{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48220/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48220","id":"gutenberg_48220","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48220","summary":null,"tags":["Buddhism","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity and other religions -- Buddhism"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/influenceofbuddh00lill\n\n\n      Some characters might not display in this UTF-8 text\n      version or in the html version. If so, the reader should\n      consult the original page images referred to above.\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\n      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_By the same Author_,\n\nBUDDHISM IN CHRISTENDOM.\n\n\n\"The most learned, thoughtful, and thought-provoking work which has yet\nappeared on this momentous question.... I read the book from cover to\ncover with much interest.\"--_Truth._\n\n\"The present work is of the profoundest interest, and is certain to\ncommand attention in all future discussions of the subject with which\nit deals.... It is exceedingly ably written.\"--_Scotsman._\n\n\"The relation of Essenism to Buddhism is here dwelt upon with\nsome fresh illustration of the probably Indian origin of the\nTherapeuts of Alexandria. Mr. Lillie's chapters on ritual and\nobservances are rendered attractive by a number of interesting\nillustrations.\"--_Athen\u00e6um._\n\n\"Discusses the influence which Buddhism has had on Christianity. The\nadmission that there is any relationship at all between the two will\nbe vehemently denied by many good people, but no one can impartially\nand fairly study Mr. Lillie's book, examine his evidence, and give due\nweight to his arguments, without admitting that the connection not only\nexists but is an intimate one.\"--_Evening Standard._\n\n\n_Also_,\n\nTHE POPULAR LIFE OF BUDDHA.\n\n\"Contends that the atheistic and soulless Buddhism was drawn from the\n'Great Vehicle,' which was a spurious system introduced about the time\nof the Christian era, whereas the 'Little Vehicle,' compiled by Asoka,\ncontained the motto, 'Confess and believe in God.' There are a large\nnumber of passages drawn from the sacred books, which tend to prove\nthat Mr. Lillie is right in his theory of Buddhist theology. Even Dr.\nRhys Davids admits that the Cakkavati Buddha was to early Buddhists\nwhat the Messiah Logos was to early Christians. 'If this be so,' as Mr.\nLillie is justified in asking, how can an atheist believe in a 'Word of\nGod made flesh?'\n\n\"Mr. Lillie thus sums up the originalities of the Buddhist\nmovement:--Enforced vegetarianism for the whole nation; enforced\nabstinence from wine; abolition of slavery: the introduction of\nthe principle of forgiveness of injuries in opposition to the _lex\ntalionis_; uncompromising antagonism to all national religious\nrites that were opposed to the _gnosis_ or spiritual development of\nthe individual; beggary, continence, and asceticism for religious\nteachers.\"--_Spectator._\n\n\"Contains many quotations from the Buddhist religious writings, which\nare beautiful and profound--a most readable book.\"--_Saturday Review._\n\n\"Our author has unquestionably the story-teller's gift.\"--_St. James\nGazette._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY\n\nby\n\nARTHUR LILLIE\n\nAuthor of \"Buddhism in Christendom,\" etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Shield supported by two Unicorns]\n\nLondon\nSwan Sonnenschein & Co.\nNew York: Charles Scribner's Sons\n1893\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_,\n\nThe \"Philosophy at Home\" Series.\n\n\n1 to 5. SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OF ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER--Translated\nfrom the German by T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A. (Oxon), viz.:--\n\n  1. THE WISDOM OF LIFE, 4th Edition.\n  2. COUNSELS AND MAXIMS, 3rd Edition.\n  3. RELIGION, A DIALOGUE, and other Essays, 3rd Edition.\n  4. THE ART OF LITERATURE, 2nd Edition.\n  5. STUDIES IN PESSIMISM, 3rd Edition.\n\n6. OUTLINES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, by HERMANN LOTZE. Edited,\nwith an Introduction, by F. C. CONYBEARE, M.A. (Oxon).\n\n7. THE PROBLEM OF REALITY, by E. BELFORT BAX.\n\n8. THE INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY, by ARTHUR\nLILLIE.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nA volume that proves that much of the New Testament is parable rather\nthan history will shock many readers, but from the days of Origen and\nClement of Alexandria to the days of Swedenborg the same thing has been\naffirmed. The proof that this parabolic writing has been derived from\na previous religion will shock many more. The biographer of Christ\nhas one sole duty, namely, to produce the actual historical Jesus. In\nthe New Testament there are two Christs, an Essene and an anti-Essene\nChrist, and all modern biographers who have sought to combine the two\nhave failed necessarily. It is the contention of this work that Christ\nwas an Essene monk; that Christianity was Essenism; and that Essenism\nwas due, as Dean Mansel contended, to the Buddhist missionaries \"who\nvisited Egypt within two generations of the time of Alexander the\nGreat.\" (\"Gnostic Heresies,\" p. 31.)\n\nThe Reformation, in the view of Macaulay, was the struggle of layman\n_versus_ monk. In consequence, many good Protestants are shocked to\nhear such a term applied to the founder of their creed. But here I must\npoint out one fact. In the Essene monasteries, as in the Buddhist,\nthere was no life vow. This made the monastery less a career than a\nschool for spiritual initiation. In modern monasteries St. John of the\nCross can dream sweet dreams of God in one cell, and his neighbour may\nbe Friar Tuck, but to both the monastery is a prison. This alters the\ncomplexion of the celibacy question, and so does the fact that the\nChristians were fighting a mighty battle with the priesthoods.\n\nThe Son of Man envied the security of the crannies of the \"fox.\"\nHe called his opponents \"wolves.\" His flock after his death met\nwith closed doors for fear of the Jews. The \"pure gospel,\" says the\nClementine Homilies (ch. ii. 17), was \"sent abroad secretly\" after the\nremoval to Pella. The new sect, not as Christians but as Essenes, were\ntortured, killed, hunted down. To such, \"two coats,\" \"wives,\" daily\nwine celebrations were scarcely fitted.\n\nTwice has Buddhism invaded the West, once at the birth of\nChristianity, and once when the Templars brought home from Palestine\nCabbalism, Sufism, Freemasonry. And our zealous missionaries in Ceylon\nand elsewhere, by actively translating Buddhist books to refute them,\nhave produced a result which is a little startling. Once more Buddhism\nis advancing with giant strides. Germany, America, England are overrun\nwith it. M. L\u00e9on de Rosny, a professor of the Sorbonne, announces that\nin Paris there are 30,000 Buddhists at least. A French frigate came\nback from China the other day with one-third of the crew converted\nBuddhists. Schopenhauer admits that he got the philosophy which now\nfloods Germany from a perusal of English translations of Buddhist\nbooks. Even the nonsense of Madame Blavatsky has a little genuine\nBuddhism at the bottom, which gives it a brief life.\n\nThe religions of earth mean strife and partisan watch-cries, partisan\nsymbols, partisan gestures, partisan clothes. But as the daring climber\nmounts the cool steep, the anathemas of priests fall faintly on the\near, and the largest cathedrals grow dim, in a pure region where Wesley\nand Fenelon, Mirza the Sufi and Swedenborg, Spinoza and Amiel, can\nshake hands. If this new study of Buddhism has shown that the two\ngreat Teachers of the world taught much the same doctrine, we have\ndistinctly a gain and not a loss. That religion was the religion of the\nindividual, as discriminated from religion by body corporate.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  CHAP.                                         PAGE\n\n        INTRODUCTORY                               1\n\n     I. MOSES                                      4\n\n    II. BUDDHA                                    23\n\n   III. THE FOUR PRESAGING TOKENS                 35\n\n    IV. AFTER BUDDHA'S DEATH                      77\n\n     V. THE APOSTLES OF THE BLOODLESS ALTAR       98\n\n    VI. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS      111\n\n   VII. THE ESSENE JESUS                         135\n\n  VIII. THE ANTI-ESSENE JESUS                    144\n\n    IX. THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM                  160\n\n     X. JOHANNINE BUDDHISM                       169\n\n    XI. RITES                                    174\n\n        INDEX                                    181\n\n\n\n\nINFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON CHRISTIANITY\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nIn the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15th, 1888, M. \u00c9mile Burnouf has\nan article entitled \"Le Bouddhisme en Occident.\"\n\nM. Burnouf holds that the Christianity of the Council of Nice was due\nto a conflict between the Aryan and the Semite, between Buddhism and\nMosaism:--\n\n\"History and comparative mythology are teaching every day more plainly\nthat creeds grow slowly up. None come into the world ready-made, and\nas if by magic. The origin of events is lost in the infinite. A great\nIndian poet has said, 'The beginning of things evades us; their end\nevades us also. We see only the middle.'\"\n\nM. Burnouf asserts that the Indian origin of Christianity is no longer\ncontested: \"It has been placed in full light by the researches of\nscholars, and notably English scholars, and by the publication of\nthe original texts.... In point of fact, for a long time, folks had\nbeen struck with the resemblances, or rather the identical elements\ncontained in Christianity, and Buddhism. Writers of the firmest faith\nand most sincere piety have admitted them. In the last century these\nanalogies were set down to the Nestorians, but since then the science\nof Oriental chronology has come into being, and proved that Buddha is\nmany years anterior to Nestorius and Jesus. Thus the Nestorian theory\nhad to be given up. But a thing may be posterior to another without\nproving derivation. So the problem remained unsolved until recently,\nwhen the pathway that Buddhism followed was traced, step by step, from\nIndia to Jerusalem.\"\n\nWhat are the facts upon which scholars abroad are basing the\nconclusions here announced? I have been asked by the present publishers\nto give a short and popular answer to this question. The theory of this\nbook, stated in a few words, is that at the date of King Asoka (B.C.\n260), Persia, Greece, Egypt, Palestine had been powerfully influenced\nby Buddhist propagandism.\n\nBuddha, as we know from the Rupnath Rock inscription, died 470 years\nbefore Christ. He announced before he died that his Dharma would endure\nfive hundred years. (Oldenburg, \"Buddhism,\" p. 327.) He announced also\nthat his successor would be Maitreya, the Buddha of \"Brotherly Love.\"\nIn consequence, at the date of the Christian era, many lands were on\nthe tip-toe of expectation. \"According to the prophecy of Zoradascht,\"\nsays the First Gospel of the Infancy, \"the wise men came to Palestine,\"\nexpecting, probably, Craosha, as the Jews expected Messiah. The time\npassed. Jesus was executed. His followers dispersed in consternation.\nThe conception that he was the real Messiah was apparently long in\ntaking definite form.\n\nFirst came a book of \"sayings\" only. Then a gospel was constructed--the\nGospel of the Hebrews--of which only a small fragment can be restored.\nThis was the basis of many other gospels. At the date of Iren\u00e6us (180\nA.D.) they were very numerous. (H\u0153r i. 19.) As only the Old Testament,\nat that time, was considered the Bible, the composers of these gospels\napparently thought it no great sin to draw on the Alexandrine library\nof Buddhist books for much of their matter, it being a maxim of both\nthe Essenes and the early Christians that a holy book was more allegory\nthan history.\n\nBut before I compare the Buddhist and Christian narratives, I must say\na word about the early religion of the Jews.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n_Moses._\n\n\nUntil within the last forty years the Old Testament has been\npractically a sealed book.\n\nIt found interpreters, no doubt--two great groups.\n\nThe first group pointed to its useless and arbitrary edicts, and\npronounced them the inventions of priests inspired by fraud and greed.\n\nThe second group practically admitted the arbitrary and useless nature\nof most of the edicts, but maintained that they were given by the\nAll-wise, in a book penned by His finger, to miraculously prepare a\nnation distinct from the other nations of the earth, for a special\npurpose. They were \"types\" of a higher revelation, a \"better covenant.\"\n\nPractically, with both of these interpreters Mosaism was a pure comedy.\n\nBut comparative mythology, unborn yesterday, is telling a different\nstory. It shows that the religion of the Jews, far from having been a\ndistinct religion miraculously given to a peculiar people, had the same\nrites and gods as the creeds of its Semitic neighbours. It shows us\nthese Semites, or descendants of Shem, in two great groups, differing\nmuch in language and religion. It shows us the southern Semites, the\nArabs, the Himyarites, the Ethiopians. It shows us the northern\ngroup, the Babylonians or Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Arameans, the\nCanaanites, the Hebrews. It shows us their gods, El and Yahve, and\nAstarte of Sidon; and going a step back shows how the Semites borrowed\nfrom an earlier civilisation, that of the Acadians, the yellow-faced\nMongols who seem to have preceded the white races everywhere. \"The\nSemite borrowed the old Acadian pantheon _en bloc_,\" says Professor\nSayce (\"Ancient Empires,\" p. 151).\n\nBut the work of the arch\u00e6ologist and the anthropologist has been still\nmore important.\n\nThe former has suddenly revealed to us chapters in the history of human\nexperience hitherto undreamt of. He has allowed us to peer far, far\ninto the past, to see man at an incalculable distance.\n\nThousands and thousands of years before Cain and Abel we see the\npal\u00e6olithic man, \"dolichocephalic and with prominent jaws,\" pursue\nthe great migrations of urus, reindeer, mammoth, and the thick-nose\nrhinoceros from Cumberland to Algeria, and Algeria to Cumberland,\npassing dry-shod to France, and from Sicily to Africa. He is naked. He\nis armed with a javelin with a flint head. He is an animal, struggling\nfor survival with other animals. He eats his foes as wolves eat\nvanquished wolves. To extract the marrow from their bones he cracks\nthem with his poor flint \"celt\" or \"_langue du chat_;\" and these\ncracked human bones 240,000 years afterwards are found in caves and in\nbeds of gravel and sand, and brick earth, and tell their story. Some\nare charred, which proves that the notion of sacrifice to an unseen\nbeing was due to him.\n\nTo this poor savage our debt is quite incalculable.\n\n1. He invented the missile. This made the monkey dominant in the animal\nworld. He became a man.\n\n2. He invented religion.\n\nHere the valuable work of the anthropologist chimes in. He has\ncollected the records of ancient and modern savages, and compared\nthem with the records of caves and beds of gravel. In this way he\nhas allowed us to peer into the mind of the stone-using savage, who\nlived at least 240,000 years ago. And the Bible of the Jews, from\nbeing a text-book for sermons which bewildered the moral sense even of\nchildren, has become, for the study of the great evolution of religion,\none of the most valuable books in the world. It bridges the gap between\nthe neolithic or polished-stone-using man and Christ and Mahomet.\n\nBefore we go further, let us say a word about the authorship of the Old\nTestament.\n\nThe Books of Moses were compiled by Ezra, at the date of Artaxerxes,\nthe King of the Persians.\n\nIt is to be observed that this is not an extravagant guess of German\ntheorists. It is stated authoritatively by Clement of Alexandria.\n(Strom. i. 22.) Iren\u00e6us, Tertullian, Eusebius, Jerome, and Basil give\nthe same testimony. But a greater authority is behind. It is known that\nChrist and His disciples, and the early fathers, used the Septuagint\nor Greek version of the Bible, and Dr. Giles goes so far as to say\nthat there is no hint amongst the latter of the knowledge of even the\nexistence of the Hebrew version. In this Bible (2 Esdras xiv.), it is\nannounced distinctly that the \"law was burnt;\" and that Ezra, aided by\nthe Holy Ghost and \"wonderful visions of the night,\" wrote down \"all\nthat hath been done in the world from the beginning which was written\nin thy law.\"\n\nLet us write down a few dates from the accepted chronology.\n\n                               B.C.\n  Adam                         4004\n  Abraham                      1996\n  Moses                        1571\n  Nebuchadnezzar leads Jews in\n  captivity to Babylon          587\n  Jews restored 517 Ezra        457\n\nThus the story of Adam in its present form was written down 3547 years\nafter it had occurred. The story of Abraham was written down 1539\nyears after it occurred. The transactions between Yahve and Moses were\nwritten down 1114 years after they occurred.\n\nTo gauge the full significance of this, let us call to mind that the\npoet Tennyson a few years back compiled from old ballads and chronicles\nthe story of Arthur, a king separated from him by about the same gap\nof time that parted Ezra and Moses. The poet was honest, according to\nour ideas of honesty, and sought to give a faithful picture of Arthur's\ncourt--with a success that is only moderate. But Ezra was not honest,\nthat is, in our sense of the word. His nation had been a captive of\nthe Babylonians, and had been released from slavery and the lash by\nCyrus. In consequence, the molten bulls of the temples of the Jewish\ntaskmasters stank in his nostrils, and led him to advocate the severe\nnakedness of the Persian fire-altar. And he proposed to do this, not so\nmuch by writing new books as by altering the old records and legends,\nand proclaiming his views through the mouths of the time-honoured\npatriarchs.\n\nBut all this involved a grotesque inference that he seems not to have\nanticipated. If Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Solomon, knew in their secret\nhearts that the one fierce hatred of Yahve was the graven image, their\nassiduous idolatry spread over 1500 years must have been a pure comedy,\nintended to insult Yahve, not to conciliate him.\n\nWhat is the object of the religion of the savage? Anthropology has\nrecently answered this question.\n\nThe religion of the savage is a slavish reign of terror. His rites and\nprohibitions are a vast apparatus of magic, to obtain food for the\ntribe, and safety from the plague and the foeman. In language borrowed\nfrom the New Zealander, it is a Great TABOO.\n\nEarly man found himself in the presence of the mighty forces of nature.\nThe thunder roared. The lightning struck his rude shelter. A hurricane\nruined his crops. The fever or the foeman came upon him. He had to\nguess the meaning of all this. Some dead chief, much feared in life, is\nseen in a dream, or his ghost appears. He is silent and looks very sad.\nWhat is the cause of his sorrow? Want of food. The early savage knows\nno other. A storm, a pestilence vexes the clan, and the chief appears\nagain, looking angry. The two facts are connected together. Beasts are\nslaughtered, and perhaps human victims, and placed near his cairn. The\npestilence ceases. In this way the Hottentots have made an ancestor,\nTsui Goab, into their god. Indeed, ancestor worship is the basis of all\nreligions. But by and by, to resume our illustration, new calamities\nvex the tribe. Tsui Goab is angry once more. Fresh efforts are made\nto soothe him. Soon the Taboo develops into a number of complicated\nsuperstitions.\n\n\"The savage,\" says Sir John Lubbock, \"is nowhere free. All over\nthe world his daily life is regulated by a complicated, and often\nmost inconvenient set of customs (as forcible as laws), of quaint\nprohibitions and privileges.... The Australians are governed by a\ncode of rules and a set of customs which form one of the most cruel\ntyrannies that has ever, perhaps, existed on the face of the earth.\"\n(\"Origin of Civilisation,\" p. 304.)\n\n\"The lives of savages,\" says Mr. Lang, \"are bound by the most\nclosely-woven fetters of custom. The simplest acts are 'tabooed.' A\nstrict code regulates all intercourse.\" (\"Custom and Myth.,\" p. 72.)\n\nNow, unless this system is clearly understood, Mosaism will remain a\nriddle. It is to be observed that Ezra, far from having relaxed the\nreign of terror of the Great Taboo of savage survival, had enlarged the\nnumber of petty faults and superstitions; and the Levites and Pharisees\nat the date of Christ, far from considering all this a comedy, were the\nmost stiff-necked of believers. It results that a new religion that\nproposed to ignore the chief edicts of the Taboo must have come from\nsome strong outside influence.\n\nThe two great foes of the savage, as Mr. Frazer shows in his able\nwork, the \"Golden Bough,\" were the ghost and the necromancer. The first\nwas deemed all-powerful, and the second sought to use this power to\nhelp the tribe and injure its rivals. His art was that of the farmer,\nthe warrior, the doctor--in fact, in his view, pure science. And the\nlaws and ordinances were a Great Taboo, acts forbidden or enjoined to\ncontrol the ghosts.\n\nLet the Deuteronomist himself tell us what Israel was to expect if she\nkept these laws and ordinances.\n\nYahve, it is said, \"will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee,\nand he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy\nland, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine\nand the flocks of thy sheep.... The Lord will take away from thee all\nsickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt which thou\nknowest upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee....\nMoreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet amongst them, until\nthey that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed.\"\n\nThis was the religion of Moses. The ghostly head of the clan would\ngive abundant flocks and fertile ground to those who fed him with\nburnt-offerings, but failing these, would send \"the blotch, the itch,\nthe scab\" (Deut. xxviii. 27), the victorious foeman--and change the\nfertilising rain to the \"powder and dust\" of the desert.\n\n\"It must be admitted that religion,\" says Sir John Lubbock, \"as\nunderstood by the lower savage races, differs essentially from ours.\nThus their deities are evil, not good. They may be forced into\ncompliance with the wishes of man. They require bloody, and rejoice in\nhuman sacrifices. They are mortal, not immortal; a part not the author\nof nature. They are to be approached by dances rather than prayers, and\noften approve what we call vice rather than what we esteem as virtue.\"\n(\"Origin of Civil.,\" p. 133.)\n\nIn point of fact, the savage believes that sickness, death, thunder,\nand other human ills come not from nature, but the active interference\nof the god. He looks upon every one outside his tribe as an enemy. The\nwest coast negroes represent their deities as \"black and mischievous,\ndelighting to torment them in various ways.\" The Bechuanas curse\ntheir deities when things go wrong. All this throws light on the god\nof the Hebrews. Professor Robertson Smith, in the new \"Encyclop\u00e6dia\nBritannica,\" describes him as immoral, but perhaps it would be more\ncorrect to say that he has the gang morality of a savage chief. He\ncounsels the Jews to borrow the poor silver bangles of the Egyptian\nwomen, and then to treacherously carry them off (Exod. iii. 22),\nbecause gang morality recognises no rights of property outside the\ngang. All through the early books, stories of cheating and lying are\npopular.\n\nPalestine is a narrow strip of land between the Jordan and the\nMediterranean, surrounded by deserts. To it, from a city named Ur, in\nChaldea, 1996 years B.C., came Abraham and the Hebrews, or \"Men from\nBeyond.\" These little Semite clans were like the modern Bedouins. They\ndid not live in towns; they pitched their tents in the country. The\nsoil of Palestine, even in Abraham's day, was quite unable to support\nthese teeming hordes, for the sons of Abraham went several times to\nEgypt to escape famine. In similar fashion, ten or twelve thousand\nArabs from Tripoli and Bengazi lately left their own country to reach\nEgypt.\n\nAll this must be borne in mind. It has been debated whether the\nearliest god of Israel was a sun-god or a moon-god, and whether his\nname was El or Yahve. In point of fact, his name was Starvation, and\nthe Jewish Taboo a great food-making apparatus. This accounts for the\nextreme ferocity with which the struggle for the land flowing with milk\nand honey was carried on by the rival tribes.\n\n\"When thou comest nigh to a city to fight against it, then proclaim\npeace to it.\n\n\"And it shall be, if it make thee an answer of peace and open unto\nthee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall\nbe tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.\n\n\"And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against\nthee, then thou shalt besiege it:\n\n\"And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt\nsmite every male thereof with the edge of the sword;\n\n\"But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in\nthe city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself: and\nthou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath\ngiven thee.\n\n\"Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from\nthee, which are not of the cities of these nations.\"\n\nThe \"cities that are very far off\" mean, in reality, those that are\nnearer to Moses in the desert than the cities of the promised land,\nbut the writer, composing imaginary laws for Moses in Jerusalem, some\nhundred years after his death, overlooked this. These are not pretty\nones. These cities have to choose at once between slavery or extinction.\n\n\"But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give\nthee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.\n\n\"But thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely the Hittites, and the\nAmorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the\nJebusites, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.\" (Deut. xx. 10-17.)\n\nIt accounts, too, for the ferocity of the punishments for the\ninfringement of the Taboo. Death was the penalty. The man who fails to\npour dust on the blood of a pigeon that he has knocked down with an\narrow, the man who picks up sticks upon the Sabbath, the perfumer who\nimitates a temple smell, the man who roasts the smallest particle of\nfat or blood, the labourer who has an abscess and fails to take two\nturtle doves as a \"sin offering\" to the priest at \"the door of the\ntabernacle of the congregation\" (Levit. xv. 15), may all be cut off.\nEvery one may be stoned for infringing the Taboo.\n\nSir John Lubbock has pointed out that the god of the savage is of\nlimited power and intelligence, and that the Taboo was designed to\ncontrol rather than conciliate him. He cites the \"Eeweehs\" of the\nNicobar Islands, who put up scarecrows to frighten their gods, and the\ninhabitants of Kamtschatka, who insult their deities if their wishes\nare unfulfilled. He cites also the Rishis and heroes of the Indian\nepics, who are constantly overcoming the gods of the Indian pantheon.\nCertainly the early god of the Jew was not deemed all-powerful. When\nthe Jews fought against Askelon it is recorded:--\n\n\"The LORD was with Judah, and he drove out the inhabitants of the\nmountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley,\nbecause they had chariots of iron.\" (Judges i. 19.)\n\nHe wrestles with Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 29), and the superior wrestling of\nthe man forces the god to give his blessing. He strives to kill Moses,\nbut fails to do it. (Exod. iv. 24.) He is a purely local god, like\nKemosh and other Semitic deities.\n\n\"Surely Yahve is in this place,\" said Jacob in Mesopotamia, \"and I knew\nit not.\"\n\n\"David himself,\" says M. Soury, \"who was not and could not have been\nthe monotheistic king of tradition, David, who had _teraphim_ in\nhis house, as had Jacob in his time, does he not seem to restrict\nthe kingdom of Yahve to the land of Israel when he complains that\nSaul has driven him out from abiding in the inheritance of Yahve,\nsaying, 'Go, serve other gods'? Finally, many centuries afterwards the\ncontemporaries of Ezekiel still believed that Yahve, having abandoned\nthe country, could no longer see them.\" (Ezek. ix. 9.) (Soury,\n\"Religion of Israel,\" c. v.)\n\nAnthropology divides the early races who used stone implements into two\ngroups, the pal\u00e6olithic or rough-stone-using man, and the neolithic\nman, who polished his implements. The editing of Ezra has burnished up\nthe early Hebrew a little, but it is plain that he had not emerged from\nthe stone age. His god is a stone. Jacob erected a menhir. A menhir is\na piece of chipped rock, erect, huge, imposing, the neolithic man's\nfirst rude piece of sculpture, the neolithic man's god. Moses erected\na circle of these stone monoliths. Joshua erected twelve stone gods on\nthe Jordan, and sacrificed to them. (Josh. iv. 9.) Palestine abounds\nin such circles arch\u00e6ologists tell us. These circles were the \"high\nplaces\" of scripture.\n\nSome hold that the Yahve who travelled with Israel in the Ark was a\nstone. The mighty God of Jacob is called the \"Stone of Israel.\" (Gen.\nxlix. 24.) We read of Eben-ezer, the \"Stone of Help,\" when the Ark\ngives the victory to Samuel. (1 Sam. vii. 12.) Daniel's \"stone cut\nout of the mountain without hands\" brake in pieces the kings and the\nkingdoms. (Dan. ii. 45.) The \"Shem Hamphoras,\" the stone in the Holy of\nHolies in Solomon's temple, was said to be the \"Stone of Jacob.\"\n\nCircumcision, a savage rite, was performed with \"knives of flint.\"\n(Josh. v. 2.) Mr. Tylor (\"Early History of Mankind,\" p. 216) shows us\nthat even at the date of the Mishna, the beast at the altar was killed\nwith the kelt of the neolithic man. Stones were the official weights in\nIsrael, and also the instruments of execution. David used the sling,\nand perhaps the chipped stone missiles that we see in museums, and his\nsinging and dancing naked before the fetish, and the very unpleasant\nscalps that purchased him a wife, savour a little of the latitude of\nPolynesia. And his hanging up the hands and feet of Rechab and Baanah\nremind us of the stakes crowned with sculls round the huts of the Dyaks\nof Borneo.\n\n\"At a late date,\" says M. Soury, \"we perceive in Hebrew legislation\nthe repression of monstrous habits and depraved tastes which are only\nfound amongst the very lowest savages. They are forbidden to tattoo\nthemselves, to eat insects, reptiles,\" etc. (Levit. xi. 31; xix. 28.)\n\nI have still to record a quaint use of stones in Israel, another\nsurvival from the stone age. In Astley's \"Collection of Voyages\" (vol.\nii., p. 674,) it is announced that the savages of West Africa consult\ntheir god with a sort of \"Odd or Even!\" with nuts. In Israel, the\nweightiest questions were settled by the same rude divination. \"The\npebble is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of\nthe Lord.\" (Prov. xvi. 33.) By this odd or even Saul was chosen to be\nking and Jonah to be thrown overboard. By stones also malefactors were\njudged in the Holy of Holies, but the exact method of this is a secret\nthat is lost.\n\nIn writing thus, of course, I do not believe myself to be dealing\nwith the actual neolithic period. Its survivals are tough. In India\nbefore the Mutiny I was employed with a force sent to put down the\nrebellion of the Santals. These, a branch of the Kolarias, represent\nthe early races that the Arya displaced. And their institutions were\nsingularly like those of the Jews. They worshipped in \"high places\"\nrude circles of upright monoliths. They worshipped in \"groves;\" and\non one occasion we came across a slaughtered kid still warm, that\nunder the holy Sal tree had been sacrificed to obtain the help of\nSingh Bonga against us. They had, like the Jews, twelve tribes. They\nbelieved, like them, that death ended consciousness. They had marriage\nby capture, softened down into a comedy, like other savage tribes. They\nbelieved that all diseases were due to the wrath of evil spirits, or\nthe spell of a sorcerer. All through the night we could hear their war\ntom-toms sounding, the tuph of the Jews (whence \"tympanum,\" according\nto Calmet). They fought with the bows and arrows and axes that are\nmarked \"aboriginal weapons\" in the South Kensington Museum. When we\nmet them in action a chief came forward like Goliath with gestures\nand shouts of defiance. Like the Jews they were stiff-necked in their\nconservatism. Buddhism and Buddha had risen in their very midst.\nBrahmins, Mussulmans, Christians, had ruled them and plied them with\nmissionaries; but pious Hindoos, instead of converting them, had been\npersuaded to offer sacrifices to Bagh Bhut, a tiger god, all-powerful\nin Santal jungles. They recited at night their deeds of theft and\npillage and slaughter, like the Sioux Indians or the early Jews.\n\nCircumcision is another savage rite. We find it with the Papuans.\nWe find it in Central America. We find it amongst the Australian\naborigines. That it was performed in Israel with knives of flint (Josh.\nv. 4) argues a survival from the men of stone implements. Sanitary\nprecautions have been suggested as the origin of the rite, but such\nan idea would be in advance of the filthy savages using it. The\n\"Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica\" holds that it was a sacrifice to Aschera, the\ngoddess of generation, like a somewhat similar mutilation of females.\nProfessor Sayce (\"Ancient Empires,\" p. 199) shows that with young men a\ncomplete mutilation in honour of the Ph\u0153nician Ashtoreth was common.\n\nMr. Frazer (\"Golden Bough,\" i. 169) explains another cruel law of\nLeviticus. The Maoris believe that if anyone touches a dead body, and\nthen accidentally touches food, any one partaking of that food will\njoin the dead man in the shades. This superstition about the power\nof the dead is the root idea of other practices, covering pictures\nand looking-glasses whilst the corpse is still in the house, shunning\nthe graveyard at night when it is buried. It is treated as an enemy\nwho might pass his soul into the picture and do mischief. The death\npenalty for touching Yahve's food (Levit. vii. 21) is probably the\nsame superstition. When God is supposed to be walking about on earth\nin human form, as in the instance of a semi-divine savage chief, the\ndanger of touching his food increases enormously. Mr. Frazer shows that\nthe Mikado used to eat every day off new rude earthenware platters,\nwhich were at once broken and buried, that no one might lose his life\nby accidentally touching a particle of his food. (\"Golden Bough,\" i.\n166.) Mr. Frazer gives numerous instances, where the same fatality is\nbelieved to result from food contaminated by a menstruous woman.\n\nIn the view of M. Soury, the early Jew was a tattooed savage, who\nate insects; but anthropology has shed an unexpected light on this.\nThe families, and small clans of early savages, had each some animal\nas a Totem. They were tattooed with this for distinction, and it was\neverywhere ruled that cat could not marry cat, or fox fox. A young man\ntattooed as a fox would have to capture a lady with another crest,\n\"stunning her first with a blow from his dowak\" perchance, like the\nAustralian savage described by Sir John Lubbock.\n\nIt has been shown by Professor Robertson Smith that the \"unclean\"\nanimals of the Old Testament are these totems. \"So I went in and saw,\nand behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts and\nall the _idols of the house of Israel_ pourtrayed upon the wall round\nabout.\" (Ezek. viii. 10.) This accounts for the hare being \"abominable\"\nin Israel, and the beetle edible. It was meritorious to eat the totems\nof one's foes, but the totems of friendly tribes, and one's own totems,\nwere tabooed. The origin of these ideas is much debated. The custom\nis believed to be closely connected with marriage by capture. Female\ninfanticide was prevalent, as women only attracted ravishers. The story\nof the sons of Benjamin capturing the daughters of Shiloh is a frequent\nsort of story in savage annals. (Judges xxi.)\n\nThe sacrifice has puzzled the modern divine.\n\nIt is urged that rites are necessary to religion, and that the\nsacrifice was an apparatus to train Israel to a deep sense of sin,\nand a necessity for a blood atonement. It is contended that it was\nmerely a form, as only the useless portions of the carcase were given\nto Yahve. Those who talk like this libel the Jewish patriarchs. With\nsavages the blood and the fat are considered the choicest morsels. To\nstone a poor Jew because he ate a little fat with his supper would\nhave been infamous, if the whole affair was a harmless comedy. We have\nshown that the one thought of the Jew was a mighty terror, a Great\nTaboo. Starvation or rich harvests, victory or slavery, were due direct\nto Yahve; and the bloody sacrifice was the one and sole instrument by\nwhich he might be controlled.\n\nAs late as Leviticus it was believed that the burnt-offering actually\nprovided food and drink to the Maker of the universe. It is called the\n\"food of God\" (Levit. xxi. 8), a phrase softened into \"bread of God\"\nin our version, as the \"Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica\" (article \"Bible\") has\nshown. It was believed also that God specially loved the smell. (Levit.\nviii. 21.) More important still, as pointed out by Sir John Lubbock in\nhis \"Origin of Civilisation,\" p. 272, human sacrifices are expressly\nordered in Leviticus (xxvii. 28, 29):--\n\n\"Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the\nLORD, of all that he hath, _both of man and beast_, and of the field of\nhis possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most\nholy unto the LORD.\n\n\"None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed, but\nshall _surely be put to death_.\"\n\n\"There is indeed no doubt that human victims were offered to Yahve,\"\nsays M. Soury. \"The young of man belonged to Yahve, just as did the\nyoung of the animal and the fruit of the tree. All the gods of the\nSemites,--El, Schaddai, Adon, Baal, Moloch, Yahve, Kemosh,--were\nconceived in the likeness of Eastern monarchs. They had right absolute\nover all that was born and all that died in their realms. Man admits\nhis vassalage. He adores the 'master,' and brings to his lord the\nfirst-fruits of his flock, his field, and his family.\" (\"Religion of\nIsrael,\" c. vi.)\n\nThe French author goes on to say that during their sojourn in Egypt the\nJews sacrificed human victims. (Ezek. xx. 26.) \"In all the history of\nreligions there is no human sacrifice better established than that of\nthe daughter of Jephthah to Yahve. In the time of the Judges, who does\nnot know the story of Samuel and Agag? It is 'before Yahve,' at Gilgal,\nthat Samuel kills his victim. David appeased the wrath of Yahve, who\nhad afflicted the land with famine during three years, by delivering up\nto the Gibeonites seven men of Saul's blood. The seven victims being\nhanged 'on the hill before Yahve,' the deity was satisfied.\" (2 Sam.\nxxi. 1-14.)\n\nThis human sacrifice is, of course, a survival of cannibalism. The\nAustralians, as Lumholtz (\"Among Cannibals,\" p. 70) shows, consider\n\"talgoro\" (human flesh) the daintiest of food. At their watchfires they\ndiscourse upon the delicate fat round the kidneys as an alderman might\ntalk of calipash.\n\nWhat is all this leading up to? Simply to this, that we must put far\naway from us the theory of modern pulpits that the bloody sacrifice\nwas a comedy of the priest, a comedy of the Almighty. The sacrifice\nwas not a comedy at all. To the mind of the savage it was at once\nbusiness and science. It was the bank, the war office, the bureau\nof agriculture, the college of physicians of the nation. By it alone\ncould the blood-loving Semite gods be influenced to give harvests,\nshekels, victory; and the ferocious Taboo was pure science likewise.\nThe archer, for instance, who killed a partridge without covering the\nblood with earth was killed in turn, because the Taboo was a mechanism\nthat could only be kept in working order by a remorseless attention to\nits most minute rules. Writers like Kuenen and Lightfoot assure us that\nit is quite impossible that Christianity can be due to any influence\noutside Judaism, because it is such a very obvious development of\nJewish thought. This is a startling statement. Christianity pronounced\nthe slaughter of animals at the altar a piece of useless folly, and\ntore up the great ordinances of Taboo, the Covenant between Israel and\nthe Maker of the Heavens. It proclaimed three Gods instead of one.\nIt pronounced that the Jewish holy books were parables rather than a\nstatement of actual facts. Such ideas were at this epoch current in the\nWest, owing to the activity of the missionaries of an Eastern creed.\n\nTo them we will now turn.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n_Buddha._\n\n\nI propose now to give a short life of Buddha, noting its points of\ncontact with that of Jesus.\n\n\nPRE-EXISTENCE IN HEAVEN.\n\nThe early Buddhists, following the example of the Vedic Brahmins,\ndivided space into Nirvritti, the dark portion of the heavens, and\nPravritti, the starry systems. Over this last, the luminous portion,\nBuddha figures as ruler when the legendary life opens. The Christian\nGnostics took over this idea and gave to Christ a similar function.\nButhos was Nirvritti ruled by \"The Father\" (in Buddhism by Swayambhu,\nthe self-existent), Pravritti was the Pleroma. \"It was the Father's\ngood pleasure that in him the whole Pleroma should have its home.\"\n(Col. i. 19.)\n\n\n\"BEHOLD A VIRGIN SHALL CONCEIVE.\"\n\nExactly 550 years before Christ there dwelt in North Oude, at a city\ncalled Kapilavastu, the modern Nagar Khas, a king called Suddhodana.\nThis monarch was informed by angels that a mighty teacher of men would\nbe born miraculously in the womb of his wife. \"By the consent of the\nking,\" says the \"Lalita Vistara,\" \"the queen was permitted to lead\nthe life of a virgin for thirty-two months.\" Joseph is made, a little\nawkwardly, to give a similar privilege to his wife. (Matt. i. 25.)\n\nSome writers have called in question the statement that Buddha was born\nof a virgin, but in the southern scriptures, as given by Mr. Turnour,\nit is announced that a womb in which a Buddha elect has reposed, is\nlike the sanctuary of a temple. On that account, that her womb may be\nsacred, the mother of a Buddha always dies in seven days. The name of\nthe queen was borrowed from Brahminism. She was M\u00e2y\u00e2 Dev\u00ee, the Queen of\nHeaven. And one of the titles of this lady is Kany\u00e2, the Virgin of the\nZodiac.\n\nQueen M\u00e2y\u00e2 was chosen for her mighty privilege because the Buddhist\nscriptures announce that the mother of a Buddha must be of royal line.\n\nLong genealogies, very like those of the New Testament, are given also\nto prove the blue blood of King Suddhodana, who, like Joseph, had\nnothing to do with the paternity of the child. \"King Mahasammata had a\nson named Roja, whose son was Vararoja, whose son was Kaly\u00e2na, whose\nson was Varakaly\u00e2na,\" and so on, and so on. (D\u00eepawanso, _see_ \"Journ.\nAs. Soc.,\" Bengal, vol. vii., p. 925.)\n\nHow does a Buddha come down to earth? This question is debated in\nHeaven, and the Vedas were searched because, as Seydel shows, although\nBuddhism seemed a root and branch change, it was attempted to show that\nit was really the lofty side of the old Brahminism, a lesson not lost\nby and by in Palestine. The sign of Capricorn in the old Indian Zodiac\nis an elephant issuing from a Makara (leviathan), and it symbolises the\nactive god issuing from the quiescent god in his home on the face of\nthe waters. In consequence, Buddha comes down as a white elephant, and\nenters the right side of the queen without piercing it or in any way\ninjuring it. Childers sees a great analogy in all this to the Catholic\ntheory of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Catholic doctors quote this\npassage from Ezekiel (xliv. 2):--\n\n\"Then said the LORD unto me, This gate shall be shut, it shall not be\nopened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of\nIsrael, hath entered in by it, therefore shall it be shut.\"\n\n\nA DOUBLE ANNUNCIATION.\n\nIt is recorded that when Queen M\u00e2y\u00e2 received the supernal Buddha in\nher womb, in the form of a beautiful white elephant, she said to her\nhusband: \"Like snow and silver, outshining the sun and the moon, a\nwhite elephant of six defences, with unrivalled trunk and feet, has\nentered my womb. Listen, I saw the three regions (earth, heaven, hell,)\nwith a great light shining in the darkness, and myriads of spirits sang\nmy praises in the sky.\"\n\nA similar miraculous communication was made to King Suddhodana:--\n\n\"The spirits of the Pure Abode flying in the air, showed half of their\nforms, and hymned King Suddhodana thus:\n\n    \"Guerdoned with righteousness and gentle pity,\n    Adored on earth and in the shining sky,\n    The coming Buddha quits the glorious spheres\n    And hies to earth to gentle M\u00e2y\u00e2's womb.\"\n\nIn the Christian scriptures there is also a double annunciation. In\nLuke (i. 28) the angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to the Virgin\nMary before her conception, and to have foretold to her the miraculous\nbirth of Christ. But in spite of this astounding miracle, Joseph seems\nto have required a second personal one before he ceased to question the\nchastity of his wife. (Matt. i. 19.) Plainly, two evangelists have been\nworking the same mine independently, and a want of consistency is the\nresult.\n\nWhen Buddha was in his mother's womb that womb was transparent.\nThe Virgin Mary was thus represented in medi\u00e6val frescoes. (_See_\nillustration, p. 39, in my \"Buddhism in Christendom.\")\n\n\n\"WE HAVE SEEN HIS STAR IN THE EAST.\"\n\nIn the Buddhist legend the devas in heaven announce that Buddha will\nbe born when the Flower-star is seen _in the East_. (Lefman, xxi. 124;\nWassiljew, p. 95.)\n\nAmongst the thirty-two signs that indicate the mother of a Buddha,\nthe fifth is that, like Mary the mother of Jesus, she should be \"on a\njourney\" (Beal, \"Rom. History,\" p. 32) at the moment of parturition.\nThis happened. A tree (pal\u00e2sa, the scarlet butea) bent down its\nbranches and overshadowed her, and Buddha came forth. Voltaire says\nthat in the library of Berne there is a copy of the First Gospel of\nthe Infancy, which records that a palm tree bent down in a similar\nmanner to Mary. (\"\u0152uvres,\" vol. xl.) The Koran calls it a \"withered\ndate tree.\"\n\nIn the First Gospel of the Infancy, it is stated that, when Christ was\nin His cradle, He said to His mother: \"I am Jesus, the Son of God, the\nWord whom thou didst bring forth according to the declaration of the\nangel Gabriel to thee, and my Father hath sent Me for the salvation of\nthe world.\"\n\nIn the Buddhist scriptures it is announced that Buddha, on seeing the\nlight, said:--\n\n\"I am in my last birth. None is my equal. I have come to conquer death,\nsickness, old age. I have come to subdue the spirit of evil, and give\npeace and joy to the souls tormented in hell.\"\n\nIn the same scriptures (_see_ Beal, \"Rom. History,\" p. 46) it is\nannounced that at the birth of the Divine child, the devas (angels) in\nthe sky sang \"their hymns and praises.\"\n\n\nCHILD-NAMING.\n\n\"Five days after the birth of Buddha,\" says Bishop Bigandet, in the\n\"Burmese Life,\" \"was performed the ceremony of head ablution and naming\nthe child.\" (p. 49.)\n\nWe see from this where the ceremony of head ablution and naming the\nchild comes from. In the \"Lalita Vistara\" Buddha is carried to the\ntemple. Plainly we have the same ceremony. There the idols bow down to\nhim as in the First Gospel of the Infancy the idol in Egypt bows down\nto Jesus. In Luke the infant Jesus is also taken to the temple by his\nparents to \"do for him after the custom of the law.\" (Luke ii. 27.)\nWhat law? Certainly not the Jewish.\n\n\nHEROD AND THE WISE MEN.\n\nIt is recorded in the Chinese life (Beal, \"Rom. History,\" p. 103) that\nKing Bimbis\u00e2ra, the monarch of R\u00e2jagriha, was told by his ministers\nthat a boy was alive for whom the stars predicted a mighty destiny.\nThey advised him to raise an army and go and destroy this child, lest\nhe should one day subvert the king's throne. Bimbis\u00e2ra refused.\n\nAt the birth of Buddha the four Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jas, the great kings, who in\nHindoo astronomy guard each a cardinal point, received him. These may\nthrow light on the traditional Persian kings that greeted Christ.\n\nIn some quarters these analogies are admitted, but it is said that\nthe Buddhists copied from the Christian scriptures. But this question\nis a little complicated by the fact that many of the most noticeable\nsimilarities are in apocryphal gospels, those that were abandoned by\nthe Church at an early date. In the Protevangelion, at Christ's birth,\ncertain marvels are visible. The clouds are \"astonished,\" and the birds\nof the air stop in their flight. The dispersed sheep of some shepherds\nnear cease to gambol, and the shepherds to beat them. The kids near a\nriver are arrested with their mouths close to the water. All nature\nseems to pause for a mighty effort. In the \"Lalita Vistara\" the birds\nalso pause in their flight when Buddha comes to the womb of Queen M\u00e2y\u00e2.\nFires go out, and rivers are suddenly arrested in their flow.\n\nMore noticeable is the story of Asita, the Indian Simeon.\n\nAsita dwells on Himavat, the holy mount of the Hindoos, as Simeon\ndwells on Mount Zion. The \"Holy Ghost is upon\" Simeon. That means that\nhe has obtained the faculties of the prophet by mystical training. He\n\"comes by the Spirit\" into the temple. Asita is an ascetic, who has\nacquired the eight magical faculties, one of which is the faculty of\nvisiting the Tawatinsa heavens. Happening to soar up into those pure\nregions one day, he is told by a host of devatas, or heavenly spirits,\nthat a mighty Buddha is born in the world, \"who will establish the\nsupremacy of the Buddhist Dharma.\" The \"Lalita Vistara\" announces that,\n\"looking abroad with his divine eye, and considering the kingdoms of\nIndia, he saw in the great city of Kapilavastu, in the palace of King\nSuddhodana, the child shining with the glitter of pure deeds, and\nadored by all the worlds.\" Afar through the skies the spirits of heaven\nin crowds recited the \"hymn of Buddha.\"\n\nThis is the description of Simeon in the First Gospel of the Infancy,\nii. 6--\"At that time old Simeon saw Him (Christ) shining as a pillar of\nlight when St. Mary the Virgin, His mother, carried Him in her arms,\nand was filled with the greatest pleasure at the sight. And the angels\nstood around Him, adoring Him as a King; guards stood around Him.\"\n\nAsita pays a visit to the king. Asita takes the little child in his\narms. Asita weeps.\n\n\"Wherefore these tears, O holy man?\"\n\n\"I weep because this child will be the great Buddha, and I shall not be\nalive to witness the fact.\"\n\nThe points of contact between Simeon and Asita are very close. Both\nare men of God, \"full of the Holy Ghost.\" Both are brought \"by the\nSpirit\" into the presence of the Holy Child, for the express purpose of\nforetelling His destiny as the Anointed One.\n\nMore remarkable still is the incident of the disputation with the\ndoctors.\n\nA little Brahmin was \"initiated,\" girt with the holy thread, etc.,\nat eight, and put under the tuition of a holy man. When Vis'v\u00e2mitra,\nBuddha's teacher, proposed to teach him the alphabet, the young prince\nwent off:--\n\n\"In sounding 'A,' pronounce it as in the sound of the word 'anitya.'\n\n\"In sounding 'I,' pronounce it as in the word 'indriya.'\n\n\"In sounding 'U,' pronounce it as in the word 'upagupta.'\"\n\nAnd so on through the whole Sanscrit alphabet.\n\nIn the First Gospel of the Infancy, chap. xx., it is recorded that when\ntaken to the schoolmaster Zaccheus, \"The Lord Jesus explained to him\nthe meaning of the letters Aleph and Beth.\n\n\"8. Also, which were the straight figures of the letters, which were\nthe oblique, and what letters had double figures; which had points and\nwhich had none; why one letter went before another; and many other\nthings He began to tell him and explain, of which the master himself\nhad never heard, nor read in any book.\n\n\"9. The Lord Jesus further said to the master, Take notice how I say to\nthee. Then He began clearly and distinctly to say Aleph, Beth, Gimel,\nDaleth, and so on to the end of the alphabet.\n\n\"10. At this, the master was so surprised, that he said, I believe this\nboy was born before Noah.\"\n\nIn the \"Lalita Vistara\" there are two separate accounts of Buddha\nshowing his marvellous knowledge. His great display is when he competes\nfor his wife. He then exhibits his familiarity with all lore, sacred\nand profane, \"astronomy,\" the \"syllogism,\" medicine, mystic rites.\n\nThe disputation with the doctors is considerably amplified in the\ntwenty-first chapter of the First Gospel of the Infancy:--\n\n\"5. Then a certain principal rabbi asked Him, Hast Thou read books?\n\n\"6. Jesus answered that He had read both books and the things which\nwere contained in books.\n\n\"7. And he explained to them the books of the law and precepts and\nstatutes, and the mysteries which are contained in the books of the\nprophets--things which the mind of no creature could reach.\n\n\"8. Then said that rabbi, I never yet have seen or heard of such\nknowledge! What do you think that boy will be?\n\n\"9. Then a certain astronomer who was present asked the Lord Jesus\nwhether He had studied astronomy.\n\n\"10. The Lord Jesus replied, and told him the number of the spheres and\nheavenly bodies, as also their triangular, square, and sextile aspects,\ntheir progressive and retrograde motions, their size and several\nprognostications, and other things which the reason of man had never\ndiscovered.\n\n\"11. There was also among them a philosopher, well skilled in physic\nand natural philosophy, who asked the Lord Jesus whether He had studied\nphysic.\n\n\"12. He replied, and explained to him physics and metaphysics.\n\n\"13. Also those things which were above and below the power of nature.\n\n\"14. The powers also of the body, its humours and their effects.\n\n\"15. Also the number of its bones, veins, arteries, and nerves.\n\n\"16. The several constitutions of body, hot and dry, cold and moist,\nand the tendencies of them.\n\n\"17. How the soul operated on the body.\n\n\"18. What its various sensations and faculties were.\n\n\"19. The faculty of speaking, anger, desire.\n\n\"20. And, lastly, the manner of its composition and dissolution, and\nother things which the understanding of no creature had ever reached.\n\n\"21. Then that philosopher worshipped the Lord Jesus, and said, O Lord\nJesus, from henceforth I will be Thy disciple and servant.\"\n\nVis\u00b4v\u00e2mitra in like manner worshipped Buddha by falling at his feet.\n\nTHE MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.\n\nI have now come to a stage in this narrative when a few remarks are\nnecessary. The \"Lalita Vistara\" professes to reveal the secrets of the\nBuddhas, the secrets of \"magic,\" the secrets of Yoga, or union with\nBrahma. And whether it be fiction or history, it does so more roundly\nthan any other work. The Christian gospels profess also to teach a\nsimilar secret. Read by the light of the Buddhist book, I think they do\nteach it. But read alone, eighteen centuries come forward to show that\nthey do not.\n\nThe highest spiritual philosophers in Buddhism, in Brahminism, in\nChristendom, in Islam, announce two kingdoms distinct from one another.\nThey are called in India the Domain of Appetite (K\u00e2maloca), and\nthe Domain of Spirit (Brahmaloca). The \"Lalita Vistara\" throughout\ndescribes a conflict between these two great camps. Buddha is offered\na crown by his father. He has wives, palaces, jewels, but he leaves\nall for the thorny jungle where the Brahmacharin dreamt his dreams\nof God. This is called pessimism by some writers, who urge that we\nshould enjoy life as we find it, but modern Europe having tried, denies\nthat life is so enjoyable. Its motto is _Tout lasse, tout casse, tout\npasse_. Yes, say the optimists, but we needn't all live a life like Jay\nGould. A good son, a good father, a good husband, a good citizen, is\nhappy enough. True, reply the pessimists, in so far as a mortal enters\nthe domain of spirit he may be happy, for that is not a region but a\nstate of the mind. But mundane accidents seem, almost by rule, to\nmar even that happiness. The husband loses his loved one, the artist\nhis eyesight. Philosophers and statesmen find their great dreams and\nschemes baffled by the infirmities of age.\n\nAge, disease, death! These are the evils for which the great Indian\nallegory proposes to find a remedy. Let us see what that remedy is.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n_The Four Presaging Tokens._\n\n\nSoothsayers were consulted by King Suddhodana. They pronounced the\nfollowing:--\n\n\"The young boy will, without doubt, be either a king of kings, or a\ngreat Buddha. If he is destined to be a great Buddha, four presaging\ntokens will make his mission plain. He will see--\n\n\"1. An old man.\n\n\"2. A sick man.\n\n\"3. A corpse.\n\n\"4. A holy recluse.\n\n\"If he fails to see these four presaging tokens of an avat\u00e2ra, he will\nbe simply a Chakravartin\" (king of earthly kings).\n\nKing Suddhodana, who was a trifle worldly, was very much comforted by\nthe last prediction of the soothsayers. He thought in his heart, It\nwill be an easy thing to keep these four presaging tokens from the\nyoung prince. So he gave orders that three magnificent palaces should\nat once be built--the Palace of Spring, the Palace of Summer, the\nPalace of Winter. These palaces, as we learn from the \"Lalita Vistara,\"\nwere the most beautiful palaces ever conceived on earth. Indeed, they\nwere quite able to cope in splendour with Vaijayanta, the immortal\npalace of Indra himself. Costly pavilions were built out in all\ndirections, with ornamented porticoes and burnished doors. Turrets and\npinnacles soared into the sky. Dainty little windows gave light to the\nrich apartments. Galleries, balustrades, and delicate trellis-work were\nabundant everywhere. A thousand bells tinkled on each roof. We seem to\nhave the lacquered Chinese edifices of the pattern which architects\nbelieve to have flourished in early India. The gardens of these fine\npalaces rivalled the chess-board in the rectangular exactitude of their\nparterres and trellis-work bowers. Cool lakes nursed on their calm\nbosoms storks and cranes, wild geese and tame swans; ducks, also, as\nparti-coloured as the white, red, and blue lotuses amongst which they\nswam. Bending to these lakes were bowery trees--the champak, the acacia\nserisha, and the beautiful asoka tree with its orange-scarlet flowers.\nAbove rustled the mimosa, the fan-palm, and the feathery pippala,\nBuddha's tree. The air was heavy with the strong scent of the tuberose\nand the Arabian jasmine.\n\nIt must be mentioned that strong ramparts were prepared round the\npalaces of Kapilavastu, to keep out all old men, sick men, and\nrecluses, and, I must add, to keep in the prince.\n\nAnd a more potent safeguard still was designed. When the prince was\nold enough to marry, his palace was deluged with beautiful women. He\nrevelled in the \"five dusts,\" as the Chinese version puts it. But a\nshock was preparing for King Suddhodana.\n\nThis is how the matter came about. The king had prepared a garden even\nmore beautiful than the garden of the Palace of Summer. A soothsayer\nhad told him that if he could succeed in showing the prince this\ngarden, the prince would be content to remain in it with his wives for\never. No task seemed easier than this, so it was arranged that on a\ncertain day the prince should be driven thither in his chariot. But,\nof course, immense precautions had to be taken to keep all old men and\nsick men and corpses from his sight. Quite an army of soldiers were\ntold off for this duty, and the city was decked with flags. The path of\nthe prince was strewn with flowers and scents, and adorned with vases\nof the rich kadali plant. Above were costly hangings and garlands, and\npagodas of bells.\n\nBut, lo and behold! as the prince was driving along, plump under the\nwheels of his chariot, and before the very noses of the silken nobles\nand the warriors with javelins and shields, he saw an unusual sight.\nThis was an old man, very decrepit and very broken. The veins and\nnerves of his body were swollen and prominent; his teeth chattered;\nhe was wrinkled, bald, and his few remaining hairs were of dazzling\nwhiteness; he was bent very nearly double, and tottered feebly along,\nsupported by a stick.\n\n\"What is this, O coachman?\" said the prince. \"A man with his blood all\ndried up, and his muscles glued to his body! His head is white; his\nteeth knock together; he is scarcely able to move along, even with the\naid of that stick!\"\n\n\"Prince,\" said the coachman, \"this is Old Age. This man's senses are\ndulled; suffering has destroyed his spirit; he is contemned by his\nneighbours. Unable to help himself, he has been abandoned in this\nforest.\"\n\n\"Is this a peculiarity of his family?\" demanded the prince, \"or is it\nthe law of the world? Tell me quickly.\"\n\n\"Prince,\" said the coachman, \"it is neither a law of his family, nor a\nlaw of the kingdom. In every being youth is conquered by age. Your own\nfather and mother and all your relations will end in old age. There is\nno other issue to humanity.\"\n\n\"Then youth is blind and ignorant,\" said the prince, \"and sees not the\nfuture. If this body is to be the abode of old age, what have I to do\nwith pleasure and its intoxications? Turn round the chariot, and drive\nme back to the palace!\"\n\nConsternation was in the minds of all the courtiers at this untoward\noccurrence; but the odd circumstance of all was that no one was ever\nable to bring to condign punishment the miserable author of the\nmischief. The old man could never be found.\n\nKing Suddhodana was at first quite beside himself with tribulation.\nSoldiers were summoned from the distant provinces, and a cordon of\ndetachments thrown out to a distance of four miles in each direction,\nto keep the other presaging tokens from the prince. By and by the king\nbecame a little more quieted. A ridiculous accident had interfered with\nhis plans: \"If my son could see the Garden of Happiness he never would\nbecome a hermit.\" The king determined that another attempt should be\nmade. But this time the precautions were doubled.\n\nOn the first occasion the prince left the Palace of Summer by the\neastern gate. The second expedition was through the southern gate.\n\nBut another untoward event occurred. As the prince was driving along\nin his chariot, suddenly he saw close to him a man emaciated, ill,\nloathsome, burning with fever. Companionless, uncared for, he tottered\nalong, breathing with extreme difficulty.\n\n\"Coachman,\" said the prince, \"what is this man, livid and loathsome\nin body, whose senses are dulled, and whose limbs are withered? His\nstomach is oppressing him; he is covered with filth. Scarcely can he\ndraw the breath of life!\"\n\n\"Prince,\" said the coachman, \"this is Sickness. This poor man is\nattacked with a grievous malady. Strength and comfort have shunned him.\nHe is friendless, hopeless, without a country, without an asylum. The\nfear of death is before his eyes.\"\n\n\"If the health of man,\" said Buddha, \"is but the sport of a dream, and\nthe fear of coming evils can put on so loathsome a shape, how can the\nwise man, who has seen what life really means, indulge in its vain\ndelights? Turn back, coachman, and drive me to the palace!\"\n\nThe angry king, when he heard what had occurred, gave orders that the\nsick man should be seized and punished, but although a price was placed\non his head, and he was searched for far and wide, he could never\nbe caught. A clue to this is furnished by a passage in the \"Lalita\nVistara.\" The sick man was in reality one of the Spirits of the Pure\nAbode, masquerading in sores and spasms. These Spirits of the Pure\nAbode are also called the Buddhas of the Past, in many passages. The\nanswers of the coachman were due to their inspiration.\n\nIt would almost seem as if some influence, malefic or otherwise, was\nstirring the good King Suddhodana. Unmoved by failure, he urged the\nprince to a third effort. The chariot this time was to set out by the\nwestern gate. Greater precautions than ever were adopted. The chain of\nguards was posted at least twelve miles off from the Palace of Summer.\nBut the Buddhas of the Past again arrested the prince. His chariot was\nsuddenly crossed by a phantom funeral procession. A phantom corpse,\nsmeared with the orthodox mud, and spread with a sheet, was carried on\na bier. Phantom women wailed, and phantom musicians played on the drum\nand the Indian flute. No doubt also, phantom Brahmins chanted hymns to\nJatavedas, to bear away the immortal part of the dead man to the home\nof the Pitris.\n\n\"What is this?\" said the prince. \"Why do these women beat their breast\nand tear their hair? Why do these good folks cover their heads with the\ndust of the ground? And that strange form upon its litter, wherefore is\nit so rigid?\"\n\n\"Prince,\" said the charioteer, \"this is Death! Yon form, pale and\nstiffened, can never again walk and move. Its owner has gone to the\nunknown caverns of Yama. His father, his mother, his child, his wife\ncry out to him, but he cannot hear.\"\n\nBuddha was sad.\n\n\"Woe be to youth, which is the sport of age! Woe be to health, which\nis the sport of many maladies! Woe be to life, which is as a breath!\nWoe be to the idle pleasures which debauch humanity! But for the 'five\naggregations' there would be no age, sickness, nor death. Go back to\nthe city. I must compass the deliverance.\"\n\nA fourth time the prince was urged by his father to visit the Garden of\nHappiness. The chain of guards this time was sixteen miles away. The\nexit was by the northern gate. But suddenly a calm man of gentle mien,\nwearing an ochre-red cowl, was seen in the roadway.\n\n\"Who is this,\" said the prince, \"rapt, gentle, peaceful in mien? He\nlooks as if his mind were far away elsewhere. He carries a bowl in his\nhand.\"\n\n\"Prince, this is the New Life,\" said the charioteer. \"That man is of\nthose whose thoughts are fixed on the eternal Brahma [Brahmacharin].\nHe seeks the divine voice. He seeks the divine vision. He carries the\nalms-bowl of the holy beggar [bhikshu]. His mind is calm, because the\ngross lures of the lower life can vex it no more.\"\n\n\"Such a life I covet,\" said the prince. \"The lusts of man are like the\nsea-water--they mock man's thirst instead of quenching it. I will seek\nthe divine vision, and give immortality to man!\"\n\nKing Suddhodana was beside himself. He placed five hundred corseleted\nSakyas at every gate of the Palace of Summer. Chains of sentries were\nround the walls, which were raised and strengthened. A phalanx of\nloving wives, armed with javelins, was posted round the prince's bed\nto \"narrowly watch\" him. The king ordered also all the allurements of\nsense to be constantly presented to the prince.\n\n\"Let the women of the zenana cease not for an instant their concerts\nand mirth and sports. Let them shine in silks and sparkle in diamonds\nand emeralds.\"\n\nThe allegory is in reality a great battle between two camps--the\ndenizens of the K\u00e2maloca, or the Domains of Appetite, and the denizens\nof the Brahmaloca, the Domains of Pure Spirit. The latter are unseen,\nbut not unfelt.\n\nFor one day, when the prince reclined on a silken couch listening to\nthe sweet crooning of four or five brown-skinned, large-eyed Indian\ngirls, his eyes suddenly assumed a dazed and absorbed look, and the\nrich hangings and garlands and intricate trellis-work of the golden\napartment were still present, but dim to his mind. And music and\nvoices, more sweet than he had ever listened to, seemed faintly to\nreach him. I will write down some of the verses.\n\n    \"Mighty prop of humanity\n    March in the pathway of the Rishis of old,\n    Go forth from this city!\n    Upon this desolate earth,\n    When thou hast acquired the priceless knowledge of the Jinas,\n    When thou hast become a perfect Buddha,\n    Give to all flesh the baptism (river) of the kingdom of Righteousness,\n    Thou who once didst sacrifice thy feet, thy hands, thy precious\n        body, and all thy riches for the world,\n    Thou whose life is pure, save flesh from its miseries!\n    In the presence of reviling be patient, O conqueror of self!\n    Lord of those who possess two feet, go forth on thy mission!\n    Conquer the evil one and his army.\"\n\nIn the end the Buddhas of the Past triumph. They persuade Buddha to\nflee away from his cloying pleasures and become a Yogi.\n\n\n\"THEN WAS JESUS LED UP BY THE SPIRIT INTO THE WILDERNESS, TO BE TEMPTED\nOF THE DEVIL.\"\n\nComfortable dowagers driving to church three times on Sunday would\nbe astonished to learn that the essence of Christianity is in this\npassage. Its meaning has quite passed away from Protestantism, almost\nfrom Christendom. The \"Lalita Vistara\" fully shows what that meaning\nis. Without Buddhism it would be lost. Jesus was an Essene, and the\nEssene, like the Indian Yogi, sought to obtain divine union and the\n\"gifts of the Spirit\" by solitary reverie in retired spots. In what is\ncalled the \"Monastery of our Lord\" on the Quarantania, a cell is shown\nwith rude frescoes of Jesus and Satan. There, according to tradition,\nthe demoniac hauntings that all mystics speak of occurred.\n\n\n\"I HAVE NEED TO BE BAPTISED OF THEE.\"\n\nA novice in Yoga has a guru, or teacher. Buddha, in riding away from\nthe palace by and by reached a jungle near Vaisal\u00ee. He at once put\nhimself under a Brahmin Yogi named Ar\u00e2ta K\u00e2l\u00e2ma, but his spiritual\ninsight developed so rapidly that in a short time the Yogi offered to\nBuddha, the arghya, the offering of rice, flowers, sesamun, etc., that\nthe humble novice usually presents to his instructor, and asked him to\nteach instead of learning. (Foucaux, \"Lalita Vistara,\" p. 228.)\n\n\nTHIRTY YEARS OF AGE.\n\nM. Ernest de Bunsen, in his work, \"The Angel Messiah,\" says that\nBuddha, like Christ, commenced preaching at thirty years of age. He\ncertainly must have preached at Vaisal\u00ee, for five young men became\nhis disciples there, and exhorted him to go on with his teaching.\n(\"Lalita Vistara,\" p. 236.) He was twenty-nine when he left the palace,\ntherefore he might well have preached at thirty. He did not turn the\nwheel of the law until after a six years' meditation under the Tree of\nKnowledge.\n\n\nBAPTISM.\n\nThe Buddhist rite of baptism finds its sanction in two incidents in the\nBuddhist scriptures. In the first, Buddha bathes in the holy river,\nand M\u00e2ra, the evil spirit, tries to prevent him from emerging. In the\nsecond, angels administer the holy rite (Abhisheka).\n\n\n\"AND WHEN HE HAD FASTED FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS.\"\n\nBuddha, immediately previous to his great encounter with M\u00e2ra, the\ntempter, fasted forty-nine days and nights. (\"Chinese Life,\" by Wung\nPuh.)\n\n\n\"COMMAND THAT THESE STONES BE MADE BREAD.\"\n\nThe first temptation of Buddha, when M\u00e2ra assailed him under the bo\ntree, is precisely similar to that of Jesus. His long fast had very\nnearly killed him. \"Sweet creature, you are at the point of death.\nSacrifice food.\" This meant, eat a portion to save your life.\n\n\n\"AGAIN THE DEVIL TAKETH HIM UP INTO AN EXCEEDING HIGH MOUNTAIN,\" ETC.\n\nThe second temptation of M\u00e2ra is also like one of Satan's. The tempter,\nby a miracle, shows Buddha the glorious city of Kapilavastu, twisting\nthe earth round like the \"wheel of a potter\" to do this. He offers\nto make him a mighty king of kings (Chakravartin) in seven days.\n(Bigandet, p. 65.)\n\n\nTHE THIRD TEMPTATION.\n\nJewish prudery has quite marred the third temptation. From the days of\nKrishna and the phantom naked woman, Kotav\u00ee, to the days of St. Anthony\nand St. Jerome, or even to the days of medi\u00e6val monasteries with their\nincubi and succubi, sex temptations have been a prominent feature of\nthe fasting ascetic's visions. The daughters of M\u00e2ra, the tempter, in\nexquisite forms, now come round Buddha. In the end he converts these\npretty ladies, and converts and baptises M\u00e2ra himself.\n\n\n\"AND ANGELS CAME AND MINISTERED UNTO HIM.\"\n\nAfter his conflict with M\u00e2ra, angels come to greet him.\n\n\"GLAD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY.\"\n\nBuddha, on vanquishing M\u00e2ra, left Buddha Gaya for the deer forest of\nBenares. There he began to preach. His doctrine is called Subha Shita\n(glad tidings). (_See_ Rajendra L. Mitra \"N. Buddhist Lit.,\" p. 29.)\n\n\n\"BEHOLD A GLUTTONOUS PERSON!\"\n\nFive disciples who left him when he gave over the rigid fasts of the\nBrahmins, called out on seeing him in the deer forest, \"Behold a\ngluttonous person!\" (_relach\u00e9 et gourmand_).\n\n\n\"FOLLOW ME.\"\n\nAlmost his first converts were thirty profligate young men, whom he met\nsporting with lemans in the Kappasya jungle. \"He received them,\" says\nProfessor Rhys Davids, \"into the order, with the formula, 'Follow Me.'\"\n(\"Birth Stories,\" p. 114.)\n\n\nTHE TWELVE GREAT DISCIPLES.\n\n\"Except in my religion, the twelve great disciples are not to be\nfound.\" (Bigandet, p. 301.)\n\n\n\"THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED.\"\n\nOne disciple was called Upatishya (the beloved disciple). In a former\nexistence, he and Maudgaly\u00e2yana had prayed that they might sit, the\none on the right hand and the other on the left. Buddha granted this\nprayer. The other disciples murmured much. (Bigandet, p. 153.)\n\n\n\"GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD.\"\n\nFrom Benares Buddha sent forth the sixty-one disciples. \"Go ye forth,\"\nhe said, \"and preach Dharma, no two disciples going the same way.\"\n(Bigandet, p. 126.)\n\n\n\"THE SAME CAME TO JESUS BY NIGHT.\"\n\nProfessor Rhys Davids points out that Y\u00e2sas, a young rich man, came to\nBuddha by night for fear of his rich relations.\n\n\nPAX VOBISCUM.\n\nOn one point I have been a little puzzled. The password of the Buddhist\nWanderers was Sadhu! which does not seem to correspond with the \"Pax\nVobiscum!\" (Matt. x. 13) of Christ's disciples. But I have just come\nacross a passage in Renan (\"Les Ap\u00f4tres,\" p. 22) which shows that\nthe Hebrew word was Schalom! (_bonheur!_) This is almost a literal\ntranslation of Sadhu!\n\nBurnouf says that by preaching and miracle Buddha's religion was\nestablished. In point of fact it was the first universal religion. He\ninvented the preacher and the missionary.\n\n\n\"A NEW COMMANDMENT GIVE I YOU, THAT YE LOVE ONE ANOTHER.\"\n\n\"By love alone can we conquer wrath. By good alone can we conquer\nevil. The whole world dreads violence. All men tremble in the presence\nof death. Do to others that which ye would have them do to you. Kill\nnot. Cause no death.\" (\"S\u00fbtra of Forty-two Sections,\" v. 129.)\n\n\"Say no harsh words to thy neighbour. He will reply to thee in the same\ntone.\" (_Ibid._ v. 133.)\n\n\"'I am injured and provoked, I have been beaten and plundered!' They\nwho speak thus will never cease to hate.\" (_Ibid._ v. 4, 5.)\n\n\"That which can cause hate to cease in the world is not hate, but the\nabsence of hate.\"\n\n\"If, like a trumpet trodden on in battle, thou complainest not, thou\nhas attained Nirv\u00e2na.\"\n\n\"Silently shall I endure abuse, as the war-elephant receives the shaft\nof the bowman.\"\n\n\"The awakened man goes not on revenge, but rewards with kindness the\nvery being who has injured him, as the sandal tree scents the axe of\nthe woodman who fells it.\"\n\n\nTHE BEATITUDES.\n\nThe Buddhists, like the Christians, have got their Beatitudes. They\nare plainly arranged for chant and response in the temples. It is to\nbe noted that the Christian Beatitudes were a portion of the early\nChristian ritual.\n\n         \"_An Angel._\n\n    \"1 Many angels and men\n        Have held various things blessings.\n        When they were yearning for the inner wisdom.\n        Do thou declare to us the chief good.\n\n    \"_Buddha._\n\n    \"2 Not to serve the foolish,\n    But to serve the spiritual;\n    To honour those worthy of honour,--\n        This is the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"3 To dwell in a spot that befits one's condition,\n    To think of the effect of one's deeds,\n    To guide the behaviour aright,--\n        This is the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"4 Much insight and education,\n    Self-control and pleasant speech,\n    And whatever word be well spoken,--\n    This is the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"5 To support father and mother,\n    To cherish wife and child,\n    To _follow a peaceful calling_,--\n        This is the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"6 To _bestow alms_ and _live righteously_\n    To give help to kindred,\n    Deeds which cannot be blamed,--\n        These are the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"7 To _abhor and cease from sin_,\n    Abstinence from strong drink,\n    _Not to be weary in well-doing_,--\n        These are the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"8 _Reverence_ and lowliness,\n    Contentment and gratitude,\n    The hearing of Dharma at due seasons,--\n        This is the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"9 To be _long-suffering_ and _meek_,\n    To associate with the tranquil,\n    Religious talk at due seasons,--\n        This is the greatest blessing.\n\n    \"10 _Self-restraint and purity_,\n         The knowledge of noble truths,\n         The attainment of Nirv\u00e2na,--\n         This is the greatest blessing.\"\n\n\nTHE ONE THING NEEDFUL.\n\nCertain subtle questions were proposed to Buddha, such as: What will\nbest conquer the evil passions of man? What is the most savoury gift\nfor the alms-bowl of the mendicant? Where is true happiness to be\nfound? Buddha replied to them all with one word, _Dharma_ (the heavenly\nlife). (Bigandet, p. 225.)\n\n\n\"WHOSOEVER SHALL SMITE THEE ON THY RIGHT CHEEK OFFER HIM THE OTHER\nALSO.\"\n\nA merchant from S\u00fbnaparanta having joined Buddha's society, was\ndesirous of preaching to his relations, and is said to have asked the\npermission of the master so to do.\n\n\"The people of S\u00fbnaparanta,\" said Buddha, \"are exceedingly violent; if\nthey revile you what will you do?\"\n\n\"I will make no reply,\" said the mendicant.\n\n\"And if they strike you?\"\n\n\"I will not strike in return,\" said the mendicant.\n\n\"And if they kill you?\"\n\n\"Death,\" said the missionary, \"is no evil in itself. Many even desire\nit to escape from the vanities of life.\" (Bigandet, p. 216.)\n\n\nBUDDHA'S THIRD COMMANDMENT.\n\n\"Commit no adultery.\" Commentary by Buddha: \"This law is broken by even\nlooking at the wife of another with a lustful mind.\" (Buddhaghosa's\n\"Parables,\" by Max M\u00fcller and Rogers, p. 153.)\n\n\nTHE SOWER.\n\nIt is recorded that Buddha once stood beside the ploughman\nKasibh\u00e2radvaja, who reproved him for his idleness. Buddha answered\nthus:--\"I, too, plough and sow, and from my ploughing and sowing I reap\nimmortal fruit. My field is religion. The weeds that I pluck up are\nthe passions of cleaving to this life. My plough is wisdom, my seed\npurity.\" (\"Hardy Manual,\" p. 215.)\n\nOn another occasion he described almsgiving as being like \"good seed\nsown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given\nto those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions, are\nlike a seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of\nthe alms, choke, as it were, the growth of merits.\" (Bigandet, p. 211.)\n\n\n\"NOT THAT WHICH GOETH INTO THE MOUTH DEFILETH A MAN.\"\n\nIn the \"Sutta Nip\u00e2ta,\" chap. ii., is a discourse on the food that\ndefiles a man (\u00c2maghanda). Therein it is explained at some length that\nthe food that is eaten cannot defile a man, but \"destroying living\nbeings, killing, cutting, binding, stealing, falsehood, adultery, evil\nthoughts, murder,\"--this defiles a man, not the eating of flesh.\n\n\n\"WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS.\"\n\n\"A man,\" says Buddha, \"buries a treasure in a deep pit, which lying\nconcealed therein day after day profits him nothing, but there is a\ntreasure of charity, piety, temperance, soberness, a treasure secure,\nimpregnable, that cannot pass away, a treasure that no thief can steal.\nLet the wise man practise Dharma. This is a treasure that follows him\nafter death.\" (\"Khuddaka P\u00e2tha,\" p. 13.)\n\n\nTHE HOUSE ON THE SAND.\n\n\"It [the seen world] is like a city of sand. Its foundation cannot\nendure.\" (\"Lalita Vistara,\" p. 172.)\n\n\nBLIND GUIDES.\n\n\"Who is not freed cannot free others. The blind cannot guide in the\nway.\" (_Ibid._ p. 179.)\n\n\n\"AS YE SOW, SO SHALL YE REAP.\"\n\n\"As men sow, thus shall they reap.\" (\"Ta-chwang-yan-king-lun,\" sermon\n57.)\n\n\"A CUP OF COLD WATER TO ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES.\"\n\n\"Whosoever piously bestows a little water shall receive an ocean in\nreturn.\" (\"Ta-chwang-yan-king-lun,\" sermon 20).\n\n\n\"BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING.\"\n\n\"Not to be weary in well-doing.\" (\"Mah\u00e2mangala Sutta,\" ver. 7.)\n\n\n\"GIVE TO HIM THAT ASKETH.\"\n\n\"Give to him that asketh, even though it be but a little.\"\n(\"Ud\u00e2navarga,\" ch. xx. ver. 15.)\n\n\n\"DO UNTO OTHERS,\" ETC.\n\n\"With pure thoughts and fulness of love I will do towards others what I\ndo for myself.\" (\"Lalita Vistara,\" ch. v.)\n\n\n\"PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD!\"\n\n\"Buddha's triumphant entry into R\u00e2jagriha (the \"City of the King\") has\nbeen compared to Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Both, probably, never\noccurred, and only symbolise the advent of a divine Being to earth.\nIt is recorded in the Buddhist scriptures that on these occasions a\n\"Precursor of Buddha\" always appears. (Bigandet, p. 147.)\n\n\"WHO DID SIN, THIS MAN OR HIS PARENTS, THAT HE WAS BORN BLIND?\" (John\nix. 3.)\n\nProfessor Kellogg, in his work entitled \"The Light of Asia and the\nLight of the World,\" condemns Buddhism in nearly all its tenets. But he\nis especially emphatic in the matter of the metempsychosis. The poor\nand hopeless Buddhist has to begin again and again \"the weary round of\nbirth and death,\" whilst the righteous Christians go at once into life\neternal.\n\nNow it seems to me that this is an example of the danger of contrasting\ntwo historical characters when we have a strong sympathy for the\none and a strong prejudice against the other. Professor Kellogg has\nconjured up a Jesus with nineteenth century ideas, and a Buddha who is\nmade responsible for all the fancies that were in the world B.C. 500.\nProfessor Kellogg is a professor of an American university, and as\nsuch must know that the doctrine of the _gilgal_ (the Jewish name for\nthe metempsychosis) was as universal in Palestine A.D. 30, as it was\nin R\u00e2jagriha B.C. 500. An able writer in the _Church Quarterly Review_\nof October, 1885, maintains that the Jews brought it from Babylon.\nDr. Ginsburg, in his work on the \"Kabbalah,\" shows that the doctrine\ncontinued to be held by Jews as late as the ninth century of our era.\nHe shows, too, that St. Jerome has recorded that it was \"propounded\namongst the early Christians as an esoteric and traditional doctrine.\"\n\nThe author of the article in the _Church Quarterly Review_, in proof\nof its existence, adduces the question put by the disciples of Christ\nin reference to the man that was born blind. And if it was considered\nthat a man could be born blind as a punishment for sin, that sin must\nhave been plainly committed before his birth. Oddly enough, in the\n\"White Lotus of Dharma\" there is an account of the healing of a blind\nman, \"Because of the sinful conduct of the man [in a former birth] this\nmalady has risen.\"\n\nBut a still more striking instance is given in the case of the man sick\nwith the palsy. (Luke v. 18.) The Jews believed, with modern Orientals,\nthat grave diseases like paralysis were due, not to physical causes in\nthis life, but to moral causes in previous lives. And if the account\nof the cure of the paralytic is to be considered historical, it is\nquite clear that this was Christ's idea when He cured the man, for He\ndistinctly announced that the cure was affected not by any physical\nprocesses, but by annulling the \"sins\" which were the cause of his\nmalady.\n\nTraces of the metempsychosis idea still exist in Catholic\nChristianity. The doctrine of original sin is said by some writers\nto be a modification of it. Certainly the fancy that the works of\nsupererogation of their saints can be transferred to others is the\nBuddhist idea of good karma, which is transferable in a similar manner.\n\n\n\"IF THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND, BOTH SHALL FALL INTO THE DITCH.\" (Matt.\nxv. 14.)\n\n\"As when a string of blind men are clinging one to the other, neither\ncan the foremost see, nor the middle one see, nor the hindmost see.\nJust so, methinks, V\u00e2sittha is the talk of the Brahmins versed in the\nThree Vedas.\" (Buddha, in the \"Tevigga Sutta,\" i. 15.)\n\n\n\"EUNUCHS FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN'S SAKE.\"\n\nIn the days of St. Thomas \u00e0 Kempis the worshipper was modelled on the\nChrist. In our days, the Christ seems modelled on the worshipper. The\nBodleian professor of Sanscrit writes thus: \"Christianity teaches that\nin the highest form of life love is intensified. Buddhism teaches that\nin the highest state of existence all love is extinguished. According\nto Christianity--Go and earn your own bread and support yourself and\nyour family. Marriage, it says, is honourable and undefiled, and\nmarried life a field where holiness can grow.\"\n\nBut history is history; and a French writer has recently attacked\nChrist for attempting to bring into Europe the celibacy and pessimism\nof Buddhism. This author in his work, \"J\u00e9sus Bouddha,\" cites Luke xiv.\n26:--\n\n\"If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and\n_wife_, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life\nalso, he cannot be My disciple.\"\n\nHe adduces also:--\n\n\"Let the dead bury their dead.\"\n\n\"Think not that I have come to send peace on earth: I come not to send\npeace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his\nfather, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law\nagainst her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own\nhousehold.\" (Matt. x. 34-36.)\n\n\"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father\nthe child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and\ncause them to be put to death.\" (_Ibid._ ver. 21.)\n\n\"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he\nhath, he cannot be my disciple.\" (Luke xiv. 33).\n\nThe author says that all this is pure nihilism, and Essene communism.\n\"The most sacred family ties are to be renounced, and man to lose\nhis individuality and become a unit in a vast scheme to overturn the\ninstitutions of his country.\"\n\n\"Qu' importe au fanatisme la ruine de la societ\u00e9 humaine.\"\n\n\"The anticosmic tendency of the Christian doctrine,\" says Mr. Felix\nOswald (\"Secret of the East,\" p. 27), \"distinguishes it from all\nreligions except Buddhism. In the language of the New Testament the\n'world' is everywhere a synonym of evil and sin, the flesh everywhere\nthe enemy of the spirit.... The Gospel of Buddha, though a pernicious,\nis, however, a perfectly consistent doctrine. Birth, life, and\nre-birth is an eternal round of sorrow and disappointment. The present\nand the future are but the upper and lower tire of an ever-rolling\nwheel of woe. The only salvation from the wheel of life is an escape\nto the peace of Nirv\u00e2na. The attempt to graft this doctrine upon\nthe optimistic theism of Palestine has made the Christian ethics\ninconsistent and contradictory. A paternal Jehovah who yet eternally\nand horribly tortures a vast plurality of his children. An earth the\nperfect work of a benevolent God, yet a vale of tears not made to be\nenjoyed, but only to be despised and renounced. An omnipotent heaven,\nand yet unable to prevent the intrigues and constant victories of hell.\nChristianity is evidently not a homogeneous but a composite, a hybrid\nreligion; and considered in connection with the indications of history,\nand the evidence of the above-named ethical and traditional analogies,\nthese facts leave no reasonable doubt that the founder of the Galilean\nChurch was a disciple of Buddha Sakyamuni.\" (p. 139.)\n\nAll this is very well if the Buddhists by \"salvation\" meant escape from\nlife, and not from sin. A \"pessimist\" Buddhist kingdom, according to\nthis, ought to present the universal sad faces of the \"Camelot\" of a\nmodern school of artists, and yet the Burmese are pronounced by all to\nbe the merriest and happiest of God's creatures. We know, too, that\nIndia never was so prosperous as in the days of Buddhist rule. The\nmonks carried agriculture to high perfection; and Indian fabrics were\nfamous everywhere. A convent meant less a career than an education in\nspiritual knowledge. Like the Essene, the Buddhist monk was not forced\nto remain for life. Catholicism introduced that change.\n\n\n\"THEN ALL HIS DISCIPLES FORSOOK HIM AND FLED.\"\n\nIt is recorded that on one occasion when a \"must\" elephant charged\nfuriously, \"all the disciples deserted Buddha. Ananda alone remained.\"\n(\"Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king,\" iv. 21.)\n\n\n\"IF THY RIGHT EYE OFFEND THEE.\"\n\nMr. Felix Oswald (\"The Secret of the East,\" p. 134) announces, without\nhowever giving a more detailed reference, that according to Max\nMuller's translation of the \"Ocean of Worlds,\" a young monk meets a\nrich woman who pities his hard lot.\n\n\"Blessed is the woman who looks into thy lovely eyes!\"\n\n\"Lovely!\" replied the monk. \"Look here!\" And plucking out one of his\neyes he held it up, bleeding and ghastly, and asked her to correct her\nopinion.\n\n\nWALKING ON THE WATER.\n\nCertain villagers, hard of belief, were listening to Buddha on the\nshore of a mighty river. Suddenly by a miracle the great teacher caused\na man to appear walking on the water from the other side, without\nimmersing his feet. (\"Chinese Dhammapada,\" p. 51.)\n\n\n\"AND LO! THERE WAS A GREAT CALM.\"\n\nP\u00fbrna, one of Buddha's disciples, had a brother in danger of shipwreck\nin a \"black storm.\" But the guardian spirits of P\u00fbrna informed him of\nthis. He at once transported himself through the air from the distant\ninland town to the deck of the ship. \"Immediately the black tempest\nceased as if Sumeru had arrested it.\" (Burnouf, Introd., p. 229.)\n\n\nA BUDDHA MULTIPLYING FOOD.\n\nBuddha once narrated a story of a former Buddha, who visited King\nSudarsana in his city of Jambunada (Fu-pen-hing-tsi-king).\n\nNow in that city was a man who was the next day to be married, and he\nmuch wished the Buddha to come to the feast. Buddha, passing by, read\nhis silent wish, and consented to come. The bridegroom was overjoyed,\nand scattered many flowers over his house and sprinkled it with\nperfumes.\n\nThe next day Buddha with his alms-bowl in his hand and with a retinue\nof many followers arrived; and when they had taken their seats in due\norder, the host distributed every kind of exquisite food, saying, \"Eat,\nmy lord, and all the congregation, according to your desire.\"\n\nBut now a marvel presented itself to the astonished mind of the host.\nAlthough all these holy men ate very heartily, the meats and the drinks\nremained positively quite undiminished; whereupon he argued in his\nmind, \"If I could only invite all my kinsmen to come, the banquet would\nbe sufficient for them likewise.\"\n\nAnd now another marvel was presented. Buddha read the good man's\nthought, and all the relatives without invitation streamed in at the\ndoor. They, also, fed heartily on the miraculous food.\n\n\n\"WHY EATETH YOUR MASTER WITH PUBLICANS AND SINNERS?\" (Matt. ix. 10.)\n\nThe Courtesan Amrapal\u00ee invited Buddha and his disciples to a banquet\nin the mango grove at Vaisal\u00ee. Buddha accepted. Some rich princes,\nsparkling in emeralds, came and gave him a similar invitation. He\nrefused. They were very angry to see him sit at meat with Amrapal\u00ee. He\nexplained to his disciples that the harlot might enter the kingdom of\nDharma more easily than the prince. (Bigandet, p. 251.)\n\n\nTHE PENITENT THIEF.\n\nBuddha confronts a terrible bandit in his mountain retreat and converts\nhim. (\"Chinese Dhammapada,\" p. 98.)\n\n\n\"THERE WAS WAR IN HEAVEN.\"\n\nProfessor Beal, in his \"Catena of Buddhist Scriptures\" (p. 52), tells\nus that, in the \"Saddharma Pr\u00e2kasa Sasana S\u00fbtra,\" a great war in\nheaven is described. In it the \"wicked dragons\" assault the legions of\nheaven. After a terrific conflict they are driven down by Indra and the\nheavenly hosts.\n\n\n \"THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE UNTO A MERCHANT-MAN SEEKING GOODLY\n PEARLS, WHO, WHEN HE HAD FOUND ONE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE, WENT AND SOLD\n ALL THAT HE HAD AND BOUGHT IT.\" (Matt. xiii. 45.)\n\nThe most sacred emblem of Buddhism is called the mani (pearl), and in\nthe Chinese biography, a merchant-man seeking goodly pearls finds it,\nand unfortunately drops it into the sea. Rather than lose it he tries\nto drain the sea dry. (\"Rom. Hist.,\" p. 228.)\n\n\nTHE VOICE FROM THE SKY.\n\nThis sounds often in the Buddhist narratives. (_See_ Beal, \"Rom.\nHist.,\" p. 105.)\n\n\nFAITH.\n\n\"Faith is the first gate of the Law.\" (\"Lalita Vistara,\" p. 39.)\n\n\"All who have faith in me obtain a mighty joy.\" (_Ibid._ p. 188.)\n\n\n\"THOU ART NOT YET FIFTY YEARS OLD, AND HAST THOU SEEN ABRAHAM?\"\n\nIn the \"White Lotus of Dharma\" (ch. xiv.) Buddha is asked how it is\nthat having sat under the bo tree only forty years ago he has been\nable, according to his boast, to see many Buddhas and saints who died\nhundreds of years previously. He answers that he has lived many hundred\nthousand myriads of Kotis, and that though in the form of a Buddha, he\nis in reality Swayambhu, the Self-Existent, the Father of the million\nworlds. In proof of this statement, he causes two Buddhas of the\nPast, Prabh\u00fbtaratna and Gadgadesvara, to appear in the sky. The first\npronounces loudly these words: \"It is well! It is well!\" These Buddhas\nappear with their sepulchral canopies (stupas) of diamonds, red pearls,\nemeralds, etc. Peter, at the scene of the Transfiguration, said to\nChrist:--\n\n\"Let us make here three tabernacles, one for Thee, one for Moses, and\none for Elias.\" Why should Peter want to adopt a Buddhist custom and\nbuild tabernacles for the dead Moses and the dead Elias? Why, also,\nshould Moses come from the tomb to support a teacher who had torn his\ncovenant with Yahve to shreds?\n\n\n\"HE WAS TRANSFIGURED BEFORE THEM.\"\n\nBuddha, leaving Maudgaly\u00e2yana and another disciple to represent him,\nwent off through the air to the Devaloca, to the Heaven Tus\u00b4ita, to\npreach to the spirits in prison and to convert his mother. When he came\ndown from the mountain (Mienmo), a staircase of glittering diamonds,\nseen by all, helped his descent. His appearance was blinding. The \"six\nglories\" glittered on his person. Mortals and spirits hymned the benign\nBeing who emptied the hells. (Bigandet, p. 209.)\n\nIn the Gospel according to the Hebrews is a curious passage, which Baur\nand Hilgenfeld hold to be the earliest version of the Transfiguration\nnarrative.\n\n\"Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one of my hairs and\nbore me up on to the great mountain of Tabor.\"\n\nThis is curious. Buddha and Jesus reach the Mount of Transfiguration,\neach through the influence of his mother. But perhaps the Jewish writer\ndid not like the universalism inculcated in the Buddhist narrative.\n\n\n\"HE BEGAN TO WASH THE DISCIPLES' FEET.\" (John xiii. 5.)\n\nIn a vih\u00e2ra at Gandh\u00e2ra was a monk so loathsome and stinking, on\naccount of his maladies, that none of his brother disciples dare go\nnear him. The great Teacher came and tended him lovingly and washed his\nfeet. (\"Chinese Dhammapada,\" p. 94.)\n\n\nTHE GREAT BANQUET OF BUDDHA.\n\nIn the \"Lalita Vistara\" (p. 51) it is stated that those who have faith\nwill become \"sons of Buddha,\" and partake of the \"food of the kingdom.\"\nFour things draw disciples to his banquet,--gifts, soft words,\nproduction of benefits, conformity of benefits.\n\n\nBAPTISM.\n\nIn a Chinese life of Buddha by Wung Puh (_see_ Beal, \"Journ. As. Soc.,\"\nvol. xx. p. 172), it is announced that Buddha at Vaisal\u00ee delivered a\nS\u00fbtra, entitled, \"The baptism that rescues from life and death and\nconfers salvation.\"\n\n\n\"AND NONE OF THEM IS LOST BUT THE SON OF PERDITION.\"\n\nBuddha had also a treacherous disciple, Devadatta. He schemed with a\nwicked prince, who sent men armed with bows and swords to slaughter\nBuddha. Devadatta tried other infamous stratagems. His end was\nappalling. Coming in a palanquin to arrest Buddha, he got out to\nstretch himself. Suddenly fierce flames burst out and he was carried\ndown to the hell Avichi (the Rayless Place). There, in a red-hot\ncauldron, impaled by one red bar and pierced by two others, he will\nstay for a whole Kalpa. Then he will be forgiven. (Bigandet, p. 244.)\n\n\nTHE LAST SUPPER.\n\nBuddha had his last supper or repast with his disciples. A treacherous\ndisciple changed his alms-bowl, and apparently he was poisoned. (_See_\nRockhill's \"Buddha,\" p. 133.) Fierce pains seized him as he journeyed\nafterwards. He was forced to rest. He sent a message to his host,\nKunda, the son of the jeweller, to feel no remorse although the feast\nhad been his death. Under two trees he now died.\n\nIt will be remembered that during the last supper of Jesus a\ntreacherous disciple \"dipped into his dish,\" but as Jesus was not\npoisoned, the event had no sequence.\n\n\n\"NOW FROM THE SIXTH HOUR THERE WAS DARKNESS OVER ALL THE LAND UNTIL THE\nNINTH HOUR.\"\n\nThe critical school base much of their contention that the gospels do\nnot record real history on this particular passage. They urge that such\nan astounding event could not have escaped Josephus and Tacitus. When\nBuddha died, the \"sun and moon withdrew their shining,\" and dust and\nashes fell like rain. \"The great earth quaked throughout. The crash\nof the thunder shook the heavens and the earth, rolling along the\nmountains and valleys.\" (\"Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king,\" v. 26.) The Buddhist\naccount is certainly not impossible, for the chronicler takes advantage\nof the phenomena of an Indian dust-storm to produce his dark picture.\nAt Lucknow, before the siege, I remember a storm so dense at midday\nthat some ladies with my regiment thought the Day of Judgment had\narrived.\n\n\n\"AND MANY BODIES OF THE SAINTS WHICH SLEPT AROSE.\"\n\nWhen Buddha died at Kus'inagara, Ananda and another disciple saw\nmany denizens of the unseen world in the city, by the river Yigdan.\n(Rockhill's \"Life of the Buddha,\" p. 133.)\n\n\n\"TO ANOINT MY BODY TO THE BURYING.\" (Mark xiv. 8.)\n\nThe newly discovered fragments of the Gospel of Peter give striking\nevidence of the haphazard way in which extracts from the Buddhist\nbooks seem to have been sprinkled among the gospels. It records that\nMary Magdalene, \"taking with her her friends,\" went to the sepulchre\nof Jesus to \"place themselves beside him and perform the rites\" of\nwailing, beating breasts, etc. Amrapal\u00ee and other courtesans did the\nsame rites to Buddha, and the disciples were afterwards indignant\nthat impure women should have \"washed his dead body with their tears.\"\n(Rockhill, \"Thibetan Life,\" p. 153.)\n\nIn the Christian records are three passages, all due, I think, to the\nBuddhist narrative. In one, \"a woman\" anoints Jesus; in John (xii. 7),\n\"Mary\" anoints him; in Luke, a \"sinner,\" who kisses and washes his feet\nwith her hair. Plainly these last passages are quite irrational. No\nwoman could have performed the washing and other burial rites on a man\nalive and in health.\n\n\n\"THEY PARTED MY GARMENTS.\"\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 Huc tells us (\"Voyages,\" ii. p. 278) that on the death of the\nBokt\u00e9 Lama his garments are cut into little strips and prized immensely.\n\n\n\"HE APPEARED UNTO MANY.\"\n\nBuddha prophesied that he would appear after his death. (\"Lotus,\" p.\n144.) In a Chinese version quoted by Eitel (\"Three Lectures,\" p. 57),\nBuddha to soothe his mother, who had come down weeping from the skies,\nopens his coffin lid and appears to her. In the temple sculptures he\nis constantly depicted coming down to the altar during worship. (_See_\nillustrations to my \"Buddhism in Christendom.\")\n\n\nTHE \"GREAT WHITE THRONE.\"\n\nMr. Upham, in his \"History of Buddhism\" (pp. 56, 57), gives a\ndescription of the Buddhist heaven. There is a \"high mountain,\" and a\ncity \"four square\" with gates of gold and silver, adorned with precious\nstones. Seven moats surround the city. Beyond the last one is a row of\nmarble pillars studded with jewels. The great throne of the god stands\nin the centre of a great hall, and is surmounted by a white canopy.\nRound the great throne are seated heavenly ministers, who record men's\nactions in a \"golden book.\" A mighty tree is conspicuous in the garden.\nIn the Chinese heaven is the \"Gem Lake,\" by which stands the peach tree\nwhose fruit gives immortality.\n\n\nTHE ATONEMENT.\n\nThe idea of transferred good Karma, the merits of the former lives of\nan individual being passed on to another individual, is of course quite\nforeign to the lower Judaism, which believed in no after life at all.\nIn the view of the higher Buddhism, Sakya Muni saved the world by his\nteaching, but to the lower, the Buddhism of offerings and temples and\nmonks, this doctrine of Karma was the life-blood. It was proclaimed\nthat Buddha had a vast stock of superfluous Karma, and that offerings\nat a temple might cause the worshipper in his next life to be a prince\ninstead of a pig or a coolie. In the \"Lalita Vistara\" (Chinese version,\np. 225) it is announced that when Buddha overcame M\u00e2ra all flesh\nrejoiced, the blind saw, the deaf heard, the dumb spake, the hells were\ncleared, and all by reason of Buddha's Karma in previous lives.\n\nIn Romans (v. 18), St. Paul writes thus:--\n\n\"As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,\neven so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men\nunto justification of life.\n\n\"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the\nobedience of one shall many be made righteous.\"\n\nHere plainly all the world is saved by the Karma of Christ.\n\nNow Dr. Kuenen, whose main proposition is that Christianity emerged\nfrom Judaism alone, should tell us how Paul got this idea. The priests\nand the Levites were the sole interpreters of the law, and they had\nsettled that a certain Hebrew had so broken that law that it was\nnecessary to execute him. And now another Hebrew proclaims that the\nrighteousness of this man is so great that he can bestow the \"free gift\nof life\" to \"all men.\" Would not Caiaphas have called the second Hebrew\nout of his mind.\n\nBut St. Paul was a Pharisee, and as a Pharisee he knew that the\nPharisees that he tried to convert believed that nothing but blood\ncould wipe out sin. In the person of Christ he mixed up the two ideas.\n\n\"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His\nblood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are\npast, through the forbearance of God.\" (Rom. iii. 25.)\n\nBut according to our first quotation, Christ had already saved \"all\nmen\" by his righteousness alone. Plainly St. Paul, who viewed the Old\nTestament as \"allegory,\" \"carnal ordinances,\" \"beggarly elements,\" and\nso on, never meant his trope about Adam's sin to be taken too literally.\n\n\nPARABLES.\n\nBuddha taught in parables. I will give one or two. The reader is\nreferred to my \"Popular Life of Buddha\" for some very beautiful ones.\n\n\nTHE PRODIGAL SON.\n\nA certain man had a son who went away into a far country. There he\nbecame miserably poor. The father, however, grew rich, and accumulated\nmuch gold and treasure, and many storehouses and elephants. But he\ntenderly loved his lost son, and secretly lamented that he had no one\nto whom to leave his palaces and suvernas at his death.\n\nAfter many years the poor man, in search of food and clothing, happened\nto come to the country where his father had great possessions. And when\nhe was afar off his father saw him, and reflected thus in his mind: \"If\nI at once acknowledge my son and give to him my gold and my treasures,\nI shall do him a great injury. He is ignorant and undisciplined; he is\npoor and brutalised. With one of such miserable inclinations 'twere\nbetter to educate the mind little by little. I will make him one of my\nhired servants.\"\n\nThen the son, famished and in rags, arrived at the door of his father's\nhouse; and seeing a great throne upraised, and many followers doing\nhomage to him who sat upon it, was awed by the pomp and the wealth\naround. Instantly he fled once more to the highway. \"This,\" he\nthought, \"is the house of the poor man. If I stay at the palace of the\nking perhaps I shall be thrown into prison.\"\n\nThen the father sent messengers after his son; who was caught and\nbrought back in spite of his cries and lamentations. When he reached\nhis father's house he fell down fainting with fear, not recognising\nhis father, and believing that he was about to suffer some cruel\npunishment. The father ordered his servants to deal tenderly with the\npoor man, and sent two labourers of his own rank of life to engage him\nas a servant on the estate. They gave him a broom and a basket, and\nengaged him to clean up the dung-heap at a double wage.\n\nFrom the window of his palace the rich man watched his son at his work:\nand disguising himself one day as a poor man, and covering his limbs\nwith dust and dirt, he approached his son and said, \"Stay here, good\nman, and I will provide you with food and clothing. You are honest, you\nare industrious. Look upon me as your father.\"\n\nAfter many years the father felt his end approaching, and he summoned\nhis son and the officers of the king, and announced to them the secret\nthat he had so long kept. The poor man was his son, who in early days\nhad wandered away from him; and now that he was conscious of his former\ndebased condition, and was able to appreciate and retain vast wealth,\nhe was determined to hand over to him his entire treasure. The poor\nman was astonished at this sudden change of fortune, and overjoyed at\nmeeting his father once more.\n\nThe parables of Buddha are reported in the Lotus of the Perfect Law to\nbe veiled from the ignorant by means of an enigmatic form of language.\nThe rich man of this parable, with his throne adorned by flowers and\ngarlands of jewels, is announced to be Tathagata (God), who dearly\nloves all his children, and has prepared for them vast spiritual\ntreasures. But each son of Tathagata has miserable inclinations. He\nprefers the dung-heap to the pearl mani. To teach such a man, Tathagata\nis obliged to employ inferior agents, the monk and the ascetic, and to\nwean him by degrees from the lower objects of desire. When he speaks\nhimself, he is forced to veil much of his thought, as it would not be\nunderstood. His sons feel no joy on hearing spiritual things. Little by\nlittle must their minds be trained and disciplined for higher truths.\n\n\nPARABLE OF THE WOMAN AT THE WELL.\n\nAnanda, a favourite disciple of Buddha, was once athirst, having\ntravelled far. At a well he encountered a girl named Matanga, and asked\nher to give him some water to drink. But she being a woman of low\ncaste, was afraid of contaminating a holy Brahmana, and refused humbly.\n\n\"I ask not for caste, but for water!\" said Ananda. His condescension\nwon the heart of the girl Matanga.\n\nIt happened that she had a mother cunning in love philtres and weird\narts, and when this woman heard how much her daughter was in love, she\nthrew her magic spells round the disciple and brought him to her cave.\nHelpless, he prayed to Buddha, who forthwith appeared and cast out the\nwicked demons.\n\nBut the girl Matanga was still in wretched plight. At last she\ndetermined to repair to Buddha himself and appeal to him.\n\nThe Great Physician, reading the poor girl's thought questioned her\ngently:--\n\n\"Supposing that you marry my disciple, can you follow him everywhere?\"\n\n\"Everywhere!\" said the girl.\n\n\"Could you wear his clothes, sleep under the same roof?\" said Buddha,\nalluding to the nakedness and beggary of the \"houseless one.\"\n\nBy slow degrees the girl began to take in his meaning, and at last she\ntook refuge in the Three Great Jewels.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA common objection to Buddhism is that it fails to proclaim the\nfatherhood of God.\n\n\"The loving Father of all that lives.\" (Tsing-tu-wan.)\n\n\"Our loving Father and Father of all that breathes.\" (\"Imit. Buddha,\"\np. 67.) (\" Daily Manual of the Shaman,\" cited by Mr. Bowden.)\n\n\"I am the Heavenly Father (loka pita Swayambhu), the Healer, the\nProtector of all creatures.\" (Kern, \"Lotus,\" p. 310.)\n\nI will give a pretty parable that pictures Buddha as a Father.\n\n\nPARABLE OF THE BLAZING MANSION.\n\nOnce there was an old man, broken, decrepit, but very rich. He\npossessed much land and many gold pieces. Moreover, he possessed a\nlarge rambling mansion which also showed plain proofs of Time's decay.\nIts rafters were worm-eaten; its pillars were rotten; its galleries\nwere tumbling down; the thatch on its roof was dry and combustible.\nInside this mansion were several hundreds of the old man's servants and\nretainers, so extensive was the collection of rambling old buildings.\n\nUnfortunately, this mansion possessed only one door.\n\nThe old man was also the father of many children--five, ten, twenty,\nlet us say. One day there was a smell of burning, and he ran out by\nthe solitary door. To his horror he saw the thatch in a mass of flame,\nthe rotten old pillars were catching fire one by one, the rafters were\nblazing like tinder. Inside, his children, whom he loved most tenderly,\nwere romping and amusing themselves with their toys.\n\nThe distracted father said to himself, \"I will run in and save my\nchildren. I will seize them in my strong arms. I will bear them\nharmless through the falling rafters and the blazing beams!\" Then the\nsad thought seized him that his children were romping and ignorant. \"If\nI tell them that the house is on fire they will not understand me. If I\ntry to seize them they will romp about and try to escape. Alas! not a\nmoment is to be lost!\"\n\nSuddenly a bright thought flashed across the old man's mind. \"My\nchildren are ignorant,\" he mentally said, \"but they love toys and\nglittering playthings. I will promise them some playthings of\nunheard-of beauty. Then they will listen to me!\"\n\nSo the old man shouted out with a loud voice, \"Children, children,\ncome out of the house and see these beautiful toys. Chariots with\nwhite oxen, all gold and tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes!\nWhoever saw such goats as these! Children, children, come quickly or\nthey will all be gone!\"\n\nForth from the blazing ruin came the children in hot haste. The word\n\"playthings\" was almost the only word that they could understand. Then\nthe fond father, in his great joy at seeing his offspring freed from\nperil, procured for them some of the most beautiful chariots ever\nseen. Each chariot had a canopy like a pagoda. It had tiny rails and\nbalustrades, and rows of jingling bells. It was formed of the seven\nprecious substances. Chaplets of glittering pearls were hung aloft upon\nit; standards and wreaths of the most lovely flowers. Milk-white oxen\ndrew these chariots. The children were astonished when they were placed\ninside.\n\nThe meaning of this parable is thus rendered in the \"White Lotus\nof Dharma.\" The old man is Tathagata, and his children the blind,\nsuffering children of sin and passion. Tathagata fondly loves them,\nand would save them from their unhappiness. The old rambling mansion,\nunsightly, rotten, perilous, is the Domain of Karma, the Domain of\nAppetite. This old mansion is ablaze with the fire of mortal passions,\nand hates, and lusts. Tathagata in his \"immense compassion\" would\nlead all his beloved children away from this great peril, but they do\nnot understand his language. Their only thought is of tinsel toys and\nchildish pastimes. If he speaks to them of the great inner quickening\nwhich makes man conquer human pain, they cannot understand him. If he\ntalks to them of wondrous supernatural gifts accorded to mortals, they\nturn a deaf ear to him. The tinsel chariots provided for the children\nof Tathagata are the \"Vehicles\" of the Buddhist teaching.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n_After Buddha's Death._\n\n\nFrom Buddha's death we turn to Buddha's religion and its progress. And\nI think the narrative form will help us best, but a few preliminary\nremarks are necessary.\n\nWhat is Buddhism?\n\n\"The religion of Buddha,\" says Professor Max M\u00fcller in his \"Chips from\na German Workshop,\" \"was made for a madhouse.\"\n\n\"Buddha,\" says Sir Monier Williams in his \"Buddhism,\" \"altogether\nignored in human nature any spiritual aspirations.\"\n\nHaving heard the dictum of Oxford, perhaps it is fair to listen to\na real Buddhist. In a work called \"Happiness,\" an anonymous writer\nsketches his religion.\n\nThe teaching of Buddha, as set forth by him, is simple and sublime.\nThere are two states of the soul, call them ego and non-ego--the plane\nof matter and the plane of spirit--what you will. As long as we live\nfor the ego and its greedy joys, we are feverish, restless, miserable.\nHappiness consists in the destruction of the ego, by the Bodhi, and\nGnosis. This is that interior, that high state of the soul, attained by\nFenelon and Wesley, by Mirza the Sufi and Swedenborg, by Spinoza and\nAmiel.\n\n\"The kingdom of God is within you,\" says Christ.\n\n\"In whom are hid the treasures of _sophia_ and _gnosis_,\" says St. Paul.\n\n\"The enlightened view both worlds,\" says Mirza the Sufi, \"but the bat\nflieth about in the darkness without seeing.\"\n\n\"Who speaks and acts with the inner quickening,\" says Buddha, \"has joy\nfor his accompanying shadow. Who speaks and acts without the inner\nquickening, him sorrow pursues as the chariot wheel the horse.\"\n\nLet us give here a pretty parable, and let Buddha speak for himself:--\n\n\"Once upon a time there was a man born blind, and he said, 'I cannot\nbelieve in a world of appearances. Colours bright or sombre exist not.\nThere is no sun, no moon, no stars. None have witnessed such things.'\nHis friends chid him; but he still repeated the same words.\n\n\"In those days there was a Rishi who had the inner vision; and he\ndetected on the steeps of the lofty Himalayas four simples that had the\npower to cure the man who was born blind. He culled them, and, mashing\nthem with his teeth, applied them. Instantly the man who was born blind\ncried out, 'I see colours and appearances. I see beautiful trees and\nflowers. I see the bright sun. No one ever saw like this before.'\n\n\"Then certain holy men came to the man who was born blind, and said\nto him, 'You are vain and arrogant and nearly as blind as you were\nbefore. You see the outside of things, not the inside. One whose\nsupernatural senses are quickened sees the lapis-lazuli fields of the\nBuddhas of the Past, and hears heavenly conch shells sounded at a\ndistance of five yoganas. Go off to a desert, a forest, a cavern in the\nmountains, and conquer this mean thirst of earthly things.'\"\n\nThe man who was born blind obeyed; and the parable ends with its\nobvious interpretation. Buddha is the old Rishi, and the four simples\nare the four great truths. He weans mankind from the lower life and\nopens the eyes of the blind.\n\nI think that Sir Monier Williams's fancy, that Buddha ignored the\nspiritual side of humanity is due to the fact that by the word\n\"knowledge\" he conceives the Buddhist to mean knowledge of material\nfacts. That Buddha's conceptions are nearer to the ideas of Swedenborg\nthan of Mill is, I think, proved by the Cingalese book, the Samanna\nPhala Sutta. Buddha details, at considerable length, the practices\nof the ascetic, and then enlarges upon their exact object. Man has a\nbody composed of the four elements. It is the fruit of the union of\nhis father and mother. It is nourished on rice and gruel, and may be\ntruncated, crushed, destroyed. In this transitory body his intelligence\nis enchained. The ascetic, finding himself thus confined, directs his\nmind to the creation of a freer integument. He represents to himself\nin thought another body created from this material body--a body with a\nform, members, and organs. This body, in relation to the material body,\nis like the sword and the scabbard, or a serpent issuing from a basket\nin which it is confined. The ascetic, then, purified and perfected,\ncommences to practise supernatural faculties. He finds himself able to\npass through material obstacles, walls, ramparts, etc.: he is able to\nthrow his phantasmal appearance into many places at once; he is able to\nwalk upon the surface of water without immersing himself; he can fly\nthrough the air like a falcon furnished with large wings; he can leave\nthis world and reach even the heaven of Brahma himself.\n\nAnother faculty is now conquered by his force of will, as the fashioner\nof ivory shapes the tusk of the elephant according to his fancy.\nHe acquires the power of hearing the sounds of the unseen world as\ndistinctly as those of the phenomenal world--more distinctly, in point\nof fact. Also by the power of Manas he is able to read the most secret\nthoughts of others, and to tell their characters. He is able to say,\n\"There is a mind that is governed by passion. There is a mind that is\nenfranchised. This man has noble ends in view. This man has no ends in\nview.\" As a child sees his earrings reflected in the water, and says,\n\"Those are my earrings,\" so the purified ascetic recognises the truth.\nThen comes to him the faculty of \"divine vision,\" and he sees all that\nmen do on earth and after they die, and when they are again reborn.\nThen he detects the secrets of the universe, and why men are unhappy,\nand how they may cease to be so.\n\nI will now quote a conversation between Buddha and some Brahmins which,\nI think, throws much light on his teaching. It is given in another\nCingalese book, the \"Tevigga Sutta.\"\n\nWhen the teacher was dwelling at Manas\u00e2kata in the mango grove, some\nBrahmins, learned in the three Vedas, came to consult him on the\nquestion of union with the eternal Brahma. They ask if they are in the\nright pathway towards that union. Buddha replies at great length. He\nsuggests an ideal case. He supposes that a man has fallen in love with\nthe \"most beautiful woman of the land.\" Day and night he dreams of her,\nbut has never seen her. He does not know whether she is tall or short,\nof Brahmin or Sudra caste, of dark or fair complexion; he does not even\nknow her name. The Brahmins are asked if the talk of that man about\nthat woman be wise or foolish. They confess that it is \"foolish talk.\"\nBuddha then applies the same train of reasoning to them. The Brahmins\nversed in the three Vedas are made to confess that they have never seen\nBrahma, that they do not know whether he is tall or short, or anything\nabout him, and that all their talk about union with him is also foolish\ntalk. They are mounting a crooked staircase, and do not know whether it\nleads to a mansion or a precipice. They are standing on the bank of a\nriver and calling to the other bank to come to them.\n\nNow it seems to me that if Buddha were the uncompromising teacher of\natheism that Sir Monier Williams pictures him, he has at this point an\nadmirable opportunity of urging his views. The Brahmins, he would of\ncourse contend, knew nothing about Brahma, for the simple reason that\nno such being as Brahma exists.\n\nBut this is exactly the line that Buddha does not take. His argument\nis that the Brahmins knew nothing of Brahma, because Brahma is purely\nspiritual, and they are purely materialistic.\n\nFive \"Veils,\" he shows, hide Brahma from mortal ken. These are--\n\n1. The Veil of Lustful Desire.\n\n2. The Veil of Malice.\n\n3. The Veil of Sloth and Idleness.\n\n4. The Veil of Pride and Self-Righteousness.\n\n5. The Veil of Doubt.\n\nBuddha then goes on with his questionings:--\n\n\"Is Brahma in possession of wives and wealth?\"\n\n\"He is not, Gautama!\" answers Vasettha the Brahmin.\n\n\"Is his mind full of anger, or free from anger?\"\n\n\"Free from anger, Gautama!\"\n\n\"Is his mind full of malice, or free from malice?\"\n\n\"Free from malice, Gautama!\"\n\n\"Is his mind depraved or pure?\"\n\n\"It is pure, Gautama!\"\n\n\"Has he self-mastery, or has he not?\"\n\n\"He has, Gautama.\"\n\nThe Brahmins are then questioned about themselves.\n\n\"Are the Brahmins versed in the three Vedas in possession of wives and\nwealth, or are they not?\"\n\n\"They are, Gautama!\"\n\n\"Have they anger in their hearts, or have they not?\"\n\n\"They have, Gautama.\"\n\n\"Do they bear malice, or do they not?\"\n\n\"They do, Gautama.\"\n\n\"Are they pure in heart, or are they not?\"\n\n\"They are not, Gautama.\"\n\n\"Have they self-mastery, or have they not?\"\n\n\"They have not, Gautama.\"\n\nThese replies provoke, of course, the very obvious retort that no point\nof union can be found between such dissimilar entities. Brahma is free\nfrom malice, sinless, self-contained, so, of course, it is only the\nsinless that can hope to be in harmony with him.\n\nVasettha then puts this question: \"It has been told me, Gautama, that\nSramana Gautama knows the way to the state of union with Brahma?\"\n\n\"Brahma I know, Vasettha!\" says Buddha in reply, \"and the world of\nBrahma, and the path leading to it!\"\n\nThe humbled Brahmins learned in the three Vedas then ask Buddha to\n\"show them the way to a state of union with Brahma.\"\n\nBuddha replies at considerable length, drawing a sharp contrast between\nthe lower Brahminism and the higher Brahminism, the \"householder\"\nand the \"houseless one.\" The householder Brahmins are gross,\nsensual, avaricious, insincere. They practise for lucre black magic,\nfortune-telling, cozenage. They gain the ear of kings, breed wars,\npredict victories, sacrifice life, spoil the poor. As a foil to this,\nhe paints the recluse, who has renounced all worldly things, and is\npure, self-possessed, happy.\n\nTo teach this \"higher life,\" a Buddha \"from time to time is born\ninto the world, blessed and worthy, abounding in wisdom, a guide to\nerring mortals.\" He sees the universe face to face, the spirit world\nof Brahma and that of M\u00e2ra the tempter. He makes his knowledge known\nto others. The houseless one, instructed by him, \"lets his mind\npervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of pity sympathy, and\nequanimity; and so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And\nthus the whole wide world, above, below, around, and everywhere, does\nhe continue to pervade with heart of pity, sympathy, and equanimity,\nfar-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.\"\n\n\"Verily this, Vasettha, is the way to a state of union with Brahma,\"\nand he proceeds to announce that the bhikshu, or Buddhist beggar, \"who\nis free from anger, free from malice, pure in mind, master of himself,\nwill, after death, when the body is dissolved, become united with\nBrahma.\" The Brahmins at once see the full force of this teaching. It\nis as a conservative in their eyes that Buddha figures, and not an\ninnovator. He takes the side of the ancient spiritual religion of the\ncountry against rapacious innovators.\n\nSir Monier Williams quotes a part of this Sutta, and, oddly enough,\nstill maintains that Buddha was an atheist.\n\nThere are two great schools of Buddhism, and they are quite agreed on\nthis point that Buddhism is the quickening of the spiritual vision.\n\nLet us now consider how the two great schools of Buddhism diverge.\n\n1. The earliest school, the Buddhism of Buddha, taught that after\nNirv\u00e2na, or man's emancipation from re-birth, the consciousness of the\nindividual survived, and that he dwelt for ever in happiness in the\nBrahma heavens. This is the Buddhism of the \"Little Vehicle.\"\n\n2. The second, or innovating school, maintained that after Nirv\u00e2na\nthe consciousness of the individual ceased. Their creed was the blank\natheism of the Brahmin S'unyav\u00e2di.\n\nThe first serious study of Buddhism took place in one of our colonies,\nand the first students were missionaries. Great praise is due to the\nmissionaries of Ceylon for their early scholarship, but naturally they\nransacked the Buddhist books less as scholars than missionaries. Soon\nthey discovered with delight the teaching of the atheistic school,\nand statements that the Ceylon scriptures were the earliest authentic\nBuddhist scriptures, brought to the island by Mahinda, King Asoka's\nson (B.C. 306). In consequence of this the missionaries concluded that\nCeylon had preserved untainted the original teaching of Buddha, and\nthat the earliest school, that of the \"Little Vehicle,\" was atheistic.\n\nBut the leading Sanscrit scholar of the world, Dr. Rajendra Lala\nMitra, has completely dissipated this idea. In his work, \"Nepalese\nBuddhist Literature,\" p. 178, he shows conclusively that it is the\nBuddhism of the innovating school, that of the \"Great Vehicle,\" which\npreaches atheism. About the epoch of Christ, Kanerkos or Kanishka, a\nking who conquered India, introduced this innovating teaching. Hweng\nThsang, the Chinese pilgrim, who visited India in the seventh century,\nconfirms this. There was in India at this date amongst the followers\nof Siva, a school who held that Nothingness was God, and Nothingness\nthe future of man. They were called the S'unyav\u00e2dis, the proclaimers\nof Nothingness. Two priests, Parsvika and Vasabandhu, were with\nKanerkos, and they persuaded this monarch to force this Pyrrhonism on\nthe Buddhists. A mighty conflict was the consequence. The old Buddhists\nremonstrated. They said that Buddha knew nothing of all this. They\ncalled the \"Great Vehicle\" Sunyapushpa (the Carriage that drives to\nNowhere). But Parsvika packed a convocation like Constantine, and\nforced the new teaching down their throats. (\"Hweng Thsang, Hist.\" p.\n114., _et. seq._ \"Memoirs,\" pp. 174, 220.) Rajendra Lala Mitra says\nthat the Buddhist books of the \"Great Vehicle\" are in a servile manner\ncopied from Brahmin treatises.\n\nLet us examine this \"Great Vehicle,\" as writers like Sir Monier\nWilliams tells us that it was this school that introduced the ideas\nof God and immortality into Buddhism, which until then was pure\natheism. Its main Bible is a collection of writings called the \"Raksh\u00e2\nBhagavat\u00ee.\" (Rajendra Lala Mitra, p. 179.) Bryan Hodgson confirms this.\n(\"Literature of Nepal,\" p. 16.) The work itself is an avowed attack on\nthe Hinay\u00e2na or \"Little Vehicle,\" which is \"refuted repeatedly,\" says\nthe learned Hindoo. (p. 178.)\n\nLet us now see what sort of god and what sort of immortality the\n\"Raksh\u00e2 Bhagavat\u00ee\" in its title of chapters proclaimed.\n\nChap. I. The subject of Nothingness (Sunyata) expounded.\n\nChap. II. Relation of the soul to form colour and vacuity.\n\nChap. IV. Relation of form to vacuity.\n\nChap. VII. How a Bodhisattwa merges all natural attributes into vacuity.\n\nChap. XII. The doctrine of Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na and its advantages, derived\nprincipally, if not entirely, from its recognition of the greatness of\nS'unyav\u00e2da (Nihilistic doctrine of the Brahmin sect of S'unyav\u00e2dis).\n\nChap. XIII. To the Bodhisattwa there is nothing eternal, nothing\ntransient, nothing painful, nothing pleasant. All qualities are unreal\nas a dream.\n\nChap. XIV.-XVI. The principle of the Prajn\u00e2 Paramit\u00e2 imparted by Buddha\nto Indra. The end sought is the attainment of vacuity.\n\nChap. XXXV. All objects attainable by the study of Nihilism. (\"Nepalese\nBuddhist Literature,\" p. 180.)\n\nHodgson gives a bit of what he calls this \"pure Pyrrhonism\" from the\nsame book. Buddha is made to talk thus:--\n\n\n\"The being of all things is derived from belief, reliance, in this\norder: from false knowledge, delusive impression; from delusive\nimpression, general notions; from them, particulars; from them,\nthe six seats of the senses; from them, contact; from it, definite\nsensation and perception; from it, thirst or desire; from it, embryolic\n(physical) existence; from it, birth or actual existence; from it, all\nthe distinctions of genus and species among animate things; from them,\ndecay and death, after the manner and period peculiar to each. Such is\nthe procession of all things into existence from delusion (avidy\u00e2), and\nin the inverse order to that of their procession they retrograde into\nnon-existence.\" (p. 79.)\n\nAnother book, the \"Suvarna Prabh\u00e2sa,\" makes \"grand non-existence,\"\nthe Bodhi, the divine knowledge. \"I now instruct you on the means of\nacquiring the knowledge of nothingness,\" Buddha is made to say to his\ndisciples. (Rajendra Lala Mitra, p. 243.)\n\nBut there is a third school of Buddhism, the Madhyamika, or \"Middle\nPathway.\" Unless all this is definitely understood, Buddhism will\nremain a riddle. For a long time the \"Great\" and the \"Little\" Vehicles\nfought furiously. I believe that the \"Middle Pathway\" was a rude\nattempt at conciliation. No one can read many Buddhist writings without\nobserving flat contradictions at every page. Thus the Brahmaj\u00e2la S\u00fbtra,\nmuch quoted by missionaries, who are plainly unaware that it belongs\nto the literature of the \"Carriage that drives to Nowhere,\" announces\nthat the existence of the soul after death in a conscious or even an\nunconscious state is impossible. But there is a passage which the\nmissionaries do not quote. Buddha also tells his disciples that the\nstatement of the Brahmins and Buddhist teachers, that \"existing beings\nare cut off, destroyed, annihilated,\" is founded on their ignorance and\nwant of perception of the truth. (_See_ my \"Popular Life of Buddha,\" p.\n223.)\n\nHaving thus cleared the way, I will now proceed with the history\nof the progress of Buddha's religion. Before, it would have been\nunintelligible.\n\nBuddha died B.C. 470. Asoka, the Buddhist Constantine, gained India\nB.C. 260. Unfortunately, between these two dates there is scarcely any\nauthentic history at all. Buddha left behind him brief instructions\nto his disciples, which are called the \"Twelve Observances.\" They were\nnever to sleep under a roof. In Ceylon even to this day a Buddhist monk\nis called Abhy\u00e2vak\u00e2sika (he whose covering is the heavens). They were\nnever to stop two nights in the same spot. What was to be their food?\nRefuse victuals. What was to be their dress? Rags from the graveyard,\ndung-heap, etc. What was his following to be called? The \"Mob of\nBeggars\" (Bhikshu Sangha). Jumping from B.C. 470 to B.C. 302, history\nflashes a sudden light upon these wandering beggars.\n\nAt this date Seleucus Nicator sent an ambassador named Megasthenes to\nKing Chandragupta at Patna. His account of the India of that day is,\nunfortunately, lost; but through Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Arrian, and\nClement of Alexandria, some valuable fragments have come down to us.\nPatna, it must be remembered, was in the heart of the Buddhist Holy\nLand. Clement of Alexandria cites a passage from Megasthenes about\nthe Indian \"philosophers.\" \"Of these there are two classes, some of\nthem called Sarman\u00e6 (Sramanas) and other Brahmins. And those of the\nSarman\u00e6, who are called Hylobii, neither inhabit cities nor have roofs\nover them, but are clothed in the bark of trees, feed on nuts, and\ndrink water in their hands. Like those called Encratites in the present\nday, they know not marriage, nor begetting of children. Some, too,\nof the Indians obey the precepts of Buddha, whom, on account of his\nextraordinary sanctity, they have raised to divine honours.\"\n\nStrabo also describes the Brahmins and the Hylobii, or Germanes, with\nsimilar details. He draws a distinction between the Germanes and the\nBrahmins on the subject of continency, the Brahmins being polygamists.\n\nNo doubt these Sarman\u00e6 and Brahmins of Megasthenes were the Brahmins\nand Buddhist Sramanas, or ascetics. To the first were confided\nsacrifices and ceremonies. They were a caste apart, and none outside\nthis caste could officiate. Their ideas of life and death, it is\nannounced, were similar to those of Plato and the Greeks. The Brahmins\nate flesh and had many wives. Every new year there was a great synod of\nthem. They dwelt in groves near the great cities on \"couches of leaves\nand skins.\"\n\nThe Hylobii, on the other hand, insisted on absolute continence and\nstrict vegetarianism, and water drinking. Clitarchus gives us an\nadditional fact from Megasthenes. The Hylobii \"derided the Brahmins.\"\n\"By their means,\" says Strabo, \"kings serve and worship God.\" (See for\nall that can be recovered from Megasthenes, Cory, \"Ancient Fragments,\"\npp. 225-227.)\n\nThat the Buddhists at first were wandering beggars without any convents\nis the opinion of the Russian Orientalist, Wassiljew, who supports it\nfrom a valuable Chinese history by Daranatha. It asserts that the King\nAjatasatru passed Varsha or Lent in a graveyard; and that until the\ndate of Upagupta, a contemporary of Asoka, there were no temples. The\nfirst was built at Mathura. (Ch. iv., cited by Wassiljew, \"Buddhism,\"\np. 41.)\n\nDaranatha asserts that a disciple of Ananda reached Cashmir. M.\nWassiljew remarks that this would mean a spread of the doctrines in\nintermediate lands. I must point out that the first ritual of Buddhism\nwas the \"Praise of the Seven Mortal Buddhas,\" who were worshipped, as\nGen. Cunningham has shown from the Bharhut Stupa, in the form of trees.\nThis seems to have been the sole form of worship even in the days of\nKing Asoka, who enjoins his subjects to worship round Buddha's tree,\nthe ficus indicus.\n\nI think that my readers are now in a position to judge whether India\nwas gained by houseless Parivrajakas, ever marching, ever preaching,\never enduring hunger, thirst, buffets, death if necessary, or by lazy\nmonks, living in sumptuous convents, and debating whether their couches\nshould have fringes and their dress be silk or cotton. This last is the\ncontention of the Buddhist histories, and these dishonest documents\nhave even deceived learned men in the West, more skilful in P\u00e2li roots,\nperhaps, than judicial analysis. These books record that three months\nafter Buddha's death a vast convocation of monks was assembled at\nR\u00e2j\u00e2griha to render canonical certain holy books, in bulk four times as\nbig as our Bible. Eighteen disused monasteries were hastily cleared of\ntheir cobwebs and rubbish, and set in order for these monks, and a cave\ntemple, whose columns and splendid stone carvings vied with Ellora, was\ncut out of the rock in what must be thought a very small space of time,\nnamely, two months. I have shown in my \"Popular Life of Buddha\" that\nwe have here most probably the details of a real convocation, that of\nKing Kanerkos, assembled about 20 A.D., by the \"Carriage that drives\nNowhere\" (Sunyapushpa) to force their Pyrrhonism on the old faith,\nand that they have dishonestly antedated this convocation by nearly\n500 years, to make it appear that their innovations were the earliest\nBuddhism. Hweng Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, has given us the details\nof the convocation.\n\nThe number of monks was fixed at four hundred and ninety-nine. The\nambitious Vasubandhu, leader of the \"Great Vehicle\" movement, presented\nhimself at the door, but the traditions of early Buddhism were still\nstrong. Some of the monks desired him to depart, as none but Arhats\n(the fully enfranchised) could remain near the building.\n\n\"I care little for the enfranchisement of study\" (the rank of Arhat),\nsaid Vasubandhu. Then, with some inconsistency, he performed a great\nmiracle to prove that he had attained that dignity. He flung into\nthe air a ball of thread, and one end remained fixed in the sky. A\nsimilar prodigy was witnessed by Marco Polo and other old travellers.\nVasubandhu was chosen president, and the convocation proceeded to\ndiscuss their Pyrrhonism. All this is servilely repeated in the\nfictitious narrative of the first convocation. A difficulty arose about\nAnanda, who had not acquired the miraculous powers that stamp the\nadept in the knowledge of Praj\u00f1\u00e2 P\u00e2ramit\u00e2, the wisdom of the unseen\nworld. Thus, as first constituted, the convocation consisted of 499\nmembers and a vacant carpet was spread for Ananda. During the night\nhe meditated on the K\u00e2yagast\u00e2 S\u00e2tiy\u00e2, and in the morning these powers\ncame; and in proof he reached his seat through the medium of the floor\nof the temple.\n\nTo culminate this silliness, Ananda is then called upon to disclose\nthis \"wisdom of the unseen world,\" because, being Buddha's chief\ndisciple, he is the only one who knows much about it. The Bible of\nthe \"Carriage that drives Nowhere\" is the chief book discussed, the\nBrahmaj\u00e2la S\u00fbtra, which Hoa Yen, the greatest Chinese authority (_see_\nR\u00e9musat, \"Pilgrimage of Fa Hian,\" p. 108), says is distinctly a \"Great\nVehicle\" scripture. In it Buddha discusses every conceivable theory\nabout the next world, and contradicts them all. Could such an insane\nBible, in a few years, have tumbled to pieces the great priesthoods of\nIndia, China, Persia?\n\nWe now come to King Asoka, a monarch whose dominions stretched from\nGr\u00e2ndh\u00e2ra, or Peshawur, to Chola and P\u00e2ndiya, the extreme southern\nprovinces of India. On the extreme west he cut a rock-inscription at\nGirnar, on the Gulf of Cutch. On the east coast at Ganjam were the\nDhauli and Jaugada inscriptions. His rule was a broad one.\n\nHe became a convert to Buddhism, and made it the official creed. He\ncarved his \"Edicts\" on rocks and stone columns. Let us see from them\nwhether early Buddhism was the atheism and negation of an immortal life\nthat is depicted in popular treatises. He is called Dev\u00e2nampiya, the\nfriend of the spirits.\n\n\nKING ASOKA'S IDEAS ABOUT GOD.\n\n\"Much longing after the things [of this life] is a disobedience, I\nagain declare; not less so is the laborious ambition of dominion by\na prince who would be a propitiator of Heaven. Confess and believe\nin God [Is\u00e2na], who is the worthy object of obedience. For equal to\nthis [belief], I declare unto you, ye shall not find such a means\nof propitiating Heaven. Oh, strive ye to obtain this inestimable\ntreasure.\" (First separate Edict, Dhauli, Prinsep.)\n\n\"Thus spake King Dev\u00e2nampiya Piyadasi:--The present moment and the\npast have departed under the same ardent hopes. How by the conversion\nof the royal born may religion be increased? Through the conversion of\nthe lowly born if religion thus increaseth, by how much [more] through\nthe conviction of the high born and their conversion shall religion\nincrease? Among whomsoever the name of God resteth, verily this is\nreligion.\"\n\n\"Thus spake Dev\u00e2nampiya Piyadasi:--Wherefore from this very hour I have\ncaused religious discourses to be preached. I have appointed religious\nobservances that mankind, having listened thereto, shall be brought\nto follow in the right path, and give glory to God.\" (Edict No. vii.,\nPrinsep.)\n\n\nASOKA ON A FUTURE LIFE.\n\n\"On the many beings over whom I rule I confer happiness in this world;\nin the next they may obtain Swarga [paradise].\" (Edict vi., Wilson.)\n\n\"This is good. With these means let a man seek Swarga. This is to be\ndone. By these means it is to be done, as by them Swarga [paradise] is\nto be gained.\" (Edict ix., Wilson.)\n\n\"I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ with me in\ncreed, that they, following after my example, may with me attain unto\neternal salvation.\" (Delhi Pillar, Edict vi., Prinsep.)\n\n\"And whoso doeth this is blessed of the inhabitants of this world; and\nin the next world endless moral merit resulteth from such religious\ncharity.\" (Edict xi., Prinsep.)\n\n\"Unto no one can be repentance and peace of mind until he hath obtained\nsupreme knowledge, perfect faith, which surmounteth all obstacles, and\nperpetual assent.\" (Rock Edict, No. vii., Prinsep.)\n\n\"In the tenth year of his anointment, the beloved King Piyadasi\nobtained the Sambodhi or complete knowledge.\" (Rock Edict, No. vii.,\nBurnouf.)\n\n\"All the heroism that Piyadasi, the beloved of the gods, has exhibited\nis in view of another life. Earthly glory brings little profit, but,\non the contrary, produces a loss of virtue. To toil for heaven is\ndifficult to peasant and to prince unless by a supreme effort he gives\nup all.\" (Rock Edict, No. x., Burnouf.)\n\n\"May they [my loving subjects] obtain happiness in this world and in\nthe next.\" (Second separate Edict, Burnouf.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEarly Buddhism had no prayer, no worship, say our popular treatises.\n\n\"Dev\u00e2nampiya has also said--Fame consisteth in this act, to meditate\nwith devotion on my motives and on my deeds, and to pray for blessings\nin this world and the world to come.\" (Dhauli, separate Edict, No. ii.,\nPrinsep.)\n\n\"I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ with me in\ncreed, that they, following after my example, may with me attain unto\neternal salvation.\" (Delhi Pillar, Edict vi., Prinsep.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEarly Buddhism knew nothing of soul, we learn also.\n\n\"As the soul itself, so is the unrelaxing guidance of Dev\u00e2nampiya\nworthy of respect.\" (Dhauli, separate Edict, No. ii., Prinsep.)\n\nOn the Bair\u00e2t rock the king, too, gives a list of the holy books that\nhis monks were to learn by heart.\n\n1. The Summary of Discipline.\n\n2. The Supernatural Powers of the Masters.\n\n3. The Terrors of the Future.\n\n4. The Song of the Muni.\n\n5. The S\u00fbtra on Asceticism.\n\n6. The Question of Upatishya.\n\n7. The Admonition to R\u00e2hula concerning Falsehood, uttered by our Lord\nBuddha.\n\nNothing can be more important than this. If the Bair\u00e2t rock-inscription\nis genuine, the Ceylon history of the convocations is pure fiction.\n\nIt must be remembered that in the old Indian creeds, holy books were\nhanded down entirely by recitation. The letters of the alphabet,\naccording to Professor Max M\u00fcller, General Cunningham, and the chief\nauthorities, were not known in India until Asoka's day. We know from\nthe Mah\u00e2wanso that the holy books of Ceylon were not committed to\nwriting until the reign of King Wattaganini (104 to 76 B.C.). So the\nbooks that Asoka ordered to be handed down by the recitation and\nchantings of his monks must have plainly constituted the entire body\nof the recognised scriptures. In what way could any other scriptures\ncome down? Dr. Oldenburg talks of these seven books as if they were\n\"passages\" only, he believing that the large body of P\u00e2li scriptures\nof Ceylon were in existence as early as the second convocation. But if\nthey were \"passages,\" who was to remember and recite the rest of the\nvoluminous canon? Asoka's monks were expressly forbidden so to do.\n\nOf immense importance is one more fact. The Dhauli inscription\nannounces that the four Greek kings (Chapta Yoni Raja), who took over\nAlexander's empire, had allowed their subjects to \"follow the doctrine\"\nof Asoka. He mentions Antiochus and Ptolemy. Also \"Gongakenos\" and\nMegas of Cyrene. This plainly proves that his missionaries had reached\nEgypt and Greece.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n_The Apostles of the Bloodless Altar._\n\n\nThere are two Zoroasters, or rather a sort of dual personality.\nOne of these Zoroasters lived six thousand years B.C. according to\nDarmesteter, and the other about five hundred years B.C. The earlier\nZoroaster swathed Persia in a network of silly rites and regulations.\nA culprit who \"threw away a dead dog\" was to receive a thousand blows\nwith the horse goad, and one thousand with the Craosha charana. A\nculprit who slew a dog with a \"prickly back\" and a \"woolly muzzle\"\nwas to receive a similar punishment. (\"Fargard,\" xxx.) This Zoroaster\nwas particular about the number of gnats, ants, lizards, that the\ndevout had to kill. (\"Fargard,\" xiv.) This Zoroaster proclaimed a god\nwho loved to see on his altar a \"hundred horses, a thousand cows, ten\nthousand small cattle,\" and so on. (\"Khordah Avesta,\" xii.) But the\nsecond Zoroaster proclaimed a bloodless altar, and sought to tear the\nnetwork of the first Zoroaster to shreds. What was the meaning of this?\nSimply that the Buddhist Wanderers had by this time invaded Persia, and\nhad fastened their doctrines upon the chief local prophet. This was\ntheir habit. A study of this second religion, the religion of Mithras,\nwill help us to some of the secrets of Buddhist propagandism.\n\nMr. Felix Oswald cites Wassiljew as announcing that the Buddhist\nmissionaries had reached Western Persia, B.C. 450. This date would,\nof course, depend on the date of Buddha's life and Buddha's death.\nThe latter is now definitely fixed by Buhler's translation of Asoka's\nRupnath rock-inscription, B.C. 470. Wassiljew, citing Daranatha,\nannounces that Madeantica, a convert of Ananda, Buddha's leading\ndisciple, reached Ouchira in Cashmir. From Cashmir Buddhism passed\npromptly to Candahar and Cabul. (p. 40). Thence it penetrated quickly\nto Bactra, and soon invaded \"all the country embraced by the word\nTurkistan, where it flourished until disturbed by Mahomet.\"\n\nTertullian has two passages which describe the religion of Mithras.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHe says that the devil, to \"pervert the truth,\" by \"the mystic rites\nof his idols vies even with the essential portions of the sacraments\nof God. He too baptises some--that is, his own believers and faithful\nfollowers. He promises the putting away of sins by a laver (of his\nown), and, if my memory still serves me, Mithras there (in the\nkingdom of Satan) sets his mark on the foreheads of his soldiers,\ncelebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of the\nresurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown.\" (Pres. v., H\u0153r.\nchap. xl.)\n\nHere is another passage.\n\n\"Some soldier of Mithras, who at his initiation in the gloomy\ncavern,--in the camp, it may well be said, of darkness,--when at the\nsword's point a sword is presented to him as though in mimicry of\nmartyrdom, and thereupon a crown is put upon his head, is admonished to\nresist and cast it off, and, if you like, transfer it to his shoulders,\nsaying that Mithras is his crown. He even has his virgins and his\nascetics (continentes). Let us take note of the devices of the devil,\nwho is wont to ape some of God's things.\" (\"De Corona,\" xv.)\n\nFrom this it is plain that the worshippers of Mithras had the simple\nrites of Buddhists and Christians, baptism and the bloodless altar;\nalso an early Freemasonry, which some detect veiled in the Indian\nlife of Buddha. Thus the incident of the sword and crown in the\nMithraic initiation is plainly based on the menacing sword of M\u00e2ra in\nthe \"Lalita Vistara\" and the crown that he offered Buddha. In modern\nmasonry it is feigned that Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomon's\ntemple, made three efforts to escape from three assassins. These are\nplainly Old Age, Disease, and Death. He sought to evade the first at\nthe east of the temple, in the same way that Buddha tried to escape\nby the eastern gate. The second and third flights of Hiram and Buddha\nwere to the same points of the compass. Then Buddha escaped the lower\nlife through the Gate of Benediction, and Hiram was killed. The\ndisciples of Mithras had, in the comedy of their initiation, \"seven\ntortures,\"--heat, cold, hunger, thirst, fire, water, etc.,--experiences\nby no means confined to histrionics in the experience of Buddha's\nWanderers. A modern mason goes through the comedy of giving up his\ngold and silver and baring his breast and feet, a form that once\nhad a meaning. Mithras was born in a cave; and at Easter there was\nthe ceremony called by Tertullian the \"image of the resurrection.\"\nThe worshippers, Fermicus tells us (\"De Errore,\" xxiii.), placed by\nnight a stone image on a bier in a cave and went through the forms of\nmourning. The dead god was then placed in a tomb, and after a time\nwithdrawn from it. Then lights were lit, and poems of rejoicing sounded\nout, and the priest comforted the devotees. \"You shall have salvation\nfrom your sorrows!\" Dupuis naturally compares all this to the _cierge\npascal_ and Catholic rites. In Jerusalem the Greek pontiff goes into\nthe cave called Christ's sepulchre and brings out miraculous fire\nto the worshippers, who are fighting and biting each other outside,\nimaging unconsciously Buddha's great battle with M\u00e2ra and the legions\nof hell, its thunder and lightning and turmoil, followed by a bright\ncoruscation, and by the angels who greeted his victory. This sudden\nillumination, which is the chief rite of Freemasonry, of Mithraism, and\nof Christianity, has oddly enough been thrown overboard by the English\nChurch.\n\nThat Mithraism was at once Freemasonry and Buddhism is proved by its\ngreat spread. Buddhism was the first missionary religion. Judaism and\nthe other old priestcrafts were for a \"chosen people.\" At the epoch of\nChrist, Mithraism had already honeycombed the Roman paganism. Experts\nhave discovered its records in Arthur's Oon and other British caves.\n\nA similar Freemasonry was Pythagoreanism in Greece. Colebrooke, the\nprince of Orientalists, saw at once that its philosophy was purely\nBuddhist. Its rites were identical with those of the Mithraists and\nEssenes. These last must now be considered. They have this importance,\nthat they are due to a separate propagandism. Alexandria was built by\nthe great invader of India, to bridge the east and the west. And an\nexceptional toleration of creeds was the result.\n\nNeander divides Israel at the date of Christ into three sections:--\n\n1. Pharisaism, the \"dead theology of the letter.\"\n\n2. Sadduceeism, \"debasing of the spiritual life into worldliness.\"\n\n3. Essenism, Israel mystical--a \"co-mingling of Judaism with the old\nOriental theosophy.\"\n\nConcerning this latter section, Philo wrote a letter to a man named\nHeph\u00e6stion, of which the following is a portion:--\n\n \"I am sorry to find you saying that you are not likely to visit\n Alexandria again. This restless, wicked city can present but few\n attractions, I grant, to a lover of philosophic quiet. But I cannot\n commend the extreme to which I see so many hastening. A passion for\n ascetic seclusion is becoming daily more prevalent among the devout\n and the thoughtful, whether Jew or Gentile. Yet surely the attempt to\n combine contemplation and action should not be so soon abandoned. A\n man ought at least to have evinced some competency for the discharge\n of the social duties before he abandons them for the divine. First the\n less, then the greater.\n\n \"I have tried the life of the recluse. Solitude brings no escape from\n spiritual danger. If it closes some avenues of temptation, there are\n few in whose case it does not open more. Yet the Therapeut\u00e6, a sect\n similar to the Essenes, with whom you are acquainted, number many\n among them whose lives are truly exemplary. Their cells are scattered\n about the region bordering on the farther shore of the Lake Mareotis.\n The members of either sex live a single and ascetic life, spending\n their time in fasting and contemplation, in prayer or reading. They\n believe themselves favoured with divine illumination--an inner light.\n They assemble on the Sabbath for worship, and listen to mystical\n discourses on the traditionary lore which they say has been handed\n down in secret among themselves. They also celebrate solemn dances\n and processions of a mystic significance by moonlight on the shore\n of the great mere. Sometimes, on an occasion of public rejoicing,\n the margin of the lake on our side will be lit with a fiery chain of\n illuminations, and galleys, hung with lights, row to and fro with\n strains of music sounding over the broad water. Then the Therapeut\u00e6\n are all hidden in their little hermitages, and these sights and sounds\n of the world they have abandoned make them withdraw into themselves\n and pray.\n\n \"Their principle at least is true. The soul which is occupied with\n things above, and is initiated into the mysteries of the Lord,\n cannot but account the body evil, and even hostile. The soul of man\n is divine, and his highest wisdom is to become as much as possible\n a stranger to the body with its embarrassing appetites. God has\n breathed into man from heaven a portion of His own divinity. That\n which is divine is invisible. It may be extended, but it is incapable\n of separation. Consider how vast is the range of our thought over the\n past and the future, the heavens and the earth. This alliance with\n an upper world, of which we are conscious, would be impossible, were\n not the soul of man an indivisible portion of that divine and blessed\n spirit. Contemplation of the divine essence is the noblest exercise\n of man; it is the only means of attaining to the highest truth and\n virtue, and therein to behold God is the consummation of our happiness\n here.\"\n\nHere we have the higher Buddhism, which seeks to reach the plane of\nspirit, an \"alliance with the upper world\" by the aid of solitary\nreverie. That Philo knew where this religion had come from is, I think,\nproved by another passage.\n\n\"Among the Persians there is the order of Magi who deeply investigate\nthe works of nature for the discovery of truth, and in leisure's quiet\nare initiated into and expound in clearest significance the divine\nvirtues.\n\n\"In India, too, there is the sect of the Gymnosophists, who, in\naddition to speculative philosophy, diligently cultivate the ethical\nalso, and have made their life an absolute ensample of virtue.\n\n\"Palestine, moreover, and Syria are not without their harvest of\nvirtuous excellence, which region is inhabited by no small portion of\nthe very populous nation of the Jews. There are counted amongst them\ncertain ones, by name Essenes, in number about four thousand, who\nderive their name, in my opinion, by an inaccurate trace from the term\nin the Greek language for holiness (Essen or Essaios--Hosios, holy),\ninasmuch as they have shown themselves pre-eminent by devotion to the\nservice of God; not in the sacrifice of living animals, but rather in\nthe determination to make their own minds fit for a holy offering.\"\n(Philo, \"Every virtuous man is free.\")\n\nPlainly here the Essenes are pronounced of the same faith as the\nGymnosophists of India, who abstain from the bloody sacrifice, that is\nthe Buddhists.\n\nI will now jot hastily down the points of contact between one of these\nmonasteries described by Philo and a Buddhist monastery. In the centre\nis the sanctuary. Round it, in an enclosure \"four square,\" are ranged\nthe cells of the monks. The monks in Thibet, according to the Abb\u00e9 Huc,\nmay be divided into three categories.\n\n1. Those who live in monasteries and perform the religious services,\nand also, like the Essenes described by Josephus, farm the convent land.\n\n2. Hermits, in caves, like Banos dreaming holy dreams.\n\n3. Wandering missionaries (Parivrajakas) who, like the \"Apostles\"\ndescribed in the recently discovered \"Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,\"\nare not allowed to remain more than a day in the same place.\n\nIn the Buddhist Lent the community goes into a hastily built group of\nmud huts in the jungle. Each of these is tenanted by a monk and two\nnovices. Each has a \"guest chamber\" for a sick man, or a wandering\nbeggar. This throws light on much. Let us continue our parallelism.\n\nEnforced vegetarianism, community of goods, rigid abstinence from\nsexual indulgence, also a high standard of purity, were common to both\nthe Buddhists and the Therapeuts.\n\nNeither community allowed the use of wine.\n\nLong fastings were common to both.\n\nWith both, silence was a special spiritual discipline.\n\nThe Therapeut left \"for ever,\" says Philo, \"brothers, children, wives,\nfather and mother,\" for the contemplative life.\n\nLike the Buddhists, the Therapeuts had nuns vowed to chastity.\n\nThe preacher and the missionary, two original ideas of Buddhism, were\nconspicuous amongst the Therapeuts. This was in direct antagonism to\nthe spirit of Mosaism.\n\nThe Therapeut was a healer of the body as well as the soul.\n\nTurning to the kindred society of the Essenes we get a few additional\npoints of contact.\n\nThe Essenes, like the Buddhist monks, had ridiculous laws relating to\nspitting and other natural acts, those of the Essenes being regulated\nby a superstitious veneration for the Sabbath day, those of the\nBuddhists, by a superstitious respect for a pagoda.\n\nIn Buddhist monasteries a rigid obedience, together with a quite\nsuperstitious respect for the person of a superior, is enacted.\nIn Buddhaghosa's Parables is a puerile story of a malicious Muni,\nwho, when an inferior monk had gone out of a hut where the two\nwere sleeping, lay across the doorway in order to make the novice\ninadvertently commit the great sin of placing his foot above his\nsuperiors head. The penalty of such an act is that the offender's\nhead ought to be split into seven pieces. With the Essenes similar\nsuperstitions were rife. If an Approacher accidentally touched the hem\nof the garment of an Associate, all sorts of purifications had to be\ngone through.\n\nThe principle of thrift and unsavouriness in dress was carried to\nextremes by both Essenes and Buddhists. The sramana (ascetic) was\nrequired to stitch together for his _kowat_ the refuse rags acquired\nby begging. The Essenes were expected to wear the old clothes of their\nco-religionists until they tumbled to pieces.\n\nIn the Thibetan \"Life of Buddha,\" by Rockhill, it is announced that\nwhen the great teacher first cast off his kingly silks he donned a foul\ndress that had been previously worn by ten other saints. This throws\nlight on the story of Elisha.\n\nDr. Ginsburg (\"The Essenes,\" p. 13) shows that the Essenes had eight\nstages of progress in inner or spiritual knowledge.\n\n1. Outward or bodily purity by baptism.\n\n2. The state of purity that has conquered the sexual desire.\n\n3. Inward and spiritual purity.\n\n4. A meek and gentle spirit which has subdued all anger and malice.\n\n5. The culminating point of holiness.\n\n6. The body becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost, and the mystic\nacquires the gift of prophecy.\n\n7. Miraculous powers of healing, and of raising the dead.\n\n8. The mystic state of Elias.\n\nThe Buddhists have likewise eight stages of inner progress, the\nEightfold Holy Path. The first step, \"Those who have entered the\nstream, the Na\u00edra\u00f1jana, the mystic river of Buddha,\" is precisely\nthe same as the first Essene step. Then follow advances in purity,\nholiness, and mastery of passion. In the last two stages the Buddhists,\nlike the Essenes, gained supernatural powers, to be used in miraculous\ncures, prophecies, and other occult marvels. It must be mentioned that\nthe Essenes were circumcised as well as the other Jews.\n\nThe word \"Essenes,\" according to some learned philologists, means\nthe \"Bathers,\" or \"Baptisers,\" baptism having been their initiatory\nrite. Josephus tells us that this baptism was not administered until\nthe aspirant had remained a whole year outside the community, but\n\"subjected to their rule of life.\"\n\nI will here give the rite of Buddhist baptism (abhisheka) when a\nnovice is about to become a monk. It consists of many washings,\nborrowed plainly by the early Buddhists from the Brahmins, and brings\nto mind the frequent use of water attributed to the Hemero Baptists\nor disciples of John. It may be mentioned that in some Buddhist\ncountries--Nepal, for instance--the various monkish vows are now taken\nonly for form sake. This makes the letter, retained after the spirit\nhas departed, all the more valuable.\n\nThe neophyte having made an offer of scents and unguents (betel-nut,\npaun, etc.) to his spiritual guide (guru), the latter, after certain\nformalities, draws four circles in the form of a cross, in honour of\nthe Tri Ratna (trinity), on the ground, and the neophyte, seated in a\nprescribed position, recites the following text: \"I salute Lord Buddha,\nDharma, and Sangha, and entreat them to bestow on me the Pravrajya\nVrata.\" The first and second days of the ceremonial are consumed in\nprayers and formalities carried on by the guide and his pupil alone.\nOn the second day another mystical cross is drawn on the ground, the\nSwastica. A pot containing water and other mystic ingredients, a gold\nlotus, and certain confections and charms, figure in these early rites.\nAt last it is poured on the neophyte's head. This is the baptism.\n\nPrevious to this there is a confession of sins and much catechising.\nThe catechumen's name is changed at the baptism, and his head is\nshaved. A light is lit which reminds one of the \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 of the early\nChristians. Besides their baptism, the Essenes and Therapeuts had a\nmystery (sacramentum), an oblation of bread. Part of this was placed\nupon the bloodless altar, and part eaten. The Buddhists with their\nwheat and rice do exactly the same thing.\n\nTwo other points remain, the most important of all.\n\nThe Buddhists have a Trinity, Buddha or Swayambhu, the Self-Existent,\nDharma or Prajn\u00e2, which is the same word as Philo's Sophia Wisdom.\nFrom these two the Father and the Mother have been produced. Sangha,\nliterally Union, the union of matter and spirit, like St. Paul's\nChrist, Humanity--ideal Humanity.\n\nThat a nation so \"stiff-necked\" as the Jews in the matter of their\none God, should have accepted a Trinity, shows certainly a foreign\ninfluence.\n\nThe second point is stronger still. The Buddhist teachers in Persia\nand Egypt in days before Christ; in Japan, in Isl\u00e2m, during the Middle\nAges; in Europe now,--have had and have one method of procedure.\nThey say practically, \"Religion as we conceive it has only one\nlesson--knowledge of God. This is to be acquired not externally through\ncreeds and priests, but internally by the education and purification of\nthe soul. Keep your Bibles if the weaker brethren insist on them, but\nexplain that they are symbols, not history. Keep your prophets, your\nMoses, your Mahomet, your Zoroaster, and fasten our teaching on him.\nKeep your hob-goblins and folklore, but give up your bloody altar.\"\n\nNow, in the view of the Jew, God had made a covenant with Israel, which\nwas to last as long as the sun, the moon, and the stars. In return for\nthe \"offerings of the Lord made by fire\" (Levit. xxiv. 9) on the temple\naltar of Jerusalem, Israel was to triumph over its foes and receive\nevery temporal blessing. The advice of the Buddhist was practically\nthat the Jewish half of the bargain was to be broken, but that the\nBible, the document containing the contract, was to be retained. _A\npriori_ could any one have guessed that advice of this sort could be\ntaken?\n\nAnd yet we see the Essenes \"allegorize\" the bloody altar out of their\nBible, but cling to the document more fondly than ever. The early\nChristians and Justin and Iren\u00e6us do the same. Scripture for the early\nChurch was the Old Testament.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n_The Gospel according to the Hebrews._\n\n\nPapias, the Bishop of Hieropolis (about A.D. 140), wrote a small\nsentence which, examined critically recently, has revolutionised all\nour ideas about the four eye-witnesses of Paley.\n\nHe tells us that Matthew first in the Hebrew dialect wrote the \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\n(sayings), and each person translated as he was able.\n\nThis tells us everything. Matthew in Aramaic wrote down all the\n\"sayings\" of Christ that he could remember, and our three gospels and a\nnumber of other gospels were translations, enlargements, and fanciful\nversions of this. Matthew's work emerged in the Church at Jerusalem,\nand was their sole scripture. Jerome (416 A.D.), writing against the\nPelagians, says:\n\n\"In the Gospel according to the Hebrews--which is written, indeed,\nin the Chaldee and Syriac language, but in Hebrew letters, which the\nNazarenes use to this day--according to the Apostles, or, as very many\ndeem, according to Matthew.\" (\"Dial. adv. Pelag.,\" ch. iii.)\n\nThis gives us its title. The Gospel according to the Hebrews was first\ncalled the Gospel according to the Apostles, and sometimes the Gospel\naccording to Matthew. What do we know about this Gospel according to\nthe Apostles? In a great trial, three or four obscure witnesses often\nunexpectedly assume a dominant importance. In the great trial now going\non of Christianity (as distinguished from the religion of Christ), four\nsuch witnesses have suddenly surged up.\n\nThey are Hegesippus, Papias, Justin Martyr, Iren\u00e6us. What do they tell\nus of the Gospel of the Apostles--the Gospel according to the Hebrews?\n\nHegesippus (170 A.D.) was the earliest Church historian, but his\nhistory has been destroyed. Eusebius tells us (\"Hist.,\" iv. 22) that he\nwas a Jew, and that he used the Gospel according to the Hebrews.\n\nPapias, according to Eusebius, also used it, for he quotes from it the\nstory of the woman taken in adultery.\n\nIren\u00e6us (H\u0153r. i. 26) tells us that the Ebionites (Church of Jerusalem)\nused \"that Gospel which is according to Matthew.\" As we have\noverwhelming evidence that the Ebionites used the Gospel according\nto the Hebrews, it is plain that the Gospel according to Matthew of\nIren\u00e6us was the Gospel according to the Hebrews.\n\nRemains Justin Martyr, and now the din of battle grows loud. Did he\nknow anything of the sayings (\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1)? Had he ever heard of the Gospel\naccording to the Apostles? Or did he, according to the conventional\ndefence, know only our Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?\n\nThe answer on the surface seems convincing. Justin never mentions the\nGospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John at all. He makes one hundred\nand ninety-seven quotations from the Old Testament, with the names of\nthe authors and books attached. He alludes to \"a man amongst us named\nJohn,\" as the author of the Revelations. He gives two hundred gospel\nquotations, and professes to get them from the sayings of our Lord,\nthough he does not mention Matthew. He announces also that he is citing\nthe \"Memoirs of the Apostles,\" the alternative title apparently of the\nGospel according to the Hebrews. Are the sayings of our Lord quoted by\nJustin precisely similar to the words of Christ in our gospels? As a\nmatter of fact, they differ considerably in the English translation,\nand still more in the Greek, as shown by Dr. Giles in his \"Hebrew and\nChristian Records.\" It is replied that Justin quoted from our gospels\nand made mistakes.\n\nMuch has been made by the conventional defence of certain words used\nby Justin in reference to the works he was quoting from, \"which are\ncalled gospels,\" but Schliermacher contends that the passage is an\ninterpolation, and an instance in which a marginal note has been\nincorporated into the text. He urges, and so does Dr. Giles, that, at\nthe date of Justin, \u03b5\u03c5\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03b9\u03b1 could not have been used in the plural\nfor books. It is twice used in the singular by Justin elsewhere, and\nthen means simply the Christian revelation (literally, glad tidings).\n\nI propose now to give all that can be recovered from the writings of\nthe Fathers of the Gospel according to the Apostles. To this I will add\nthe \"Sayings of our Lord\" as quoted by Justin. If these are not from\nthe Gospel of the Hebrews, at any rate we get a much earlier version\nof Christ's words than those read in our churches. For the Gospel\naccording to the Hebrews, consult Renan, \"Les Evangiles,\" chap. vi.;\nHilgenfeld, \"Novum Testamentum extra Canonem Receptum,\" Fasc. iv.;\nNicholson, \"The Gospel according to the Hebrews;\" and Baring-Gould.\n\n\nTHE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS.\n\nEpiphanius has given us the opening verses:--\n\n \"There was a certain man, by name Jesus, and he of about thirty years,\n who chose us out.\n\n \"And when he had come to Capernaum, he entered into the house of\n Simon, who was surnamed Peter, and opened his mouth and said,\n\n \"Passing by the Lake of Tiberias, I chose out John and James, sons of\n Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew, ... and Thadd\u00e6us, and Simon the Zealot,\n and Judas the Iscariot;\n\n \"And thee, Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, I called, and\n thou didst follow me.\n\n \"I will therefore that ye be twelve apostles for a testimony to\n Israel.\"\n\nA fragment shows that the flight into Egypt was in the gospel.\n\n \"... then he arose and took the young child and departed into Egypt,\n\n \"That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the prophet, Out of\n Egypt have I called my son.\"\n\nNow, supposing that there were no class interests in the way, it\nwould be difficult to read the opening verses of this gospel without\nseeing what Justin meant by the \"Memoirs of the Apostles.\" In it the\nApostles expressly announce that Jesus has \"chosen them out\" to produce\na \"testimony,\" testament, memorial; and Matthew, apparently, is to\nbe the amanuensis. This \"testimony\" was the entire New Testament,\nwith the earliest Church, the Church of Jerusalem. It was called\nindiscriminately, as we have seen from Jerome, the Gospel according\nto the Apostles, and the Gospel according to Matthew. Papias and\nHegesippus, the immediate predecessors of Justin, used it, and Iren\u00e6us\nsome years later.\n\nLet us go on with the Gospel of the Apostles.\n\n \"And John began baptizing.\n\n \"And there came out unto him Pharisees who were baptized, and all\n Jerusalem.\n\n \"And John had a raiment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about\n his loins, and his food was wild honey, whereof the taste was that of\n manna.\n\n \"And behold the mother of the Lord and his brethren said to him, John\n the Baptist baptizeth for remission of sins. Let us go and be baptized\n by him.\n\n \"But he said to them, Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be\n baptized by him? except, perchance, this very thing that I have said\n is ignorance.\n\n \"And when the people had been baptized, Jesus also came and was\n baptized by John.\n\n \"And as he went up, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Holy\n Spirit, in shape of a dove, descending and entering into him.\n\n \"And a voice from heaven said, Thou art my beloved Son. I have this\n day begotten thee.\n\n \"And straightway a great light shone around the place. And John fell\n down before him, and said, I pray thee, Lord, baptize thou me.\n\n \"But he prevented him, saying, Let be; for thus it is becoming that\n all things be fulfilled.\n\n \"And it came to pass when the Lord had come up from the water, the\n entire fountain of the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him, and\n said to him,\n\n \"My Son, in all the prophets did I wait thee, that thou mightest come\n and I might rest in thee;\n\n \"For thou art my rest. Thou art my first-born Son for ever and for\n ever.\"\n\n \"And the Lord said, If thy brother hath sinned in word, and hath made\n thee amends seven times in a day, receive him.\n\n \"Simon, his disciple, said to him, Seven times in a day?\n\n \"The Lord answered and said unto him, I tell thee also unto seventy\n times seven, for in the prophets likewise after they were anointed by\n the Holy Spirit utterance of sin was found.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n \"And there was a man whose right hand was withered, and he said, I was\n a mason, seeking sustenance by my hands. I beseech thee, Jesus, that\n thou restore me to health that I may not shamefully beg for food. And\n Jesus healed him.\n\n \"And it was told to him, Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand\n without.\n\n \"And he answered, Who is my mother and brethren?\n\n \"And he stretched out his hand over the disciples, and said, These are\n my brethren and mother that do the wishes of my Father.\n\n \"And behold there came to him two rich men. And one said, Good master.\n\n \"But he said, Call me not good, for he that is good is one, the Father\n in the heavens.\n\n \"The other of the rich men said to him, Master, what good thing shall\n I do and live?\n\n \"He said unto him, Man, perform the law and the prophets.\n\n \"He answered him, I have performed them.\n\n \"He said unto him, Go, sell all that thou hast and divide it with the\n poor, and come, follow me.\n\n \"But the rich man began to scratch his head, and it pleased him not.\n\n \"And the Lord said unto him, How sayest thou, I have performed the law\n and the prophets? seeing that it is written in the law Thou shalt love\n thy neighbour as thyself. And behold many of thy brethren, sons of\n Abraham, are clad with dung, dying for hunger, and thy house is full\n of much goods, and there goeth from it nought unto them.\n\n \"And he turned and said to Simon, his disciple, sitting by him, Simon,\n son of John, it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a\n needle than a rich man into the kingdom of the heavens.\"\n\n\nTHE \"SAYINGS OF OUR LORD.\" (Justin Martyr.)\n\n\"Love your enemies. Be kind and merciful as your heavenly Father is.\n\n\"To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other, and\nhim that taketh away thy cloak or thy coat forbid not. And whosoever\nshall be angry shall be in danger of the fire. And every one that\ncompelleth thee to go with him a mile follow him two. And let your good\nworks shine before men, that they, seeing them, may glorify your Father\nwhich is in heaven.\n\n\"Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow, turn not\naway. For if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what new thing\ndo ye? Even the publicans do this. Lay not up for yourselves treasures\nupon earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break\nthrough, but lay up for yourself treasure in heaven, where neither moth\nnor rust doth corrupt. For what is a man profited if he gain the whole\nworld and lose his own soul? And what shall a man give in exchange for\nit? Lay up, therefore, treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust\ndoth corrupt.\n\n\"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy\nstrength, and thy neighbour as thyself.\n\n\"Swear not at all, but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; for\nwhatsoever is more than this cometh of evil.\n\n\"If ye love them that love you, what new thing do ye? For even\nfornicators do this. But I say unto you, pray for your enemies, and\nlove them that hate you, and bless them that curse you, and pray for\nthem that despitefully use you.\n\n\"There are some who have been made eunuchs of men and some who were\nborn eunuchs, and some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom\nof heaven's sake; but all cannot receive this saying.\n\n\"If thy right eye offend thee, cut it out; for it is better for thee\nto enter the kingdom of heaven with one eye than having two eyes to be\ncast into everlasting fire.\n\n\"Whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her committeth adultery with\nher already in his heart before God.\n\n\"Whoso shall marry that is divorced from another husband committeth\nadultery.\n\n\"I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.\n\n\"Fear not them that kill you and after that can do no more, but fear\nhim who after death is able to cast both soul and body into hell.\n\n\"Except ye be born again, verily ye shall not enter the kingdom of\nheaven.\n\n\"The children of this world marry and are given in marriage, but the\nchildren of the world to come neither marry nor are given in marriage,\nbut shall be like the angels in heaven.\n\n\"Many false Christs and false apostles shall arise and shall deceive\nmany of the faithful.\n\n\"Beware of false prophets, who shall come to you clothed outwardly in\nsheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.\n\n\"And he overthrew the money-changers, and exclaimed, Woe unto ye\nscribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because ye pay tithe of mint and rue\nbut do not observe the love of God and justice. Ye whited sepulchres,\nappearing beautiful outwardly, but are within full of dead men's\nbones. Woe unto ye scribes, for ye have the keys, and ye do not enter\nin yourselves, and them that are entering in ye hinder. Ye blind\nguides, ye are become twofold more the children of hell.\n\n\"The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist. From that time\nthe kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by\nforce.\n\n\"And if you can receive it, he is Elijah who was to come. He that hath\nears to hear let him hear.\n\n\"Elijah must come and restore all things. But I say unto you, Elijah is\nalready come, and they knew him not, but have done to him whatever they\nchose. Then the disciples understood that he spake to them about John\nthe Baptist.\n\n\"The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the\nPharisees and scribes, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.\n\n\"Not every one who saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the\nkingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is\nin heaven. For whosoever heareth me and doeth my sayings, heareth him\nthat sent me. And many will say unto me, Lord. Lord, have we not eaten\nand drunk in thy name and done wonders? And then will I say unto them,\nDepart from me, ye workers of iniquity. Then shall be wailing and\ngnashing of teeth, when the righteous shall shine like the sun, and\nthe wicked are sent into everlasting fire. For many shall come in my\nname clothed outwardly in sheep's clothing, but inwardly being ravening\nwolves. By their works ye shall know them. Every tree that bringeth\nnot forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.\n\n\"I give you power to tread on serpents and on scorpions and on\nscolopendras, and on all the might of the enemy.\n\n\"They shall come from the East and shall sit down with Abraham and\nIsaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the\nkingdom shall be cast into outer darkness.\n\n\"There is none good but God only, who made all things.\n\n\"No man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor the Son but the Father, and\nthey to whom the Son revealeth him.\n\n\"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and no sign\nshall be given it save the sign of Jonah.\n\n\"Render to C\u00e6sar the things that are C\u00e6sar's, and unto God the things\nthat are God's.\n\n\"In whatsoever things I shall apprehend you, in those also will I judge\nyou.\"\n\n\nSAYINGS FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS.\n\n\"I have come to abolish sacrifices; and if ye do not cease to\nsacrifice, the wrath of God against you will not cease.\n\n\"Be ye approved money-changers.\n\n\"No servant can serve two masters. If we wish to serve both God and\nMammon it is unprofitable to us.\n\n\"I am not come to take away from the law of Moses, nor add to the law\nof Moses am I come.\n\n\"It is blessed to give rather than to receive.\n\n\"Keep the mysteries for me and for the sons of my house.\n\n\"I am not come to call the just, but sinners.\n\n\"There is not thank to you if ye love them that love you; but there is\nthank to you if ye love your enemies and them that hate you.\n\n\"For there shall be false Christs, false prophets, false apostles,\nheresies, lovings of rule.\n\n\"Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall be saved, but he\nthat doeth righteousness.\n\n\"If ye have been gathered with me into my bosom, and do not my\ncommandments, I will cast you away and will say unto you, Depart from\nme, I know not whence ye are, workers of iniquity.\n\n\"And the Lord said, Ye shall be as lambkins in the midst of wolves. And\nPeter answered and said, If then the wolves rend the lambkins asunder?\nJesus said to Peter, Let not the lambkins after they are dead fear the\nwolves. And do ye not fear them that kill you and can do nought unto\nyou. But fear him who, after you are dead, hath authority over soul and\nbody to cast into the Gehenna of fire.\n\n\"Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one of my hairs and\nbore me up to the great mountain of Tabor.\n\n\"He that hath marvelled shall reign, and he that hath reigned shall\nrest.\n\n\"I am he concerning whom Moses prophesied, saying, A prophet will the\nLord our God raise unto you from your brethren even as me. Him hear ye\nin all things, for whosoever heareth not that prophet shall die.\"\n\nHere is the account of the woman taken in adultery afterwards borrowed\nby John:--\n\n \"And they went each to his own house, and Jesus went to the Mount of\n Olives.\n\n \"And at dawn he came again into the temple, and all the people came to\n him; and having sat down, he taught them.\n\n \"And the scribes and the Pharisees brought up a woman taken up for\n adultery.\n\n \"And having placed her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this\n woman hath been taken up in adultery, in the very act;\n\n \"And in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What therefore dost\n thou say?\n\n \"And this they said, trying him, that they might have whereby to\n accuse him.\n\n \"But Jesus having bent down, kept writing with his finger upon the\n ground.\n\n \"But as they continued asking him, he unbent and said to them, Let the\n sinless one of you first cast against her the stone. And having bent\n down again he kept writing on the ground.\n\n \"But they having heard, went out one by one, beginning from the elder\n ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman.\n\n \"And Jesus having unbent, said to her, Mistress, where are they? Hath\n none condemned thee?\n\n \"And she said, None, sir. And Jesus said, Neither will I condemn thee,\n go and from this time sin no more.\"\n\nThe evidence accumulates. Justin gives the voice from the sky exactly\nas it is given in the Gospel of the Apostles.\n\n\"Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee.\"\n\nHe then proceeds to argue against an heretical theory that these words\nmeant that Jesus was the Son of God on receipt of the Holy Spirit\nat baptism, and not before. But that is plainly the meaning of the\npassage, for the Ebionites \"assert,\" says Hippolytus, \"that our Lord\nwas a man in like sense with all.\" (L. vii. 2). This is so patent that\nour first gospel has changed the words to \"in thee I am well pleased.\"\nHad Justin known the false Matthew's false version, he would have\nquoted it eagerly instead of taking the trouble to refute the heretics.\n\nI come to a second piece of evidence. In the lives of Krishna, R\u00e2ma,\nBuddha, etc., many incidents are plainly inserted as authority for\nrites. Thus Buddha has his hair cut off by the god Indra, and receives\nthe Abhisheka (baptism) at the hands of the heavenly host; and true\nBuddhists are expected to imitate him in this. The baptism of the early\nchurch was called \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 (Illumination), Justin tells us; and in the\nCoptic Church, as in Buddhism, the lighting of a taper is still a part\nof the ceremony. Now Justin informs us that a light was kindled on the\nJordan on the occasion of Christ's baptism. It is plain again here that\nhe is quoting from the Gospel according to the Apostles, and not from\nour gospels, who have cut out this light altogether.\n\nHere is another strong piece of evidence. The Gospel according to the\nApostles had a passage about \"false Christs, false prophets, false\n_apostles_.\" Justin also has a passage about \"false Christs, false\n_apostles_\" This is most important, as it refers to St. Paul. Renan\nshows that in the original Gospel according to the Hebrews, there must\nhave been more than one attack on this \"false apostle.\" He is \"the\nenemy\" who sowed tares amongst the gospel wheat. The \"enemy\" was his\nnickname with the Church of Jerusalem. Pseudo Matthew softens this to\n\"the devil,\" and cuts out the \"false apostle\" altogether. It is plain\nthat Justin is not quoting from him.\n\nRenan refers to another attack on St. Paul from the Gospel according to\nthe Hebrews.\n\n\"People have prophesied and cast out devils in the name of Jesus. Jesus\nopenly repudiates them, because they have \"practised illegality.\"\"(Les\nEvangiles, chap. vi.)\n\nStronger still is this. Justin records that when the question was put\nto Christ, \"Show us a sign!\" he answered, \"An evil and adulterous\ngeneration seeketh after a sign, and no sign shall be given them,\nsave the sign of Jonah.\" Justin goes on to say that Jesus \"spoke this\nobscurely\" (Trypho, ch. vii.), and he explains the meaning of the sign.\nHad he possessed our Matthew, he could not possibly have done this, for\nin the 40th verse of the twelfth chapter, Jesus, instead of \"speaking\nobscurely,\" explains that Jonah's three days' sojourn in the whale's\nbelly typifies his own three days' sojourn in the tomb.\n\nIn many other points Justin's \"Memoirs of the Apostles\" differ from our\ngospels.\n\n\"For an ass's foal was standing at a certain entrance to a village,\ntied to a vine.\" Our gospels know nothing about the vine incident when\nthey narrate the story of Christ's entry to Jerusalem. Justin says\nthat Jesus wrought amongst yokes and ploughs. Of this our gospels know\nnothing.\n\nHe says, too, that Jesus was born in a cave. (Trypho, ch. lxxviii.) The\nFirst Gospel of the Infancy confirms him here.\n\n\"The Magi _from Arabia_ came to Bethlehem and worshipped the child.\"\n(H. Trypho, ch. lxxviii.) Here again Justin is plainly using some other\ngospel. Our gospels know nothing of the Magi coming from Arabia.\n\nThere is one passage used in the conventional defence to show\nthat Justin knew the fourth gospel also, but Dr. Abbott, in the\n\"Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica,\" holds that this is impossible.\n\n\"Except ye be born again, verily ye shall not enter the kingdom of\nheaven.\"\n\nIt is so obvious that baptism is a new birth, that the Brahmins have\nbeen the \"twice born\" from time immemorial. The Buddhist Abhisheka\ntoo is called the \"whole birth.\" Baptism must have been compared to a\nbirth in the young Christian Church from an early date. And if Justin\nhad known Christ's explanations about the birth from water and the\nSpirit, he could have scarcely wandered on like this. \"Now, that it is\nimpossible for those who have once been born to re-enter the wombs of\nthose that bear them, is evident to all.\"\n\nBut there is a more overwhelming argument. Justin was a Platonic\nphilosopher converted to Christianity, as he thought. But in the view\nof the sober Dr. Lamson, he brought with him into the fold Philo's\ndoctrine of the Logos. It does not appear in Christianity until his\ndate. This Logos, according to Justin and to Philo, was a distinct\nbeing, a second God. And in Justin's dialogue with Trypho, he tries to\nprove all this, enlisting three times into his argument the passage,\n\"No man knoweth the Father but the Son.\" (Varied in Matt. xi. 27). Is\nit conceivable that if he had had at his command the opening verses of\nthe fourth gospel, and believed them to be by an apostle of Christ, he\nwould have spared Trypho the infliction of them? The poor Jew would\nhave heard of nothing else.\n\nBut a new witness has surged up, coming, as it were, from the tomb. I\nallude to the fragment of the Gospel of Peter. Justin writes:--\n\n\"For also, as said the prophet, mocking him, they placed him on a\n_tribunal_, and said, Give judgment to us.\" Our gospels know nothing\nof the incident of the _tribunal_, nor of the mocking speech recorded\nby Justin. \"Let him who raised the dead save himself.\" Now, the\nnewly-discovered Gospel of Peter says that they did place Christ on\nthe judgment-seat in mockery. It affirms also at the end that it was\ninspired by the twelve disciples, just like the Gospel of the Hebrews.\n\nIn point of fact, the traditional argument of the advocates of\nthe miraculous origin of our four gospels goes practically on the\nhypothesis that only these four gospels were in existence in Justin's\ntime. But Dr. Giles shows that Christendom at this period was flooded\nwith spurious gospels, spurious \"revelations,\" spurious \"epistles.\"\nHe cites from Lucian an account of a contemporary of Justin, one\nPeregrinus, who murdered his father.\n\n\"Consigning himself to exile, he took to flight, and wandered about\nfrom one country to another. At this time it was that he learnt the\nwonderful philosophy of the Christians, having kept company with their\npriests and scribes in Palestine. And what was the end of it? In a\nshort time he showed them to be mere children, for he became a prophet,\na leader of their processions, the marshaller of their meetings, and\neverything in himself alone.\n\n\"And of their books, he explained and cleared up some, and wrote many\nhimself; and they deemed him a god, made use of him as a legislator,\nand enrolled him as their patron.\" (\"Hebrew and Christian Records,\" p.\n82.)\n\nIren\u00e6us bears the same testimony. \"But in addition to these things,\nthey introduce an unspeakable number of apocryphal and spurious\nwritings, which themselves have forged, to the consternation of those\nthat are foolish, and who do not know the writings of the truth.\" (H\u0153r.\ni. 19.)\n\nBut worse than the composition of imaginary gospels is the\nfalsification of canonical scriptures. \"It is obvious,\" says Origen,\n\"that the difference between the copies is considerable, partly from\nconclusions of individual scribes, partly from the impious audacity of\nsome in correcting what is written, partly, also, from those who add or\nremove what seems good to them in the work of correction.\" (Origen in\nMatt. xv. 14.)\n\nIt might be imagined that a gospel that gives to us the only authentic\nrecord of Christ's words, written down at an early date under the\nsanction of James, Christ's immediate successor as the head of his\nChurch and of the other Apostles, would be cherished in Christendom as\nthe holiest of treasures. Instead of that, it was garbled, truncated,\nvilified, pronounced heretical by a Pope, and finally suppressed. Why\nwas this? This question is the crux of historical Christianity.\n\nAt present we must content ourselves with a brief analysis of the\ngospel, and say a few words first about the Ebionites.\n\nThe word \"Ebionite\" signifies \"poor,\" and seems to be the Greek\nrendering of bhikshu or beggar, the word by which Buddha described his\nfollowers. The Ebionites were the earliest Christians. They composed\nthe Church of Jerusalem. It fled to Pella, on the Jordan, just before\nthe destruction of the Holy City. Bishop Lightfoot calls them the\nEssene-Ebionites, because they were plainly in all their rites simple\nEssenes.\n\nThe early fathers gave them five distinctive characteristics:--\n\n1. They held Jesus to be \"a man in like sense with all,\" as we have\nseen from Hippolytus.\n\n2. They rejected the writings of Paul, and indeed all other New\nTestament scriptures, except the Gospel according to the Hebrews.\n\n3. They refused to eat meat, like the Essenes.\n\n4. Like the Essenes also they rejected wine, even in the Sacramentum.\n\"Therefore do these men reject the co-mixture of the heavenly wine,\nand wish it to be the water of the world only, not receiving God so as\nto have union with him,\" says Iren\u00e6us (H\u0153r. v. 3) speaking of them.\n\n5. Like the Essenes they also insisted on the rite of circumcision.\nHere is another passage from Iren\u00e6us, \"They use the Gospel according\nto Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he\nwas an apostate from the law. As to the prophetical writings, they\nendeavour to expound them in a somewhat singular manner. They practice\ncircumcision, persevere in the observance of those customs which are\nenjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in their style of life that\nthey even adore Jerusalem as if it were the House of God.\" (H\u0153r. iii.\n1.) Iren\u00e6us says also that their opinions were similar to those of\nCerinthus, who held that Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary, and that\nat his baptism the Holy Spirit came to him.\n\nThese are the main peculiarities of the Ebionites, and they seem on the\nsurface to show that if Christ was an Essene, and James was an Essene,\nand their Church after 150 years were still orthodox Essenes, the\n\"heresy\" should be sought elsewhere. But at present we will consider\nthe Gospel according to the Apostles.\n\nEpiphanius writes thus:--\n\n\"And they have the Gospel according to Matthew very full in Hebrew. For\nassuredly this is still kept amongst them as it was at outset written\nin Hebrew letters. But I do not know whether at the same time they have\ntaken away the genealogies from Abraham to Christ.\" (H\u0153r. xxix. 9.)\n\nThis lets in a flood of light. The main \"heresy\" of the Gospel\naccording to the Hebrews is that it contains no genealogies. But the\nsame must be said of Mark and John. And there is a version of Luke that\nwas used by the Marcionites that was also without the genealogies. And\ncritics affect to show that our Luke was plainly once without them\nalso:--\n\n\"And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, like a dove, upon him;\nand a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son;\nin thee I am well pleased. And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost,\nreturned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.\"\n\nThis is a consecutive sentence, and yet the genealogies have been\nclumsily pitchforked into the middle of it. (Luke iii. 23.)\n\nAnd with regard to Matthew, it can, at least, be proved that Justin\nMartyr knew nothing of his genealogies.\n\n\"He was the Son of Man, either because of his birth by the Virgin,\nwho was, as I said, of the family of David, and Jacob, and Isaac, and\nAbraham.\" Plainly Justin thought that it was the Virgin and not Joseph\nthat had descended from Abraham.\n\nBut the suppressing of genealogies that were not invented until one\nhundred years after the Apostles were slumbering in forgotten tombs,\nwas only a detail of their \"heresy.\" Their gospel makes out Christ to\nbe not the Logos masquerading in a human form, but a man and a prophet.\n\"A prophet will the Lord our God raise up unto you from your brethren,\"\nhe says. And prophets can sin, and he can sin, for he was plainly\nwithout the Holy Ghost until his baptism. It comes down, in the Hebrew\ngospel, not _upon_, but _into_ him. And he is the Son of God from that\nmoment, not before.\n\n\"Call me not good, for he that is good is one the Father in the\nheavens!\" Pseudo-Matthew weakens this considerably, \"There is none good\nbut one, that is God.\"\n\n\"He that is good is one.\" That was the motto of the Essenes of\nJerusalem. Tertullian tells us that certain \"unlearned\" Christians in\nhis day protested against the Trinity. \"They declare that we proclaim\ntwo or three gods, but they, they affirm, worship only one.\" (Adv.\nPrax. c. 3.) The unlearned were the Church of Jerusalem that still\nclung to the text, \"He that is good is One.\"\n\nWe come to other \"heresies.\" The early gospel knew nothing of Matthew's\ninterpolation about John the Baptist eating locusts, because John the\nBaptist, as an Essene, could do nothing of the sort. And Jerome tells\nus that the wicked Ebionites garbled the passage, Luke xxii. 15, to\nmake it appear that Jesus actually refused to eat flesh at the Passover\nsupper.\n\nThis is all that can be restored of this in the Ebionite gospel:--\n\n\"... Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover?\"\n\nTo this, Jesus answers:--\n\n\"Have I desired with desire to eat this flesh, the Passover, with you?\"\n\nIt is very plain here that Luke is the garbler.\n\nStill more instructive is the question of wine at the Lord's Supper.\nOf course, the genuine gospel being written by water drinkers, had no\npassage about the \"fruit of the vine.\" But Luke, fortunately, has two\naccounts of the celebration in chap. xxii.\n\n\"And he took the cup and gave thanks, and said, Take this and divide it\namongst yourselves.\n\n\"For I say unto you I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the\nkingdom of God has come.\n\n\"And he took bread and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave it to them,\nsaying, This is my body which is given for you. This do in remembrance\nof me.\n\n\"Likewise the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament\nin my blood, which is shed for you.\"\n\nNow it is perfectly plain that verses 17 and 18 have been clumsily\nadded. They are not in Marcion's version. Mark and Matthew have been\nmore clever. They have garbled the passage better. Verses 19 and 20\nfairly represent, I think, the real Gospel of the Hebrews. Justin says\nthat in the \"Memoirs of the Apostles,\" were these words:--\n\n\"This do ye in remembrance of me. This is my body!\"\n\nIn the scene of the Lord's Supper, James was apparently the most\nprominent character. His removal from the list of the twelve apostles\nin the canonical gospels is significant.\n\n\"And when the Lord had given his shroud to the servant of the priest,\nhe went to James and appeared to him.\n\n\"For James had sworn that he would not eat bread from the hour wherein\nhe had drunk the cup of the Lord until he saw him rising again from the\ndead.\n\n\"And the Lord said, Bring a table and bread.\n\n\"And he took the bread, and blessed and broke, and afterwards gave it\nto James the Just, and said, My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of\nMan is risen from them that sleep.\"\n\nNow, the suppression of all this in the orthodox gospels is, as Renan\nshows, of immense importance. (\"Les Evangiles,\" ch. vi.)\n\n\"Then was he seen by James,\" says St. Paul (1. Cor. xv. 7), \"then by\nall the Apostles.\"\n\nThis shows that the incident was known to the very earliest Church.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n_The Essene Jesus._\n\n\nWe now come to an important question, Did Christianity emerge from\nEssenism?\n\nHistorical questions are sometimes made more clear by being treated\nbroadly. Let us first deal with this from the impersonal side, leaving\nout altogether the alleged words and deeds of Christ, Paul, etc. Fifty\nyears before Christ's birth there was a sect dwelling in the stony\nwaste where John prepared a people for the Lord. Fifty years after\nChrist's death there was a sect in the same part of Palestine. The sect\nthat existed fifty years before Christ was called Essenes, Therapeuts,\nGnostics, Nazarites. The sect that existed fifty years after Christ's\ndeath was called \"Essenes or Jesseans,\" according to Epiphanius,\nTherapeuts, Gnostics, Nazarites, and not Christians until afterwards.\n\nEach had two prominent rites: baptism and what Tertullian calls the\n\"oblation of bread.\" Each had for officers, deacons, presbyters,\nephemereuts. Each sect had monks, nuns, celibacy, community of goods.\nEach interpreted the Old Testament in a mystical way, so mystical, in\nfact, that it enabled each to discover that the bloody sacrifice of\nMosaism was forbidden, not enjoined. The most minute likenesses have\nbeen pointed out between these two sects by all Catholic writers\nfrom Eusebius and Origen to the poet Racine, who translated Philo's\n\"Contemplative Life\" for the benefit of pious court ladies. Was there\nany connection between these two sects? It is difficult to conceive\nthat there can be two answers to such a question.\n\nAnd if it can be proved, as Bishop Lightfoot affirms, that Christ was\nan anti-Essene, who announced that His mission was to preserve intact\nevery jot and tittle of Mosaism as interpreted by the recognised\ninterpreters, this would simply show that he had nothing to do with the\nmovement to which his name has been given.\n\nThere are two Christs in the gospels. Let us consider the Essene Christ\nfirst.\n\nThe first prominent fact of His life is His baptism by John. If John\nwas an Essene, the full meaning of this may be learnt from Josephus:--\n\n\"To one that aims at entering their sect, admission is not immediate;\nbut he remains a whole year outside it, and is subjected to their rule\nof life, being invested with an axe, the girdle aforesaid, and a white\ngarment. Provided that over this space of time he has given proof of\nhis perseverance, he approaches nearer to this course of life, and\npartakes of the holier waters of cleansing; but he is not admitted\nto their community of life. Following the proof of his strength of\ncontrol, his moral conduct is tested for two years more; and when he\nhas made clear his worthiness, he is then adjudged to be of their\nnumber. But before he touches the common meal, he pledges to them in\noaths to make one shudder, first that he will reverence the Divine\nBeing, and, secondly, that he will abide injustice unto men, and will\ninjure no one, either of his own accord or by command, but will always\ndetest the iniquitous, and strive on the side of the righteous; that\nhe will ever show fidelity to all, and most of all to those who are in\npower, for to no one comes rule without God; and that, if he become a\nruler himself, he will never carry insolence into his authority, or\noutshine those placed under him by dress or any superior adornment;\nthat he will always love truth, and press forward to convict those that\ntell lies; that he will keep his hands from peculation, and his soul\npure from unholy gain; that he will neither conceal anything from the\nbrethren of his order, nor babble to others any of their secrets, even\nthough in the presence of force, and at the hazard of his life. In\naddition to all this, they take oath not to communicate the doctrines\nto any one in any other way than as imparted to themselves; to abstain\nfrom robbery, and to keep close, with equal care, the books of their\nsect and the names of the angels. Such are the oaths by which they\nreceive those that join them.\" (Josephus, De B. J., ii. 8, 2, 13.)\n\nAs a pendant to this, I will give the early Christian initiation from\nthe Clementine \"Homilies.\"\n\n\"If any one having been tested is found worthy, then they hand over to\nhim according to the initiation of Moses, by which he delivered his\nbooks to the Seventy who succeeded to his chair.\"\n\nThese books are only to be delivered to \"one who is good and religious,\nand who wishes to teach, and who is circumcised and faithful.\"\n\n\"Wherefore let him be proved not less than six years, and then,\naccording to the initiation of Moses, he (the initiator) should\nbring him to a river or fountain, which is living water, where the\nregeneration of the righteous takes place.\" The novice then calls to\nwitness heaven, earth, water, and air, that he will keep secret the\nteachings of these holy books, and guard them from falling into profane\nhands, under the penalty of becoming \"accursed, living and dying, and\nbeing punished with everlasting punishment.\"\n\n\"After this let him partake of bread and salt with him who commits them\nto him.\"\n\nNow if, as is believed by Dr. Lightfoot, the chief object of Christ's\nmission was to establish for ever the Mosaism of the bloody altar, and\ncombat the main teaching of the \u1f00\u03c3\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2, or mystic, which \"postulates\nthe false principle of the malignity of matter,\" why did He go to an\n\u1f00\u03c3\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 to be baptised? Whether or not Christ belonged to mystical\nIsrael, there can be no discussion about the Baptist. He was a Nazarite\n\"separated from his mother's womb,\" who had induced a whole \"people\"\nto come out to the desert and adopt the Essene rites and their\ncommunity of goods. And we see, from a comparison of the Essene and\nearly Christian initiations, what such baptism carried with it. It\nimplied preliminary instruction and vows of implicit obedience to the\ninstructor.\n\nIt is plain too that the Essene Christ knows at first nothing of any\nantagonism to his teacher.\n\n\"The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom\nof God is preached, and every man presseth into it.\" (Luke xvi, 16.)\n\nThis shows that far from believing that he had come to preserve the\nMosaism of the bloody altar, he considered that John and the Essenes\nhad power to abrogate it.\n\nListen, too, to the Essene Christ's instructions to his twelve\ndisciples:--\n\n\"As ye go, preach, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.\"\n\nThis is the simple Gospel of John:--\n\n\"Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor scrip\nfor your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes.\"\n\nHere again we have the barefooted Essenes without silver or gold. \"He\nthat hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none,\" said the\nBaptist. \"And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire\nwho in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye\ncome into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your\npeace come upon it; but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to\nyou. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when\nye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.\nVerily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom\nand Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. Behold, I\nsend you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise\nas serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men; for they will\ndeliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their\nsynagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my\nsake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they\ndeliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it\nshall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not\nye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And\nthe brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the\nchild: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause\nthem to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's\nsake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.\"\n\nThis passage is remarkable. No Christian disciple had yet begun to\npreach, and yet what do we find? A vast secret organisation in every\ncity. It is composed of those who are \"worthy\" (the word used by\nJosephus for Essene initiates); and they are plainly bound to succour\nthe brethren at the risk of their lives. This shows that Christ's\nmovement was affiliated with an earlier propagandism.\n\nThere is another question. On the hypothesis that Christ was an\northodox Jew, why should he, plainly knowing beforehand what mistakes\nand bloodshed it would cause, make his disciples mimic the Essenes in\nexternals? The Essenes had two main rites, baptism and the bloodless\noblation. Christ adopted them. The Essenes had a new name or conversion.\n\n\"Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, a stone.\"\n(John i. 42.)\n\nThe Essenes had community of goods:--\n\n\"And all that believed were together, and had all things common.\" (Acts\nii. 44.)\n\n\"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the\npoor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.\"\n(Matt. xix. 21.)\n\nA rigid continence was exacted:--\n\n\"All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given....\nThere be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom\nof heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.\"\n(Matt. xix. 11, 12.)\n\n\"And I looked, and, lo! a Lamb stood on Mount Zion, and with him an\nhundred and forty-four thousand, having his Father's name written on\ntheir foreheads.... These are they which were not defiled with women,\nfor they are virgins.\" (Rev. xiv. 1, 4.)\n\nDivines tell us that this first passage is to have only a \"spiritual\"\ninterpretation. It forbids not marriage but excess. We might listen to\nthis if we had not historical cognizance of a sect in Palestine at this\ndate which enforced celibacy in its monasteries. The second passage\nshows that the disciples understood him literally.\n\nThe bloody sacrifice forbidden:--\n\n\"I will have mercy and not sacrifice.\" (Matt. ix. 13.)\n\n\"Unless ye cease from sacrificing, the wrath shall not cease from you.\"\n(Cited from Gospel of the Hebrews by Epiphanius, H\u00e6r. xxx. 16.)\n\nBishop Lightfoot, as I have mentioned, considers that Jesus was an\northodox Jew, whose mission was to perpetuate every jot and tittle of\nMosaism; and that \"emancipation\" from the \"swathing-bands\" of the law\ncame from the Apostles. (Com. on Galatians, pp. 286, 287.) It might\nbe thought that this was a quaint undertaking for the Maker of the\nmillion million starry systems to come to this insignificant planet in\nbodily form to \"perpetuate\" institutions that Titus in thirty years\nwas to end for ever; even if we could forget that human sacrifices,\nconcubinage, polygamy, slavery, and border raids were amongst these\ninstitutions. But if this Christ is the historical Christ, it appears\nto me that we must eliminate the Christ of the gospels almost entirely.\nFor capital offences against the Mosaic law, the recognised authorities\nthree times sought the life of Jesus, twice after formal condemnation\nby the Sanhedrim. These offences were Sabbath-breaking, witchcraft, and\nspeaking against Mosaic institutions. According to the Synoptics, he\nnever went to Jerusalem during his ministry until just the end of it;\nalthough the three visits for the yearly festivals were rigidly exacted.\n\nIn my \"Buddhism in Christendom\" I give reasons for supposing that the\n\"multitudes\" whose sudden appearance in stony wastes have bewildered\ncritics, were in reality the gatherings for the Therapeut festivals\ndescribed by Philo.\n\nBishop Lightfoot makes much of the fact that John's gospel makes Christ\ngo up once for the feast of tabernacles. But did he go as an orthodox\nworshipper, to present his offerings for the bloody sacrifice? On the\ncontrary, on this very occasion he was accused of Sabbath-breaking and\ndemoniac possession; and the rulers of the people sent officers to\narrest him.\n\nLeaving Mr. Gladstone and Professor Huxley to discuss whether Christ's\nacts in the temple among the money changers were illegal, I must point\nout that His dispersing the sellers of doves goes quite against the\ntheory that He desired to perpetuate Mosaic institutions, for the sale\nof these doves was a necessity for the temple sacrifices.\n\nMuch has been made in modern pulpits of a vague word, \"fulfilling.\"\nChrist, it is said, did not overthrow the old law, he \"fulfilled\" it.\nThis is nonsense.\n\nMosaism was an \"eternal covenant.\" It was a \"perpetual statute,\"\nofferings of the \"food of the Deity\" on the altar of burnt sacrifice.\nIt was concubinage, slavery, polygamy, the _lex talionis_ made eternal\ninstitutions. To say that a teacher who preaches forgiveness in place\nof revenge, continence for concubinage, slaving for, instead of\nslaving others, immortality of the soul for the religion of to-day, is\n\"fulfilling\" merely an abuse of words.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n_The Anti-Essene Jesus._\n\n\nI have said that in the New Testament there is an Essene and an\nanti-Essene Christ. Both are most conspicuous in the Gospel of St.\nLuke. Catholic and Protestant disputants are aware of this.\n\nUntil the days of Ferdinand Christian Baur, St. Luke had an immaculate\nreputation. He was believed to be the companion of St. Paul on his\nvoyages. He was believed to have written the third gospel almost as\nearly as the date of Paul's imprisonment. He was the reputed author of\nthe Acts of the Apostles.\n\n\"Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.\" (Col. iv. 14.)\n\nIn the Second Epistle to Timothy, and in the Epistle to Philemon, he is\nalso mentioned.\n\nBut now all is changed.\n\nIn the first place, two out of the three epistles that name him are\npronounced to be forgeries by all competent critics; and very few hold\neven the Epistle to the Colossians to be by the pen of St. Paul. Then\nit is pointed out that there is no mention of St. Luke's gospel or of\nthe Acts of the Apostles until the date of Iren\u00e6us (A.D. 180.)\n\nLet us give the opening verses of the gospel as amended by that eminent\nGreek scholar, Dr. Giles:--\n\n\"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narrative\nof those things which have been brought to fulfilment in us, even as\nthey which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the\nword have handed down to us, it hath seemed good to me also, following\nall accurately from the beginning, to write unto thee, in order, most\nexcellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those\nthings wherein thou hast been instructed.\"\n\nNow, here it is plain, as Dr. Giles remarks, that the author \"does\nnot profess to have been an original writer, or to have had perfect\nunderstanding of all things from the very first,\" which is the\nerroneous rendering of our authorised version, but that he follows the\naccounts of others, who \"were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.\"\n(Giles, \"Apostolical Records,\" p. 34.)\n\nNext comes the pertinent question, Who was the \"most excellent\nTheophilus?\" The word used is _Kratistos_, \"which is thought by Gibbon\nto designate a man holding a civil or official dignity. If this be so,\nwe might find it difficult to suppose that such a title would have been\ngiven to a Christian, even if there were any one of exalted station,\nwithin a few years after the first promulgation of Christianity.\"\n(\"Apostolical Records,\" p. 13.)\n\nBut at Antioch, about the year 171, there was a Theophilus, the\nsixth bishop. He might have been called Kratistos without anything\ninappropriate. He was a convert late in life, which may explain the\npassage about \"those things in which thou has been instructed.\"\nEusebius tells us that this Theophilus wrote a treatise against\nMarcion. But in the view of modern critics, the forged epistles of Paul\nto Timothy were also levelled against Marcion.\n\nThis has its significance. For the followers of Marcion have always\nmaintained that Luke's gospel is Marcion's gospel enlarged and\nfalsified. One of these, Megethius, declared it was full of errors and\ncontradictions. This controversy has been revived in modern times.\n\nBut before we deal with this important gospel, we must say a word about\nwhat the Germans call Luke's \"tendency,\"--his scheme of colour, to use\nan artistic expression.\n\nBaur, comparing the Acts with other scriptures, was struck with the\nmany discrepancies and absolute false statements that it contained.\nHe perceived also that these false statements were not accidental\nbut systematic. Soon their motive dawned upon him. It was plain that\nthis \"Luke,\" writing long after the animosities of Paul against the\nhistorical Apostles had ceased, desired to tone down and conceal these\nanimosities. Hence the book of the Acts of the Apostles could not be\nthe work of a contemporary. And a strong motive for this has been\nsuggested by erudite Germans.\n\nThe early enemy of Christianity was the Jew. The Roman official at\nfirst treated the animosities of the dominant party as part of the\nincomprehensible Jewish superstition, and sided, when practicable,\nwith the weaker section. But when Christianity began to gain ground,\nthe Roman began to examine it more closely, and soon found much to\ncondemn. For the Essenes proclaimed that the State gods of the Romans\nwere wicked demons. The Essenes forbade the use of wine and flesh meat,\nimportant elements in the ceremonial of the Roman religion. The Essenes\nforbade slavery. The Essenes forbade marriage, replacing it, according\nto rumour, with lewd rites in their secret orgies. Soon violent\npersecutions arose.\n\nNow it has been suggested by the Germans that at the date of Kratistos,\nthe school of Antioch sought to conciliate the Roman authority by\nshowing that Christianity was a harmless form of Judaism, equally\nentitled to State toleration.\n\nThis \"tendency\" of \"Luke\" must be borne in mind. It is very plain in\nthe earlier chapters of the Acts. The gospels announce that at Christ's\ndeath consternation and cowardice were amongst his followers. The\n\"lambs\" had fled in all directions from the \"wolves.\" St. Paul also\nspeaks of the fierce persecutions that followed the event,--Stephen\nstoned, and the \"havoc\" and the \"slaughter.\" And yet in the opening\nchapters of the Acts we find the \"wolves\" more gentle than the \"lambs.\"\nThey are \"pricked in their heart.\" They at once allow Peter to proclaim\nin the temple, and also before the Sanhedrim, that there is no\nsalvation in any name other than that of the malefactor they have just\nexecuted (by inference not even in Yahve); and that all who will not\nhear this malefactor shall be destroyed. And the Sanhedrim, in solemn\nconclave, let him go, \"finding nothing how they might punish him.\"\n(Acts iv. 21.) And Gamaliel, a solemn doctor, advises his colleagues\nto let the hated \"lambs\" alone, \"lest haply they be found to fight\nagainst God.\" Had a \"wolf\" talked like that, his brother \"wolves\" would\nhave made short work of him.\n\nThe \"tendency\" here is very plain. \"Luke\" wants it to be understood\nthat from the first the chief doctors saw no harm in Christianity,\nand allowed it to be preached in the temple. I shall not waste time\nover the controversy, whether \"Luke\" is an enlargement of Marcion's\nor some other shorter gospel. As we know that the earliest and only\nauthentic gospel came from the Essene Ebionites, it is plain that all\nanti-Essenism is an accretion.\n\nWe now come to the opening chapters of Luke's gospel. Let us see if it\nis possible at this distance of time to trace how they were built up.\n\nIn the Jerusalem Talmud, and also in the Babylonish, is a somewhat\nfanciful account of the slaughter of a priest named Zacharias. who was\nkilled in the court of the priests, _near the altar_. A great miracle\nnow occurred: his blood began to bubble, that it might cause fury to\ncome up to take vengeance! Soon Nebuzaradan (this fixes the date of\nthe story to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar) arrived at the temple. He\nasked the meaning of the bubbling. He was told that the blood was the\nblood of calves, and rams, and lambs. He caused some calves, and rams,\nand lambs to be slaughtered; still the blood bubbled. He slaughtered\na number of rabbins; still the blood bubbled. Ninety-four thousand\npriests were slaughtered before the blood of the dead Zacharias was\nappeased. (Talmud Hierosol. in Taannith, fol. 69, Lightfoot the\nHebraist.)\n\nWe now come to the Protevangelion, a fanciful gospel attributed to\nJames, the \"Bishop of Bishops,\" as he is called on the title page. It\nhas incorporated this story of Zacharias and his avenging blood; and\ntacked on to it an account of the birth of the Virgin Mary. One Joachim\nwas much afflicted because Anna his wife had no issue. He \"called to\nmind the patriarch Abraham, how that God in the end of his life had\ngiven him his son Isaac,\" and he went into the wilderness and fasted\nforty days. An angel appeared to Anna and promised offspring. Mary\nthe child was born, and dedicated to God. Zacharias, the high priest,\nreceived her in the temple. When she was twelve years old a veil was\nwanted, and the high priest cast lots to find out what maiden should\nspin it. The lot fell on Mary, and from this moment Zacharias was dumb.\n\nMeantime, Mary was espoused to Joseph, who, shortly afterwards finding\nhis betrothed with child, was sorrowful. Both were summoned before\nthe deputy of Zacharias, who caused them to go through the prescribed\nordeal of drinking \"the water of the Lord.\" Christ was born. The wise\nmen came. Herod slew the infants, and murdered Zacharias in the temple.\nThen a mighty miracle occurred. The roofs of the temple howled, and\nwere rent from the top to the bottom. And a voice from heaven said,\n\"Zacharias is murdered, and his blood shall not be wiped away until the\nrevenger of his blood shall come.\"\n\nLet us now suppose that Luke comes across this story, the \"Luke\" of the\nepoch of the most excellent Theophilus, the Luke with the \"tendency\"\nto soften subversive Essenism. How would he proceed? He might argue\nthat John the Baptist would make a more suitable hero. He could be born\nof old parents like Mary. And the story would certainly gain in unity\nand dramatic vigour, if Zacharias the priest was made the old father.\n\nThat one author has copied from the other there can be no doubt.\n\n Hail, thou art full of grace, thou art blessed amongst women. (Prot.\n ix. 7.)\n\n Mary, the Lord God hath magnified thy name to all generations. (Prot.\n vii. 4.)\n\n Mary, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most\n High overshadow thee.\n\n Wherefore, that which shall be born of thee shall be holy, and shall\n be called the Son of the Living God.\n\n And thou shalt call his name Jesus. (Prot. ix. 13.)\n\n For lo, as the voice of thy salutation reached my ears, that which is\n in me leaped and blessed me. (Prot. ix. 21.)\n\n Hail, thou art highly favoured. Blessed art thou among women. (Luke i.\n 28).\n\n My soul doth magnify the Lord. Henceforth all generations will call me\n blessed. (Luke i. 46, 48).\n\n The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest\n overshadow thee.\n\n Therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born, shall be called\n the Son of God. (Luke i. 35.)\n\n And shalt call his name Jesus. (Luke i. 31.)\n\n And it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the\n babe leaped in her womb. (Luke ii. 41.)\n\nThe question now arises, Which author has copied from the other? Three\ntheories are possible.\n\n1. \"James\" copied the story from Luke, the companion of Paul.\n\n2. James copied the story from \"Luke,\" of a later date.\n\n3. Luke copied from James.\n\n1. Bishop Lightfoot is angry that an \"evangelist\" should be accused of\ncopying from an \"apocryphal gospel.\" But there is the difficulty here,\nthat the Zacharias of both stories is plainly the Zacharias of the\nTalmudic narrative. So that, if the bishop could prove that \"James\" had\nstolen from Luke, there would still be an \"apocryphal\" document behind\nboth. And if \"Luke\" was the first to use the Talmudic story, how is it\nthat he misses the point of that story, and James copying him, hits it?\nThat point is the avenging blood.\n\n2. The details of the picture and the whole local colour point plainly\nto an age when past events have so faded away from the memory of living\npeople that a writer can afford to play tricks with them. The huge\nanimosity with which dominant Israel viewed spiritual Israel would have\nmade even Torquemada feel lukewarm. Christ called the two the \"wolves\"\nand the \"lambs.\" And yet a chief \"wolf,\" on being informed that his\nson is to be a water-drinking Nazarite, a leader of the abominable\nschismatics who prated about the \"power of Elias,\" and called\nthemselves a \"people prepared for the Lord,\" feels ecstasy rather than\nwrath. Imagine Philip of Spain learning that a son of his had helped to\nsteer the English fire-ships at the great battle of Gravelines. Imagine\nLegree composing an original song of triumph on learning that Uncle\nTom was a free citizen. If there was a historical Luke, and he was the\ngenuine companion of Paul, he of all men would know of the \"haling\nmen and women and committing them to prison,\" of the \"havoc and the\nslaughter.\" He would have known how the priestly party in Jerusalem\nwould view a proposal to annul the eternal covenant of Yahve with a\nbetter, a more \"holy covenant,\" and substitute remission of sins by\npenitence for remission of sins by the bloody sacrifice.\n\n3. If the opening chapters of Luke are historical, many events in his\nown and the other gospels are plainly unhistorical. If John the Baptist\nwas the cousin of Christ, brought up with him from childhood, how is\nit that he failed to recognise him on the Jordan (John i. 33) until\nthe First Person of the Trinity intervened, and performed the miracle\nof sending down a dove to indicate him? Why, too, should he have sent,\nas Luke himself announces (vii. 19), messengers to his cousin to ask\nif he was the coming Messiah, when he must have known from his mother\nthe announcement of the angels that his cousin was the \"Son of the\nHighest,\" destined to \"reign over Jacob for ever\"? Why, too, did Mary,\nknowing all this, forget it when the boy-Christ disputed in the temple?\nand why did Luke forget it too? (Luke ii. 48.)\n\n4. If John the Baptist was really the son of a chief priest, the\nsilence of the other gospels is unaccountable. Certainly if Justin\nMartyr had had the opening chapters of Luke before him, he would have\nused them against Trypho.\n\n5. When I first read Luke critically, I asked myself, Why has he\nomitted the death of Zacharias, as he has dragged him in? Then I was\nstruck with the words that he has put into the mouth of Christ:--\n\n\"From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias which _perished\nbetween the altar and the temple_.\" (Ch. xi. 51.)\n\nThis passage convinced me that he had the Protevangelion before him. It\nis to be remarked that this verse does not appear in Marcion's version.\n\nThen I came across a whimsical passage in Bishop Lightfoot. He shows\nthat an \"early tradition identified the Zacharias who is mentioned\nin the gospels as having been slain between the temple and the altar\n(Matt. xxiii. 35) with this Zacharias, the father of the Baptist.\"\n(\"Supernatural Religion,\" p. 256.) The bishop then triumphs over the\nauthor of \"Supernatural Religion,\" who had declared that Luke makes no\nannouncement of Zacharias's death. \"He appears,\" says Bishop Lightfoot,\n\"to have forgotten Luke xi. 51.\" (Op. cit. p. 257.)\n\nBut surely the bishop has overlooked one whimsical objection to\naccepting this story as historical. If the John the Baptist was the son\nof Zacharias, the son of Barachias, he must have been 531 years old\nwhen he baptised Christ.\n\nBishop Lightfoot makes much of these opening chapters, because they\nshow that the parents of Jesus were orthodox Jews, who went up every\nyear to the feast of the Passover, and offered doves at the prescribed\ntimes. But what about Herod and the flight into Egypt? If the first\nfour chapters which \"Luke\" is accused of adding to Marcion's gospel be\nhistorical, the flight into Egypt is a fiction.\n\nThe Buddhist story about Simeon, and the Buddhist disputation with the\ndoctors, are borrowed from the First Gospel of the Infancy. They are\nnot in any other canonical gospel, and the First Gospel of the Infancy\nis the great armoury of Buddhist legends.\n\nIt is to be remarked that a young Buddhist, that he may acquire\nreadiness in controversy, is pestered with questions by doctors and\ntheologians. But the rabbis at Jerusalem would scarcely have allowed a\nlittle boy to talk to them about the Messiah. (First Infancy, xxi. 3.)\n\nWe now come to the two passages most relied on by those who desire to\nshow that Jesus condemned the asceticism of John. Let us read each with\nits context.\n\n \"And when the messengers of John were departed, he began to speak\n unto the people concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness\n for to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to\n see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they which are gorgeously\n apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings' courts. But what went\n ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more\n than a prophet. This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my\n messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.\n For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a\n greater prophet than John the Baptist, _but he that is least in the\n kingdom of God is greater than he_. And all the people that heard him,\n and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism\n of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God\n against themselves, being not baptized of him.\n\n \"_And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this\n generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children\n sitting in the market-place, and calling one to another, and saying,\n We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to\n you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating\n bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man\n is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man,\n and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!_ But wisdom is\n justified of all her children.\" (Luke vii. 24-35.)\n\nIt is a singular fact that this short passage has been made the\nchief armoury of the disciples of gastronomic, and also of interior\nChristianity. Thus Migne's \"Dictionnaire des Asc\u00e9tes\" cites it to show\nthat Christ approved of the asceticism of the Baptist. Does not this at\nstarting seem to argue two teachings, and, as a corollary, two distinct\nteachers? If we omit the passages that I have marked in italics it is\ndifficult to find a more eloquent eulogy of ascetic mysticism. The\nBuddhist mystics are called the Sons of Wisdom (Dharma or Praj\u00f1\u00e2), and\nChrist adopts the same terminology. Plainly the gist of the passage is\nthat the children of the mystic Sophia have no rivalry and no separate\nbaptism. The lower life of soft raiment and palaces is contrasted\nwith John's ascetic life amongst the \"reeds\" that still conspicuously\nfringe the rushing Jordan. John is pronounced the greatest of prophets,\nand his teaching the \"counsel of God.\" Then comes my first passage\nin italics, the statement that the most raw catechumen of Christ's\ninstruction is superior to this the greatest of God's prophets. It\ncompletely disconnects what follows from what precedes, and involves\nthe silliest inconsequence, as shown by the action of Christ's hearers.\nIt is said that they crowded to the \"baptism of John.\" Had that speech\nbeen uttered, of course they would have stayed away from it.\n\nThe subsequent insertion of the gospel of eating and drinking,\nand piping and dancing, involves a greater folly. It betrays a\nwriter completely ignorant of Jewish customs. The fierce enmity of\nanti-mystical Israel to the Nazarites pivoted on the very fact that\nthe latter were pledged for life to drink neither wine nor strong\ndrink. This was the Nazarite's banner with victory already written\nupon it. Hence the fierce hatred of the Jewish priesthood. If Christ\nin their presence had drunk one cup of wine, there would have been no\ncrucifixion, and certainly no upbraiding.\n\nThis is the second passage that anti-mystical Christianity builds\nupon:--\n\n\"_And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and\nmake prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine\neat and drink? And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the\nbridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will\ncome, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall\nthey fast in those days._\n\n\"And he spake also a parable unto them: No man putteth a piece of a new\ngarment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and\nthe piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And\nno man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst\nthe bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine\nmust be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. _No man also\nhaving drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old\nis better._\" (Luke v. 33-39.)\n\nI have again resorted to italics. I think we have here a genuine speech\nof Christ, and a very important one. His doctrine was \"new wine,\" and\nit was quite unfit for the \"old bottles\" of Mosaism. The gravity of\nthis speech was felt by the Roman monks who were trying to force the\nnew wine into the old bottles (with much prejudice to the wine), so\nthey tried to nullify it with flat contradiction let in both above and\nbelow.\n\n\"For the old is better.\"\n\nThis completely contradicts Christ's eulogy of the Christian's \"new\nwine.\" Moreover, the words are not found in Matthew's version, which\nmakes the cheat more palpable. There, too, we have the gospel of eating\nand drinking, a gospel that did not require an avat\u00e2ra of the Maker of\nthe Heavens for its promulgation.\n\nBut supposing that we concede the two passages to be genuine, I do not\nsee that the priests of materialism will gain very much.\n\nThese texts are internecine, involving contradictions due either to\nmore than one author, or to an interpolator singularly deficient in\nlogical consistency and common sense. The statement, as far as it is\nintelligible, is that Christ, having determined to forsake mystical for\nanti-mystical Israel, made the following enactments:--\n\n1. That the ascetic practices that He had taken over from John the\nBaptist and the Nazarenes, and which in other gospels He enjoins under\nthe phrase of \"prayer and fasting\" as the machinery for developing\nmiraculous gifts, interior vision, etc., shall be discontinued by His\ndisciples during His lifetime and then again renewed.\n\n2. That feastings and the use of wine, which as Nazarites He and\nHis disciples had specially forsworn, should be again resumed, with\nno restrictions in this case in the matter of His death. So that by\none enactment His disciples after His death were to remain jovial\n\"wine-bibbers\" by the other fasting ascetics. It is scarcely necessary\nto bring forward the true Luke to confute the pseudo Luke.\n\nA valuable historical transaction is recorded by the real Luke which\nthrows a strong light on the relations between Christ and John the\nBaptist. Towards the close of the Saviour's career, at Jerusalem\nitself, the chief priests accosted Him and asked Him by what authority\nHe did what He did. Now if the relations between Christ and John the\nBaptist had been what the pseudo Luke would have us believe, Christ\nhad only to state all this and He might have saved many valuable\nlives. He had only to plainly announce that His movement was not from\nanti-mystical to mystical Israel, but from mystical to anti-mystical\nIsrael; that he had introduced wine and oil as a protest against\nEssenism; that He had forbidden its ascetic fastings, and brought\nmany disciples back from \"the baptism of John\" to the orthodox fold.\nIf He had stated all this clearly, the high priest and elders would\nhave hailed Him as a friend instead of slaying Him as a foe. But the\nSaviour, evidently quite unaware that He had led a great movement\nagainst the Baptist, takes refuge behind John instead of condemning\nhim. He asks the pregnant question, Was he a prophet of God, or was he\nnot? inferring, of course, that he was, and that the prophetic gift\nwas \"authority\" enough. (Luke xx. 1, _et seq._) \"For I say unto you,\nAmong those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than\nJohn the Baptist.\" (Luke vii. 28.) Here again we have the real Luke\nconfronting his unskilful interpolator.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n_The Church of Jerusalem._\n\n\nCompetent critics hold that Luke has based the Acts on earlier records.\nCertainly the picture of the early Church at Jerusalem is very Essenic.\nThe disciples had all things in common. They lived in groups of houses,\nwith a central house of assembly, like the Therapeuts. They had two\nmain rites, baptism and the breaking of bread. They had for officers,\ndeacons, presbyters, ephemereuts. Wine and flesh meat were forbidden,\nif we may judge the parent from the daughter. For the Roman Christians\nbefore the advent of St. Paul forbade wine and flesh meat, and the\nRoman Church was the eldest daughter of the Church at Jerusalem. Also\nwe see from the Apocalypse that the saints of the New Jerusalem were\n\"virgins.\"\n\nThus history flashes a light, transient but vivid, on the rising\nreligion at three distinct periods.\n\n1. When Christ by the Sea of Tiberias preached the memorable \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1,\nand said, \"Be eunuchs, sell all worldly goods. Blessed are the poor!\"\n\n2. When James started the vegetarian water-drinking celibates of the\nChurch of Jerusalem.\n\n3. When Iren\u00e6us attacked the vegetarian water-drinking celibates of the\nChurch of Jerusalem which had migrated to Pella (A.D. 180).\n\nNow, these three flashes of light seem to me to dispel much, notably\nall disquisitions which seek to combine the Essene Christ and the\nanti-Essene Christ. Renan holds that the Church of Jerusalem were\nPharisees. If so, why had they Essene rites, A.D. 34 and A.D. 181? He\nadmits that these rites were borrowed from the Mendaites, or Disciples\nof John, and that there is the closest analogy between the rise of\nChristianity and the rise of \"other ascetic religions, Buddhism for\nexample.\" (\"Les Ap\u00f4tres,\" pp. 78-90.) He admits that the accounts\nin the Acts of Peter's bold preachings in the temple, are not to be\nreconciled with passages about \"closed doors for few of the Jews.\" What\nhas chiefly led to misapprehensions is not so much the dishonesty of\nwriters like \"Luke,\" as the fiction of the Essenes themselves that they\nwere orthodox Jews. They were most particular about circumcision. They\nhad a Sanhedrim of Justice, and so had the early Christians. The Church\nof Jerusalem had its \"chief priest,\" as we see from the First Epistle\nof Clement to the Corinthians. \"The daily sacrifices are not offered\neverywhere, nor the peace-offerings, nor the sacrifices appointed for\nsins and transgressions, but only at Jerusalem, nor in any place there,\nbut only at the altar before the temple.\" (Ch. xviii.)\n\nThis chief priest must not be confused with the Jewish one. He has\nbeen established by God through Christ. (Ch. xix. 7.) It is also\nstated that Christ has laid down what \"offerings and service\" must be\nperformed. (Ch. xviii. 14.) This gives a significance to the passages\nin Revelations describing the temple of the mystic Jerusalem, which\nwould of course be modelled on the \"temple\" familiar to the white-robed\nvirgin saints of the material New Jerusalem, the \"angel\" taking the\n\"golden censer\" and filling it with the fire of the altar, the \"lamps,\"\nthe \"candlesticks,\" the \"golden altar,\" the \"incense.\" The ground near\nJerusalem is perforated with caverns. This temple, probably, was some\nsecret crypt like a chapel in the catacombs. Keim points out that the\ncommand given in chap. xi. verse 2 of the Revelations to leave out\nthe court of the bloody sacrifices in the ideal temple of the New\nJerusalem, is an additional piece of evidence in favour of the Essenism\nof the early Church.\n\nThis is what Hegesippus, the earliest Christian historian, says about\nJames, described in the Protevangelion as the \"chief apostle and first\nChristian bishop.\"\n\n\"He was consecrated from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor\nstrong drink, neither ate he any living thing. A razor never went upon\nhis head. He anointed not himself with oil, nor did he use a bath. He\nalone was allowed to enter into the holies. For he did not wear woollen\ngarments, but linen. And he alone entered the sanctuary and was found\nupon his knees praying for the forgiveness of the people, so that his\nknees became hard like a camel's through his constant bending and\nsupplication before God, and asking for forgiveness for the people.\"\n(Eusebius, \"Hist. Eccl.\" ii. 33.)\n\nThis passage seems to settle the question whether the early Christians\nwere Essenes or Pharisees. Here we have the chief apostle depicted as\nan Essene of Essenes. He rejects wine and flesh meat. And the \"temple\"\nof the Essenes was plainly not the Jewish temple. The temple guards\nwould have made short work of any one rash enough to attempt to enter\nthe Holy of Holies.\n\nEpiphanius adds the two sons of Zebedee to the list of the ascetics,\nand also announces that James, the chief apostle, entered the Holy of\nHolies once a year. He gives another detail, that the Christian bishop\nwore the bactreum or metal plate of the high priest. (Epiph. H\u00e6r.\nlxxviii. 13, 14.)\n\nClement of Alexandria gives a similar account of St. Matthew:--\n\n\"It is far better to be happy than to have a demon dwelling in us. And\nhappiness is found in the practice of virtue. Accordingly, the Apostle\nMatthew partook of seeds, and nuts, and vegetables without flesh.\"\n(P\u00e6dag. ii. 1.)\n\nThe Clementine \"Homilies\" give a far more authentic picture of the\nChurch of Jerusalem than the Acts. In them St. Peter thus describes\nhimself:--\n\n\"The Prophet of the Truth who appeared on earth taught us that the\nMaker and God of all gave two kingdoms to two (beings), good and evil,\ngranting to the evil the sovereignty over the present world.... Those\nmen who choose the present have power to be rich, to revel in luxury,\nto indulge in pleasures, and to do whatever they can; for they will\npossess none of the future goods. But those who have determined to\naccept the blessings of the future reign have no right to regard as\ntheir own the things that are here, since they belong to a foreign\nking, with the exception only of water and bread and those things\nprocured with sweat to maintain life (for it is not lawful to commit\nsuicide); and also only one garment, for they are not permitted to go\nnaked.\" (Clem. Hom. xv. 7.)\n\nA word here about the \"Sepher Toldoth Jeshu,\" a work which orthodoxy as\nusual would modernise overmuch. It is a brief sketch of Christ's life,\nand, at any rate, represents the Jewish tradition of that important\nevent. It announces that the Saviour was hanged on a tree for sorcery.\nAfter that there was a bitter strife between the \"Nazarenes\" and the\n\"Judeans.\" The former, headed by Simeon Ben Kepha, (who, \"according\nto his precept,\" abstained from all food, and only ate \"the bread of\nmisery,\" and drank the \"water of sorrow,\") altered all the dates of the\nJewish festivals to make them fit in with events in Christ's life. This\nseems to make Peter and the \"Nazarenes\" or Nazarites water-drinking\nvegetarian ascetics.\n\nOld Jerusalem, considered as a religious centre, quite eclipsed holy\ncities like Benares or medi\u00e6val Rome, for the chief rites could only\nbe performed there. The Jewish Christians plainly traded with this\nexceptional importance, adding a more powerful claim. For in Israel,\nfor at least a hundred years, there had been a strange prophetic book,\nbelieved, even by the writer of one Christian scripture (Jude), to be\nwritten by the patriarch Enoch. This book was believed to be genuine by\nIren\u00e6us, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian. For a thousand\nyears it was lost to Christendom, and then Bruce brought back three\ncopies from Abyssinia. Archbishop Laurence translated the work in 1821.\n\nThe importance of the Book of Enoch is that it gives quite a new view\nof the mission of the Messiah. From their prophets the Jews expected a\nconqueror who was to come with a \"bow\" and the \"sword of the mighty,\"\nand to \"have dominion from the Jordan to the ends of the earth.\" That\nhe was to be a mere mortal is proved by the fact that, according to\nDaniel, he was by-and-by to be \"cut off.\" (Dan. ix. 26.) But the Son of\nMan of Enoch differed from this:--\n\n\"Before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of heaven\nwere formed, his name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of\nSpirits. A support shall he be for the righteous and the holy to lean\nupon, without falling, and he shall be the light of nations.\n\n\"He shall be the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell\non earth shall fall down and worship before him.\" (Enoch xlviii.)\n\n\"Behold he comes with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment\nupon them and destroy the wicked.\" (Enoch ii.) This is the passage\ncited by Jude.\n\n\"In those days shall the earth deliver up from her womb, and hell\ndeliver up from hers, that which it has received, and destruction shall\nrestore that which it owes. He shall select the righteous and holy from\namong them.\" (Enoch i.)\n\n\"In those days shall the mouth of hell be opened, into which they shall\nbe immerged. Hell shall destroy and swallow up sinners from the face\nof the elect.\" (Enoch liv.)\n\n\"I beheld that valley in which ... arose a strong smell of sulphur....\nThrough that valley rivers of fire were flowing.\" (Enoch lxvi. 5-8.)\n\n\"He shall select the righteous and holy from among them, for the day of\ntheir salvation has approached.\" ... (Enoch l. 2.)\n\n\"I saw the habitations and couches of the saints. Then my eyes beheld\ntheir habitations with the angels and their couches with the holy ones.\nThus shall it be with them for ever and ever.\" (Enoch xxxix. 4.)\n\n\"The former heaven shall depart and pass away, a new heaven shall\nappear.\" (Enoch xcii. 17.)\n\nThese texts show where the Jews got the idea of a Son of Man coming in\nthe clouds of heaven and summoning the dead from their graves for a\ngreat assize. They show where Christianity got its heaven and its hell.\nThe author of the \"Evolution of Christianity\" gives in parallel columns\na number of other passages which seem to have suggested corresponding\npassages in the Christian scriptures. The defenders of conventional\northodoxy urge that these passages and the passages I have quoted\nare post-Christian interpolations. In the way of this theory stands\nthe fact that Enoch describes only one advent, that of a superhuman,\ntriumphant Messiah. He knows nothing of a suffering, crucified mortal.\nThat advent, according to the Jewish ideas of the time, seemed at first\nblush a failure. Surely the first object of an interpolator would have\nbeen to suit his prophecies to the double advent, and make the second\nexplain the failure of the first. It is to be observed, too, that\nEnoch's Son of Man rules in heaven. There is no mention of Jerusalem.\nIt seems very plain that the Apocalypse has attempted to fuse together\nthe Messiah of Enoch and the Messiah of Micah, and the clumsy expedient\nof a thousand years preliminary rule in Jerusalem, entailing, as it\ndoes, two resurrections and two judgment days, is the result.\n\nThe Messiah of Enoch is plainly Craosha of the Persians, who will, one\nday, summon the dead to judgment in their old material bodies, sending\nthe wicked to Douzakh, and the good to Behisht.\n\nLet us see how this affects our present inquiry.\n\nThe Buddhists took over from the Brahmins:--\n\n1. A heaven (Swarga) and a purgatory.\n\n2. Ancestor worship (the S'raddha). The Buddhas of the Past had\nofferings given to them at stated periods at their topes, for which\nthey were expected to perform miracles.\n\nNothing can be more explicit than the statements in the gospels about\nthe fate of the dead. Souls and bodies are to remain in the festering\ngrave until a trumpet shall sound. Then the body as well as the soul\nwill arise for an universal judgment.\n\nBut side by side with this idea soon sprang up a conflicting one, the\n\"Communion of Saints.\"\n\n\"God dwells in the bones of the martyrs,\" said St. Ephrem, \"and by\nhis power and presence miracles are wrought.\" (\"Wiseman's Lectures,\"\nxi. 105.) Soon the Buddhist saint worship and the Buddhist purgatory\nwere taken over by the Church, Alexandrian Buddhism fighting with the\ndualism of Persian Buddhism.\n\nBut if there has been no judgment, how can we tell who is in purgatory,\nand who are the saints? This question seems to have stirred Cardinal\nNewman, and he attempted an answer in his \"Dream of St. Gerontius.\"\nChrist has a \"rehearsal of judgment.\" This is, of course, preposterous.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n_Johannine Buddhism._\n\n\nThe Indians of old observed that one portion of the sky was dark at\nnight and one portion lit with stars. They judged that the dark portion\nwas spirit--primary substance, and that the light portion was the same\nsubstance made tangible to the senses under the form of matter. The\nBuddhists took over these ideas and called the dark portion Nirvritti\nand the light portion Pravritti. In Nirvritti dwelt the formless,\npassionless, inconceivable God--Swayambhu the Self-Existent. Pravritti\ncontained numerous world-systems (Buddha-Kshetras), the Ogdoads of\nthe Gnostics. These christened Nirvritti \"Buthos,\" and Pravritti, the\nluminous worlds, the \"Pleroma.\" In Buddhism, Pravritti was presided\nover by five beings, emanations from Swayambhu. These are announced\nin the Buddhist books to be simply the attributes of Swayambhu\npersonified. They were probably invented to provide the vulgar with\na substitute for the old Brahmin hierarchy. Each has a Sakti (wife,\nfemale energy). I give a list of them with their Saktis, and the divine\nattributes that they personify.\n\n\n      ATTRIBUTES.      |    DHYANI BUDDHAS.     |      SAKTIS.\n                       |                        |\n  Su-vis'uddha Dharma  | Vairochana.            | Vajra Dhateswat\u00ee.\n    Dh\u00e2tu. (Purifying  |   (Sun-born.)          |   (Goddess of\n    eternal law.)      |                        |   eternal elements.)\n                       |                        |\n  Adarsana.            | Akshobhya.             | Lochan\u00e2.\n    (Invisibility).    |   (Immovable.)         |   (Eye goddess.)\n                       |                        |\n  Prativekshana. (Eyes | Ratna-Sambhava.        | Mamukh\u00ee.\n    that sleep not.)   |   (Born of the jewel.) |\n                       |                        |\n  S\u00e2nta. (Calmness.)   | Amitabha. (Diffusing   | P\u00e2ndar\u00e2.\n                       |   infinite light.)     |   (Pale goddess.)\n                       |                        |\n  Krity\u00e2nushtana.      | Amogha-Siddha.         | T\u00e2r\u00e2. (Star.)\n    (One who performs  |   (Unfailing aim.)     |\n    rites.)            |                        |\n\nTurning to Basilides we find that he placed in Buthos the \"Unnameable,\"\na being similar to Swayambhu. From the Unnameable emanated also five\nbeings, whom he called \u00c6ons (Eternals), a substitute for the Dhyani\nBuddhas. Their names were Nous (Mind), Logos (Speech), Phronesis\n(Prudence), Sophia (Wisdom), Dunamis (Power).\n\nPlainly these also are simply divine attributes personified, the five\nDhyani Buddhas.\n\nValentinus has also a supreme \u00c6on, Unbegotten, Invisible,\nSelf-Existent, remaining from everlasting in impassive serenity. This\nGod, named Bythus, has his Sakti like the Dhyani Buddhas. She is called\nEnn\u0153a (Idea), also Charis (Grace).\n\nBythus is also called Propator (First Father). After countless ages he\ndetermines to evolve the Pleroma, and for that purpose brings forth\nNous (Mind) and Aletheia (Truth).\n\nFrom Nous, according to Valentinus, by the aid of Aletheia proceeded\nLogos (Word) and Zoe (Life). Nous was also called Monogenes (the Only\nBegotten).\n\nZoe brought forth Anthropos (Man) and Ecclesia (Church). These brought\nforth other \u00c6ons.\n\nIn this system Christ figures as Phos (Light), Soter (Saviour), and\nLogos (Word). He gives light to the Pleroma.\n\nNow let us turn to the famous opening verses of the fourth gospel. I\ncopy down the translation of them by the author of the \"Evolution of\nChristianity.\"\n\n\"In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the\nLogos was divine. The same was in the beginning with God. All things\ncame into existence through him, and without him nothing came into\nexistence. That which hath been made in him was Zoe (Life), and Zoe\nwas the Phos (Light) of men, and Phos shineth in the darkness, and the\ndarkness apprehended it not....\n\n\"And the Logos became flesh, and dwelt amongst us, full of Charis\n(Grace) and Aletheia (Truth). And we beheld his glory, glory as of\nMonogenes (the Only Begotten) from the Father.\"\n\nAs the author of the \"Evolution of Christianity\" truly says, we have\nhere a condensation of the \u00c6ons of Valentinus. John unifies Christ in\nMonogenes, Logos, Phos, and Soter. He descends as Phos (Light). He has\n\u00c6onic relationship with Charis and Aletheia.\n\n\"Of his Pleroma have we all received,\" says the fourth evangelist.\n(John i. 16.)\n\n\"It was the Father's good pleasure that in him the whole Pleroma should\nhave its home\" (Col. i. 19).\n\n\"In him dwells the whole Pleroma of the Godhead in bodily shape.\" (Col.\nii. 9).\n\n\"The Church, which is his body, the Pleroma of him that filleth all in\nall.\" (Eph. i. 23.)\n\nWe turn now to the \u00c6ons or Dhyani Buddhas.\n\n\"According to the purpose of the \u00c6ons.\" (Eph. iii. 11.)\n\n\"Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations.\"\n\nThe author of the \"Evolution of Christianity\" shows that the authorised\nversion has no sense. He amends it thus:--\n\n\"The mystery concealed from the \u00c6ons and from their offspring.\"\n\nFrom this two things are patent:--\n\n1. Johannine Christianity is Gnosticism.\n\n2. Gnosticism is Buddhism.\n\nIn chapter ii. I said that Buddha, like the Gnostic Christ, ruled the\nPleroma or Pravritti. In the \"Lalita Vistara\" many pages are devoted\nto show that he is Purusha, the God-man of the Hindoos. Purusha is\nalways contrasted with Pracriti, the Buthos of the Gnostics, that part\nof the Kosmos which is un-fashioned and non-luminous. Purusha is like\nthe divine man of the Kabbalah, the Christ of St. Paul, humanity, ideal\nhumanity. Valentinus proclaimed that from Sophia the Mother, proceeded\nEcclesia the Church. Jesus called his flock the sons of Sophia, and\nsaid that his mother, the Holy Spirit, had carried him up to the top of\nMount Tabor.\n\nAs early as the Asoka inscriptions the triad of Buddhism was:--\n\n1. Buddha or Swayambhu, the Self-Existent.\n\n2. Dharma or Praj\u00f1\u00e2 (Sophia).\n\n3. Sangha (literally Union). Sangha \"created the worlds,\" says the P\u00fbja\nKanda. (For this triad, see Hodgson, \"Lit. Nepal,\" p. 88.) This triad\nwith the vulgar is now Buddha, his Law, and the Church.\n\nA version of this was not unknown in Palestine, for Hegesippus records\nof the early Christians:--\n\n\"In every city that prevails which the Law, the Lord, and the Prophets\nenjoin.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n_Rites._\n\n\nI have left myself little space to write of the many points of close\nsimilarity between the Buddhists and the Roman Catholics.\n\nThe French missionary Huc, in his celebrated travels in Thibet, was\nmuch struck with this similarity.\n\n\"The crozier, the mitre, the dalmatic, the cope or _pluvial_, which\nthe grand lamas wear on a journey, or when they perform some ceremony\noutside the temple, the service with a double choir, psalmody,\nexorcisms, the censer swinging on five chains, and contrived to be\nopened and shut at will, benediction by the lamas, with the right\nhand extended over the heads of the faithful, the chaplet, sacerdotal\ncelibacy, Lenten retirements from the world, the worship of saints,\nfasts, processions, litanies, holy water--these are the points of\ncontact between the Buddhists and ourselves.\"\n\nListen also to Father Disderi, who visited Thibet in the year 1714.\n\"The lamas have a tonsure like our priests, and are bound over to\nperpetual celibacy. They study their scriptures in a language and\nin characters that differ from the ordinary characters. They recite\nprayers in choir. They serve the temple, present the offerings, and\nkeep the lamps perpetually alight. They offer to God corn and barley\nand paste and water in little vases, which are extremely clean. Food\nthus offered is considered consecrated, and they eat it. The lamas have\nlocal superiors, and a superior general.\" (\"Lettres edifiantes,\" vol.\niii., p. 534.)\n\nFather Grueber, with another priest named Dorville, passed from Pekin\nthrough Thibet to Patna in the year 1661. Henry Prinsep (\"Thibet\nTartary, etc.,\" p. 14) thus sums up what he has recorded:--\n\n\"Father Grueber was much struck with the extraordinary similarity he\nfound, as well in the doctrine as in the rituals of the Buddhists of\nLha Sa, to those of his own Romish faith. He noticed, first, that the\ndress of the lamas corresponded with that handed down to us in ancient\npaintings as the dress of the Apostles. Second, that the discipline\nof the monasteries and of the different orders of lamas or priests\nbore the same resemblance to that of the Romish Church. Third, that\nthe notion of an Incarnation was common to both, so also the belief in\nparadise and purgatory. Fourth, he remarked that they made suffrages,\nalms, prayers, and sacrifices for the dead, like the Roman Catholics.\nFifth, that they had convents filled with monks and friars to the\nnumber of thirty thousand, near Lha Sa, who all made the three vows\nof poverty, obedience, and chastity, like Roman monks, besides other\nvows. Sixth, that they had confessors licensed by the superior lamas or\nbishops, and so empowered to receive confessions, impose penances, and\ngive absolution. Besides all this there was found the practice of using\nholy water, of singing service in alternation, of praying for the dead,\nand of perfect similarity in the customs of the great and superior\nlamas to those of the different orders of the Romish hierarchy. These\nearly missionaries further were led to conclude from what they saw\nand heard that the ancient books of the lamas contained traces of the\nChristian religion, which must, they thought, have been preached in\nThibet in the time of the Apostles.\"\n\nIn the year 1829, Victor Jacquemont, the French botanist, made a\nshort excursion from Simla into Thibet. He writes: \"The Grand Lama of\nKanum has the episcopal mitre and crozier. He is dressed just like\nour bishops. A superficial observer at a little distance would take\nhis Thibetan and Buddhist mass for a Roman mass of the first water.\nHe makes twenty genuflexions at the right intervals, turns to the\naltar and then to the congregation, rings a bell, drinks in a chalice\nwater poured out by an acolyte, intones paternosters quite of the\nright sing-song--the resemblance is really shocking. But men whose\nfaith is properly robust will see here nothing but a corruption of\nChristianity.\" (Corr. vol. i., p. 265.)\n\nIt must be borne in mind that what is called Southern Buddhism has the\nsame rites. St. Francis Xavier in Japan found Southern Buddhism so\nlike his own that he donned the yellow sangh\u00e2ti, and called himself\nan apostle of Buddha, quieting his conscience by furtively mumbling a\nlittle Latin of the baptismal service over some of his \"converts.\"\n\nThis is what the Rev. S. Beal, a chaplain in the navy, wrote of a\nliturgy that he found in China:--\n\n\"The form of this office is a very curious one. It bears a singular\nlikeness in its outline to the common type of the Eastern Christian\nliturgies. That is to say there is a 'Proanaphoral' and an 'Anaphoral'\nportion. There is a prayer of entrance (\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c3\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5), a prayer of\nincense (\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03b9\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2), an ascription of praise to the threefold\nobject of worship (\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03bf\u03bd), a prayer of oblation (\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2),\nthe lections, the recitations of the Dharan\u00ee (\u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd), the\nEmbolismus or prayer against temptation, followed by a 'Confession,'\nand a 'Dismissal.'\" (\"Catena of Buddhist Scriptures,\" p. 397.)\n\nTurning to architecture, I must point out that Mr. Fergusson, the\nleading authority in ancient art, was of opinion that the various\ndetails of the early Christian basilica--nave, aisle, columns,\nsemi-domed apse, cruciform ground plan--were borrowed _en bloc_ from\nthe Buddhists. Mr. Fergusson lays special stress on the D\u00e2goba and its\nenshrined relics, represented in the Christian Church by the high\naltar, the bones of a saint, the baldechino. Relic worship, he says,\nwas certainly borrowed from the East. Of the rock-cut temple of K\u00e2rle\n(B.C. 78) he writes:--\n\n\"The building resembles, to a great extent, an early Christian church\nin its arrangements, consisting of a nave and side aisles terminating\nin an apse or semi-dome, round which the aisle is carried.... As a\nscale for comparison, it may be mentioned that its arrangements and\ndimensions are very similar to those of the choir of Norwich Cathedral,\nand of the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, omitting the outer aisles in the\nlatter buildings.\n\nImmediately under the semi-dome of the apse, and nearly where the altar\nstands in Christian churches, is placed the D\u00e2goba.\" (\"Indian and\nEastern Architecture,\" p. 117.)\n\nThe list of resemblances is by no means exhausted. The monks on\nentering a temple make the gesture that we call the sign of the cross.\nThe Buddhists have illuminated missals, Gregorian chants, a tabernacle\non the altar for oblations, a pope, cardinals, angels with wings,\nsaints with the nimbus. For a full account I must refer the reader to\nmy \"Buddhism in Christendom,\" where I give (pp. 182, 184) drawings of\nmonks and nuns, the Virgin and Child (p. 205), the adoration of the\nrice cake on the altar (p. 83), Buddha coming down to the altar with\nthe heavenly host (p. 210), the long candles, artificial flowers,\ncross, incense burner, and divine figure with the aureole, of the\nBuddhist temple (p. 208). The election of the Grand L\u00e2ma I show to be\npin for pin like the election of the Pope. The list is endless.\n\nHow is all this to be accounted for? Several theories have been\nstarted:--\n\nThe first attempts to make light of the matter altogether. All\nreligions, it says, have sacrifice, incense, priests, the idea of\nfaith, etc. This may be called the orthodox Protestant theory, and many\nbulky books have recently appeared propounding it. But as these books\navoid all the strong points of the case, they cannot be called at all\nsatisfactory to the bewildered inquirer.\n\nTo this theory the Roman Catholics reply that the similarities between\nBuddhism and Catholicism are so microscopic and so complete, that\none religion must have borrowed from the other. In consequence they\ntry to prove that the rites of Buddhism and the life of its founder\nwere derived from Christianity, from the Nestorians, from St. Thomas,\nfrom St. Hyacinth of Poland, from St. Oderic of Frioul. (_See_ Abb\u00e9\nProuv\u00e9ze, \"Life of Gabriel Durand,\" vol. ii., p. 365.)\n\nIn the way of this theory, however, there are also insuperable\ndifficulties. Buddha died 470 years before Christ, and for many years\nthe Christian Church had no basilicas, popes, cardinals, basilica\nworship, nor even for a long time a definite life of the founder. At\nthe date of Asoka (B.C. 260) there was a metrical life of Buddha (Muni\nGatha), and the incidents of this life are found sculptured in marble\non the gateways of Buddhist temples that precede the Christian epoch.\nThis is the testimony of Sir Alexander Cunningham, the greatest of\nIndian arch\u00e6ologists. He fixes the date of the Bharhut Stupa at from\n270 to 250 B.C. There he finds Queen M\u00e2y\u00e2's dream of the elephant, the\nRishis at the ploughing match, the transfiguration of Buddha and the\nladder of diamonds, and other incidents. At the Sanchi tope, an earlier\nstructure (although the present marble gateways, repeated probably from\nwood, are fixed at about 19 A.D.), he announces representations of\nBuddha as an elephant coming down to his mother's womb, three out of\nthe \"Four Presaging Tokens,\" Buddha bending the bow of Sinhahanu, King\nBimbis\u00e2ra visiting the young prince, and other incidents.\n\nA man who invents a novel high explosive, or a quick-firing gun, at\nonce puts his idea to a practical test. Let us try and construct a\nworking model here. Suppose that the present ruler of Afghanistan\nwere paying us a visit, and, introduced at Fulham Palace, he were to\nsuggest that the life of Mahomet should supersede that of Jesus in our\nBible, and Mussulman rites replace the Christian ritual in the diocese\nof London. What would be the answer? The bishop, anxious to deal gently\nwith a valuable ally, would point out that he was only a cogwheel in a\nvast machinery, a cogwheel that could be promptly replaced if it proved\nthe least out of gear. He would show that the Anglican Church had a\nmass of very definite rules called canon law, with courts empowered to\npunish the slightest infringement of these rules. He would show that\neven an archbishop could not alter a tittle of the gospel narrative.\nEvery man, woman, and child would immediately detect the change.\n\nSimilar difficulties would be in the way of St. Hyacinth of Poland\nin, say, a monastery of Ceylon. The abbot there would be responsible\nto what Bishop Bigandet calls his \"provincial,\" and he again to his\n\"sup\u00e9rieur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral\" (p. 478), and so on to the \u00c2ch\u00e2rya, the \"High\nPriest of all the World,\" who, in his palace at Nalanda, near Buddha\nGay\u00e2, was wont to sit in state, surrounded by ten thousand monks.\nBuddhism, by the time that a Christian missionary could have reached\nit, was a far more diffused and conservative religion than Anglicanism.\nIt had a canon law quite as definite. It had hundreds of volumes\ntreating of the minutest acts of Sakya Muni.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n_Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited, Perth._\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n  Amrapal\u00ee, the Buddhist Magdalene, 61.\n\n  Alexandria, bridges East and West, 102.\n\n  Altar, Apostles of the Bloodless, 99 _et seq._\n\n  Antiochus, mentioned by King Asoka, 97.\n\n  Apostles, the Buddhist Parivrajakas, 105.\n\n  Appearances of Buddha after death, 67.\n\n  Architecture, Christian, derived from the Buddhist rock temples, 177.\n\n  Asita, the Indian Simeon, 29.\n\n  Asoka, King, 93 _et seq._\n\n  Atheism, early Buddhist disproved, 77 _et seq._\n\n  Atonement, 68.\n\n\n  Baptism, the Buddhist, 43, 108.\n\n  Beal, Rev. S., on a Buddhist liturgy, 176.\n\n  Beatitudes, the Buddhist, 48.\n\n  Bigandet, Catholic bishop, his \"Life of Gautama\" cited, 27 _et passim_.\n\n  Bimbis\u00e2ra, advised like Herod to kill the Holy Child, 28.\n\n  Bhikshu, Buddhist beggar, Ebionite, 129.\n\n  Bodhi, Gnosis, interior knowledge, 77.\n\n  Brahma, union with, object of early Buddhism, 80.\n\n  Buddha, born of a virgin, 24;\n    Star in the East, 26;\n    Baptism and fasting, 44;\n    Temptation, 45;\n    Disputation with the doctors, 30;\n    Third commandment, 51;\n    Triumphant entry into the city of the king, 54;\n    Forsaken by disciples, 58;\n    Transfigured, 63;\n    Last supper, 65;\n    Death, 65;\n    Darkness over all the land at his death, 65.\n\n  Buddhism defined, 77;\n    Schools of, 84;\n    Eight spiritual states, 108.\n\n  Burnouf, Emile, considers Christianity due to a conflict between\n    Mosaism and Buddhism, 1.\n\n\n  Ceylon scriptures, 85.\n\n  Chakravartin, King of Kings, Messiah, 35.\n\n  Chief priest in early Church modelled on Jewish, 161.\n\n  Circumcision widely spread amongst savages, 15.\n\n  Church of Jerusalem, creed, 129; Description of, 160.\n\n  Clement of Alexandria on the Hylobii and followers of Buddha, 89.\n\n  Colebrooke, Henry, Orientalist, sees Buddhist philosophy in the\n    teaching of Pythagoras, 101.\n\n  Cunningham, Sir Alexander, traces incidents of Buddha's life in\n    pre-Christian sculptures in the Buddhist temples, 179.\n\n\n  Darkness over the land at Buddha's death, 65.\n\n  Daranatha, Chinese historian, valuable testimony about early\n    Buddhism, 90, 99.\n\n  Disciple whom Buddha loved, 46.\n\n  Disciples, twelve great, 46.\n\n  Disderi, Father, visits Lha Sa, 174.\n\n\n  Ebionite, Buddhist bhikshu, 129.\n\n  Enoch, Book of, 164.\n\n  Epiphanius cited, 130.\n\n  Essenes, due to Buddhist propagandism, Philo on, 103.\n\n  \"Evolution of Christianity,\" author of cited, 171.\n\n  Ezra compiles Old Testament, 6, 7.\n\n\n  Faith in Buddhist books, 62.\n\n  Fergusson, James, architect, derives Christian basilica from Buddhist\n    rock temple, 177.\n\n  \"Follow me!\" phrase used by Buddha, 46.\n\n  Freemasonry in Buddhism, Mithraism, etc., 100.\n\n  \"Fulfilling,\" vague word without any meaning in modern polemics, 143.\n\n\n  Giles, Rev., on the Christian forgeries of Peregrinus, 128;\n    Amended version of Luke's opening verses, 144.\n\n  Ginsburg, Dr., on the eight spiritual states of the Essenes, 107.\n\n  \"Glad tidings\" (Subha Shita), word used for the Buddhist revelation, 46.\n\n  Golden book for the Buddhist recording angels, 68.\n\n  \"Golden Bough,\" by Mr. Frazer, cited, 9.\n\n  Grueber, Father, on Buddhist rites, etc., 175.\n\n  Gymnosophists, Buddhists, 104.\n\n\n  Heaven, the Buddhist, 68.\n\n  Hebrews, Gospel according to, 114 _et seq._;\n    St. Jerome on, 101;\n    Condemned and suppressed, 129.\n\n  Hegesippus used Gospel according to the Hebrews, 112;\n    Describes James, 162.\n\n  Hippolytus cited to show that the early Church held Christ to be a\n    mere man, 129.\n\n  Hodgson, Bryan, on the Pyrrhonism of the second or \"Great Vehicle\"\n    school of Buddhism, 86.\n\n  Holy Ghost descends _into_ Christ, in the Gospel according to the\n    Hebrews, 131.\n\n  Hylobii, Greek term for Buddhists, 89.\n\n\n  Iren\u00e6us, on Gospel according to Hebrews, 112;\n    On the many spurious gospels in his day, 128;\n    Shows that early Church of Jerusalem used water in the communion, 130.\n\n\n  Jacquemont, Victor, French botanist, on similarity of Buddhist and\n    Catholic mass, 176.\n\n  James succeeds Christ, who appears and gives him communion bread on\n    the very night of the Crucifixion, 133;\n    Account by Hegesippus, 162.\n\n  Jerome, St., on the Gospel of the Hebrews, 111.\n\n  Jerusalem, Church of, 160 _et seq._\n\n  Josephus, initiation of Essenes, 137.\n\n  Judas, the Buddhist, 64.\n\n  Justin Martyr, 112 _et seq._\n\n\n  Kanishka, or Kanerkos, introduces atheistic Buddhism and Pyrrhonism, 85.\n\n  K\u00e2rle, cave temple, described, 177.\n\n  Karma, the Buddhist doctrine, mixed up with the Atonement, 68.\n\n\n  Lang, Andrew, on savage terrorism, 9.\n\n  Lightfoot, Bishop, on the \"swathing bands\" of Judaism, 141.\n\n  Luke, Gospel of, analysed, 144.\n\n\n  Magic, Buddhist, 79.\n\n  Maitreya, Buddha of Brotherly Love, 2.\n\n  Man born blind, parable, 79.\n\n  Matthew, St., an ascetic, 164.\n\n  Marcion's gospel, testimony of Megethius that it has been added to and\n    falsified, 146.\n\n  Megasthenes on the Buddhists, 90.\n\n  Mithras, religion of, 99.\n\n  M\u00fcller, Max, on Buddhism, 77.\n\n\n  Newman, Cardinal, his \"Dream of St. Gerontius,\" 168.\n\n  Nicator, Seleucus, sends an ambassador to Patna, 89.\n\n  Nicholson, E. B., best authority on the Gospel according to the\n    Hebrews, 114.\n\n  Nirvritti the same as the Pleroma of the Gnostics, 169.\n\n  Nuns in Buddhism and Essenism, 106.\n\n\n  Origen on the abundant falsification of the gospels in his day, 128.\n\n  Oswald, Felix, cited, 57.\n\n\n  Papias, Bishop, on the composition of the gospels, 111.\n\n  Parables, the Buddhist, 70 _et seq._\n\n  Pax Vobiscum! the Hebrew \"Schalom!\" the Buddhist \"Sadhu!\" 47.\n\n  Peregrinus composes Christian scriptures, 128.\n\n  Peter, Gospel according to, cited, 127.\n\n  Philo on the Essenes and Therapeuts, 104;\n    Connects them with the Gymnosophists of India, 104.\n\n  Photismos in early Church, 107.\n\n  Pravritti, the Buthos of the Gnostics, 169.\n\n  Prodigal Son, Buddhist parable, 70.\n\n  Protevangelion compared with Luke's gospel, 149.\n\n  Pythagoras, Buddha's teaching fathered on, 101.\n\n\n  Racine translates the \"Contemplative Life of Philo,\" 136.\n\n  \"Raksh\u00e0 Bhagavat\u00ee\" the great Bible of atheistic Buddhism, 86.\n\n  Rajendra Lala Mitra proves atheistic Buddhism to have been forced on\n    early Buddhism by the \"Great Vehicle,\" A.D. 20, 85.\n\n  Renan on the Church of Jerusalem, 161;\n    On the status of St. James, 134.\n\n  _Revue des Deux Mondes_ defines Christianity as due to a conflict\n    between Buddhism and Mosaism, 1.\n\n\n  Saints appear at Buddha's death, 66.\n\n  Samanna Phala Sutta cited, 79.\n\n  Sayings of Christ, according to Justin Martyr, 117.\n\n  Semites, 4, 5.\n\n  Smith, Professor Robertson, on the \"Totems\" of the Old Testament, 19.\n\n  Son of Perdition, the Buddhist, 64.\n\n  Sunyapushpa (the \"Carriage that drives Nowhere\"), nickname of early\n    Buddhists for innovating Pyrrhonism, 91.\n\n  Supper, Buddhist last, 65.\n\n  Sutta, Tevigga, gives Buddha's ideas about God, 80.\n\n\n  Therapeuts, _see_ Essenes.\n\n  Throne, great white, 67.\n\n  Transfiguration, the Buddhist, 63.\n\n  Twelve great disciples of Buddha, 46.\n\n\n  \"Vehicle, Great,\" 85;\n    \"Little,\" 84, 85.\n\n  Valentinus, fourth gospel due to his teaching, 172.\n\n\n  Walking on water, miracle, 59.\n\n  War in Heaven, 61.\n\n  Washing feet, 64.\n\n  Wassiljew cited, 90.\n\n  Williams, Sir Monier, his views on Buddhism, 77.\n\n  Woman at the well, 70.\n\n\n  Zacharias, legend about, 148.\n\n  Zoroaster, Buddha as, 98.\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nObvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.\n\nRevue des Deus Mondes corrected to Revue des Deux Mondes.\n\nVariations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been\nretained except in the case of conflict with index entries.\n\nPerigrinus has been corrected to Peregrinus and Ferguson to Fergusson.","title":"The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":45794}