{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_73070/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_73070","id":"gutenberg_73070","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73070","summary":null,"tags":["Bhagavadgita","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity and other religions -- Hinduism","Hinduism"],"text":"Gita and Gospel\n\n\n\n\n                            GITA AND GOSPEL.\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                            NEIL ALEXANDER.\n\n\n                                Calcutta\n                          THACKER, SPINK & CO.\n                                 1903.\n\n\n\n\nCALCUTTA:\n\nPRINTED BY THACKER, SPINK AND CO.\n\n\n\n\n                           TABLE OF CONTENTS.\n\n\nChap. I.\u2014WHAT IS THE _Bhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_? . . . 1\n\nChap. II.\u2014PLATO\u2019S JUST MAN . . . 21\n\nChap. III.\u2014THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH . . . 26\n\nChap. IV.\u2014VIRGIL\u2019S NEW AGE OF JUSTICE AND PEACE 36\n\nChap. V.\u2014JESUS OF NAZARETH . . . 41\n\nAPPENDIX.\u2014NEO-KRISHNA LITERATURE . . . 67\n\n\n                             ABBREVIATIONS.\n\n\nAMALNERKAR: Amalnerkar, _Priority of the Vedanta-Sutras over the\nBhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_.\n\nBOSE, _H. C._: Bose, _Hindu Civilization under British Rule_.\n\nDEUSSEN: Deussen, _Sechzig Upanishad\u2019s des Veda_.\n\nDUTT, _C. A. I._: Dutt, _Civilization in Ancient India_.\n\n_G._: _The G\u012bt\u0101._\n\nGARBE: Garbe, _The Philosophy of Ancient India_.\n\nGOUGH: Gough, _The Philosophy of the Upanishads_.\n\nHOPKINS, _R. I._: Hopkins, _The Religions of India_.\n\nHOPKINS, _G. E. I._: Hopkins, _The Great Epic of India_.\n\nKAEGI: Kaegi, _The Rigveda_ (Arrowsmith\u2019s translation).\n\nKIDD, _P. W. C._: Kidd, _Principles of Western Civilization_.\n\nKRISHNACHARITRA: Bunkim Chundra Chatterji, _Krishnacharitra_, fourth\nedition.\n\nMACDONELL: Macdonell, _Sanskrit Literature_.\n\nMOMMSEN: Mommsen, _History of Rome_.\n\nMONIER-WILLIAMS: Monier-Williams, _Brahmanism and Hinduism_.\n\nM\u00dcLLER, _A. S. L._: M\u00fcller, _Ancient Sanskrit Literature_, second\nedition.\n\nM\u00dcLLER, _S. S. I. P._: M\u00fcller, _Six Systems of Indian Philosophy_.\n\n_S. B. E._: _The Sacred Books of the East._\n\nSCH\u00dcRER, _H. J. P._: Sch\u00fcrer, _History of the Jewish People in the Time\nof Jesus Christ_.\n\nSEAL: Brajendra Nath Seal, _Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and\nChristianity_.\n\nTELANG: Telang, _The Bhagavadg\u012bt\u0101, &c._ (Sacred Books of the East, vol.\nVIII.)\n\nWEBER, _I. L._: Weber, _Indian Literature_.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n                      WHAT IS THE _BHAGAVADGITA_?\n\n\nIn the whole literature of the world there are few poems worthy of\ncomparison, either in point of general interest, or of practical\ninfluence, with the _Bhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_. It is a philosophical work, yet\nfresh and readable as poetry; a book of devotion, yet drawing its main\ninspiration from speculative systems; a dramatic scene from the most\nfateful battle of early Indian story, yet breathing the leisure and the\nsubtleties of the schools; founded on a metaphysical theory originally\natheistic,[1] yet teaching the most reverent adoration of the Lord of\nall: where shall we find a more fascinating study? Then its influence on\neducated India has been and still is without a rival. Everybody praises\nthe Upanishads, but very few read them; here and there one finds a\nstudent who turns the pages of a S\u016btra or looks into Sankara or\nR\u0101m\u0101nuja, but the most are content to believe without seeing. The\n_G\u012bt\u0101_, on the other hand, is read and loved by every educated man. Nor\nis there any need to apologize for this partiality: the Divine Song is\nthe loveliest flower in the garden of Sanskrit literature.\n\nFor the Western mind also the poem has many attractions. The lofty\nsublimity to which it so often rises, the practical character of much of\nits teaching, the enthusiastic devotion to the one Lord which breathes\nthrough it, and the numerous resemblances it shows to the words of\nChrist, fill it with unusual interest for men of the West. But while it\nhas many points of affinity with the thought and the religion of Europe,\nit is nevertheless a genuine product of the soil;[2] indeed it is all\nthe more fit to represent the genius of India that its thought and its\npoetry are lofty enough to draw the eyes of the West.\n\nWhat, then, is the _G\u012bt\u0101_? Can we find our way to the fountain whence\nthe clear stream flows?\n\nA. When the dwelling-place of the ancient Aryan tribes was partly on the\nouter, partly on the inner, side of the Indus (primeval patronymic of\nboth India and her religion), and the tribesmen were equally at home on\nthe farm and on the battlefield, then it was that the mass of the lyrics\nthat form the _Rigveda_ were made. We need not stay to set forth the\nvarious ways in which this unique body of poetry is of value to modern\nthought. For us it is of interest because it gives us the earliest\nglimpse of the religion of the Indo-Aryans. That religion is\npolytheistic and naturalistic. The Vedic hymns laud the powers of nature\nand natural phenomena as personal gods. They praise also, as distinct\npowers, the departed fathers. Such is undoubtedly the general character\nof the religion of that age. On the other hand, the hymns to Varuna\nbring us very near monotheism indeed.[3]\n\nIt is, however, only at a later period when the Aryan conquest had moved\nout of the Punjab to the South and West, and just on the eve of the\nformation of the _Rigveda_ as a collection of religious hymns, that we\nfind the beginnings of philosophic speculation.[4] A few hymns, chiefly\nin the tenth Mondol, ask questions about the origin of the universe, and\nventure some naive guesses on that tremendous subject. Some of the\nhymns[5] take for granted the existence of primeval matter, and ask how\nor by whom it was transformed into a _cosmos_. In others[6] there is\nmore monotheistic feeling, and a Creator, either Hiranyagarbha or\nVisvakarman, is described. In others[7] the strain of thought is\nagnostic.\n\nB. With the collection of the hymns of the _Rigveda_ we pass into a new\nand very different period, the literature of which is altogether\npriestly. To this age belong the two great sacerdotal manuals, the\n_S\u0101maveda_[8] or Chant-book, and the _Yajurveda_[9] or Sacrifice-book,\nand those extraordinary collections of priestly learning, mythology and\nmysticism, the Br\u0101hmanas.[10] These books introduce us to changed times\nand changed men, to new places and a new range of ideas. The fresh\npoetry of the youth of India has given place to the most prosaic and\nuninteresting disquisitions in the whole world.[11] The home of this\nliterature is the great holy land of Brahman culture, stretching from\nthe Sutlej on the West to the junction of the Jumna and the Ganges at\nPray\u0101ga.[12] In this period the doctrine of the transmigration of the\nsoul first appears.[13]\n\nC. The Aranyakas[14] and Upanishads[15] place before us a further\ndevelopment of Indian religion. Reflection led to the perception of the\ngreat truth, that the kernel of religion is not the ritual act but the\nheart of piety behind it. Many a man who had found the endless formul\u00e6\nand the showy ceremonial of the sacrifice a serious hindrance to real\nreligion, sought refuge from the noise and distraction of the popular\ncult in the lonely silence of forest or desert. To run over the\nsacrifice in one\u2019s own mind, they reasoned, was as acceptable to the\ngods as to kill the horse or to pour the ghee upon the altar fire. But\nthey soon reached the further position, that for the man who has\nattained TRUE KNOWLEDGE sacrifice is altogether unnecessary. For\nknowledge of the world-soul emancipates a man from the chain of births\nand deaths and leads to true felicity. The main purpose, thus, of the\nUpanishads, is to expound the nature of the world-soul. Their teaching\nis by no means uniform. Not only do the separate treatises differ the\none from the other; contradictory ideas are frequently to be met with in\nthe same book. They all tend to idealistic monism; they all agree in\nidentifying the soul of man with the world-soul; but on the questions,\nwhether the latter is personal or impersonal, how spirit and matter are\nrelated, and how the human soul will join the divine soul after death,\nthere is no unanimity.[16]\n\nThere is thus no speculative system to be drawn from these books. Those\nof their ideas that are held with settled, serious conviction, are\ntaught rather dogmatically than philosophically; and, on the other hand,\nwhere there is freedom of thought, there is rather a groping after the\ntruth than any definite train of illuminative reasoning. Yet this\noccasional, conversational, unconventional character gives these simple\nand sincere treatises their greatest charm, and fits them for that\ndevotional use to which so many generations of pious readers have put\nthem. To this early period there belong only the first great group of\nprose Upanishads, the _Brihad\u0101ranyaka_, _Ch\u0101ndogya_, _Taittir\u012bya_,\n_Aitareya_, _Kaush\u012btaki_ and parts of the _Kena_.[17]\n\nD. In bold contrast to this unsystematic meditation on the Eternal\nSpirit there stands out the severe, clear-cut, scientific system of\nKapila,[18] the first Indian thinker who dared to trust the unaided\nhuman mind. Buddhist tradition recognizes that he preceded Buddha, and\nconnects him with Kapila-vastu, the birth-place of Buddha, the site of\nwhich was discovered as recently as December 1896.[19] He drew a sharp\ndistinction between matter and spirit and declared both to be eternal,\nwithout beginning and without end. The material universe develops in\naccordance with certain laws out of primeval matter, _prakriti_. Spirit,\non the other hand, exists as an indefinite number of individual souls,\neach eternal. There is no supreme divine spirit. The value of this\nsystem lies chiefly in its severely logical method, which demands that\nall reasoning shall proceed from the known elements of experience. It\nhas exercised a very great influence on Indian thought, partly by its\nmethod, but still more perhaps through its cardinal ideas, the eternity\nof matter, the eternity of individual souls, the three _gunas_, the\ngreat cosmic periods, and _kaivalya_, _i. e._, the attainment of\nsalvation through the separation of the soul from matter. This great\nsystem is known by the name S\u0101nkhya, _i. e._, enumeration, seemingly on\naccount of the numbering of the twenty-five _tattvas_, or principles,\nwhich it sets forth.[20]\n\nSuch is the _S\u0101nkhya_ system; but it would be dangerous to affirm that\nthe whole came from Kapila; for no treatise written by him has come\ndown. The earliest systematic manual of the philosophy extant to-day is\nthe _S\u0101nkhya-K\u0101rik\u0101_ of Isvara-Krishna, which dates from the early\nChristian centuries.[21]\n\nE. Shortly after the S\u0101nkhya system, and in close dependence upon it,\nthere appeared Buddhism and Jainism; but as these great religions\nexercised no very definite influence on the main stream of Indian\nthought for several centuries, we shall not linger over them.\n\nF. We notice next the second great group of Upanishads, the _Katha_,\n_Is\u0101_, _Svet\u0101svatara_, _Mundaka_, _Mah\u0101n\u0101r\u0101yana_,[22] which are all\nwritten in verse. That this group is later than the great prose\nUpanishads is abundantly clear from the changed form as well as from the\nmore developed matter. \u201cAs contrasted with the five above-mentioned\nUpanishads with their awkward Br\u0101hmana style and their allegorical\ninterpretations of the ritual, the _Katha Upanishad_ belongs to a very\ndifferent period, a time in which men began to coin the gold of\nUpanishad thought into separate metrical aphorisms, and to arrange them\ntogether in a more or less loose connection.\u201d[23] Further signs of their\nbelonging to another stage of thought are their references, more or less\nclear, to the S\u0101nkhya and Yoga philosophies,[24] and their tendency to\nadopt the doctrine of Grace,[25] _i.e._, that salvation is not a fruit\nof true knowledge, but a gift of God. The idea of _Bhakti_, which became\nafterwards so popular, appears in this group of Upanishads only\nonce.[26] Here also for the first time in Sanskrit literature the word\n_S\u0101nkhya_ occurs as the name of a system.[27]\n\nBut while these five metrical treatises are clearly later than the prose\nUpanishads, scholars are not agreed on the question of their relation to\nthe great systems. Some[28] hold that the _Katha_ is earlier, others[29]\nthat it is later, than Buddhism; Weber[30] believes that the\n_Svet\u0101svatara_, _Mundaka_, and _Mah\u0101n\u0101r\u0101yana_ depend not only on\nKapila\u2019s system, but also on the _Yoga S\u016btras_ of Patanjali (see below),\nwhile others[31] believe that in these Upanishads we have scattered\npieces of teaching which were later systematized. But whatever be the\ntruth on these points, it is clear that these five are posterior to the\nfirst group, that their relative age is _Katha_, _Is\u0101_, _Svet\u0101svatara_,\n_Mundaka_ and _Mah\u0101n\u0101r\u0101yana_,[32] and that this last belongs to quite a\nlate date.[33] Along with these verse Upanishads we may take three prose\nworks, which are manifestly still later,[34] the _Prasna_,\n_Maitr\u0101yan\u012bya_ and _M\u0101nd\u016bkya_.\n\nG. Several centuries after the S\u0101nkhya there appeared the Yoga\nphilosophy, the text-book of which is the _Yoga S\u016btras_. According to\nIndian tradition the founder of the school and the author of the S\u016btras\nwas Patanjali,[35] the well-known scholar who wrote the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101shya_ on\nP\u0101nini\u2019s grammar. He accepts the metaphysics of the S\u0101nkhya system, but\npostulates the existence of a personal god, and urges the value of Yoga\npractices for the attainment of _Kaivalya_, that isolation of the soul\nfrom matter, which, according to Kapila, is true salvation. Thus not one\nof the three main elements of his system is original; for Yoga practices\nhave existed from a very early date in India. Yet his system is\nsufficiently marked off from others, first by his combination of Yoga\npractices with S\u0101nkhya principles and a theistic theology, and,\nsecondly, by his systematic treatment of Yoga methods.[36]\n\nH. Later still than the Yoga philosophy is the systematic statement of\nthe Ved\u0101nta point of view by B\u0101dar\u0101yana in his S\u016btras, which are known\neither as _Brahma-s\u016btras_, _S\u0101r\u012braka-s\u016btras_ or _Ved\u0101nta-s\u016btras_.[37]\n\nI. We next notice the latest development of Upanishad teaching, namely,\nthat found in the Upanishads of the _Atharvaveda_. With the exception of\nthree, namely, the _Mundaka_, _Prasna_ and _M\u0101nd\u016bkya_ Upanishads, which\nwe have already noticed, they are all very late.[38] They fall into four\ngreat groups, according as they teach (_a_) pure Vedantism, (_b_) Yoga\npractices, (_c_) the life of the Sanny\u0101sin, or (_d_) Sectarianism.[39]\nFor our purpose the last of the four is of the most importance. \u201cThese\nsectarian treatises interpret the popular gods Siva (under various\nnames, such as Is\u0101na, Mahesvara, Mah\u0101deva) and Vishnu (as N\u0101r\u0101yana and\nNrishinha) as personifications of the Atman. The different Avat\u0101rs of\nVishnu are here regarded as human manifestations of the Atman.\u201d[40] Let\nreaders note that the doctrine of Avat\u0101rs is quite unknown in the Vedas,\nthe Br\u0101hmanas, the early Upanishads and the S\u016btras.[41] We may also note\nthat in groups (_a_) and (_b_) we find what is not found in earlier\nUpanishads, namely, the phrase _S\u0101nkhya-Yoga_ used as the name of a\nsystem.[42] Here also the doctrines of Grace and _Bhakti_, the\nbeginnings of which we found in the verse Upanishads, are regularly\ntaught.\n\nJ. The last development that we need mention is the teaching of the\n_Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and _Manu_. We take them together, not only because each\nof them is the final product of long centuries of growth and\ncompilation, but because they are so closely related to each other in\norigin, that it is hardly possible to take them separately.[43] In the\nfirst book of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ we are told that the poem originally\nconsisted of only 8,800 _slokas_, and that at a later date the number\nwas 24,000. The complete work now contains over 100,000 _slokas_.[44] We\nneed not here enquire when the simple heroic lays were composed, which\nlie at the basis of the great composition as it has come down to us; nor\nneed we stay to decide at what period it finally reached its present\nlabyrinthine structure and immense dimensions.[45] It is sufficient for\nour purpose to notice that scientific investigations have laid bare four\nstages in the formation of the Epic:\u2014(_a_) early heroic songs, strung\ntogether into some kind of unity: this is the stage recognised in Book\nI, when the poem had only 8,800 _slokas_, and is in all probability the\npoint at which it is referred to by Asval\u0101yana; (_b_) a Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata\nstory with Pandu heroes, and Krishna as a demi-god: this is the form in\nwhich it had 24,000 _slokas_, and is the stage of the poem referred to\nby P\u0101nini; (_c_) the Epic re-cast, with Krishna as All-god, and a great\ndeal of didactic matter added; (_d_) later interpolations.[46] Scholars\nare able to fix, within certain limits, the dates of these various\nstages. We need not attempt to be so precise: for us it is enough that\n_the representation of Krishna as the Atman belongs to the third stage\nof the growth of the Epic_. Parallel with this third stage is the final\nredaction of _Manu_.[47] The philosophic standpoint of these two great\nworks is practically the same, being now the _S\u0101nkhya-Yoga_, now a\nmixture of S\u0101nkhya, Yoga and Vedantic elements.[48]\n\nBut the main thing to notice is that in these books we are already in\nmodern Hinduism. Turning from the Vedas to them we find ourselves in an\naltogether new world. There are many new gods; most of the old\ndivinities have fallen to subordinate places. New customs, new names and\nideas are found everywhere. The language too has changed: new words, new\nexpressions and new forms occur in plenty; old words occur in new\nsenses; while many others have disappeared.[49]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us now turn to the _G\u012bt\u0101_. What is its place in this long\nsuccession? Clearly it is posterior, not only to our first, but also to\nour second group of Upanishads. For it echoes the _Katha_, the\n_Svet\u0101svatara_, and several of the others repeatedly;[50] its\nversification is decidedly later in character;[51] the doctrines of\nGrace and of _Bhakti_, which are found in these Upanishads only in germ,\nare fully developed in the _G\u012bt\u0101_;[52] while the whole theory of Krishna\nis a fresh growth.\n\nThe _G\u012bt\u0101_ may also be shewn to belong to the same age as the Atharvan\nUpanishads. It has in common with them (_a_) the identification of\nKrishna and Vishnu with the _Atman_, (_b_) the doctrine of Avat\u0101rs,[53]\n(_c_) the doctrines of Grace and _Bhakti_, (_d_) the S\u0101nkhya-Yoga.\n\nBut we may go further, and show that the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is in its teaching, in\ngeneral, parallel with the third stage of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and with\n_Manu_. For while the usual philosophic standpoint in the Song is\nS\u0101nkhya-Yoga, there are frequent lapses to the Ved\u0101nta; and there is an\nevident effort here and there to combine all three.[54] This is\nprecisely the position of _Manu_ and the Epic, as we have seen. Note\nthat in the _G\u012bt\u0101_ the Yoga philosophy is already old, so old that it\nhas fallen into decay, and requires to be resuscitated.[55] The S\u0101nkhya\nis not a loose group of ideas, but a formed system, as appears from the\nphrases _S\u0101nkhya-Krit\u0101nta_[56] and _Guna-sankhy\u0101na_.[57] Kapila, its\nauthor, is so far in the past that he is canonized as the chief of the\n_Siddhas_.[58] There are many minor points which the _G\u012bt\u0101_ holds in\ncommon with the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_, and which are not found earlier. The\nlatter half of the tenth chapter is full of Epic mythology. There Skanda\nis the great warrior-god,[59] as in the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_,[60] there too we\nfind the horse Uccaihsravas,[61] the elephant Air\u0101vata,[62] the snake\nV\u0101suki,[63] the fish Makara.[64] _Nirv\u0101na_ is used in the _G\u012bt\u0101_[65] for\n\u2018highest bliss,\u2019 \u2018Brahmic bliss,\u2019 precisely as in the Epic.[66] In the\n_Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ Bh\u012bshma, after receiving his mortal wound, has to wait for\nthe _Uttar\u0101yana_ (the northward journey of the sun), _i. e._, he has to\nwait until the sun passes the southern solstice, before he can die in\nsafety.[67] In the _G\u012bt\u0101_ we find a similar idea: only those devotees\nwho die during the _Uttar\u0101yana_ go to Brahman; those who die during the\n_Dakshin\u0101vana_ return to earth.[68] This dogma is not found in the early\nUpanishads nor yet in the S\u016btras.[69]\n\nA study of the language of the _G\u012bt\u0101_[70] leads to the same conclusion.\nA portion of its vocabulary is the same as that of the first group of\nUpanishads; a larger portion coincides with our second group; a still\nlarger coincides with the diction of the Atharvan group; and finally,\nmuch that is found in no Upanishad is characteristic of the Epic.\n\nWe need not attempt to fix the date[71] of the poem, for that is not\nonly impossible as yet, but is quite unnecessary for our purpose. What\nwe wish to do is to show that the religious literature of India displays\na long, regular, evolutionary process, that the _G\u012bt\u0101_ belongs to the\nsame period as the third stage of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_, and is itself\nclearly the result of all the preceding development.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCan we then accept the declaration of the poem itself, that it was\nuttered by Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra?\u2014That necessarily\ndepends upon the history and the chronology. At what point then in the\nhistorical development of the literature which we have been studying\ndoes the famous battle stand?\u2014According to all scholars the great war\nand the compilation of the _Vedas_ both belong to the same period.[72]\n\nThe results of our study may, therefore, be tabulated as follows, with\nthe proviso that the long process of the growth of the Epic cannot be\nfully represented:\u2014\n\n        The Hymns of the Vedas.\n        Compilation of the Vedas . . .     KURUKSHETRA.\n        The Br\u0101hmanas.\n        The prose Upanishads.\n        Kapila.\n        Buddhism and Jainism.\n        The verse Upanishads.\n        Patanjali.\n        B\u0101dar\u0101yana.\n        The Atharvan Upanishads.\n        The third stage of the Epic and _Manu_ . . .      THE GITA.\n\nIt has thus become perfectly clear that THE G\u012aT\u0100 CANNOT HAVE BEEN\nUTTERED ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF KURUKSHETRA; for it is the last member of\na long series, the final product of a clearly defined and elaborate\nprocess of development. To ascribe the _G\u012bt\u0101_ to the age of Kurukshetra\nis much the same as if one were to ascribe the poetry of Tennyson to the\nage of Alfred the Great. A thousand years intervene; the thought and\ntoil of a millennium were needed to produce the great result.\n\nHad Krishna uttered these doctrines on the famous battlefield, we should\ninevitably have found references to them in the literature produced\nduring the following centuries. But where in the Br\u0101hmanas do we find\nany of the leading ideas of the _G\u012bt\u0101_? Even if men had disbelieved\nKrishna, his claim to be God incarnate would at least have drawn out a\nprotest; but in no single Br\u0101hmana or early Upanishad is there the\nslightest hint of anything of the kind. So far from there being any\ncorroboration of the great myth in early literature, there is the\nclearest proof that it is false. In the _K\u0101thaka_ recension of the\n_Black Yajur Veda_ king Dhritar\u0101shtra is mentioned as a well-known\nperson[73]; yet in the whole literature of the Black Yajur there is no\nsuggestion that Krishna claimed divine honours. _The Satapatha\nBr\u0101hmana_, which is a product of the _Kuru-Panch\u0101la_ country,[74]\ncontains the names of a number of the heroes of the great war,[75] but\nnever refers to Krishna as God incarnate; while in the _Ch\u0101ndogya\nUpanishad_,[76] which belongs to the same district,[77] he is spoken of\nmerely as a man: he is mentioned as a pupil of Ghora Angirasa and is\ncalled Krishna Devakiputra.[78] Nay, even in the earliest part of the\n_Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ itself Krishna is only a great chief, and not a deity at\nall.[79] Finally, the references to Pandu heroes and to the worship of\nKrishna and Arjuna in P\u0101nini,[80] would lead to the conclusion that in\nP\u0101nini\u2019s day Krishna was not regarded as the supreme God, but as one\namong many;[81] and this cautious inference is corroborated by the fact\nthat the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101shya_ itself does not recognize him as the incarnation\nof Brahma, but as a hero and demi-god.[82] _Thus the whole of the Vedic\nliterature, and the whole of the S\u016btra literature, are destitute of a\nsingle reference to Krishna as the incarnation of the Supreme._ There is\nonly one conclusion to be drawn from this overwhelming mass of\nevidence.[83]\n\nIt is strange that educated Hindus should have clung so long to the idea\nthat the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is a real utterance of Krishna. The very fact that the\npoem has always been regarded, not as _Sruti_, but simply as _Smriti_,\nshould have been enough to suggest the truth. A piece of genuine divine\nteaching, uttered in such circumstances, and before the composition of\nthe earliest Upanishads, would have inevitably found a place among the\nmost authoritative scriptures of the faith. The fact of its having been\nalways regarded as _Smriti_ is sufficient proof by itself that the book\ndoes not belong to the Vedic age at all. Another consideration ought\nalso by itself to have been sufficient to save Hindus from such a grave\nerror, namely, this, that _no great religious advance or upheaval\nfollowed the time when Krishna is supposed to have lived and taught_.\nContrast the mighty revolutions that followed the work of Buddha, of\nChrist and of Mahommed; and the emptiness of the Krishna claim will\nbecome at once apparent.\n\nAgain, the subject of all the early Upanishads is the nature of the\nSupreme Spirit, whether called the _Atman_ or _Brahma_. If on the field\nof Kurukshetra, Krishna had claimed to be the Supreme, as the _G\u012bt\u0101_\nsays he did, can any one believe that the claim could have been passed\nunnoticed in the Upanishads? Krishna is mentioned in the _Ch\u0101ndogya_;\nBrahma is the subject of the _Ch\u0101ndogya_: yet there is not the slightest\nhint anywhere that Brahma has been incarnated, far less that Krishna is\nBrahma. Such evidence is surely irresistible.\n\nOne reason why the truth about this myth has been so long in finding its\nway into the minds of educated Hindus is undoubtedly to be found in the\nwretchedly inadequate way in which Sanskrit literature is taught in the\nUniversities of India. In Calcutta at least most men who take Sanskrit\nas one of their subjects for the B. A. Degree get through their\nexamination without having the slightest knowledge of the history of the\nliterature.[84] For some curious results of this very deficient\ntraining, see the Appendix.\n\nWith Krishna, all the other so-called Avat\u0101rs vanish; for they rest on\nfoundations still more flimsy and fanciful. They merely serve as signal\nproofs of the tendency inherent in the Hindu mind to believe in\nincarnations and to see such around them. This tendency was already\nliving and creative long before the Christian era, and it has kept its\nvitality down to the present day; for though Chaitanya, the\nsixteenth-century reformer, is the most noteworthy of those who within\nrecent times have been counted Avat\u0101rs, he is by no means the last: the\nlate Ramkrishna Paramhamsa was regarded as such,[85] and some of her\nadmirers claim the same honour for Mrs. Annie Besant.[86] Further, this\nmaking of Avat\u0101rs is but one aspect of that passion for deifying men\nwhich has characterized Hinduism from first to last,[87] a passion which\nhas set many a modern Englishman among the gods. Even such a\nwhole-hearted Christian as John Nicholson did not escape.[88]\n\nThe story, then, that Krishna uttered the Song on the battlefield, is a\npious imagination. All scholars hold the war to be historical; Krishna\u2019s\nname can be traced in the literature from the Upanishads downwards; it\nis possible, or even probable, that he was a Kshattriya prince[89] who\nfought in the war; but _the assertion that on the field he claimed to be\nthe supreme being, is absolutely negatived by all the early history and\nliterature of India_.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow then are we to account for the _G\u012bt\u0101_? Whence came its power and its\nbeauty? and how did it reach the form it has?\u2014We must recognise the\naction of three factors in the formation of the Song, the philosophy,\nthe worship of Krishna, and the author. We have already traced in\noutline the genesis of the philosophy; there remain the cult and the\nauthor.\n\nAll our scholars recognize that Krishna-worship has existed in India\nsince the fourth century B. C. at least; for there can be no doubt that,\nwhen Megasthenes says that Herakles was worshipped in Methora and\nKleisobora,[90] he means that Krishna was worshipped in Mathura and\nKrishnapur. How much further back the cult goes we have no means of\nlearning. Nor does it really matter for our purpose. The important thing\nto realize is the existence of this worship of Krishna, before his\nidentification with Vishnu[91] and final exaltation to the place of the\nsupreme pantheistic divinity.\n\nThe author of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ was clearly a man of wide and deep culture. He\nhad filled his mind with the best religious philosophy of his country.\nHe was catholic rather than critical, more inclined to piece things\ntogether than to worry over the differences between them. Each of the\nphilosophic systems appealed to his sympathetic mind: he was more\nimpressed with the value of each than with the distinctions between\nthem. But his was not only a cultured but a most reverent mind. He was\nas fully in sympathy with Krishna-worship as with the philosophy of the\nAtman. Indeed, it was the union of these qualities in him that fitted\nhim to produce the noblest and purest expression of modern Hinduism. For\nHinduism is just the marriage of ancient Br\u0101hmanical thought and law\nwith the popular cults. But without his splendid literary gifts the\nmiracle would not have been possible. The beauty, precision and power of\nthe diction of the poem, and its dignity of thought, rising now and then\nto sublimity, reveal but one aspect of his masterly literary ability.\nMuch of the success of the poem arises from his genuine appreciation of\nthe early heroic poems, which he heard recited around him, and from his\nconsequent decision to make his own Song, in one sense at least, a\nheroic poem. Lastly, there is the shaping spirit of imagination, without\nwhich no man can be a real poet. With him this power was introspective\nrather than dramatic. No poet with any genuine dramatic faculty would\nhave dreamed of representing a warrior as entering on a long philosophic\ndiscussion on the field of battle at the very moment when the armies\nstood ready to clash. On the other hand, what marvellous insight is\ndisplayed in his representation of Krishna! Who else could have imagined\nwith such success how an incarnate god would speak of himself? Nor must\nwe pass on without noticing that, though the situation in which the Song\nis supposed to have been produced is an impossible one, yet for the\nauthor\u2019s purpose it is most admirably conceived: how otherwise could the\nmain thought of the book\u2014_philosophic calm leading to disinterested\naction_\u2014have been so vividly impressed on the imagination?\n\nThis author, then, formed the idea of combining the loftiest philosophy\nof his country with the worship of Krishna. He would intertwine the\nspeculative thought that satisfied the intellect with the fervid\ndevotion which even the uncultured felt for a god who was believed to\nhave walked the earth. Philosophy would thus come nearer religion, while\nreligion would be placed on far surer intellectual ground. His tastes\nled him to connect his work with the romantic poems of the day; his\ngenius suggested the situation, a dialogue between a noble knight and\nthe incarnate divinity; his catholicity taught him to interweave the\nS\u0101nkhya with the Yoga and both with the Ved\u0101nta; and as we have seen,\nhis penetrative imagination was equal to the creation of the subjective\nconsciousness of a god-man.\n\nWe can now answer the question which stands at the head of this chapter,\nWhat is the _Bhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_? It consists of two distinct elements, one\nold, one original. The philosophy is old; for it is only a very\nimperfect combination[92] of what is taught in earlier books. The\noriginal element is the teaching put into Krishna\u2019s mouth about his own\nperson and the relation in which he stands to his own worshippers and to\nothers. Of this part of the teaching of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ we here give a brief\nanalysis:\u2014\n\n    Krishna is first of all the source of the visible world. All comes\n    from him,[93] all rests in him.[94] At the end of a Kalpa everything\n    returns to him,[95] and is again reproduced.[96] He pervades all\n    things;[97] and again, in another sense, he is all that is best and\n    most beautiful in nature and in man.[98] But while Krishna is thus\n    the supreme power in the universe,[99] he is altogether without\n    personal interest in the activity therein displayed:[100] he sits\n    unconcerned,[101] always engaged in action,[102] yet controlling his\n    own nature,[103] and therefore never becoming bound by the results\n    of his action.[104] This conception of the Supreme, as at once the\n    centre of all activity and yet completely detached, enables the\n    author, on the one hand, to soften the seemingly hopeless\n    contradiction involved in identifying the king, warrior and\n    demon-slayer, Krishna, with the passionless, characterless\n    _Atman_[105] of the Upanishads, and, on the other to hold up Krishna\n    as the supreme example of Action Yoga.\n\n    We now turn to Krishna\u2019s relation to his worshippers. Knowledge is\n    good;[106] mental concentration is better;[107] disinterested action\n    is better than either;[108] but the supreme wisdom is faith in\n    Krishna and boundless devotion to him.[109] Such is the teaching of\n    the _G\u012bt\u0101_. The worst epithets are kept for those who fail to\n    recognise him as the Supreme, who disregard him, carp at him, hate\n    him.[110] To those who resort to Krishna,[111] who place faith in\n    him,[112] who shower on him their love, devotion and worship,[113]\n    who rest on him,[114] think of him[115] and remember him[116] at all\n    times,\u2014to them are promised forgiveness,[117] release from the bonds\n    of action,[118] attainment of tranquillity,[119] true knowledge[120]\n    and final bliss[121] in Krishna.[122]\n\n    Since all the gods come from Krishna,[123] and since he is in the\n    last resort the sole reality,[124] worship offered to other gods is\n    in a sense offered to him.[125] He accepts it and rewards it.[126]\n    This is in accordance with his indifference to men: to him no one is\n    hateful, no one dear.[127] Yet the highest blessings fall only to\n    those who recognize him directly.[128]\n\nClearly our author formed his conception of the man-god with great\nskill, and fitted it into his general scheme with all the care and\nprecision he was capable of. On this elaboration of the\nself-consciousness of Krishna he concentrated all his intellectual and\nimaginative powers. And with what unequalled success! Could any greater\ncompliment be paid an author than to have sixty generations of cultured\nreaders take the creation of his mind for a transcript from history?\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe masses of evidence we have marshalled to prove that Krishna never\nclaimed to be God, may be briefly summarised as follows:\u2014\n\n1. The situation in which the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is said to have been uttered at\nonce strikes the historical student as suspicious: one can scarcely\nbelieve that there was ever a battle in which such a thing could have\ntaken place; and, on the other hand, it makes such an excellent\nbackground to the theory of Action Yoga, that one cannot help believing\nthat it was invented for the very purpose. Further investigation leads\nto the following results:\u2014\n\n2. The characteristic religious and philosophical ideas of the _G\u012bt\u0101_\nare not found in any books produced immediately after the age of\nKurukshetra. If we start with the teaching of that age, we have to trace\nthe stages of a long and clearly-marked development before we reach the\nideas of the _G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n3. The diction of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is not the Vedic Sanskrit of the early\n_Br\u0101hmanas_ (which are the literature of the period following\nKurukshetra), but belongs to a very much later stage of the language.\n\n4. The fact that the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is not _sruti_, but _smriti_, proves that it\ncomes neither from Krishna, nor from the time of Kurukshetra.\n\n5. Krishna Devakiputra is known in the later Vedic literature as a man,\nand in the S\u016btra literature as a hero or demi-god, but never as the\nsupreme being.\n\n6. The fact that there is not a single reference in the whole of the\nVedic literature, nor yet in the S\u016btra literature, to Krishna as the\nincarnation of Brahma, makes it impossible for us to believe that at the\nbattle of Kurukshetra he claimed to be such.\n\n7. The fact that there was no revival or reformation of religion in the\nage of Kurukshetra proves that God was not incarnated then.\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  The philosophic basis of the book is primarily the _S\u0101nkhya_ system\n  which is essentially atheistic.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  Dr. Lorinser\u2019s attempt (_Die Bhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_, \u00fcbersetzt und erl\u00e4utert\n  von Dr. F. Lorinser, 1869) to prove that the author of the _G\u012bt\u0101_\n  borrowed many ideas from the Bible must be pronounced a failure. _Cf._\n  Garbe, 19, 83-85; Max M\u00fcller, _Natural Religion_, 97-100; Hopkins, _R.\n  I._, 429.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  On the religion of the _Rigveda_ see Kaegi, 27-74; Hopkins, _R. I._,\n  Chaps. II-VI; Macdonell, 67-115; Bose, _H.C._, I, 6-9; Dutt, _C.A.I._,\n  Vol. I, Chap. V; Monier-Williams, Chap. I.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  Hopkins, _R.I._, 141; Macdonell, 385; Garbe, 1-2; Kaegi, 87.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  _E.g._, X, 90.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  X, 81; 82; 121.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  X, 129.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  Kaegi, 3; Macdonell, 171-174.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  Kaegi, 4; Macdonell, 174-185.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  Kaegi, 5; Macdonell, 202 ff.; M\u00fcller, _A.S.L._, Chap. II; Bose,\n  _H.C._, I, 9-12.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  M\u00fcller, _A.S.L._, 389.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  Hopkins, _R.I._, 177.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  Gough, Chap. I; Garbe, 2-7; Macdonell, 223; Hopkins, _R.I._, 204.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  M\u00fcller, _A.S.L._, 313 ff.; Macdonell, 204; Kaegi, 5.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  M\u00fcller, _A.S.L._, 316 ff.; Macdonell, 218 ff.; Kaegi, 5; Bose, _H.C._,\n  I, 12-19.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  For the teaching of the Upanishads _see_ Gough; Hopkins, _R. I._,\n  Chap. X; Garbe, 7-10.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n  _See_ Deussen on each of these Upanishads, especially p. 264; and\n  _Cf._ Macdonell, 226.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n  Garbe, 10; Macdonell, 390, 393.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n  F\u00fchrer, _Monograph on Buddha Sakyamuni\u2019s Birthplace_, Arch. Surv. of\n  India, Vol. XXVI, Allahabad, 1897; Macdonell, 13.\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n  For the S\u0101nkhya system, _see_ Garbe, 10, 11, 29, 36, 45; Macdonell,\n  390-395; Dutt, _C. A. I._, Vol. I, pp. 276 ff.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n  Macdonell, 393.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n  Macdonell, 226; Deussen, 261, 523, 288, 544, 241.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n  Deussen, 264.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n  _Katha_, 3, 10-13; 6, 6; 6, 7-11; 6, 14-18; _Svet._ passim; _Mundaka_,\n  2, 1, 1-3; _Mah\u0101n\u0101r_, 63, 21. _Cf._ Deussen, _ad loca_.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n  _Katha_, 2, 23; _Svet._ 3, 20; _Mundaka_, 3, 2-3. _Cf._ Hopkins,\n  _R.I._, 238.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n  _Svet._ 6, 23.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n  _Svet._ 6, 13.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n  M\u00fcller, _Anthrop. Rel._, 345; Oldenberg, _Budda_, 56.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n  Weber, _Sitz. Berli. Ak. 1890_, p. 930.\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n  _I. L._, 159.\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n  Deussen, 291, 308.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n  Deussen, _ad loca_; Macdonell, 226.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n  Deussen, 242.\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n  Deussen, _ad loca_; Macdonell, 226.\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n  Garbe, 14; Macdonell, 396; Hopkins, _R. I._, 495.\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n  For the Yoga system, _see_ Garbe, 14-15; Macdonell, 396-399; Dutt, _C.\n  A. I._, Vol. I, pp. 285 ff.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n  Garbe, 16-18; Macdonell, 400-402.\n\nFootnote 38:\n\n  Deussen, 4; Macdonell, 238; Dutt, _C. A. I._, Vol. I, 119; Garbe, 69.\n\nFootnote 39:\n\n  Deussen, 541-543; Macdonell, 238-239.\n\nFootnote 40:\n\n  Macdonell, 239. _Cf._ Deussen, 543; Weber, _I. L._, 153 ff.\n\nFootnote 41:\n\n  Bose, _H.C._, Vol. I, 4.\n\nFootnote 42:\n\n  _Garbha_, 4; _Pr\u0101n\u0101gnihotra_, 1; _S\u016blika_, passim.\n\nFootnote 43:\n\n  Macdonell, 428; Hopkins, _G. E. I._, 18-23.\n\nFootnote 44:\n\n  Macdonell, 282-4.\n\nFootnote 45:\n\n  See Hopkins, _G. E. I._, Chap. VI; _R.I._ 350; Macdonell, 285-288.\n\nFootnote 46:\n\n  Hopkins, _G. E. I._, 397-398; Macdonell, 283-286. Bunkim Chundra\n  recognizes the second, third and fourth of these stages: see\n  _Krishnacharitra_, Chap. XI.\n\nFootnote 47:\n\n  _The Ordinances of Manu_, Burnell and Hopkins, pp. XIX-XXVIII;\n  Macdonell, 428.\n\nFootnote 48:\n\n  Hopkins, _G. E. I._, Chap. III; _R. I._, 265.\n\nFootnote 49:\n\n  Hopkins, _R. I._, Chaps. XIV and XV; Bose, _H. C._, Vol. I, 3.\n\nFootnote 50:\n\n  _See_ Telang\u2019s translation throughout, and _cf._ Hopkins, _G. E. I._,\n  28-46; Amalnerkar, 4-5.\n\nFootnote 51:\n\n  Telang, 15.\n\nFootnote 52:\n\n  _Cf._ Hopkins, _R. I._, 429.\n\nFootnote 53:\n\n  _G._, IV, 8.\n\nFootnote 54:\n\n  Hopkins, _R. I._, 399.\n\nFootnote 55:\n\n  _G._, IV, 1-3.\n\nFootnote 56:\n\n  _G._, XVIII, 13.\n\nFootnote 57:\n\n  _G._, XVIII, 19.\n\nFootnote 58:\n\n  _G._, X, 26. This is a noticeable point; for Kapila is the only\n  founder of a philosophical system known to the Epic; he alone is\n  authoritative in all philosophical matters. _See_ Hopkins, _G. E. I._,\n  97.\n\nFootnote 59:\n\n  _G._, X, 24.\n\nFootnote 60:\n\n  _See_ Hopkins, _R. I._, 414.\n\nFootnote 61:\n\n  _G._, X, 27.\n\nFootnote 62:\n\n  _G._, X, 27.\n\nFootnote 63:\n\n  _G._, X, 28.\n\nFootnote 64:\n\n  _G._, X, 31.\n\nFootnote 65:\n\n  _G._, II, 72; V, 24; 25; 26; VI, 15.\n\nFootnote 66:\n\n  Hopkins, _G. E. I._, 88; _R. I._, 427.\n\nFootnote 67:\n\n  _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_, Bh\u012bshma Parvan.\n\nFootnote 68:\n\n  _G._, VIII, 24-25.\n\nFootnote 69:\n\n  Amalnerkar, 13.\n\nFootnote 70:\n\n  See _Jacob\u2019s Concordance to the Principal Upanishads and\n  Bhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_.\n\nFootnote 71:\n\n  Mr. Justice Telang was inclined to put the date before the third\n  century B.C., but his otherwise most judicious criticism is faulty in\n  this that it does not take all the factors of the problem into\n  consideration. Others, such as M\u00fcller, Weber, Davies and Lorinser,\n  incline to a very late date, about the third century A.D. Most writers\n  believe that the true date lies between these extremes. So\n  Monier-Williams, Hopkins, Fraser and others. Prof. Amalnerkar\u2019s\n  pamphlet contains a number of most interesting points. His contention,\n  that the phrase, _Brahmas\u016btrapadaih_ (_G._ XIII, 4) refers to the\n  _Ved\u0101nta S\u016btras_, and that the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is therefore the later work of\n  the two, has been accepted by Max M\u00fcller (_S. S. I. P._, 155), but\n  Prof. Hopkins thinks the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is earlier than the S\u016btra (_R. I._,\n  400). The theory which Prof. Hopkins holds, that the Divine Song was\n  originally an Upanishad, and that it was redacted, first as a Vishuite\n  poem, and then a second time in the interests of Krishnaism (_R. I._,\n  389), would account, on the one hand, for the numerous inconsistencies\n  in its teaching, and, on the other, for the very conflicting signs of\n  date which it presents. For a criticism of Bunkim Chundra\u2019s views,\n  _see_ the Appendix.\n\nFootnote 72:\n\n  Dutt, _C. A. I._, Vol. I, 9-11; Bunkim Ch. Chatterji,\n  _Krishnacharitra_, 46; Macdonell, 174-175, 285; Hopkins, _R. I._, 33,\n  177-179.\n\nFootnote 73:\n\n  Macdonell, 285; Weber, _I. L._, 90.\n\nFootnote 74:\n\n  _S. B. E._, Vol. XII, pp. XLI-XLII; Macdonell, 213.\n\nFootnote 75:\n\n  _S. B. E._, Vol. XIV, Index. _Cf._ Weber, _I. L._, 186;\n  _Krishnacharitra_, 31.\n\nFootnote 76:\n\n  3, 17, 6. _See_ Dutt, _C. A. I._, Vol. I, 189; Weber, _I. L._, 71;\n  Bose, _H. C._, Vol. I, 26; Hopkins, _R. I._, 465.\n\nFootnote 77:\n\n  Weber, _I. L._, 70.\n\nFootnote 78:\n\n  Whether Krishna Angirasa in the _Kaush\u012btaki Br\u0101hmana_ be the same\n  person as Krishna Devakiputra, or not, we cannot tell.\n\nFootnote 79:\n\n  Dutt, _C. A. I._, Vol. I, 127; Bose, _H. C._, Vol. I, 33-34; Hopkins,\n  _R. I._, 403; Monier-Williams, 112.\n\nFootnote 80:\n\n  The reference to Krishna and Arjuna runs _V\u0101sudev\u0101rjun\u0101bhy\u0101m vun_ (IV,\n  3, 98), words which put the two on one level.\n\nFootnote 81:\n\n  Hopkins, _G. E. I._, 390-395.\n\nFootnote 82:\n\n  Hopkins, _G. E. I._, 395.\n\nFootnote 83:\n\n  We need not stay to ask whether the _Srimadbh\u0101gavat_ and other Pur\u0101nas\n  can be trusted as evidence for the life of Krishna; for all scholars\n  agree that, while ancient Pur\u0101nas existed, all those that have come\n  down to us reflect _a later stage of Hinduism than that of the\n  Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_; and that, while they contain much that is old scattered\n  up and down their pages, the oldest fragments are of the same general\n  date as the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and _Manu_. Hopkins, _R. I._, 434-445;\n  Macdonell, 299-302; Dutt, _C. A. I._, I, 19; II, 211; M\u00fcller, _A. S.\n  L._, 61; Kaegi, 8, 105; _Krishnacharitra_, Chaps. XIV-XVI.\n\nFootnote 84:\n\n  The study of Prof. Macdonell\u2019s excellent manual ought surely now to be\n  made part of any Sanskrit course prescribed for a University degree in\n  India.\n\nFootnote 85:\n\n  Bose, _H. C._, Vol. I, 5.\n\nFootnote 86:\n\n  _The Student\u2019s Chronicle_, May 1903, p. 6.\n\nFootnote 87:\n\n  For some amusing instances _see_ Hopkins, _R. I._, 522, note, and\n  _cf._ Monier-Williams, Chap. X.\n\nFootnote 88:\n\n  Monier-Williams, 260.\n\nFootnote 89:\n\n  Garbe, 85; Monier-Williams, 98, 112, note.\n\nFootnote 90:\n\n  McCrindle, _Ancient India_, 201. _Cf._ Hopkins, _R. I._, 459;\n  Macdonell, 411; Dutt, _C. A. I._, Vol. I, 219; Garbe, 19, 83.\n\nFootnote 91:\n\n  That it was only at a very late date that this identification took\n  place is evident from the fact that it is not once mentioned in the\n  early literature. Even in two of the Vishnu Upanishads of the Atharva\n  Veda, the _Atmabodha_, and the _N\u0101r\u0101yana_, Krishna is referred to as a\n  mere man. Apart from the _G\u012bt\u0101_ and the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_, the earliest\n  reference to him as God incarnate is in the _Gop\u0101lat\u0101pan\u012byopanishad_.\n  See Weber, _I. L._, 169; and _cf._ Garbe, 18-19, 85; Bose, _H. C._,\n  Vol. I, 25-26; Dutt, _C. A. I._, Vol. II, 191.\n\nFootnote 92:\n\n  For the inconsistencies of the _G\u012bt\u0101_, see Telang, p. 11; Hopkins, _R.\n  I._, 390, 399, 400.\n\nFootnote 93:\n\n  VII, 6; 10; IX, 8; 10; 13; XIV, 3.\n\nFootnote 94:\n\n  VII, 7; IX, 5.\n\nFootnote 95:\n\n  IX, 7.\n\nFootnote 96:\n\n  IX, 7.\n\nFootnote 97:\n\n  IX, 4.\n\nFootnote 98:\n\n  VII, 8-11; X, 20-38.\n\nFootnote 99:\n\n  IX, 10; 17-18.\n\nFootnote 100:\n\n  IV, 14.\n\nFootnote 101:\n\n  IX, 9.\n\nFootnote 102:\n\n  III; 22-24.\n\nFootnote 103:\n\n  This is Telang\u2019s translation of two very difficult, yet very\n  instructive phrases. In the _G\u012bt\u0101_ the word _prakriti_ is used, first\n  for the primeval matter of the S\u0101nkhya system (III, 27; 29; IX, 8, 10,\n  12; XIII, 19, 20, 23, 29), and secondly for the primeval matter of\n  personal character, each man\u2019s natural disposition (III, 33; VII, 20;\n  XI, 51; XVIII, 59). There is then a third class of passages in which\n  the word is used in the S\u0101nkhyan sense, but, _by the addition of a\n  personal pronoun_, _prakriti_ is made to belong to Krishna personally\n  (VII, 4, 5; IX, 7, 13). Here we have one of the devices our author\n  employed to give the great old phrases a vivid personal colouring. Now\n  such a phrase as \u201cmy prakriti\u201d is already ambiguous; so we are not\n  surprised to meet with two passages, in which it is impossible to tell\n  whether the meaning is metaphysical or ethical (IV, 6; IX, 8).\n  Probably the author intended to suggest both meanings. Most\n  translators take the meaning to be metaphysical, but Telang may be\n  right in taking it as ethical: Krishna is regarded as the ideal of\n  Action Yoga. For a similar use of the personal pronoun compare\n  _sarvakarm\u0101ni mayi sannyasya_ (XVIII, 57) with _sarvakarm\u0101ni\n  sannyasya_ of the _Paramahansopanishad_. Pages 706, 708 and 709 of\n  Jacob\u2019s _Concordance to the Principal Upanishads and Bhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_ are\n  peculiarly instructive in this connection.\n\nFootnote 104:\n\n  IV, 14; IX, 9.\n\nFootnote 105:\n\n  X, 12, 20.\n\nFootnote 106:\n\n  III, 3; IV, 36-38; XII, 12.\n\nFootnote 107:\n\n  XII, 12; XIII, 24.\n\nFootnote 108:\n\n  II, 47-53; III, 7, 30; IV, 14-23; V, 2; VI, 1; XII, 12; XVIII, 1-11.\n\nFootnote 109:\n\n  VII, 13-14; XII, 20.\n\nFootnote 110:\n\n  VII, 15; IX, 11-12; XVI, 6-20.\n\nFootnote 111:\n\n  II, 61; VII, 14; XII, 6; XVIII, 57.\n\nFootnote 112:\n\n  XII, 2.\n\nFootnote 113:\n\n  VI, 14, 31; IX, 13-14, 22, 30, 34; X, 8-10; XII, 2, 6-7, 14.\n\nFootnote 114:\n\n  IV, 10; VII, 1, 29; IX, 32.\n\nFootnote 115:\n\n  VI, 14; X, 9; XVIII, 57-58.\n\nFootnote 116:\n\n  VIII, 5, 7, 14.\n\nFootnote 117:\n\n  X, 3; XVIII, 66.\n\nFootnote 118:\n\n  IV, 14; IX, 28; XVIII, 49.\n\nFootnote 119:\n\n  V, 29; VI, 15; XVIII, 62.\n\nFootnote 120:\n\n  X, 11.\n\nFootnote 121:\n\n  VI, 15; VIII, 15.\n\nFootnote 122:\n\n  IV, 9; VII, 19; VIII, 5, 7, 15-16; IX, 25, 28, 32, 34; XII, 8; XIII,\n  18; XIV, 2; XVIII, 55-56, 62, 65.\n\nFootnote 123:\n\n  X, 2.\n\nFootnote 124:\n\n  X, 1-3, 20.\n\nFootnote 125:\n\n  IX, 23.\n\nFootnote 126:\n\n  VII, 21-22.\n\nFootnote 127:\n\n  IX, 29.\n\nFootnote 128:\n\n  IX, 22; X, 7-11.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n                           PLATO\u2019S JUST MAN.\n\n\nWe must now leave the land of Bh\u0101rata and seek the shores of Greece.\n\nIn the fifth century, B. C., Athens became the focus of Hellenic\nculture. Her achievements in the Persian wars had given her very\ndistinctly the leadership of all the Greek states; and the steady\nprogress of her commerce brought her not only wealth but abundant\nintercourse with other cities. So that in the latter half of the century\nwe find the peculiar genius of Hellas displayed in Athens with\nunexampled vigour, variety and splendour. But space will not allow us\neven to outline the achievements of that incomparable age in the various\nprovinces of human culture. We must confine our attention to philosophy.\n\nThe general advance of intelligence, education and culture in Greece\nproduced the only result possible in communities whose religion was a\ntraditional polytheism and whose morality rested merely on custom and\nproverbial wisdom: scepticism, both religious and ethical, broke in like\na flood. Tradition and custom could not withstand the corrosive\ninfluences of fresh thought fed by deepening experience and widening\nscience. The Sophists were the exponents, but scarcely the creators, of\nthis sceptical habit of thought. The philosophers had not done much to\ncause it, and they could do as little to cure it. Their theories dealt\nwith nature rather than man, and stood in no clear relation to the\nproblems that agitated every thinking mind.\n\nIt was at Athens that this sceptical spirit showed itself most\nconspicuously, now in the lectures of the chief Sophists of Hellas,\nnaturally drawn to the centre of intellectual ferment, now in the\nstately tragedies of her Dionysiac festivals, now in the _fin-de-si\u00e8cle_\nconversation of her gilded youth. The timid, the old-fashioned, the\nconservative scolded and sputtered and threatened, blaming individuals\ninstead of the time spirit, but had no healing word to utter.[129]\n\nFrom the very centre of the disturbance came the new spirit of order and\nrestoration: Socrates, the Athenian, saved Greece. The older\nphilosophers had discussed nature; he turned all his attention to\npractical human life. Like the Sophists, he trusted human reason; but\nunlike them, he aimed not at a display of intellectual dexterity but at\nreaching the actual basis of human morality, society and politics. Human\nconduct was the sole subject of his thought and his conversation. Hence\nthe definite, practical value of his influence: his teaching stood in\nthe closest possible relation to life and to the problems of the time.\nOn the other hand, he began with introspection; self-knowledge was what\nhe demanded of every disciple. Hence the inexhaustible significance of\nhis work for philosophy. He gave no set lessons to his pupils, delivered\nno lectures, wrote no books. He spent his whole time in conversation\nwith individuals, proceeding always by question and answer, thus\ncompelling his companion to think for himself. His extraordinary\nintellectual skill and the loftiness and simplicity of his character\ndrew all the best intellects of Athens around him. But what gives him\nhis unchallenged supremacy in the history of Greek thought is the fact,\nthat in his hands the sceptical thought, which had caused such dismay\neverywhere, proved to be the very means of revealing the great realities\nwhich men had feared for.[130]\n\nIn 399 B. C., when he was an old man of seventy years of age, a number\nof his fellow-citizens brought a criminal case against him, charging him\nwith corrupting the youth of Athens and with impiety. He was tried,\nfound guilty and sentenced to death. A month later he drank the\nhemlock\u2014such was the Athenian mode of execution\u2014surrounded by his\nfriends.[131]\n\nHow tragic! Athens, \u201cthe school of Hellas,\u201d[132] kills her greatest\nteacher! Socrates, the father of ethical philosophy, the founder of the\ncritical method, the ideal instructor, dies as an impious corruptor of\nthe youth of Athens!\n\nBut Socrates was not merely the greatest teacher of his day. All\nsubsequent Greek philosophy is filled with his spirit; indeed the\nleading schools of thought were founded by his pupils.[133] Consequently\nhe is the fountain-head of all Western philosophy and science; for in\nboth Greece was the school-mistress of Europe.\n\nAmong all the disciples, Plato best represents the master\u2019s spirit. The\nMegarians, the Cynics, the Cyrenaics, and, at a later date, the Stoics\nand the Epicureans, certainly carried on the work of Socrates, but they\nare deflections from the straight line: they are \u201cimperfect schools,\u201d as\nZeller calls them.[134] Plato is in the direct line of succession.\n\nHe was about twenty years of age when he began to listen to Socrates.\nEight years later came the death of the great teacher. Plato then left\nAthens and spent a number of years in travel and in study in different\nplaces. About 390 B. C., however, he returned to the city and set up a\nphilosophical school in a garden called Academia. For forty years\nthereafter he was the acknowledged leader of philosophic thought and\nteaching in Athens.[135] His influence since his death has rested\nchiefly on his Dialogues, one of the most perfect literary treasures in\nthe Greek language. The form of these beautiful compositions still\nreflects the question-and-answer method of Plato\u2019s master; and the debt\nof the pupil is everywhere acknowledged; for in most of the Dialogues\nSocrates is the chief interlocutor.[136] Among the Dialogues the\n_Republic_ is universally recognized as the most precious; for it shows\nus not only his literary art at its highest, but the thought of his\nmatured mind: it represents Plato in his strength.[137]\n\nThe subject of the _Republic_ is \u201cWhat is Justice?\u201d It is thus the\nculmination of the ethical teaching of Socrates. Among the preliminary\ndiscussions in this book there occurs a very striking conversation\nbetween Glaucon and Socrates, in which the former gives two ideal\nportraits, one of a man consummately unjust, the other of a man\naltogether just. Here is the passage:\u2014\n\n    \u201cBut in actually deciding between the lives of the two persons in\n    question, we shall be enabled to arrive at a correct conclusion by\n    contrasting together the thoroughly just and the thoroughly unjust\n    man,\u2014and only by so doing. Well then, how are we to contrast them?\n    In this way. Let us make no deduction either from the injustice of\n    the unjust, or from the justice of the just, but let us suppose each\n    to be perfect in his own line of conduct. First of all then, the\n    unjust man must act as skilful craftsmen do. For a first-rate pilot\n    or physician perceives the difference between what is practicable\n    and what is impracticable in his art, and while he attempts the\n    former, he lets the latter alone; and, moreover, should he happen to\n    make a false step, he is able to recover himself. In the same way,\n    if we are to form a conception of a consummately unjust man, we must\n    suppose that he makes no mistake in the prosecution of his unjust\n    enterprises and that he escapes detection: but if he be found out,\n    we must look upon him as a bungler; for it is the perfection of\n    injustice to seem just without really being so. We must, therefore,\n    grant to the perfectly unjust man, without any deduction, the most\n    perfect injustice: and we must concede to him, that while committing\n    the grossest acts of injustice, he has won himself the highest\n    reputation for justice; and that should he make a false step, he is\n    able to recover himself, partly by a talent for speaking with\n    effect, in case he be called in question for any of his misdeeds,\n    and partly because his courage and strength, and his command of\n    friends and money, enable him to employ force with success, whenever\n    force is required. Such being our unjust man, let us, in pursuance\n    of the argument, place the just man by his side, a man of true\n    simplicity and nobleness, resolved, as \u00c6schylus says, not to seem,\n    but to be, good. We must certainly take away the seeming; for if he\n    be thought to be a just man, he will have honours and gifts on the\n    strength of this reputation, so that it will be uncertain whether it\n    is for justice\u2019s sake, or for the sake of the gifts and honours,\n    that he is what he is. Yes; we must strip him bare of everything but\n    justice, and make his whole case the reverse of the former. Without\n    being guilty of one unjust act, let him have the worst reputation\n    for injustice, so that his virtue may be thoroughly tested, and\n    shewn to be proof against infamy and all its consequences; and let\n    him go on till the day of his death, steadfast in his justice, but\n    with a lifelong reputation for injustice; in order that, having\n    brought both the men to the utmost limits of justice and of\n    injustice respectively, we may then give judgment as to which of the\n    two is the happier.\u201d\n\n    \u201cGood heavens! my dear Glaucon,\u201d said I, \u201chow vigorously you work,\n    scouring the two characters clean for our judgment, like a pair of\n    statues.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI do it as well as I can,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd after describing the men\n    as we have done, there will be no further difficulty, I imagine, in\n    proceeding to sketch the kind of life which awaits them\n    respectively. Let me therefore describe it. And if the description\n    be somewhat coarse, do not regard it as mine, Socrates, but as\n    coming from those who commend injustice above justice. They will say\n    that in such a situation the just man will be scourged, racked,\n    fettered, will have his eyes burnt out, and at last, after suffering\n    every kind of torture, will be crucified; and thus learn that it is\n    best to resolve, not to be, but to seem, just.\u201d[138]\n\nThe picture of the just man here is surely a very remarkable one. It is\ndramatically put into the mouth of Glaucon, and part of it is by him\nattributed to those who commend injustice; but these are but literary\nforms; the picture is Plato\u2019s own. It is his ideal of the just man; and\nthe extraordinary thing is his belief, here stated so plainly, that a\nman whose heart is perfectly set on righteousness may be so completely\nmisunderstood by those around him, as to be regarded by them as utterly\nunjust, and may in consequence be subjected to the extremest torture and\nthe most shameful death.\n\nNo one can doubt that it was the death of his master that led Plato to\nperceive the great truth to which he here gives such energetic\nexpression. The charges against Socrates were a complete inversion of\nthe truth: his reverence was called impiety; his brilliant work for the\ncharacter of the youth of his day brought him the charge of baneful\ncorruption. From his tragic end Plato learned that the good man who\nbrings new truth is very likely to be completely misunderstood and to be\nclassed with the worst wrong-doers.\n\nFootnote 129:\n\n  Zeller, _Socrates_, Chaps. I and II.\n\nFootnote 130:\n\n  Zeller, _Socrates_, Chaps. III to IX; Bury, _History of Greece_, II,\n  140-146; Grote, _History of Greece_, Chap. LXVIII.\n\nFootnote 131:\n\n  Zeller, _Socrates_, Chap. X; Bury, _History of Greece_, II, 147.\n\nFootnote 132:\n\n  So called by Pericles, her greatest statesman. See _Thucydides_, II,\n  41.\n\nFootnote 133:\n\n  See Milton, _Paradise Regained_, IV, 272-280.\n\nFootnote 134:\n\n  _Socrates_, Part III.\n\nFootnote 135:\n\n  Mahaffy, _Greek Literature_, II, 160-162; Ritchie, _Plato_, Chap. I;\n  Mayor, _Ancient Philosophy_, 41 ff.\n\nFootnote 136:\n\n  For the Dialogues _see_ Ritchie\u2019s _Plato_, Chap. II.\n\nFootnote 137:\n\n  On the _Republic_ see Mahaffy, _Greek Literature_, II, 195-201.\n\nFootnote 138:\n\n  Plato, _Rep._, II, 360 E-362 A, Davies and Vaughan\u2019s translation.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n                        THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH.\n\n\nThe history of Israel is unique in the annals of the nations. In size\nscarcely worthy of regard, in politics only for one brief reign of any\nserious account, with no special genius for art or war, for speculative\nthinking or scientific research, failing to keep even their racial unity\nin the day of their greatest strength, torn in pieces by every\nconqueror, deported out of their own land, and even after their return\nkept in subjection by other imperial races, finally stripped of their\ntemple and sacred city by the Romans, and shattered into fragments, this\nfeeble people has yet set its name high beside Greece and Rome, has\ngiven the world the only book which all the world reads,[139] and the\nreligion which has produced Western civilization.\n\nThe one duty of which the best spirits in Israel were conscious\nthroughout the history of the people was faithfulness to Jehovah. Indeed\nthe whole consciousness of the race might be summed up in two phrases:\n_Jehovah is the God of Israel_, and, _Israel is the people of Jehovah_.\nWar, government, philosophy, art might be for other peoples: Israel\u2019s\none duty was to serve her God, religion the sole activity of her spirit.\n\nThe relation between Jehovah and Israel was a peculiarly tender\none;\u2014\u201cWhen Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out\nof Egypt,\u201d[140] says Jehovah by the mouth of one of His prophets. As\nIsrael was Jehovah\u2019s son, he had to be taught, trained, disciplined. The\nhistory of the people, then, is simply the record of Jehovah\u2019s dealings\nwith them in this process of loving and patient training.\n\nIsrael\u2019s education was chiefly in the hard school of experience, in\nnational disaster and disgrace, in national recovery and victory. But\nnot in events alone: Jehovah spoke His will out clearly through a series\nof most remarkable men known as the PROPHETS. What is most noticeable in\nthese men is the directness and the certainty of the message they\nbrought from Jehovah to His people. Usually it was criticism and\ncondemnation, with a definite declaration of coming punishment; but now\nand then it was comfort and consolation, with the promise of speedy help\nand relief.\n\nIt would be most interesting to trace the history in detail and to watch\nhow the people were led step by step to fuller and clearer knowledge of\nGod, but we must not stay for that here. We need only say sufficient to\nenable readers to understand the circumstances in which the great\nprophecy which we wish to discuss came to be uttered.\n\nThe people were slaves in Egypt. They were brought out under Moses; and\nin the peninsula of Sinai a Covenant was made between them and Jehovah,\nwhich laid the foundation of their religion and their national life.\nJoshua was their leader in the conquest of Palestine, an event which\nprobably took place in the thirteenth century B. C. During the first two\ncenturies of their residence in the land they had no settled form of\ngovernment, but acknowledged as their rulers from time to time certain\ngreat personalities known as Judges. Towards the end of the eleventh\ncentury the pressure of the Philistines led to the establishment of a\nmonarchy. Saul knit the people together; David built up a petty empire;\nSolomon gave his attention to commerce and internal organization.\n\nBut after these three reigns the nation fell in two. From 937 B. C.\nonward for two centuries, instead of one state there are two rival\nkingdoms, the northern called Israel and the southern Judah. The great\nevents of these centuries occur in Israel. Through the prophets Elijah\nand Elisha the people were taught that Jehovah would never consent to be\none among many gods: _They must worship Jehovah alone_. Later, Amos\nprophesied that Jehovah would bring about the destruction of the kingdom\nof Israel, because the people would not live righteously. They offered\nGod sacrifices, while He demanded righteous conduct between man and man.\nBut they could not believe that Jehovah would destroy His own chosen\npeople: \u201cHow can we believe that He will destroy the only people in all\nthe world that He has made Himself known to?\u201d Swift comes the answer,\n\u201cYou only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I\nwill punish you for all your iniquities.\u201d[141] Israel had had greater\nprivileges than any other people; therefore Israel had a deeper\nresponsibility, and would receive a severer punishment. In 722 B. C. the\nAssyrians overthrew Israel, and carried away 27,290 of the leading\ninhabitants and settled them in Mesopotamia and Media.[142] The prophecy\nof Amos was thus literally fulfilled.\n\nThe kingdom of Judah, which was not involved in the fate of Israel,\nstood for rather more than a century longer. Isaiah was the prophet of\nJehovah in Judah when Israel fell. He condemned his own people just as\nAmos had condemned Israel, because they identified religion with ritual,\nand would not give Jehovah what He wanted, namely, righteousness. The\nstate of the people was so bad that Isaiah declared that nothing could\ncure them. Jehovah would intervene: the bulk of the people would be\ndestroyed, but _a righteous remnant would be saved_. Towards the end of\nIsaiah\u2019s life Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came, devastated the land of\nJudah, took many of the cities, and demanded the surrender of the\ncapital, Jerusalem. Isaiah advised the king not to yield, and prophesied\nthat the Assyrian would not be able to touch the city. His prophecy was\nfulfilled to the letter. The huge Assyrian army was suddenly annihilated\nby some unknown cause, probably pestilence, and Sennacherib hastened\nback to Assyria.[143]\n\nA century later Judah was in a still worse condition: idolatry,\npolytheism, immorality were eating out the vitals of the nation. In 604\nB. C. Jeremiah prophesied that Jehovah would bring Nebuchadnezzar, king\nof Babylon, into Syria, and that he would destroy Judah and all the\nnations round about, that they would groan under the rule of Babylon for\nseventy years, but that at the end of that period Jehovah would punish\nthe Babylonians for their iniquity, and would make their land desolate\nforever.[144] But his countrymen would not listen. Jehovah had saved His\npeople from the Assyrian in the time of Isaiah: why should He allow the\nBabylonian to touch them now? Yet in 585 B. C. Nebuchadnezzar took\nJerusalem, burned the city and the temple, and carried away the king and\nall the leading families to Babylon.[145] Once more the word of Jehovah,\nas spoken by His prophets, was literally fulfilled.\n\nBut what was to be the end?\u2014Jehovah seemed to have utterly destroyed His\nchosen people: what was His purpose? what good was to come out of it?\n\nThe people of the northern kingdom, carried away in 722 B. C., soon lost\ntheir religion, and were in consequence speedily lost themselves among\nthe peoples of the East. Not so the captives of Judah: the training of\nIsaiah and his disciples and of Jeremiah and his friends had taken fast\nhold of their hearts, so that even in a foreign land, far away from home\nand temple, they held by the religion of Jehovah. Nor is that all: they\nbegan to take their religion seriously; they began to perceive that the\nprophets were right in declaring that Jehovah was a very different God\nfrom the gods of the nations around them, that He would not be satisfied\nwith sacrifice and song, but demanded _heart-worship and righteousness_.\nBut although they clung to their faith in Jehovah, they were naturally\ngreatly depressed by the seeming hopelessness of their captivity.[146]\nTo rebel against the Babylonians, and by the sword regain their freedom\nand their land, was an utter impossibility: they were altogether\nhelpless under the omnipotent empire.\n\nBut about 550 B. C. Cyrus, an Elamite king, began a great career of\nconquest. In 549 he overthrew the Cimmerians under their king Astyages,\nand by 546 he was master of Persia. He then went further west to subdue\nAsia Minor.[147]\n\nIt was at this juncture, according to all scholars, that a great\nprophet, whose name is unknown, began to comfort and encourage the\nJewish exiles in Babylon. His prophecy is preserved for us in the latter\npart of the book of Isaiah.[148] His message is that the sufferings of\nthe exiles are nearly at an end, that Cyrus is to capture Babylon and\ngive them leave to return to their native land.[149]\n\nIn 538 B. C. Cyrus marched into Babylonia, defeated the Babylonian army,\nand seized the city, thus fulfilling in a very striking way the second\npart of Jeremiah\u2019s prophecy.[150] Soon after, the Judean captives\nreceived permission to return to Palestine. They were also allowed to\ncarry with them the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away\nfrom the temple in Jerusalem.[151] The prophecy of restoration was thus\ntriumphantly fulfilled. One company of exiles went at once, and others\nfollowed them later.\n\nThe people of Jehovah in this way began life afresh after the great\nnational punishment of the Captivity. They had thoroughly learned one\nlesson at least, namely, this, that _Jehovah spoke through His\nprophets_. So in their new system, while they retained the old ritual of\nthe temple, they made careful provision for the preservation of the\nwritings of the prophets and for the instruction of the people in the\nMosaic Law.\n\nWe need trace the history no farther; for it was this post-exilic\nJudaism, with its great care for the Scriptures, and its energetic\nattempts to instil them into the minds of the people, that formed the\nenvironment of Jesus and His work.\n\nBut we must now return to the great prophet who spoke consolation to the\nexiles in Babylon, and study his ideas. His conception of God is very\nlofty. He illustrates in many ways His holiness, His faithfulness, His\ntender sympathy, His omnipotence, His absolute sway among nations, and\nHis power of foretelling future events by the mouth of His prophets. On\nthe other hand, the prophet\u2019s conception of the duty and destiny of the\npeople of Jehovah is correspondingly high. Israel has been created and\nchosen by Jehovah, and therefore is precious in His sight; but He did\nnot choose them out of favouritism, nor was it His purpose to heap\nblessings on them merely for their pleasure and aggrandizement. Israel\nis _the Servant of Jehovah_. The service they have to render is to\nreveal God\u2019s character and purposes to all the nations of the earth.\nThis is the end of their election and of their long training. But, as in\nthe past the nation has fallen far short of Jehovah\u2019s ideal, so now in\nBabylon the people as a whole is very far from fit for the work which\nGod has for them to do: \u201cWho is blind but my servant? or deaf as my\nmessenger that I send?\u201d[152]\n\nConsequently there is a further choice within the chosen people. The use\nof the title, the Servant of Jehovah, is narrowed. The prophet knows\nthat God\u2019s ends will be worked out, that through Israel Jehovah\u2019s name\nwill be carried to the ends of the earth; he also sees as clearly that\nthe nation as a nation is unfit for this lofty duty; so he recognises\nthat the Servant who shall do this work will be found within the people.\nWhether he identified the Servant of Jehovah in this narrower sense with\nthe small group of really God-fearing men who formed the soul of Israel\nin his own day, or whether he thought of an individual to be specially\nprepared for the task by Jehovah, we do not know. Most probably this\npoint was not clear to the prophet himself.[153]\n\nIt is in four poems of peculiar dignity and surpassing spiritual\npenetration that this narrower use of the title occurs. In the\nfirst[154] of these Jehovah describes His Servant\u2019s character and work;\nin the second[155], the Servant tells how Jehovah prepared him for his\ntask; in the third,[156] we have a portrait of the Servant as a martyr;\nwhile in the fourth[157], he is represented, though righteous himself,\nas dying a shameful death as an atonement for the sins of the\nunrighteous. It is to this fourth poem that we would direct the\nattention of our readers.\n\n\n              THE ATONING DEATH OF THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH.\n\n\n\n         _Jehovah._\u2014\n\n\n         Lo, My Servant shall deal wisely;\n         He shall rise, be uplifted, and be exalted exceedingly.\n\n         Even as many were amazed at him,\u2014\n         So marred from a man\u2019s was his appearance,\n         And his form from that of the sons of men!\u2014\n         So shall he startle many nations;\n         Before him kings shall shut their mouths.\n         For what had not been told them they shall see,\n         And what they had not heard they shall consider.\n\n\n         _Israel._\u2014\n\n\n         Who believed what was heard by us?\n         And the arm of Jehovah, to whom was it revealed?\n\n         He grew up like a sapling before us,\n         And like a shoot out of parched ground.\n         He had no form, nor majesty, that we should look upon him,\n         Nor appearance, that we should desire him.\n\n         He was despised and forsaken by men,\n         A man of pains and familiar with sickness;\n         And as one from whom men hide their face\n         He was despised, and we held him of no account.\n\n\n         Yet it was our sicknesses that he bore,\n         And our pains that he carried;\n         While we accounted him stricken,\n         Smitten by God, and afflicted.\n\n         But he was pierced because of our transgressions,\n         Crushed because of our iniquities;\n         Chastisement to secure our peace was laid upon him,\n         And through his stripes healing came to us.\n\n         We all like sheep had gone astray,\n         We had turned each one to his own way;\n         And Jehovah made to light on him\n         The iniquity of us all.\n\n\n         _The Prophet._\u2014\n\n\n         He was oppressed, yet he let himself be afflicted,\n         And opened not his mouth,\n         As a lamb that is led to the slaughter,\n         And as a sheep that is dumb before her shearers,\n         And opened not his mouth.\n\n         By a tyrannical judgment he was taken away;\n         And, as for the men of his time, who considered,\n         That he was cut off out of the land of the living,\n         That for the transgression of my people he was stricken?\n\n         And his grave was made with the wicked,\n         And his tomb with the unrighteous,\n         Although he had done no violence,\n         And there was no deceit in his mouth.\n\n         But it was Jehovah that willed to crush him,\n         That laid on him sickness:\n         If he should lay down his life as a guilt-offering,\n         He would see a posterity, he would lengthen his days,\n         And the will of Jehovah would prosper by his hand;\n         After the travail of his soul he would see it,\n         And would be satisfied with his knowledge.\n\n\n         _Jehovah._\u2014\n\n\n         My Servant, the righteous one, shall make many righteous;\n         For he shall bear their iniquities.\n\n         Therefore I will give him a share with the many,\n         And with the strong he shall divide the spoil;\n         Inasmuch as he poured out his life-blood to death,\n         And let himself be numbered with the transgressors;\n         Yet it was the sin of the many he bore,\n         And for the transgressors he interposed.\n\nIn this marvellous poem we have four successive vignettes of the\nServant. There first rises in the prophet\u2019s mind a vision of the\nawe-struck wonder with which the nations and their kings shall gaze on\nthe Servant of Jehovah, when after unequalled humiliation he shall be\nuplifted in surpassing glory. The next picture takes us back to his life\nof humiliation: he grows up with nothing in him to strike the eye or\nattract the attention of men; nay, rather all turn their back on him as\nworthless, contemptible, smitten with divine punishment. But along with\nthis sorrowful portrait there comes the passionate confession of the men\nof Israel, that the Servant in all his sufferings had been bearing their\nsins. The third picture shows us the suffering Servant in uncomplaining\nmeekness enduring a criminal\u2019s death with all its shameful associations;\nyet this death is explained as occurring in accordance with God\u2019s will,\nand as being a guilt-offering. The series ends in triumph: the righteous\nServant by bearing iniquity will make many righteous and will achieve\nthe glory and the reward of the conqueror.\n\nIn this prophecy the remarkable thing is that the sufferings and death\nof the Servant are construed throughout, not as a martyrdom, but as much\nmore. In his death he lays down his life as a guilt-offering; and all\nhis sufferings, inclusive of his death, are, from Jehovah\u2019s point of\nview, chastisement laid on him on account of the sins of others, from\nthe Servant\u2019s point of view, a voluntary bearing of their iniquities.\nHis willingness to endure and his meekness under oppression are very\nvividly put before us; but God\u2019s purpose to crush him is insisted on\nwith equal emphasis. The awful tragedy happens within Israel; but after\nit is consummated, the Servant, once so despised, neglected and\noppressed, startles the nations, and kings in amazement shut their\nmouths in his presence. The purpose of the dread sacrifice is TO BRING\nMEN TO RIGHTEOUSNESS; and that end, we are told, will be widely\naccomplished.\n\nWhence did the prophet draw the ideas of his prophecy? If any piece of\nliterature bears signs of inspiration, this does; but the experience\nwhich enabled him to become the vehicle of inspiration in this\nparticular case may also be conjectured. The sufferings, which many of\nthe prophets, and especially Jeremiah, had endured at the hands of their\nfellow-countrymen, had made a profound impression upon the best minds in\nIsrael; and the affliction of the exiles in Babylon was manifestly not\nmerely penal, but also purificatory.\n\nFootnote 139:\n\n  The Bible, complete or in part, is printed and published to-day in 454\n  languages and dialects. The number of Bibles, New Testaments and\n  portions sold by the various Bible Societies of Europe and America, in\n  lands outside Europe, amounted in 1901 to 3,286,834. (_Centennial\n  Survey of Foreign Missions_ by the Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D.) These\n  figures do not include the Bibles sold by the ordinary publishers of\n  Christian countries, nor the Bibles sold in Europe by Bible Societies.\n  If it were possible to gather all the statistics, we may be certain\n  the figures would amount up to five or six millions. What a book that\n  must be, which circulates in 454 languages, and is sold at the rate of\n  5,000,000 copies per annum!\n\nFootnote 140:\n\n  _Hosea_, 11, 1.\n\nFootnote 141:\n\n  _Amos_, 3, 2.\n\nFootnote 142:\n\n  2 _Kings_, 17, 1-23; the figures are from an inscription of Sargon,\n  the victorious Assyrian King: see _Authority and Arch\u00e6ology_, 101.\n\nFootnote 143:\n\n  2 _Kings_, 19, 35-36; Wellhausen, _Israel and Judah_, Chap. VII;\n  _Authority and Arch\u00e6ology_, 105-108.\n\nFootnote 144:\n\n  _Jeremiah_, 25, 1-14.\n\nFootnote 145:\n\n  2 _Kings_, 25, 1-22.\n\nFootnote 146:\n\n  _Psalm_ 137.\n\nFootnote 147:\n\n  The details have now been read in Cyrus\u2019s own inscriptions: Hastings,\n  _Dictionary of the Bible_, I, 541.\n\nFootnote 148:\n\n  From Chap. 40 onwards. _See_ Driver, _Introduction_, 217.\n\nFootnote 149:\n\n  _Isaiah_, 40, 1-10; 44, 24-28.\n\nFootnote 150:\n\n  _Authority and Archaeology_, 123-126.\n\nFootnote 151:\n\n  _Ezra_, Chap. 1.\n\nFootnote 152:\n\n  _Isaiah_, 42, 19.\n\nFootnote 153:\n\n  For the ideas of this great prophet, see _the Cambridge Bible for\n  Schools, Isaiah_, Vol. II, pp. XXII-XXXIX.\n\nFootnote 154:\n\n  _Isaiah_, 42, 1-4.\n\nFootnote 155:\n\n  _Isaiah_, 49, 1-6.\n\nFootnote 156:\n\n  _Isaiah_, 50, 4-9.\n\nFootnote 157:\n\n  _Isaiah_, 52, 13-53, 12.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n                 VIRGIL\u2019S NEW AGE OF JUSTICE AND PEACE.\n\n\nThe slow but steady rise of an obscure inland Italian town, first to the\nrule of all Italy, and finally to imperial sway over the whole\nMediterranean world, is as full of problems for the intellect as of\nfascination for the imagination. Whence the extraordinary vigour and\npractical genius of this city? What gave it so much capacity in\ncomparison with any other Italian town? Does the secret lie in the Roman\ncharacter, the Roman intellect, or in the constitution of the republican\ncity itself? But other questions still more serious press for answers:\nHow did the Roman government affect the subject provinces? How did it\nreact upon the Roman character and upon the life of the capital? Could a\nsingle city furnish men of character and ability in sufficient numbers\nfor such a prodigious task?\n\nThe answer to these grave questions must be sought in the history of the\nlast century of the existence of the republic. From about 145 B. C. to\nabout 48 B. C. Rome was never at rest: violent political strife,\nfaction, proscriptions and civil wars eclipse everything else in the\ninternal history of the imperial city during these years. The old state\nmachinery was getting worn out; the old families, corrupted by the\nimmeasurable success of the Rome which was their making, were grinding\nthe provinces by their cruelty and greed, and would not budge an inch\nfrom their privileges, nor indeed lift a finger, to save Rome and Italy\nfrom the moral and economic ruin with which they were threatened. The\nwrongs of the slave, the Italian and the provincial cried aloud for\nredress; scarcely less urgent was the need for the introduction of a\ngreat deal of fresh blood into the governing classes; but the latter\nwere bitterly hostile to every change. Hence the violent struggles\nthroughout the century between the Government and the other classes. The\nempire had proved too much for the old Roman character.[158] The only\nforce that remained really efficient was the army.\n\nWho shall describe the ruin, bloodshed, misery, desolation, wrought by\nthese years? The national character suffered a frightful fall also:\ncorruption in public, immorality in private, became all but universal.\nThe weariness and the hopelessness generated by the seemingly unending\nstrife made men forget their old passion for freedom and sigh even for\ntyranny, if only it would bring peace.\n\nRelief came when Julius C\u00e6sar crushed Pompey at Pharsalus in B. C. 48.\nThere was fighting here and there for two years more, but it was of\nlittle consequence. Pharsalus made C\u00e6sar the monarch of Rome. He lived\nbarely four years after his victory; for the daggers of the conspirators\nfound his heart on the 15th of March, 44 B. C.; yet by a series of\nmasterly administrative and legislative acts he laid in great broad\nlines the foundation of the new empire and set in motion the healthy\nforces that were needed for the regeneration of Rome and Italy. His work\nis Titanic both in conception and execution. Seldom has such a great man\nexecuted such a mighty task.\n\nBut his murder loosed all the old fiends again, and they worked wilder\nwoe than ever. For now the whole gigantic empire was drawn into the\nwhirlpool, and the provinces were only a little less miserable than\nItaly. During C\u00e6sar\u2019s own struggle his mighty genius and his magnanimity\nhad thrown a glory upon the murky clouds of the storm; but now that the\nsun was set, black darkness settled over the unhappy empire.[159]\n\nThere was a pause in the strife, when, in B. C. 40, a treaty was drawn\nup between Octavian and Antony at Brundisium and confirmed by the\nmarriage of Antony to the sister of Octavian. Men hoped that the end had\ncome at last and that the world would enjoy a lasting peace.\n\nIt was during this bright moment that Virgil, who later was to write the\n_Aeneid_, and so earn for himself a very great name in European\nliterature, composed a short poem, which finds a place among his\nPastorals, and is named _Pollio_. Here is a translation of lines four to\ntwenty-five, which will be found quite sufficient to bring the main\nideas of the poem before us:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe last epoch of the Sybil\u2019s prophecy has come at length; the\n    great series of the ages is being born anew; at length the virgin,\n    Justice, is returning, returning too the reign of Saturn; at length\n    a new race of men is being sent down from heaven high. Do thou,\n    Lucina, but smile thy chaste smile upon a boy with whose coming at\n    last ceases the iron race and the golden springs up throughout the\n    world; do so, Lucina: it is thine own Apollo that now reigns. It is\n    in thy consulship, Pollio, that this glorious age will come in, and\n    the months of the great year will begin their march. Under thy\n    leadership all traces that remain of Roman crime in civil strife\n    shall pass away, and passing, free the lands from constant fear.\n\n    \u201cHe shall receive the life of the gods, and shall behold gods and\n    heroes mingling together; and himself shall be beheld by them; and\n    with his father\u2019s virtues he shall rule the world at peace.\n\n    \u201cUnasked the earth shall shower upon thee, sweet boy, thy first baby\n    gifts, the gadding ivy with the fox-glove, and lily-bean entwined\n    with smiling bear\u2019s-foot. The goats shall bring home uncalled their\n    milk-filled udders; the harts shall no longer fear great lions; and\n    flowers shall spring to caress thee where\u2019er thou liest down. The\n    asp shall perish; the treacherous, poison herb shall perish too; and\n    everywhere shall spring Assyrian balm.\u201d[160]\n\nThe Greeks and Romans had a great system of cycles and ages, not unlike\nthe Hindu Kalpas and Manvantaras. One cycle follows another, the\nbeginning of each being marked by the sun, moon and stars all occupying\ntheir original positions. The Roman phrase for cycle is \u201cgreat year.\u201d\nEach great year is subdivided into \u201cmonths,\u201d that is ages. The first age\nof each great year is the golden, when Saturn reigns, and a divine race\nof men occupies the earth; the last is the iron age, when Apollo reigns,\nand men are sinful.\n\nVirgil declares, then, that the end of the old cycle has come, and that\nthe new cycle is about to begin with all the splendour of the golden\nage. Saturn will reign; Justice and Peace will return to the earth; a\ngod-like race of men will spring up all over the world; nature will be\nredeemed; and primitive simplicity and innocence will reappear. Idyllic\nscenes of peace and plenty\u2014trade and manufacture all forgotten\u2014give the\npoem a wonderful charm.\n\nThe most outstanding idea of the prophecy, however, is that the new age\nopens with the birth of a boy, who is to receive special divine help,\nand is to be at once the pattern and the prince of the new time. Who the\nboy was that Virgil had in mind, the critics have not been able to\ndecide.[161] Clearly he was a son born in 40 B. C. to one of the leading\nRomans; but we can say no more. Evidently Virgil believed that the civil\nwars were over, that a new era of peace had begun, and that this boy\nmight be looked forward to as the ruler who should effectively transform\nthe empire, revive primitive virtue and simplicity, and banish the foul\ndemon war forever.\n\nHis prediction was not verified: no boy born in 40 B. C. became a\nworld-ruler and regenerator; and, besides, nine long years of doubt and\nfear, horror and blood, had to be endured, before Octavian became, by\nthe battle of Actium, the acknowledged master of the Roman world; and,\nwhile he completed the task of C\u00e6sar, and succeeded in doing the work of\na great ruler in a marvellous fashion, no one would dream of saying that\nhe fulfilled the ideal of this poem.\n\nIt is an unfulfilled prophecy; yet it is not without interest and value\nfor men to-day. First of all it is of interest as a revelation of the\nideas and the hopes that filled men\u2019s minds in Virgil\u2019s time. \u201cThe\nanticipation of a new era was widely spread and vividly felt over the\nworld; and this anticipation\u2014the state of men\u2019s minds at and subsequent\nto the time when this poem was written\u2014probably contributed to the\nacceptance of the great political and spiritual changes which awaited\nthe world.\u201d[162] But it is of still greater interest as a revelation of\nwhat Virgil himself thought, Virgil, who was perhaps the purest and most\ninteresting personality in the Gr\u00e6co-Roman world then. Men generally\nwere looking for a regeneration of the world; we have here Virgil\u2019s own\nthoughts on the great subject. He shared with others the idea that the\nworld was on the verge of the dawning of a new day, a day of renewed\njustice and peace; but he had an idea of his own, that of a great\npersonality, a man of high moral character, specially endowed by the\ngods for his great task as leader and ruler of the new time. Scarcely\nless prominent is his idea of the nobler race of men that shall spring\nup in the new era. It is no picture merely of good government such as\nAugustus gave the world that we have here; but a prophecy of the moral\nregeneration of mankind under the influence of a divinely prepared\nleader.\n\nFootnote 158:\n\n  Froude, _C\u00e6sar_, 12-19.\n\nFootnote 159:\n\n  For the whole picture _see_ Mommsen, especially the very last page of\n  his history.\n\nFootnote 160:\n\n  Virgil, _Eclogues_, IV, 4-25.\n\nFootnote 161:\n\n  Sellar, _Virgil_, 146; Simcox, _Latin Literature_, Vol. I, 257.\n\nFootnote 162:\n\n  Sellar, _Virgil_, 145. _Cf._ Boissier, _La Religion Romaine_.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V.\n                           JESUS OF NAZARETH.\n\n\nI. The difference between ancient and modern times in Europe is vital.\nHuman society is never stagnant; development in one direction or another\nis constant; so that in the course of a few centuries changes, both\nnumerous and noticeable, take place everywhere. Thus the Europe of the\nmiddle ages differs very markedly from the Europe of to-day. Yet the one\nis the direct outcome of the other. On the other hand, the civilizations\nof Greece and Rome, although we owe them an incalculable debt, are\nmarked off from modern civilization by differences which can only be\nspoken of as essential. For it is not any single element that has been\nadded externally to ancient life so as to produce modern society; it is\nrather a subtle spirit, which has modified all thinking, altered the\nvalues of things, produced organic changes in government and society,\nand recreated art and literature. The unexampled development of science\nand invention, and the extraordinary activity and vigour of European\ncommerce and arms, which are often spoken of as the chief\ncharacteristics of modern civilization, are rather to be regarded as\nindications of unparalleled vitality and efficiency in the social\norganism than as essential products of its spirit. Science and invention\nflourished among the Greeks; the Roman empire was as vigorous as any\nmodern state in matters of war. These things prove the healthy vitality\nof the society of the West; its essential spirit is to be sought\nelsewhere.\n\nA comparison of ancient and modern life reveals differences at once very\nnumerous and greatly significant. The economics of Europe have been\nrevolutionized; for the labour, the manufacture and the commerce of\nancient times rested on a basis of slavery.[163] Government has been\nturned upside down; for the ruling principle of ancient politics was\nhereditary and exclusive citizenship in a city-state;[164] while modern\npolitics have been created by the great principles of the equality of\nmen irrespective of birth or station and the indefeasible sovereignty of\nthe people.[165] In ancient society human life as such had no value:\ninfanticide was practised openly by all as a right and proper thing\nnecessary for the well-being of the family and the state;[166] prisoners\ntaken in war, if not killed, were made slaves, and as slaves their lives\nand persons were absolutely at the mercy of their masters;[167] aliens\nhad a place in the state only on sufferance: society stood in no\nrelation to them and had no duties towards them.[168] The social\norganism of modern times, on the other hand, is a new creation, produced\nby the conception of the inherent sanctity of human life and the divine\ndignity of the human personality.[169] Modern education is in form and\nmethod Greek; but the results it produces are altogether new; first,\nbecause it carries the modern spirit within the ancient forms, and\nsecondly, because modern men regard education as part of the birthright\nof every human being. Moral ideals show very important differences,\nchiefly in the direction of the elevation of humility, meekness,\nsympathy, forgiveness and self-sacrifice, and the extraordinary advance\nin the conception of the right of individual freedom. In ancient times\nthe individual citizen had no rights as against the State;[170] now we\ndemand not only freedom in matters of profession and business, as\nagainst caste restrictions, but intellectual, moral and religious\nliberty. The differences between ancient and modern religion are very\nextraordinary in many ways. For the present we need only note the one\nfar-reaching distinction, that to the ancients religion was a _political\nduty_, which the citizen was bound to fulfil, and a _civic privilege_,\nwhich only those in whose veins ran the sacred blood of the community\ncould share;[171] while modern religion is the loftiest activity of the\nhuman spirit, as far transcending the narrow limits of the State as it\ndoes the petty distinctions of race and blood. The differences, then,\nbetween ancient and modern life are not accidental but essential.\n\nA second thing to be noticed is the altogether unexampled vitality and\npervasiveness of modern civilization. During the nineteenth century\nalone, while the population of the rest of the world remained nearly\nstationary, the actual numbers of the European peoples rose from\n170,000,000 to 500,000,000.[172] Here is physical life on a gigantic\nscale. Let readers think, next, of the extraordinary advances made\nduring the nineteenth century in every province of natural science, from\nmathematics and physics up through the biological sciences to psychology\nand the science of religion, the swift upward progress made in literary,\nhistorical and philosophical method, and the innumerable inventions that\nhave been produced for facilitating every form of human activity. Are\nnot these facts evidence of an amazing store of intellectual vitality in\nthe society of the West? Think also of the buoyancy, the hope, the\nyouthful delight in action, the glance into the future, which\ncharacterize the progressive peoples of Europe and America.\nColonization, on the other hand, exploration, missions, world-wide\ncommerce, domination over other races, whether you call them bad or\ngood, are incontestable proofs of energy, physical, moral and\nintellectual. Further, these forms of vital force are clearly of the\ngreatest practical importance in the world. In the process of natural\nselection which, whether we like it or not, is ceaselessly being carried\non among the races of mankind, the possession of such energy is one of\nthe crucial factors in the struggle. But this civilization has also an\naltogether unique power of entering into other civilizations and working\nrevolutionary changes there: its pervasiveness is almost as remarkable\nas its vitality. We need only point to India and Japan to-day for proof\nof this.\n\nWestern civilization, then, is a thing by itself, not more clearly\ndistinguished from ancient life than from the civilizations that have\narisen in other parts of the world. What is it that has made the\ndifference? What subtle spirit is it that appears in every aspect of the\ncivilization, that assumes so many forms, and generates such\ntranscending energies?\n\nThere can be but one answer: it is Christianity. In every community\nreligion is the life principle, the central fire, which fills the whole\nwith living force, and communicates its own spirit to every cell of the\norganism.[173] That is a law which is becoming ever more apparent in all\nanthropological, sociological and religious science. From this general\nlaw we might conclude in this particular case, that it is the religion\nthat gives the civilization its character. But we need not appeal to\ngeneral principles; history tells us in the clearest tones that the\npeculiarities which distinguish Western civilization from every other\nspring directly or indirectly from the Christian faith.\n\nNow one way of classifying religions is to divide them into two groups,\nspontaneous and founded. The former are results of the united\nunconscious action of a tribe or people: for example, the religions of\nGreece and Rome. The latter spring from some particular man, and are\ninseparably connected with his life: for example, Buddhism, Christianity\nand Mohammedanism.\n\nThat Christianity is a founded religion, and that it springs from\nChrist, admits of no question. Tacitus, the Roman historian, in speaking\nof the great fire at Rome in 64 A. D., which devastated ten of the\nfourteen districts into which the Imperial city was divided, says that\nthe people got their heads filled with the suspicion, that the Emperor\nhimself (Nero was then on the throne) had used his agents to set the\ncity on fire. He then continues:\u2014\n\n    \u201cConsequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and\n    inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their\n    abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom\n    the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the\n    reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius\n    Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the\n    moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the\n    evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from\n    every part of the world find their centre and become popular.\n    Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty;\n    then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted,\n    not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against\n    mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered\n    with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished; or\n    were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to\n    serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.\n\n    \u201cNero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a\n    show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of\n    a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who\n    deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of\n    compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but\n    to glut one man\u2019s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.\u201d[174]\n\nChrist, then, is a historical person. He was a Jew; He founded\nChristianity; and He was executed by Pontius Pilatus during his\nprocuratorship of Jud\u00e6a, _i.e._, between 27 and 37 A. D.[175] Other\nfacts enable scholars to fix the date of His death within narrower\nlimits: a few adopt 30 A. D., but by far the greatest number prefer 29\nA. D.;[176] and that date we adopt here.\n\nHere, then, are the facts: Christ was put to death by the Roman Governor\nof Jud\u00e6a in 29 A. D., but this did not extinguish Christianity; for it\nspread not only in Jud\u00e6a but beyond; so much so, that in 64 A. D. \u201can\nimmense multitude\u201d of Christians were found in Rome, and were for their\nfaith put to death with horrible barbarities.\n\nSuch is the first chapter of the history of Christianity in Europe. From\nthis point onwards the facts are well known. The furious hostility\nvisible here in the spirit of the Roman Empire against the Christian\nfaith ended in the victory of the latter, in its gradual acceptance by\nthe races of Europe, and the continuously increasing infiltration of\nChristian ideas into the minds of the people. The process is far from\ncomplete; for the contrast between the old spirit and the new is so\nextreme that only long ages of discipline and the slow processes of\nevolution will suffice to work the transformation. We have seen how\nessentially different the spirit in our modern life is from the spirit\nof Gr\u00e6co-Roman life: how much greater would be the contrast, if one were\nto oppose the pure spirit of Christ to the spirit of Paganism! When men\naccept Christ, they are conscious of the authority of His perfect\ncharacter and His heavenly life, and they know that He claims their\ncomplete submission to Him; but they have no idea how far-reaching this\nclaim is. Christ demands that not only every part of the individual\u2019s\nlife\u2014thoughts, feelings, words, deeds\u2014but every aspect of social and\npolitical life as well should be made subject to His law of love. This\nis easily stated: how hard is it to work it out, except in a long series\nof generations!\n\nBut imperfect as has been the perception of Christ\u2019s aims, and still\nmore imperfect the execution of these by the peoples of Europe, yet the\nresults of even their very partial submission to them have been, as we\nhave seen, momentous in the highest degree. Christ has made modern\nEurope.\n\nNow we found from our study of Virgil\u2019s prophecy that he believed that a\nnew age was just about to open. Like other thinking men of his day, he\nfelt that the civilization under which he lived was played out, that new\nlife was needed, new morals and a fresh organization of society. He\nbelieved that in the new age the leader and king would be a great Roman,\nand that under him the world would be transformed.\n\nFurther, it is sufficiently striking that, while his prophecy received\nno literal fulfilment, yet the new age did actually begin shortly after\nthe time when he wrote, an age which has produced a new race of men, new\nmoral ideas and an altogether fresh organization of society, and\nvitality and virility, besides, such as Virgil never dreamed of. He\nspoke of a great leader favoured of the gods, a noble Roman. The new age\ndid come in under the guidance of a new leader, but he was no\naristocratic Roman, but a Jew, and a man of the people, Jesus of\nNazareth.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nII. Christ\u2019s name and life are well-known outside Christendom. He is\nspoken of in very high terms in the book which all Mohammedans revere;\nand contact with the West has brought a certain amount of knowledge\nabout him to the peoples of India, China and Japan. Now the most\nstriking fact in this connection is this, that while most of these\nMohammedans, Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucians condemn Christians\nviolently, and many write against Christianity, _they one and all speak\nwith the highest praise of the character of Christ_. The same is true of\nsceptics and agnostics in Christian lands. One might compile a most\nfascinating volume consisting merely of extracts from non-Christian\nwriters, in which Christ is spoken of as the best of men, as the ideal\nman, as the man whom all men should not only admire, but imitate.\n\nNow we have in this a most remarkable fact. There is no other character\nin history that is so universally revered. There is no other man whom\nall men join in praising with so much heartiness. Charles Lamb speaks\nfor the human race when he says: \u201cIf Shakespeare were to enter this\nroom, we should all spring to our feet; if Christ were to enter, we\nshould all fall on our knees.\u201d\n\nBut HE WAS CRUCIFIED. This, the purest and noblest of men, was subjected\nto the most shameful form of death possible. Nor was there only the bare\nexecution: every circumstance that could make death bitter to the noble\nhuman spirit was added. He was betrayed by one of His own chosen Twelve;\nthe remaining eleven deserted Him; one plucked up heart and followed at\na distance, but only to deny him. Indeed the universal breakdown of\nhuman character around Him is one of the saddest things in history. The\nJewish priests and scribes, the common people, the Roman Governor and\nthe common soldiers, all reveal their worst passions in the presence of\nChrist, while He stands amongst them in all the silent majesty of\ninnocence.[177]\n\nWe here quote three short paragraphs from St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel.[178] The\nfirst describes what took place after the members of the Jewish\nSanhedrin had decided that Jesus deserved to be put to death:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThen did they spit in His face, and buffet Him; and some smote Him\n    with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, Thou\n    Christ: who is he that struck Thee?\u201d[179]\n\nThen those model judges carried their prisoner before Pontius Pilate,\nthe Roman Governor, and after much persuasion got him to condemn Jesus\nto death, when the following scenes took place:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThen the soldiers of the Governor took Jesus into the palace, and\n    gathered unto Him the whole band. And they stripped Him, and put on\n    Him a scarlet robe. And they plaited a crown of thorns and put it\n    upon His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they kneeled down\n    before Him, and mocked Him, saying, \u2018Hail, King of the Jews!\u2019 And\n    they spat upon Him, and took the reed and smote Him on the head. And\n    when they had mocked Him, they took off from Him the robe, and put\n    on Him His garments and led Him away to crucify Him.\u201d[180]\n\n    \u201cAnd as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name;\n    him they compelled to go with them, that he might bear His cross.\n    And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to\n    say, The place of a skull, they gave Him wine to drink mingled with\n    gall: and when He had tasted it, He would not drink. And when they\n    had crucified Him, they parted His garments among them, casting\n    lots: and they sat and watched Him there. And they set up over His\n    head His accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.\n    Then are there crucified with Him two robbers, one on the right\n    hand, and one on the left. And they that passed by railed on Him,\n    wagging their heads, and saying, \u2018Thou that destroyest the temple\n    and buildest it in three days, save Thyself: if Thou art the Son of\n    God, come down from the cross.\u2019 In like manner also the chief\n    priests mocking Him with the scribes and elders said, \u2018He saved\n    others: Himself He cannot save. He is the King of Israel; let Him\n    now come down from the cross, and we will believe on Him. He\n    trusteth on God; let Him deliver Him now, if He desireth Him: for He\n    said, I am the Son of God.\u2019 And the robbers also that were crucified\n    with Him cast upon Him the same reproach.\u201d[181]\n\nHow was it that of all men Jesus should be the man subjected to all\nthis? How can we reconcile His character and His destiny?\n\nLet us recollect what Plato had written 400 years earlier:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe just man will be scourged, racked, fettered, will have his eyes\n    burned out, and at last, after suffering every kind of torture, will\n    be crucified.\u201d\n\nNow we do not insist on the correspondence in detail between the words\nof Plato and the death of Christ, although that, while not complete, is\nsufficiently remarkable; but we wish to emphasize, with all possible\nforce, this most extraordinary fact, that Plato foresaw that a man of\nthe character of Jesus would suffer as He did.\n\nHow are we to explain the fact? What is the reason why the men of\nChrist\u2019s day treated this most humane of men with such barbarous\ninhumanity? The answer is that it was inevitable. Jesus is the\nrevelation of the uttermost holiness of God, and _His attempt to lay\nthat standard upon the human spirit_[182] roused to its utmost fury\nagainst Him all the sinfulness of our common human nature. It is the\nsame contest of which we are each conscious in our daily life between\ninclination and conscience; only, in the case of Jesus, it seems as if\nall the little battles of every individual life had met in one gigantic\nstruggle between sinful human nature and its Lord. And the same struggle\nnecessarily continues wherever Christianity goes. The persecutions of\nthe Roman Empire are merely the external signs of the convulsive efforts\nof the spirit of Paganism to resist the march of the Spirit of God. In\nevery land Christ is met by the same opposition. Everywhere selfishness,\nself-interest and passion dissuade men from following the Man of\nSorrows; and the struggle is there, terrible in its reality and\nintensity, even if it never break out into open persecution. But, in\nsurveying these surging battles, the careful observer is much struck\nwith this fact, that, while human passions inevitably fight against\nChrist, yet He has in Conscience an ally, which neither by bribes nor by\nbullying can be made to desert Him. He is the objective conscience of\nthe human race. He is Plato\u2019s just man.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIII. Let us now try to realize what kind of a being the founder of\nChristianity was. Our chief sources of information are the Gospels; for\nfrom the other books of the New Testament and from outside literature we\nlearn only scattered facts about His life on earth. We shall not appeal\nto the fourth Gospel, for there are still numerous questions with regard\nto it unsettled, but shall confine ourselves to Matthew, Mark and Luke,\nbooks recognized on all hands as of high historical value, and as having\nbeen written between 65 and 95 A.D.[183] Anyone may very speedily\nconvince himself of the splendid historical reliability of these simple\nnarratives. From Josephus and other Jewish writers of the first and\nsecond centuries, and from casual remarks in Greek and Roman books, we\nare able to learn what the life of these days was like;[184] but nowhere\ndo we get such vivid, detailed, realistic pictures as in the Gospels.\n\u201cThey are full of feeling for the time; they understand its men,\nschools, classes, parties; they know the thoughts that are in the air,\nthe rumours that run along the street; they are familiar with the\ncatchwords and phrases of the period, its conventions, questions, modes\nof discussion and style of argument. And all is presented with the\nutmost realism, so grouped round the central figure as to form a perfect\nhistorical picture, He and His setting being so built together as to\nconstitute a single organic whole.\u201d[185]\n\nHow then does Christ appear in them?\u2014His name was Jesus;[186] Christ is\na title springing from his teaching, as we shall see. He lived in the\nsmall town of Nazareth, in the district of Galilee[187] in Palestine,\nand worked as a carpenter there.[188] At length, in 26 A.D., He gave up\ncarpentry and began His public career as a preacher.[189] The picture\ngiven of Him in the Gospels is a most attractive one. Wherever He goes,\nthe sick, the suffering, the distressed crowd around Him. Blind beggars,\noutcast lepers, hopeless paralytics, even uncontrollable lunatics,\nreceive help from His healing power. He feeds the hungry, breathes hope\ninto the downcast, lifts up the enfeebled patient, helps the helpless.\nBut while every form of suffering and sorrow appeals to His compassion,\nHis heart is set on winning the souls of men. So we find Him preaching\nin the synagogue and by the sea, on the mountain-side and in the busy\nstreet, now stirring vast crowds, now dealing with an individual, and\nagain pouring His rich teaching into the ears of the chosen Twelve. No\nman ever had such power of convincing men of sin and leading them to\nrepentance: the simple fisherman,[190] the fallen woman,[191] the\nwealthy custom-house officer[192] and the dying robber,[193] all felt\ncondemned in His presence, and through Him entered into the new life.\n\nThe character revealed in His words and deeds is beautiful beyond\ncomparison. The most outstanding feature of it is His love for God and\nthe perfect and unbroken serenity of His intercourse with Him. Love for\nman also shines out everywhere. But the most extraordinary point is\nthis, that He in whom the moral ideal was so lofty, so deep and so\nbroad, He who was so keenly conscious of sin in others, and had such\npower to make them feel it, betrays absolutely no consciousness of sin\nHimself, never asks for pardon, and never speaks of having repented, or\nof having passed through any crisis of the nature of conversion.[194] On\nthe other hand the perfect balance of His character is almost as\nmarvellous as His sinlessness: judicial severity controlled by perfect\nlove; supreme authority that is also supreme gentleness; strength filled\nwith tenderness; regal dignity shown in acts of lowliest service;\nholiness that led Him among the unholy;(sublimest self-consciousness,\nnever leading to anything but self-effacement and self-sacrifice.) And\nyet again, is there anything about Him so wonderful as His power of\nwinning human love? The Gospels are full of instances of it, and to-day\nhow many millions of men, women and children would count it a supreme\njoy to die for His sake!\n\nHis teaching is a perfectly articulated and unified whole, as may be\nseen from the scientific studies of it that have been published during\nthe last twenty years.[195] But we must not attempt to deal with that\nfascinating subject here, except in so far as the whole is implied in\nwhat He says about Himself. For it is only that part of it, namely, His\naccount of Himself and His mission, that we propose to touch on.\n\nWe shall understand it best, if we begin with what happened at His\ncrucifixion; for it was only at the end of His life that He made\nperfectly clear to the whole world what His claims were. People often\nwondered whether He were not THE CHRIST, _i.e._, _The Messiah_, the\nAnointed One, the great national deliverer whom the Jews were so\nearnestly expecting and praying for;[196] but during the three years of\nHis public life He seldom openly made the claim.[197] When, however, He\nwent to Jerusalem for the last time, He made a royal entry into the\nsacred city,[198] cleansed the Temple from the desecration of its\ncattle-market,[199] and began to teach in the Temple courts,[200] thus\nby both word and act publicly claiming recognition as the Christ.\n\nThe Jewish leaders had been often bitterly incensed by His teaching and\nHis actions before. His bold seizure of authority now decided them: they\nresolved on His death.[201] He was apprehended[202] and brought before\nthe Sanhedrin,[203] _i.e._, the High Court of Jud\u00e6a. Evidence was led\nagainst Him, but it proved very unsubstantial;[204] so the High Priest,\nthe president of the court, formally asked Him, \u201cArt thou the Christ,\nthe Son of God?\u201d and He answered in the affirmative.[205] Since they did\nnot believe His claim, they could only come to the conclusion that He\nwas an irreligious impostor, impiously arrogating divine authority to\nHimself. Consequently they declared that He ought to be put to death for\nblasphemy against God.[206]\n\nBut the Sanhedrin could not put anyone to death; the sanction of the\nRoman Governor was necessary.[207] He was therefore dragged before\nPilate. Here they did not charge Him with blasphemy, but with rebellion\nagainst the Roman Emperor. \u2018The King of the Jews\u2019 was a synonym for \u2018the\nChrist\u2019; so they argued that Jesus, in claiming to be the Christ,\nclaimed the sovereignty of the Jews, and was therefore guilty of\nrebellion against Tiberius.[208] Pilate knew perfectly well that the\nJewish leaders were jealous of Jesus, and that the charge was a mere\npretence;[209] his Roman sense of justice revolted against the execution\nof an innocent man; and he wished to save Him; but they played upon his\nfears, and finally succeeded in wringing a condemnation from him.[210]\nIt was because the Roman soldiers were struck with the extreme absurdity\nof the idea of Jesus being a rival of Tiberius, that they got up their\npitiable comedy of a court, and did Him mock homage as King of the Jews.\n\nSo He was led away to Calvary and crucified, and above His head on the\ncross was written, in three languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), the\ncharge against Him,\u2014\n\n    JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.\n\nThus Jesus took good care that there should be no doubt as to what He\nclaimed to be: He did not write a book, nor cut an inscription on a\nrock, _but He let Himself be crucified_, that all men to the end of time\nmight know that He claimed to be the Christ.[211]\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow let us see what He meant when He called Himself the Christ. To get\nto understand this fully would be to learn the complete meaning of His\nteaching; for it is such a perfect organism that every member of it is\nclosely related to every other member; yet we may gain sufficient\ninsight for our purpose from a broad survey.\n\nThe subject of the whole teaching of Jesus was _the Kingdom of God_. He\nheld that God had been working from the very beginning for the winning\nof man to Himself, and that especially among His own people Israel He\nhad shown His hand. They had not only come to know Him as the God of\nrighteousness whose law was holiness; they had enjoyed His love; they\nhad experienced His mercy and His power to redeem. But with the coming\nof Jesus Himself a new era of the world had opened:[212] God was now\ndrawing near to all men, in a new relationship of love and mercy, with\nthe purpose of saving them.[213] This was the coming of the Kingdom of\nGod.[214] The history of Israel had been a long discipline in\npreparation for this.[215] On the ground cleared in Israel, and on the\nbasis of the revelation already made to them, God would now reveal\nHimself to all men. The destiny of Israel\u2014\u201cI will give thee for a light\nto the Gentiles\u201d[216]\u2014would now be fulfilled.[217]\n\nGod, then, was about to enter into a new relationship with the whole\nhuman race. That new relationship would be, like the old one with\nIsrael, characterized not only by His righteousness, but by His\nredeeming love. His eternal purpose, which had been in contemplation all\nthrough the centuries of Israel\u2019s training, would now be unfolded. The\nchildhood of the world was over: its first simple lessons had been\nlearned; the real business of Time could now be begun. The partial\nunveiling of God\u2019s face which it had been Israel\u2019s privilege to behold\nwould now become a full revelation in the sight of the nations. The King\nof Israel would be seen to be the Father of men. Further, as Israel had\nlearned her lessons through Jehovah\u2019s redemptive acts at the Red Sea, on\nZion, and in Babylon, so mankind would learn the Father\u2019s love through\nthe great redemptive acts involved in the coming of the Kingdom.\n\nThe chief conviction that Jesus had about Himself was that _in and\nthrough and by Him the Kingdom of God was coming_: this it was that\nconstituted Him THE CHRIST. His self-consciousness is the most\nmarvellous phenomenon within the compass of history; there is nothing\nelse comparable with it. The primary element in it seems to have been\nthe knowledge that He was the true man, man as God wishes Him to be,\nfaultless both morally and religiously.[218] Closely connected with this\nis another element, quite as unparalleled in human experience, a feeling\nof close kinship to all men, a consciousness of solidarity with the\nwhole race and of personal connection and sympathy with every\nindividual.[219] These two elements of His nature\u2014His perfection as man,\nand His relationship to the race as a whole\u2014He summed up in the phrase\nwhich He used so often to describe Himself, THE SON OF MAN.[220]\nCorrespondent to this double relationship to man stands a double\nrelationship to God: first, He stands in the closest personal kinship to\nGod\u2014the Son with the Father\u2014; so that He alone can reveal God, and God\nalone can reveal Him;[221] and secondly, He is God\u2019s representative to\nthe human race.[222] This dual relation to God He expressed by calling\nHimself THE SON OF GOD.[223]\n\nThe life of a being of this order, standing in great, pregnant relations\nto God on the one hand and to the human family on the other, would\nnecessarily be of transcendent significance. So we find that He regarded\nHis own words and acts and all the great experiences of His life as of\nsupreme importance in the history of the world:[224] His coming opens a\nnew era;[225] His public life is a wedding feast in the otherwise grey\nexperience of men;[226] His teaching is the final revelation of\nGod;[227] His acts are glimpses of the divine activity;[228] His death,\nwhich to the casual observer is but a coarse judicial murder, is the\nsolemn sacrifice that ratifies the establishment of the new relationship\nbetween God and man.[229]\n\nSince such were the chief convictions Jesus held about Himself and His\nmission, _authority_ was naturally the chief note of His teaching. His\nhearers marked that characteristic at the very outset;[230] and a modern\nstudent cannot fail to be impressed with it as he reads the Gospels. He\nstates quite frankly that He has come to fulfil the law and the\nprophets;[231] He sets up His own \u201cI say unto you\u201d not only against the\nJewish traditions,[232] but against the definite provisions of the\nMosaic law;[233] and over and over again He demands from men such love,\nfaith, submission, obedience, as can be rightly given only to a Divine\nMaster.[234]\n\nIn Jesus of Nazareth, then, we have a historical person, whose time and\nenvironment are well known to us, and whose teaching and life also stand\nout clear and unmistakable; and the most prominent thing about Him is\nthis, that, by word and deed, and finally by His crucifixion, He made it\nclear to all men that He claimed to be both Son of Man and Son of God.\n\nHere, then, we have the secret of that similarity which we are all so\nclearly conscious of, when we read a Gospel alongside of the _G\u012bt\u0101_. In\nthe Gospels we have in historical form the authoritative utterances of\nthe historical Jesus; in the _G\u012bt\u0101_ we have the imaginations of a\npoet-philosopher who was clear sighted enough to realize that an\nincarnate god would have many things to say about himself, and that his\nteaching would bear the note of authority. When, however, we look for\nexact parallels between the two, they are hard to find: the books are so\nutterly diverse in origin and teaching that they have little in common\nexcept the tone of the master. In a few cases, however, the resemblance\nis rather striking: here, then, we place side by side the words of Jesus\nand the imaginations of the writer of the _G\u012bt\u0101_.\n\n    SAYINGS OF JESUS.\n\n    All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.\n    _Matt._, 28, 18.\n\n        VERSES FROM THE G\u012aT\u0100.\n\n        Nature gives birth to movables and immovables through me, the\n        supervisor, and by reason of that the universe revolves. IX, 10.\n\n    All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one\n    knoweth who the Son is, save the Father; and who the Father is, save\n    the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him. _Luke_,\n    10, 22.\n\n        I know the things which have been, those which are, and those\n        which are to be; but me nobody knows. VII, 26.\n\n    Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will\n    give you rest. _Matt._, 11, 28.\n\n        Forsaking all duties, come to me as thy sole refuge. I will\n        release thee from all sins: do not grieve. XVIII, 66.\n\n    But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath authority on earth to\n    forgive sins,\u2014_Mark_, 2, 10.\n\n        Of all mortals, he who knows me to be unborn, without beginning,\n        the great Lord of the world, being free from delusion, is\n        released from all sins. X, 3.\n\n    If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up\n    his cross, and follow me. _Mark_, 8, 34.\n\n        In thought renouncing all actions unto me, intent on me,\n        applying thyself to the yoking of thine intellect, be thou\n        always thinking of me. XVIII, 57.\n\n    So, therefore, whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that\n    he hath, he cannot be my disciple. _Luke_, 14, 33.\n\n        Having thyself yoked by the yoke of renunciation, thou shalt\n        come to me. IX, 28.\n\n    Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will\n    give you rest. _Matt._, 11, 28.\n\n        In him seek shelter with all thy might: by his grace thou shalt\n        attain supreme peace, the eternal dwelling-place. XVIII, 62.\n\n    If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more\n    shall they call them of his household? _Matt._, 10, 25.\n\n        hating me in their own bodies and in those of others. XVI, 18.\n\n    And blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling\n    in me. _Matt._, 11, 6.\n\n        Deluded people, ... not knowing my highest nature as great lord\n        of entities, disregard me, as I have assumed a human body. IX,\n        11.\n\n    My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. _Matt._, 11, 30.\n\n        To the constantly-yoked Yogi, who constantly remembereth me,\n        never thinking of another, I am easy of access. VIII, 14.\n\n    Learn of me. _Matt._, 11, 29.\n\n        Learn from me. XVIII, 50.\n\nIt would lead us far afield to set forth in detail all the striking\nthings that Jesus has to say about His own person and mission, but it\nmay be well to quote a few passages exhibiting lines of character and\nthought not exemplified above:\u2014\n\n(_a_) His meekness and lowliness.\n\n    \u201cI am meek and lowly in heart.\u201d _Matt._, 11, 29.\n\n(_b_) The conditions of His earthly life.\n\n    \u201cThe foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests; but the\n    Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.\u201d _Luke_, 9, 58.\n\n(_c_) The necessity that He should die for men.\n\n    \u201cAnd He began to teach them, that the Son of Man must suffer many\n    things, and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and\n    the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.\u201d\n    _Mark_, 8, 31.\n\n(_d_) His spirit of service and self-sacrifice.\n\n    \u201cEven as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to\n    minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.\u201d _Matt._, 20, 28.\n\n    \u201cBut I am among you as he that doth serve.\u201d _Luke_, 22, 27.\n\n(_e_) His claims on the allegiance and love of men.\n\n    \u201cEvery one who shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man\n    also confess before the angels of God: but he that denieth Me in the\n    presence of men shall be denied in the presence of the angels of\n    God.\u201d _Luke_, 12, 8-9.\n\n    \u201cHe that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me;\n    and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of\n    Me.\u201d _Matt._, 10, 37-38.\n\n(_f_) His universal sympathy.\n\n    \u201cInasmuch as ye did it unto one of these My brethren, even these\n    least, ye did it unto Me.\u201d _Matt._, 25, 40.\n\n(_g_) His declaration that he will return to judge all men.\n\n    \u201cMany will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by\n    Thy name, and by Thy name cast out devils, and by Thy name do many\n    mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you:\n    depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.\u201d _Matt._, 7, 22-23.\n\n(_h_) His presence with his followers.\n\n    \u201cFor where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I\n    in the midst of them.\u201d _Matt._, 18, 20.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe _G\u012bt\u0101_ is one of the most eloquent possible proofs of the fact that\nthe human heart cries out for an incarnate Saviour. Scarcely less\nimpressive is the evidence furnished by the reception of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ by\nHindu readers: not the greatest of the Upanishads, neither the\n_Ch\u0101ndogya_ nor the _Katha_, has had one quarter of the influence\nexercised by this late poem; and the secret undoubtedly is to be found\nin the attraction of the man-god Krishna. How many generations of pious\nreaders have found in the story of the life and teaching of the\nincarnate god something to which their deepest and most persistent\nreligious instincts have responded! How many to-day turn to Krishna in\ntheir trials and troubles!\n\nOn the one hand, then, we have the imaginative portrait of Krishna,\nsurrounded by millions of adoring worshippers\u2014touching spectacle! On the\nother, stands the historical Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man and Son of\nGod, stretching out His nail-pierced hands to India, as He says, \u201cCome\nunto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you\nrest.\u201d Rightly read, the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is a clear-tongued prophecy of Christ,\nand the hearts that bow down to the idea of Krishna are really seeking\nthe incarnate Son of God.\n\nIV. We have been able to see some little distance into the\nself-consciousness of Jesus, and to realize in part at least that on\nwhich He grounds His claim to the heart of every man; but we have not\nyet learned the secret of that most marvellous of His powers, His power\nto win human love. To that we must now address ourselves.\n\nIt is a well-known fact of history that, shortly after the death of\nChrist, His followers began to preach in His name, and that very soon\nthe new faith began to spread rapidly. We have already learned from\nTacitus that in 64 A. D. there was \u201can immense multitude\u201d of Christians\nin Rome itself. Now the greatest of all the early missionaries was Paul.\nHe was the apostle of Europe. We mention his name here, because we wish\nto refer to one of his Epistles. These letters are the earliest of our\nChristian documents. The series begins with two brief letters, both\nwritten, with a short interval between them, to the church at\nThessalonica. The most probable date for them is 49 A. D., that is, only\ntwenty years after the death of Christ. But the letter we wish to use is\none sent from Ephesus to the church of Corinth[235] about 55 A. D.,[236]\nthat is, twenty-six years after the death of Jesus. We must not stay\nhere to speak of the splendour of the ethical feeling and teaching of\nthe Epistle further than to say that it manifestly has its source in\nJesus. We must direct our attention to other facts which appear in it.\n\nChristianity, we note, has already spread from Jud\u00e6a into the provinces\nof Asia[237] and Galatia[238] in Asia Minor, and Macedonia[239] and\nAchaia[240] in Europe. Ph\u0153nicia, Syria, Cilicia and Cyprus are not\nmentioned; but we know from other sources[241] that they too were\nalready evangelized. Thus in twenty-six years the Church of Christ has\nbecome a great organization, extending through many lands, yet conscious\nof its unity in Christ.[242] We note also that then, as to-day, BAPTISM\nis a solemn ceremonial act, in which a man through the action of the\nHoly Spirit becomes a member of the body of Christ,[243] while THE\nLORD\u2019S SUPPER is a recurrent feast, in which the members of the Church\nhave fellowship with the Lord and with each other.[244]\n\nBut what we would call special attention to is _the place assigned to\nChrist_ in the Epistle. With reference to the Christian, Christ is THE\nLORD;[245] with reference to the Father, He is THE SON;[246] He is\nspoken of as the Lord of Glory,[247] the Power of God,[248] and the\nWisdom of God;[249] and prayer is offered to Him.[250] All spiritual\nauthority and power are attributed to Him.[251] The Church is His\nbody,[252] and He supplies His grace and power to every member.[253] He\nwill come back again to earth in glory,[254] and will then reveal all\nsecrets and judge all men.[255]\n\nBut there is another point still more noteworthy, and that is _the way\nin which the crucifixion of Christ is interpreted_. Instead of regarding\nthat judicial murder as a regrettable incident, like the assassination\nof C\u00e6sar or the death of Socrates, Paul and his fellow-believers glory\nin it,[256] not only as the crowning event of the divine revelation made\nin Christ, but as the consummation of His work as the Saviour of\nmen.[257] Paul makes it the basis of all his preaching,[258] and in it\nhe finds all the wealth of spiritual wisdom which Christianity\ncontains.[259] He contrasts the wisdom of God wrapped up in that divine\ntragedy with the worldly wisdom of earthly rulers.[260]\n\nWhat can be the explanation of this extraordinary attitude to such an\nevent?\u2014The basis of it is the solemn declaration, which Paul makes in\nthe Epistle, and which he says he made to his converts first of all,\nthat ON THE CROSS CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS.[261] The crucifixion, as a\nbare event in history, is but an act of wicked folly on the part of the\nrulers of Jud\u00e6a; but, viewed from the standpoint of morality and\nreligion, it is a divine act of world-wide significance. In the blood of\nChrist a new covenant had been made between God and man.[262] This is\nthe Gospel, which all the Apostles teach, and which all the churches\nbelieve.[263] Through faith in Christ, on the basis of this tremendous\nassertion, the Corinthian Christians, like the rest, had been\nsaved,[264] _i.e._, they had received _the forgiveness of their\nsins_[265] and _the sanctifying Spirit_.[266] They thus no longer\nbelonged to themselves: they had been bought with a great price, the\nblood of the Son of God.[267] They were no longer part and parcel of\nheathen society; each one was a member of the body of Christ.[268]\n\nWhat led Paul and all the other Apostles and all the early Christians to\nform such an extraordinary theory? How did they come to the conclusion\nthat the crucifixion was not a squalid tragedy, but a divine sacrifice?\nThis letter tells us quite plainly; the reasons were these: Jesus\nHimself declared before He was crucified, that _His death was to be the\nbasis of the New Covenant_,[269] and this declaration of His _had been\ndivinely confirmed by His Resurrection_.[270]\n\nNow mark: this letter was written within twenty-six years of the event.\nThe majority of the twelve Apostles, and multitudes of other men who had\nknown Jesus, were still alive.[271] Paul\u2019s good faith is beyond all\nquestion; and, as he was intimate with Peter and John and the rest of\nthe Apostles, and also with James the brother of Jesus,[272] he had\naccess to the very best information possible. Further he had been one of\nthe most violent opponents of Christianity. His testimony is, therefore,\nevidence of the very highest value. We may conclude, then, with the\nutmost certitude that we are standing on an immoveable historical\nfoundation, when we say that _Jesus, before His crucifixion, said He was\nabout to die for the sins of men_.\n\nBut this evidence does not stand alone. It is a historical fact,\nacknowledged by scholars of every school, that all Christian churches\nhave from the very beginning celebrated the Lord\u2019s Supper.[273] Now this\nuniversal usage in so many churches, divided not only by long distances\nbut in many cases also by minor differences in doctrine, cannot be\nexplained at all except as a result of a command of Jesus Himself. If\nany single disciple had started such a practice, it could never have won\nits way to universal acceptance. Now consider the significance of this\nfact: Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, broke\nit, and bade His disciples eat it, saying, \u2018This is My body.\u2019 He then\ntook a cup of wine and bade them drink it, saying, \u2018This is My\nblood.\u2019[274] The scene is absolutely without a parallel in the history\nof the world; and it can have but one meaning, _viz._, that Jesus\nregarded His death as a sacrifice.\n\nBut the direct statement of Paul is corroborated, not only by the\ninstitution of the Supper, but also by this fact, that the doctrine,\nthat Christ died for our sins, is an integral part of the teaching of\nJesus as that is handed down to us in the Gospels. We have already seen\nthat He held that His death was necessary for the establishment of the\nKingdom. We must now set out His teaching on this subject with a little\nmore fulness. We shall restrict ourselves to a single Gospel. In the\nearliest saying that refers to it, His death is a future event, coming\ninevitably, and destined to bring sorrow to His disciples. \u201cAnd Jesus\nsaid unto them, Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the\nbridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom\nshall be taken away from them, and then will they fast.\u201d[275] In the\nnext it is much more clearly defined. Its necessity is emphasized; we\nare told that the agents are to be the religious leaders of Israel; and\nit is to be followed by the resurrection. \u201cFrom that time began Jesus to\nshew unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer\nmany things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed,\nand the third day be raised up.\u201d[276] Twice over this same prophecy is\nrepeated, the last time with more detail.[277] Then follows a most\nstriking saying, in which He speaks of His death as voluntary: it is a\ngiving away of His life; and it is explained as the climax of His life\nof service; for the gift is \u2018a ransom for many,\u2019 that is a price paid,\nin order to redeem many from sin. \u201cThe Son of Man came not to be\nministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for\nmany.\u201d[278] We need not linger over the next sayings, though each has\nits own interest.[279] The last saying occurs in the account of the\ninstitution of the Supper. In these words He teaches in the clearest\nway, first, that His death is to be the ground of forgiveness, and\nsecondly, that after His death He is to be the source of the spiritual\nlife and strength of His followers. \u201cAnd as they were eating, Jesus took\nbread, and blessed, and brake it; and He gave to the disciples, and\nsaid, \u2018Take, eat; this is My body.\u2019 And He took a cup, and gave thanks,\nand gave to them, saying, \u2018Drink ye all of it; for this is My blood of\nthe covenant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins.\u201d[280] The\nteaching of Jesus is an organic whole, and is incomplete without this,\nHis own interpretation of His death of shame.\n\nJesus, then, gave Himself up to death as the sacrifice for the sins of\nmen. Our Christian documents go on to declare that _He rose from the\ndead on the third day_, and that this resurrection of His was God\u2019s\nconfirmation of the sacrifice of His Son. That men should at first sight\ndisbelieve the astounding assertion, that the crucified Jesus rose from\nthe dead, is not to be wondered at; but _the fact remains_. Sceptical\nscholars have laboured for centuries to explain away this extraordinary\noccurrence, but no one of these scholars themselves will venture to say\nthat any explanation hitherto given is satisfactory. The latest attempt,\nthat made by Schmiedel in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Biblica_, is a farcical\nfailure. The following are the adamantine facts which no rationalism has\never yet succeeded in crushing or melting:\u2014(_a_) the Christians declared\nthat they had seen Christ and spoken with Him after His resurrection;\n(_b_) they were absolutely sincere in this belief[281]; (_c_) the\nChristian Church arose as a result of this conviction; (_d_) the grave\nwas empty. The account of Christ\u2019s appearances given in the fifteenth\nchapter of our Epistle is well worth study. Those who wish to look into\nthis question further may consult Ballard\u2019s _Miracles of Unbelief_, pp.\n135 ff.\n\nWe have thus, by a serious historical inquiry, reached the conclusion,\nthat Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of the Christian religion, declared,\nbefore His crucifixion, that He was about to die for the sins of men,\nand that this assertion of His was sealed with the divine approval by\nthe unique miracle of the resurrection. We have also seen that this was\n_the Good News_, which Paul and all the other Apostles preached, and on\nwhich the early Church was founded. It is this that has won for Jesus\nthe love of myriads; it is this that has been the magnet to draw them\naway from sin. It is the source of the joy and vital power of the\nChristian life.\n\nNow let us recollect the poem upon _The Servant of Jehovah_, which we\nconsidered in our third chapter. How marvellously Jesus corresponds to\nthe extraordinary idea which that poem discloses, the despised and\noppressed prisoner who endures in uncomplaining meekness the uttermost\nshame of a violent death, and is finally recognized as having been\n\u201cpierced because of our trangressions, and crushed because of our\niniquities.\u201d That anyone should write such a poem, seems strange in the\nextreme; that Jesus should have fulfilled it, is infinitely more\nwonderful.\n\nHow comes it that this Jewish carpenter, with His three years of public\nlife and His cross of shame, fulfils so many ideals and aspirations? He\nbrings in the new age which Virgil and his contemporaries sighed for; He\nis Plato\u2019s just man; He utters from His own self-consciousness such\nthings as the author of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ imagined an incarnate god would say;\nHe gives Himself up to death, in sheer love, as a sacrifice for sin,\nthus fulfilling the deepest needs of man, as expressed by the old Hebrew\nseer; and He is the only human being whom men of every race and clime\ncan heartily admire and unhesitatingly imitate. Nor is this all: many\nother convergent lines of thought might be suggested, in the light of\nwhich Jesus stands out as the ideal of our common humanity and the\nfountain of the love of God.\n\nHow is all this to be explained? Wide chasms sever the Hindu sage, the\nGreek philosopher, the Hebrew prophet and the Roman poet; yet in Jesus\ntheir several ideals are reconciled in a loftier unity. Once in the\ncourse of the centuries East and West have actually met! Nor was the\nmeeting merely the resolution of antitheses in a wider conception: what\nthe Jew and the Indian, the Greek and the Roman, dreamed of as the\nunattainable, that Jesus actually accomplished in this work-a-day world\nof ours, amid storms of the cruellest hatred and calumny.\u2014What is your\ncandid opinion about Him, brother? How are you to solve the problem\nraised by His life, death and place in history? Can He be better\ndescribed than in His own words, SON OF MAN and SON OF GOD?\n\nFootnote 163:\n\n  See article _Slavery_ in _Encyclop\u00e6dia Brittanica_; and _cf._ Gibbon,\n  Chaps. II and XXXVIII; Cunningham, _An Essay on Western Civilization\n  in its Economic Aspects_; Wallon, _Histoire de l\u2019Esclavage dans\n  l\u2019Antiquit\u00e9_.\n\nFootnote 164:\n\n  Fowler, _The City-State of the Greeks and Romans_; Mahaffy, _Social\n  Life in Greece_, 44; Kidd, _P. W. C._, Chap. VI.\n\nFootnote 165:\n\n  Kidd, _P. W. C._, Chaps. VII to IX.\n\nFootnote 166:\n\n  Kidd, _P. W. C._, 190, 223-4.\n\nFootnote 167:\n\n  Sohm, _The Institutes of Roman Law_; Wallon, _Histoire de l\u2019Esclavage\n  dans l\u2019Antiquit\u00e9_.\n\nFootnote 168:\n\n  Bury, _History of Greece_, I, 72.\n\nFootnote 169:\n\n  Kidd, _P. W. C._, 223.\n\nFootnote 170:\n\n  Kidd, _P. W. C._, 168.\n\nFootnote 171:\n\n  Kidd, _P. W. C._, 160-172; Seebohm, _The Structure of Greek Tribal\n  Society_, 4, 138.\n\nFootnote 172:\n\n  Sir Robert Giffen, _Address to the Manchester Statistical Society_,\n  15.\n\nFootnote 173:\n\n  Kidd, _Social Evolution_, Chaps. IV & V.\n\nFootnote 174:\n\n  Tacitus, _Annals_, XV, 44, Church and Brodribb\u2019s translation.\n\nFootnote 175:\n\n  Church and Brodribb\u2019s _Annals_, 374.\n\nFootnote 176:\n\n  For all the facts and the opinions of various scholars, _see_\n  Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, I, 410-415.\n\nFootnote 177:\n\n  _Matthew_, Chapters 26 & 27.\n\nFootnote 178:\n\n  For the criticism of the Gospels _see_ below, pages 49-50.\n\nFootnote 179:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 67-68.\n\nFootnote 180:\n\n  _Matt._, 27, 27-31.\n\nFootnote 181:\n\n  _Matt._, 27, 32-44.\n\nFootnote 182:\n\n  It was not the _teaching_ of Jesus, but His _interference_, in the\n  interests of His own supreme standards, with the traditional worship\n  and customs of the Jews, that led the Jewish hierarchy to determine on\n  His death. See below p. 52.\n\nFootnote 183:\n\n  See Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, _ad loca_, and Moffatt,\n  _Historical New Testament_, pp. 272-274. The most probable dates are,\n  for _Mark_, 66 to 70 A.D., and for _Matthew_ and _Luke_, 70 to 75 A.D.\n\nFootnote 184:\n\n  See the masses of evidence gathered in Sch\u00fcrer, _H. J. P._\n\nFootnote 185:\n\n  Fairbairn, _The Philosophy of the Christian Religion_, pp. 328-9.\n\nFootnote 186:\n\n  _Mark_, 1, 9.\n\nFootnote 187:\n\n  _Mark_, 1, 9.\n\nFootnote 188:\n\n  _Mark_, 6, 3.\n\nFootnote 189:\n\n  _Luke_, 3, 1; 1, 4, 14.\n\nFootnote 190:\n\n  _Luke_, 5, 8.\n\nFootnote 191:\n\n  _Luke_, 7, 36-50.\n\nFootnote 192:\n\n  _Luke_, 19, 1-10.\n\nFootnote 193:\n\n  _Luke_, 23, 39-43.\n\nFootnote 194:\n\n  See Harnack, _What is Christianity_, pp. 32-35.\n\nFootnote 195:\n\n  See specially Weiss, _N. T. Theology_; Beyschlag, _N. T. Theology_;\n  Wendt, _Teaching of Jesus_; Stevens, _Theology of the New Testament_;\n  Robertson, _Our Lord\u2019s Teaching_; and many others.\n\nFootnote 196:\n\n  See Sch\u00fcrer, _H. J. P._, Div. II, Vol. II, pp. 126 ff.\n\nFootnote 197:\n\n  The reason for His silence is to be found in the fact that the\n  Messianic hope, as popularly held, had become largely political: to\n  have confessed Himself the Christ would have been to precipitate a\n  revolt against Rome. Cf. McGiffert\u2019s _Apostolic Age_, 28.\n\nFootnote 198:\n\n  _Matt._, 21, 1-11.\n\nFootnote 199:\n\n  _Matt._, 21, 12-17.\n\nFootnote 200:\n\n  _Matt._, 21, 23-23, 39.\n\nFootnote 201:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 3-5.\n\nFootnote 202:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 47-56.\n\nFootnote 203:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 57 and 59.\n\nFootnote 204:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 59-62.\n\nFootnote 205:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 63-64.\n\nFootnote 206:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 65-66.\n\nFootnote 207:\n\n  Sch\u00fcrer, _H. J. P._, Div. II, Vol. I, 188; _John_, 18, 31.\n\nFootnote 208:\n\n  _Matt._, 27, 1-2; 27, 11.\n\nFootnote 209:\n\n  _Matt._, 27, 18.\n\nFootnote 210:\n\n  _Matt._, 27, 11-26.\n\nFootnote 211:\n\n  McGiffert\u2019s _Apostolic Age_, 27-32.\n\nFootnote 212:\n\n  _Mark_, 1, 15.\n\nFootnote 213:\n\n  See the parables in _Matt._, 22, 2-14; and _Luke_, 14, 15-24.\n\nFootnote 214:\n\n  _Mark_, 1, 15.\n\nFootnote 215:\n\n  _Matt._, 11, 13-14; _Luke_, 16, 16.\n\nFootnote 216:\n\n  _Isaiah_, 42, 6; 49, 6.\n\nFootnote 217:\n\n  _Matt._, 24, 14; 26, 13; 28, 19.\n\nFootnote 218:\n\n  _Matt._, 11, 28-29.\n\nFootnote 219:\n\n  _Matt._, 25, 40; 25, 45.\n\nFootnote 220:\n\n  See _e.g._, _Matt._, 9, 6; 11, 19; 12, 8; 16, 13; 20, 18; 20, 28; 25,\n  31; 26, 64.\n\nFootnote 221:\n\n  _Matt._, 11, 27; 16, 17; 17, 5.\n\nFootnote 222:\n\n  _Matt._, 21, 37; 11, 10; _Mark_, 8, 37-38; 9, 37; _Luke_, 10, 16.\n\nFootnote 223:\n\n  _Matt._, 3, 17; 17, 5; 26, 63-64; 21, 37; 22, 41-45; _Luke_, 10, 22.\n\nFootnote 224:\n\n  _Luke_, 10, 23-24.\n\nFootnote 225:\n\n  _Mark_, 1, 15.\n\nFootnote 226:\n\n  _Matt._, 9, 15; 22, 2-14.\n\nFootnote 227:\n\n  _Luke_, 10, 22.\n\nFootnote 228:\n\n  _Luke_, 11, 20.\n\nFootnote 229:\n\n  _Matt._, 20, 28; _Luke_, 22, 20.\n\nFootnote 230:\n\n  _Mark_, 1, 22; 1, 27.\n\nFootnote 231:\n\n  _Matt._, 5, 17.\n\nFootnote 232:\n\n  _Matt._, 5, 44; 15, 20.\n\nFootnote 233:\n\n  _Matt._, 5, 32; 5, 34; 5, 39; 15, 11; 19, 7-9.\n\nFootnote 234:\n\n  _Matt._, 5, 11; 8, 22; 10, 37-39; 11, 28-30; 16, 24-25.\n\nFootnote 235:\n\n  _i.e._, _I Corinthians_.\n\nFootnote 236:\n\n  For the dates of Paul\u2019s Epistles, see the articles in Hastings\u2019s\n  _Dictionary of the Bible_, or Moffatt\u2019s _Historical New Testament_,\n  121-137.\n\nFootnote 237:\n\n  16, 19.\n\nFootnote 238:\n\n  16, 1.\n\nFootnote 239:\n\n  16, 5.\n\nFootnote 240:\n\n  16, 15.\n\nFootnote 241:\n\n  _Acts_, 11, 19; _Galatians_, 1, 21-24.\n\nFootnote 242:\n\n  12, 13.\n\nFootnote 243:\n\n  12, 13.\n\nFootnote 244:\n\n  11, 20-34; 10, 16-17.\n\nFootnote 245:\n\n  Very frequent: cf. 1, 2; 1, 3; 1, 7; 8, 6; 12, 3; 16, 22. _The Lord_\n  takes in the Epistles the place held by _the Son of Man_ in the\n  Gospels.\n\nFootnote 246:\n\n  1, 9.\n\nFootnote 247:\n\n  2, 8.\n\nFootnote 248:\n\n  1, 24.\n\nFootnote 249:\n\n  1, 24; 1, 30.\n\nFootnote 250:\n\n  1, 2.\n\nFootnote 251:\n\n  5, 4; 7, 10; 14, 37; 15, 24-28.\n\nFootnote 252:\n\n  12, 12-13; 12, 27.\n\nFootnote 253:\n\n  1, 4-7; 1, 30; 3, 5; 12, 5; 16, 23.\n\nFootnote 254:\n\n  1, 7; 4, 5.\n\nFootnote 255:\n\n  4, 5.\n\nFootnote 256:\n\n  1, 17-18.\n\nFootnote 257:\n\n  11, 23-26; 15, 3.\n\nFootnote 258:\n\n  1, 18; 1, 21; 2, 2; 15, 1; 15, 11.\n\nFootnote 259:\n\n  1, 22-24.\n\nFootnote 260:\n\n  2, 6-8.\n\nFootnote 261:\n\n  15, 3.\n\nFootnote 262:\n\n  11, 25.\n\nFootnote 263:\n\n  15, 1; 15, 2; 15, 11.\n\nFootnote 264:\n\n  1, 18; 1, 21.\n\nFootnote 265:\n\n  15, 17.\n\nFootnote 266:\n\n  1, 2; 1, 30; 3, 16; 6, 11; 6, 19.\n\nFootnote 267:\n\n  6, 19; 7, 23.\n\nFootnote 268:\n\n  6, 15; 10, 17; 12, 12-13; 12, 27.\n\nFootnote 269:\n\n  11, 23-25. Cf. _Jeremiah_, 31, 31-34.\n\nFootnote 270:\n\n  15, 4 compared with 15, 14.\n\nFootnote 271:\n\n  15, 6.\n\nFootnote 272:\n\n  _Galatians_, 1, 18-2, 10.\n\nFootnote 273:\n\n  See McGiffert\u2019s _Apostolic Age_, 536.\n\nFootnote 274:\n\n  The event is described in _Matt._, 26, 26-30; _Mark_, 14, 22-26; and\n  _Luke_, 22, 14-20; as well as in _1 Corinthians_, 11, 23-26.\n\nFootnote 275:\n\n  _Matt._, 9, 15.\n\nFootnote 276:\n\n  _Matt._, 16, 21.\n\nFootnote 277:\n\n  _Matt._, 17, 22-23; 20, 17-19.\n\nFootnote 278:\n\n  _Matt._, 20, 28.\n\nFootnote 279:\n\n  _Matt._, 21, 39; 26, 2; 26, 12.\n\nFootnote 280:\n\n  _Matt._, 26, 26, 30.\n\nFootnote 281:\n\n  Now universally acknowledged.\n\n\n\n\n                               APPENDIX.\n                        NEO-KRISHNA LITERATURE.\n\n\nThe Neo-Krishna movement is about twenty years old. Before 1880\nVaishnavism does not seem to have been in great favour with the higher\ncastes of Bengal. Traditionally they were Saivas or S\u0101ktas rather than\nVaishnavas; and English education, which bore very heavily for half a\ncentury on every form of Hinduism seems to have told with peculiar\nseverity on Krishnaism. But shortly after 1880 a great change becomes\nvisible: Krishna begins to be praised on every hand, and ancient\nVaishnava books are read and studied with avidity. The new movement\nseems to have owed its origin, on the one hand, to the teaching and\ninfluence of Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Keshub Chundra Sen, Bijoy Krishna\nGoswami and Shishir Kumar Ghose; and on the other, to the efforts of two\nor three noteworthy literary men, who threw themselves into the task of\npainting the character of Krishna with extraordinary enthusiasm. The\n_G\u012bt\u0101_ at once leaped into greater prominence than ever: numberless\neditions and translations of it have been published. Many essays have\nappeared comparing Krishna with Christ and Vaishnavism with\nChristianity. Thus a large Krishna literature, both in English and\nBengali, has sprung up. The following seem to be the more important\nbooks of this literature:\u2014\n\n    1884\n\n    Essays in _Prach\u0101r_ on _Krishnacharitra_ by Bunkim Ch. Chatterji.\n\n    1886\n\n    1. _Krishnacharitra_, Bunkim Ch. Chatterji, 1st edition. A volume in\n    Bengali prose on the character of Krishna.\n\n    1887\n\n    2. _Raivatak_, Nobin Ch. Sen. An epic poem in Bengali on Krishna\u2019s\n    youth. 3. _The Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101, or the Lords Lay_, Mohini M.\n    Chatterji. An English prose translation of the text and of parts of\n    Sankara\u2019s commentary. An attempt is made to put the _G\u012bt\u0101_ on the\n    same level as the New Testament.\n\n    1888\n\n    4. _Krishna Jivani_, Prosanna Kumar Vidyaratna. A life of Krishna in\n    Bengali prose.\n\n    1889\n\n    5. _Srikrishner Jivana O Dharma_, Gaur Gavinda Ray. The life and\n    religion of Krishna from the standpoint of the New Dispensation:\n    Bengali prose.\n\n    1890\n\n    6. _Srimadbhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_, Krishnananda Swami (_i.e._ Krishna Prasanna\n    Sen). The text in the Bengali character with a Bengali commentary\n    and translation.\n\n    1892\n\n    _Krishnacharitra_, Bunkim Ch. Chatterji, 2nd edition. This edition\n    contains a great deal of new matter.\n\n    7. _Amiya Nimai Charity_, Shishir Kumar Ghose. First part. A life of\n    Chaitanya in Bengali prose.\n\n    1893\n\n    _Amiya Nimai Charit_. Second part.\n\n    8. _Kurukshetra_, Nobin Ch. Sen. An epic poem in Bengali on Krishna\n    at Kurukshetra.\n\n    1894\n\n    9. _The Landmarks of Ethics according to the G\u012bt\u0101_. Bulloram\n    Mullick.\n\n    _Amiya Nimai Charit_. Third part.\n\n    1895\n\n    10. _K\u0101l\u0101 Ch\u0101nd G\u012bt\u0101_, Shishir Kumar Ghose. A sort of Krishnaite\n    Song of Solomon in Bengali verse. It is said to have been composed\n    in 1888.\n\n    1896\n\n    11. _Srikrishna, his Life and Teachings_, Dhirendra Nath Pal. 3\n    vols.\n\n    12. _Srikrishner Kalanka Kena?_ Nava Kumar Devasarma. A Bengali\n    prose defence of the character of Krishna.\n\n    13. _The Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101_, Annie Besant. New and revised edition. An\n    English prose translation with an introduction and a few notes.\n\n    14. _Prabh\u0101s_, Nobin Ch. Sen. An epic poem in Bengali on the later\n    years of Krishna\u2019s life.\n\n    1897\n\n    15. _Lord Gaur\u0101nga_, Shishir Kumar Ghose, 1st volume. A life of\n    Chaitanya in English prose, with a discussion of the doctrine of\n    Incarnations.\n\n    1898\n\n    16. _Krishna and Krishnaism_, Bulloram Mullick.\n\n    _Lord Gaur\u0101nga_, 2nd volume.\n\n    17. _Hindu Theism_, Sitanath Tattvabhushan.\n\n    18. _An Elementary Treatise on Universal Religion._ Kshetra Mohan\n    Mukerji. The religion of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is here put forward as the\n    universal religion.\n\n    1899\n\n    19. _Incarnation_, Nanda Krishna Bose. This treatise follows in most\n    points the theory of Incarnation put forward in _Lord Gaur\u0101nga_.\n\n    1900\n\n    20. _The Young Men\u2019s G\u012bt\u0101_, Jogindranath Mukharji. An English prose\n    translation with introduction and notes.\n\n    21. _Srimadbhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_, Prasanna Kumar Sastri, 2nd edition. The\n    text in the Bengali character, with several commentaries, and a\n    Bengali translation by Sasadhar Tarkachuramani.\n\n    1901\n\n    22. _The Imitation of Sreekrishna_, S. C. Mukhopadhaya. A daily\n    text-book, containing extracts in English from the _G\u012bt\u0101_, the\n    _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_, and the _Bh\u0101gavat Pur\u0101na_.\n\n    23. _Sree Krishna_, Muralidhur Roy. An account, in English prose, of\n    the life and character of Krishna.\n\n    24. _Srimadbhagavadg\u012bt\u0101_, Bhudhur Chattopadhaya, 4th edition. The\n    text in the Bengali character, with a Bengali commentary.\n\n    1903\n\n    25. A most elaborate edition of the _G\u012bt\u0101_, edited by Damudar\n    Mukerji, is being published in parts.\n\n    26. A Bengali verse translation of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ by Satyendra Nath\n    Tagore is appearing in _Bh\u0101rati_.\n\nThis revival of interest in Krishna and his worship is clearly part of\nthe great national movement which has been so potent in Bengal,\nreligiously, socially and politically, these last twenty years. This\nperiod has witnessed the appearance of the whole Neo-Hindu movement,\nwith its literature, lectures, societies and missionary propaganda, the\nrise of the Indian National Congress and of the social reform movement,\nthe advance of native journalism to its present extraordinary influence,\nand the establishment of the native unaided colleges, which have so\nseriously changed the balance of influence in Higher Education.\nNeo-Krishnaism, then, is one result of the operation of that potent\nspirit whereby India has become conscious of her unity, and her sons\nhave been roused to a vigorous defence of all that they have inherited\nfrom the past. This rise of the national spirit, though it may be\ntroublesome in small matters to the rulers of India, is undoubtedly the\nlast and greatest justification of English rule; and, while, with its\nexaggerations and insincerities and follies, it cannot fail to provoke\ncriticism,[282] yet its power to awake self-reliance, self-respect and\nthe passion for freedom ought to win for it the approval and the\nencouragement of all good men.\n\nThere can be no doubt that among the influences which have produced\nNeo-Hinduism, Christianity is one of the most potent, if not the chief.\nThis is peculiarly evident in the case of the Neo-Krishna literature we\nare discussing. In 1899 the Bengal Librarian wrote, \u201cThere is no denying\nthe fact that all this revolution in the religious belief of the\neducated Hindu has been brought about as much by the dissemination of\nChristian thought by Missionaries as by the study of Hindu scriptures;\nfor Christian influence is plainly detectable in many of the Hindu\npublications of the year.\u201d But beyond this general influence, which\ncannot fail to be noticed by anyone who will take the trouble to read\nthe volumes, it is, we believe, perfectly plain that the very ideas\nwhich have given birth to the literature are the result of Christian\ninfluence. A distinct taste for such books as the Gospels has sprung up;\nand men have come to feel the need of a perfect character, such as\nChrist\u2019s is, for daily contemplation and imitation. The Neo-Krishna\nmovement endeavours to supply these needs from within Hinduism, offering\nthe _G\u012bt\u0101_ instead of the Gospels, and Krishna instead of Christ.[283]\n\nNobin Ch. Sen seems to have been the first to conceive the idea of a\nmodern rendering of the character of Krishna; for he laid the project\nbefore some of his friends in 1882.[284] His famous epic trilogy,\n_Raivatak_, _Kurukshetra_ and _Prabh\u0101s_, are the result of this pregnant\nthought. But, while he and Shishir Kumar Ghose have done a great deal to\npopularize the movement, there can be no doubt that Bunkim Ch.\nChatterji\u2019s _Krishnacharitra_ has been by far the most influential\nvolume in the whole of this literature. Gaur Gavinda Ray\u2019s work,\n_Srikrishner Jivana O Dharma_, is a piece of excellent characterization,\nand has won the high regard of many thoughtful men.\n\nThe books on our list fall into two classes, _Historical_ and\n_Traditional_. In the Historical class there are only two volumes,\nTattvabhusan\u2019s _Hindu Theism_, and the _Young Men\u2019s G\u012bt\u0101_. These two\nfrankly acknowledge that the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is a late book. In the _Young Men\u2019s\nG\u012bt\u0101_[285] its date is said to be a century or two before, or a century\nor two after, the Christian era; while in _Hindu Theism_[286] the _G\u012bt\u0101_\nis regarded as the point of transition from the old Ved\u0101nta to the\nreligion of the Pur\u0101nas. The standpoint of these two books is thus\nthoroughly historical, but it necessarily implies the abandonment of the\ndivinity of Krishna.\n\nAll the rest of the books on the list fall into the second class; for\nthey hold the traditional position about Krishna. Most of them make no\nattempt at criticism of the sources, but treat the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_, the\n_G\u012bt\u0101_, the _Harivansa_ and the Pur\u0101nas as all historical and all\nequally trustworthy. A few of the authors, however, state plainly their\nown critical conclusions, and two or three enter into some discussion of\nthe main problems. These attempts at criticism are the most pitiable\nparts of the whole literature. The talented author of _Srikrishner\nJivana O Dharma_, by far too sincere and candid to ignore the Puranic\nelements in the sources, frankly confesses their presence; yet,\nbelieving these books to be genuine representatives of the age of\nKurukshetra, he is driven to the extraordinary conclusion that the\nVedic, the Vedantic, and the Puranic ages were contemporaneous.[287] The\nlate Bulloram Mullick, in discussing the eighteen Pur\u0101nas, goes so far\nas to say, \u201cWhatever may be the views of European savants, there is\nindubitable proof that some of these Pur\u0101nas existed in the eleventh or\ntwelfth century before Christ.\u201d[288] Even Bunkim Chundra Chatterji\nhimself not only unhesitatingly adopts Goldst\u00fccker\u2019s rash guess, that\nP\u0101nini\u2019s grammar was written before the Br\u0101hmanas and the Upanishads,\nbut on the basis of that unwise conjecture, pushes back P\u0101nini\u2019s date to\nthe tenth or eleventh century B. C.,[289] _i.e._, four or five centuries\nearlier than the pre-Buddhistic date which Goldst\u00fccker[290] wished to\nestablish. Dhirendra Nath Pal, seeing that Bunkim Babu found it so easy\nto leap over a few centuries, goes a little further and suggests the\ntwelfth or thirteenth.[291] But, indeed, without some such strange\nperversion of history, it is impossible to construct an argument for the\nauthenticity of the _G\u012bt\u0101_ and the historicity of the _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ that\nshall have even the semblance of reason.\n\nWe note next that of all the books of the second class, Bunkim Chundra\u2019s\n_Krishnacharitra_ is the only work that gives any independent criticism:\nall the rest, with the single exception of _Srikrishner Jivana O\nDharma_, merely echo his arguments. Thus Bunkim Babu\u2019s theory is the\nonly one we need discuss.\n\nNow the whole critical structure of the _Krishnacharitra_ rests upon the\npassage on pages 41 and 42, where the date of P\u0101nini is discussed.\nP\u0101nini is pushed back to 1000 B. C.; and, the \u2018original\u2019 _Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_\nbeing earlier than P\u0101nini, we are asked to believe that it was produced\nwithin a century or two of Kurukshetra, and that it is in consequence\ntrustworthy historically. The whole argument thus rests on the date of\nP\u0101nini.\n\nWe translate this important passage:\u2014\n\n    \u201cGoldst\u00fccker has proved that, when P\u0101nini\u2019s S\u016btra was composed,\n    Buddha had not arisen. In that case P\u0101nini must belong to the sixth\n    century B. C. But not only that, in his time the Br\u0101hmanas, the\n    Aranyakas, the Upanishads and the other parts of the Vedas had not\n    been composed. Apart from the Rig, the Yajur, and the S\u0101ma Vedas,\n    nothing else existed. Asval\u0101yana, S\u0101nkh\u0101yana and the rest had not\n    appeared. Max M\u00fcller says that the age in which the Br\u0101hmanas were\n    composed began about 1000 B. C. Dr. Martin Haug says that that was\n    the end of the age, and that it began in the fourteenth century B.\n    C. Therefore, if we say that P\u0101nini must belong to the tenth or\n    eleventh century B. C., we do not say too much.\u201d\n\nNow the first remark we make on this extraordinary piece of criticism is\nthis, that Goldst\u00fccker and Max M\u00fcller are most unfairly conjoined to\nsupport a date which both of them would have indignantly repudiated. For\nM\u00fcller\u2019s date for P\u0101nini is the fourth century B.C.,[292] and\nGoldst\u00fccker never proposed to push him further back than the sixth\ncentury; indeed all that he claims is that he has brought forward\nevidence which affords a strong _probability_ that P\u0101nini preceded the\norigin of the Buddhistic creed.[293] Our next remark is that, though\nmore than forty years have passed since Goldst\u00fccker\u2019s book\nappeared,[294] he has convinced no one that the Br\u0101hmanas and the\nUpanishads are posterior to P\u0101nini\u2019s grammar: opinions still differ as\nto P\u0101nini\u2019s precise date, but no scholar to-day puts him before the\nBr\u0101hmanas.[295]\n\nCan the grounds for this unanimity among modern scholars be vividly set\nforth? We believe they can. Here, as in our first chapter, we shall not\nattempt to fix a definite chronology, but shall simply aim at reaching\n_the relative age_ of the great books we are dealing with; and we shall\nnot deal with the meaning of disputed passages, but shall rest the case\naltogether on the clear and prominent features of history which every\none can appreciate. There is, then, first of all the great broad fact\nthat the S\u016btras depend on the Br\u0101hmanas, and are, in general, posterior\nto them, and that _the language and style of P\u0101nini\u2019s S\u016btras show that\nhe belongs to about the middle of the S\u016btra period_.[296] All the\ndetailed study of the last forty years _has gone to strengthen this\nstable conclusion_.\n\nBut there is another and still more conclusive proof that P\u0101nini comes\nlong after the early Br\u0101hmanas. _These ancient books are written in\nVedic Sanskrit._[297] The early Upanishads are more modern in character,\nbut even they belong to a stage of the language a good deal earlier than\nthe S\u016btras: Professor Macdonell\u2019s words are, \u201cthe oldest Upanishads\noccupying a position linguistically midway between the Br\u0101hmanas and the\nS\u016btras.\u201d[298] Thus the Br\u0101hmanas were composed while Vedic Sanskrit was\nstill the language of the Indo-Aryans. Now P\u0101nini\u2019s grammar _deals with\nclassical Sanskrit_, not the Vedic speech. He deals with many points of\nVedic grammar, it is true, but he deals with them as exceptions; his\nsubject is classical Sanskrit. He laid down the law, which has ruled\nSanskrit throughout the centuries since his day. Thus he arose at a\ntime, _when the language of the Br\u0101hmanas had become archaic_, and\nmodern Sanskrit had taken its place.[299] It is thus absolutely\nimpossible to believe that P\u0101nini lived and wrote before the Br\u0101hmanas\nwere composed: to propose to put him back before their composition is\nmuch the same as proposing to push Johnson\u2019s Dictionary back before\nChaucer.\n\nAnother line of proof may also be indicated. Careful study of the early\nBr\u0101hmanas has made it plain that they were composed after the collection\nof the hymns of the _Rigveda_, but before[300] the formation of the\n_Sanhit\u0101_ text (_i.e._, the text in which the words are joined according\nto the rules of _Sandhi_) and the _Pada_[301] text (_i.e._ the word by\nword text). The author of the _Pada_ text is S\u0101kalya.[302] Now Y\u0101ska\nrefers to S\u0101kalya as a predecessor;[303] and Y\u0101ska himself is earlier\nthan P\u0101nini.[304] Thus the historical order is the early Br\u0101hmanas, the\n_Sanhit\u0101_ text, S\u0101kalya, Y\u0101ska, P\u0101nini.\n\nBunkim Babu\u2019s date for P\u0101nini being thus altogether untenable, his whole\nargument for the historicity of the _P\u0101ndava Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata_ and Krishna\u2019s\ncharacter as therein pourtrayed tumbles in ruins, and brings down with\nit all the rest of this Krishna literature.\n\nWe would invite our readers to turn away from these vain attempts to\nturn a myth into sober history, and to listen to the teaching of those\nreally scholarly Indians who study Hinduism from a scientific\nstandpoint. We have already referred to Sitanath Tattvabhushan\u2019s _Hindu\nTheism_, and we have frequently used Bose\u2019s _Hindu Civilization under\nBritish Rule_ and R. C. Dutt\u2019s works as authorities. We would now call\nattention to a monograph by one of the greatest scholars in Bengal\n(_Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity_, by Brajendra\nNath Seal), where[305] the growth of the Krishna legend is frankly\ndiscussed;[306] also to a very remarkable essay on _Buddhist and\nVishnuite_ in a recent number of _S\u0101hitya_[307] by the late Umes Chundra\nBatabyal, in which grave historical reasons are given for concluding\nthat the _G\u012bt\u0101_ is in part at least a polemic against Buddhism; and to\nthe late Mr. Justice Telang\u2019s introduction to his translation of the\n_G\u012bt\u0101_ (_S. B. E._, vol. VIII), with regard to which readers will note,\nthat, although the date is put a little earlier than most scholars would\nput it, no attempt is made to defend the traditional theory of the\norigin of the Song.\n\nFootnote 282:\n\n  Many of the wisest Indians have spoken out on this subject. The latest\n  utterance is an article on _Pseudo-Nationalism_ in _the Indian\n  Messenger_ for August 9th.\n\nFootnote 283:\n\n  Many other signs of Christian influence might be noted: thus _the\n  Young Men\u2019s G\u012bt\u0101_ is a counterblast to a Christian edition of the\n  Song, and it is besides most evidently arranged and printed in\n  imitation of some tasteful edition of _the Imitation of Christ_; while\n  _the Imitation of Sreekrishna_ proclaims its origin by its very name.\n\nFootnote 284:\n\n  See an essay by Hirendra Nath Dutta, which originally appeared in\n  S\u0101hitya, now republished as an appendix to Nobin Chundra Sen\u2019s\n  _Kurukshetra_.\n\nFootnote 285:\n\n  p. ii.\n\nFootnote 286:\n\n  pp. 74-76.\n\nFootnote 287:\n\n  p. 1.\n\nFootnote 288:\n\n  _Krishna and Krishnaism_, 16.\n\nFootnote 289:\n\n  _Krishnacharitra_, 42.\n\nFootnote 290:\n\n  _P\u0101nini, his Place in Sanskrit Literature_, 227.\n\nFootnote 291:\n\n  _Srikrishna, his Life and Teachings_, vol. I, p. xxv.\n\nFootnote 292:\n\n  _Physical Religion_, 76.\n\nFootnote 293:\n\n  _P\u0101nini, his Place in Sanskrit Literature_, 227.\n\nFootnote 294:\n\n  It was published in 1861.\n\nFootnote 295:\n\n  Macdonell, 430-431; Kaegi, 7; Max M\u00fcller, _Physical Religion_, 63-64;\n  Haraprasad Sastri, _A School History of India_, 4-7; R. C. Dutt,\n  _Brief History of Ancient and Modern India_, 17, 27; B\u00f6htlingk\u2019s\n  _P\u0101nini_ (Leipsic, 1887); Weber, _Indische Studien_, V, 1-172;\n  Hopkins, _R. I._, 350; B\u00fchler in _S. B. E._, vol. II, pp. xxxv,\n  xxxix-xlii; Eggeling in _S. B. E._, vol. xii, p. xxxvii; Bhandarkar,\n  _Early History of the Deccan_, 5.\n\nFootnote 296:\n\n  Max M\u00fcller, _A. S. L._, 311-312; Macdonell, 36, 39, 268. Cf. what\n  Whitney says, \u201cThe standard work of P\u0101nini, the grammarian-in-chief of\n  Sanskrit literature, is a frightfully perfect model of the S\u016btra\n  method\u201d (_Oriental and Linguistic Studies_, I, 71).\n\nFootnote 297:\n\n  Max M\u00fcller, _Natural Religion_, 296; Macdonell, 203-4.\n\nFootnote 298:\n\n  Macdonell, 205.\n\nFootnote 299:\n\n  Max M\u00fcller, _A. S. L._, 138; _Natural Religion_, 297-298; Macdonell,\n  22-23.\n\nFootnote 300:\n\n  Macdonell, 50.\n\nFootnote 301:\n\n  On these texts see Kaegi, Note 77; Macdonell, 48, 50.\n\nFootnote 302:\n\n  Macdonell, 51.\n\nFootnote 303:\n\n  Macdonell, 268.\n\nFootnote 304:\n\n  Macdonell, 269. Goldst\u00fccker (_op. cit._ p. 225) acknowledges that\n  Y\u0101ska earlier than P\u0101nini.\n\nFootnote 305:\n\n  pp. 8-10.\n\nFootnote 306:\n\n  See also Bose, _H. C._, 33-35.\n\nFootnote 307:\n\n  13th year, 1st part.\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n    \u25cb Footnotes have been moved to follow the sections in which they are\n      referenced.\n    \u25cb While the title page included with the source files shows\n      Neil Alexander to be the author, the original publication is\n      attributed to John Nicol Farquhar.","title":"Gita and gospel","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":27986}