

Constantine the Great

minor

Also known as Constantine

Roman emperor whose conversion corrupted Christianity by merging church and state.

David

minor

Biblical king cited as an example of Old Testament violence versus New Testament love.

Alexander Herzen

minor

Also known as Herzen

Russian thinker whose critique of state oppression is referenced.

Max Müller

minor

Scholar of religion whose work on comparative religion is mentioned.

Yemelyan Pugachev

minor

Also known as Pugachév

Leader of a Russian peasant revolt, cited as an example of violent rebellion.

Vasily Zhukovsky

minor

Also known as Zhukóvski

Russian poet and translator, mentioned in passing.

Christopher Columbus

minor

Also known as Columbus

Explorer mentioned in context of European conquest and violence.

Noah

minor

Biblical patriarch mentioned in a list of Old Testament figures.

Jacob

minor

Also known as cunning Jacob

Biblical patriarch cited as an example of deceit in the Old Testament.

Frédéric Passy

minor

French pacifist and Nobel laureate, cited as a modern peace advocate.

Jonathan Dymond

minor

Quaker writer on Christian ethics, cited on non-resistance.

Esau

minor

Also known as trustful Esau

Biblical figure, brother of Jacob, mentioned in a passing reference.

Laban

minor

Also known as deceitful Laban

Biblical figure, father-in-law of Jacob, mentioned in a passing reference.