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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Influence of Buddhism on PrimitiveChristianity, by Arthur Lillie

"The most learned, thoughtful, and thought-provoking work which has yetappeared on this momentous question.... I read the book from cover tocover with much interest."—Truth.

"The present work is of the profoundest interest, and is certain to commandattention in all future discussions of the subject with which it deals.... Itis exceedingly ably written."—Scotsman.

"The relation of Essenism to Buddhism is here dwelt upon with some freshillustration of the probably Indian origin of the Therapeuts of Alexandria. Mr.Lillie's chapters on ritual and observances are rendered attractive by a number ofinteresting illustrations."—Athenæum.

"Discusses the influence which Buddhism has had on Christianity. The admissionthat there is any relationship at all between the two will be vehementlydenied by many good people, but no one can impartially and fairly study Mr.Lillie's book, examine his evidence, and give due weight to his arguments, withoutadmitting that the connection not only exists but is an intimate one."—EveningStandard.

"Contends that the atheistic and soulless Buddhism was drawn from the'Great Vehicle,' which was a spurious system introduced about the time of theChristian era, whereas the 'Little Vehicle,' compiled by Asoka, contained themotto, 'Confess and believe in God.' There are a large number of passagesdrawn from the sacred books, which tend to prove that Mr. Lillie is right in histheory of Buddhist theology. Even Dr. Rhys Davids admits that the CakkavatiBuddha was to early Buddhists what the Messiah Logos was to early Christians.'If this be so,' as Mr. Lillie is justified in asking, how can an atheist believe in a'Word of God made flesh?'

"Mr. Lillie thus sums up the originalities of the Buddhist movement:—Enforcedvegetarianism for the whole nation; enforced abstinence from wine;abolition of slavery: the introduction of the principle of forgiveness of injuriesin opposition to thelex talionis; uncompromising antagonism to all nationalreligious rites that were opposed to thegnosis or spiritual development of theindividual; beggary, continence, and asceticism for religious teachers."—Spectator.

"Contains many quotations from the Buddhist religious writings, which arebeautiful and profound—a most readable book."—Saturday Review.

THE
INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM
ON
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

PREFACE.

A volume that proves that much of the New Testamentis parable rather than history will shock manyreaders, but from the days of Origen and Clement ofAlexandria to the days of Swedenborg the samething has been affirmed. The proof that this parabolicwriting has been derived from a previousreligion will shock many more. The biographer ofChrist has one sole duty, namely, to produce theactual historical Jesus. In the New Testament thereare two Christs, an Essene and an anti-Essene Christ,and all modern biographers who have sought to combinethe two have failed necessarily. It is the contentionof this work that Christ was an Essene monk;that Christianity was Essenism; and that Essenismwas due, as Dean Mansel contended, to the Buddhistmissionaries "who visited Egypt within two generationsof the time of Alexander the Great." ("GnosticHeresies," p. 31.)

The Reformation, in the view of Macaulay, was thestruggle of laymanversus monk. In consequence,many good Protestants are shocked to hear such aterm applied to the founder of their creed. But hereI must point out one fact. In the Essene monasteries,as in the Buddhist, there was no life vow. This madethe monastery less a career than a school for spiritualinitiation. In modern monasteries St. John of theCross can dream sweet dreams of God in one cell, andhis neighbour may be Friar Tuck, but to both themonastery is a prison. This alters the complexionof the celibacy question, and so does the fact that theChristians were fighting a mighty battle with thepriesthoods.

The Son of Man envied the security of the cranniesof the "fox." He called his opponents "wolves."His flock after his death met with closed doors forfear of the Jews. The "pure gospel," says theClementine Homilies (ch. ii. 17), was "sent abroadsecretly" after the removal to Pella. The new sect,not as Christians but as Essenes, were tortured, killed,hunted down. To such, "two coats," "wives," dailywine celebrations were scarcely fitted.

Twice has Buddhism invaded the West, once at[Pg vii]the birth of Christianity, and once when the Templarsbrought home from Palestine Cabbalism, Sufism, Freemasonry.And our zealous missionaries in Ceylonand elsewhere, by actively translating Buddhist booksto refute them, have produced a result which is alittle startling. Once more Buddhism is advancingwith giant strides. Germany, America, England areoverrun with it. M. Léon de Rosny, a professor of theSorbonne, announces that in Paris there are 30,000Buddhists at least. A French frigate came back fromChina the other day with one-third of the crew convertedBuddhists. Schopenhauer admits that he gotthe philosophy which now floods Germany from aperusal of English translations of Buddhist books.Even the nonsense of Madame Blavatsky has a littlegenuine Buddhism at the bottom, which gives it abrief life.

The religions of earth mean strife and partisanwatch-cries, partisan symbols, partisan gestures, partisanclothes. But as the daring climber mounts thecool steep, the anathemas of priests fall faintly on theear, and the largest cathedrals grow dim, in a pureregion where Wesley and Fenelon, Mirza the Sufi andSwedenborg, Spinoza and Amiel, can shake hands. If[Pg viii]this new study of Buddhism has shown that the twogreat Teachers of the world taught much the samedoctrine, we have distinctly a gain and not a loss.That religion was the religion of the individual, asdiscriminated from religion by body corporate.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY.

In theRevue des Deux Mondes, July 15th, 1888, M.Émile Burnouf has an article entitled "Le Bouddhismeen Occident."

M. Burnouf holds that the Christianity of theCouncil of Nice was due to a conflict between theAryan and the Semite, between Buddhism andMosaism:—

"History and comparative mythology are teachingevery day more plainly that creeds grow slowly up.None come into the world ready-made, and as if bymagic. The origin of events is lost in the infinite.A great Indian poet has said, 'The beginning of thingsevades us; their end evades us also. We see onlythe middle.'"

M. Burnouf asserts that the Indian origin of Christianityis no longer contested: "It has been placed infull light by the researches of scholars, and notablyEnglish scholars, and by the publication of the originaltexts.... In point of fact, for a long time, folks hadbeen struck with the resemblances, or rather the[Pg 2]identical elements contained in Christianity, andBuddhism. Writers of the firmest faith and mostsincere piety have admitted them. In the last centurythese analogies were set down to the Nestorians,but since then the science of Oriental chronology hascome into being, and proved that Buddha is manyyears anterior to Nestorius and Jesus. Thus theNestorian theory had to be given up. But a thingmay be posterior to another without proving derivation.So the problem remained unsolved untilrecently, when the pathway that Buddhism followedwas traced, step by step, from India to Jerusalem."

What are the facts upon which scholars abroad arebasing the conclusions here announced? I have beenasked by the present publishers to give a short andpopular answer to this question. The theory of thisbook, stated in a few words, is that at the date ofKing Asoka (B.C. 260), Persia, Greece, Egypt, Palestinehad been powerfully influenced by Buddhistpropagandism.

Buddha, as we know from the Rupnath Rockinscription, died 470 years before Christ. He announcedbefore he died that his Dharma wouldendure five hundred years. (Oldenburg, "Buddhism,"p. 327.) He announced also that his successor wouldbe Maitreya, the Buddha of "Brotherly Love." Inconsequence, at the date of the Christian era, manylands were on the tip-toe of expectation. "Accordingto the prophecy of Zoradascht," says the First Gospelof the Infancy, "the wise men came to Palestine,"expecting, probably, Craosha, as the Jews expectedMessiah. The time passed. Jesus was executed.[Pg 3]His followers dispersed in consternation. The conceptionthat he was the real Messiah was apparentlylong in taking definite form.

First came a book of "sayings" only. Then agospel was constructed—the Gospel of the Hebrews—ofwhich only a small fragment can be restored.This was the basis of many other gospels. At thedate of Irenæus (180A.D.) they were very numerous.(Hœr i. 19.) As only the Old Testament, at thattime, was considered the Bible, the composers of thesegospels apparently thought it no great sin to draw onthe Alexandrine library of Buddhist books for muchof their matter, it being a maxim of both the Essenesand the early Christians that a holy book was moreallegory than history.

But before I compare the Buddhist and Christiannarratives, I must say a word about the early religionof the Jews.

CHAPTER I.

Until within the last forty years the Old Testamenthas been practically a sealed book.

The first group pointed to its useless and arbitraryedicts, and pronounced them the inventions of priestsinspired by fraud and greed.

The second group practically admitted the arbitraryand useless nature of most of the edicts, butmaintained that they were given by the All-wise, in abook penned by His finger, to miraculously prepare anation distinct from the other nations of the earth, fora special purpose. They were "types" of a higherrevelation, a "better covenant."

But comparative mythology, unborn yesterday, istelling a different story. It shows that the religion ofthe Jews, far from having been a distinct religionmiraculously given to a peculiar people, had the samerites and gods as the creeds of its Semitic neighbours.It shows us these Semites, or descendants of Shem, intwo great groups, differing much in language andreligion. It shows us the southern Semites, the Arabs,the Himyarites, the Ethiopians. It shows us the[Pg 5]northern group, the Babylonians or Chaldeans, theAssyrians, the Arameans, the Canaanites, the Hebrews.It shows us their gods, El and Yahve, andAstarte of Sidon; and going a step back shows howthe Semites borrowed from an earlier civilisation,that of the Acadians, the yellow-faced Mongols whoseem to have preceded the white races everywhere."The Semite borrowed the old Acadian pantheonenbloc," says Professor Sayce ("Ancient Empires," p. 151).

But the work of the archæologist and the anthropologisthas been still more important.

The former has suddenly revealed to us chapters inthe history of human experience hitherto undreamtof. He has allowed us to peer far, far into the past,to see man at an incalculable distance.

Thousands and thousands of years before Cain andAbel we see the palæolithic man, "dolichocephalic andwith prominent jaws," pursue the great migrations ofurus, reindeer, mammoth, and the thick-nose rhinocerosfrom Cumberland to Algeria, and Algeria toCumberland, passing dry-shod to France, and fromSicily to Africa. He is naked. He is armed with ajavelin with a flint head. He is an animal, strugglingfor survival with other animals. He eats his foes aswolves eat vanquished wolves. To extract the marrowfrom their bones he cracks them with his poorflint "celt" or "langue du chat;" and these crackedhuman bones 240,000 years afterwards are found incaves and in beds of gravel and sand, and brick earth,and tell their story. Some are charred, which provesthat the notion of sacrifice to an unseen being wasdue to him.

1. He invented the missile. This made the monkeydominant in the animal world. He became a man.

Here the valuable work of the anthropologistchimes in. He has collected the records of ancientand modern savages, and compared them with therecords of caves and beds of gravel. In this way hehas allowed us to peer into the mind of the stone-usingsavage, who lived at least 240,000 years ago.And the Bible of the Jews, from being a text-book forsermons which bewildered the moral sense even ofchildren, has become, for the study of the great evolutionof religion, one of the most valuable books in theworld. It bridges the gap between the neolithic orpolished-stone-using man and Christ and Mahomet.

Before we go further, let us say a word about theauthorship of the Old Testament.

The Books of Moses were compiled by Ezra, at thedate of Artaxerxes, the King of the Persians.

It is to be observed that this is not an extravagantguess of German theorists. It is stated authoritativelyby Clement of Alexandria. (Strom. i. 22.)Irenæus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Jerome, and Basil givethe same testimony. But a greater authority isbehind. It is known that Christ and His disciples,and the early fathers, used the Septuagint or Greekversion of the Bible, and Dr. Giles goes so far as to saythat there is no hint amongst the latter of the knowledgeof even the existence of the Hebrew version.In this Bible (2 Esdras xiv.), it is announced distinctlythat the "law was burnt;" and that Ezra, aided by[Pg 7]the Holy Ghost and "wonderful visions of the night,"wrote down "all that hath been done in the worldfrom the beginning which was written in thy law."

Thus the story of Adam in its present form waswritten down 3547 years after it had occurred. Thestory of Abraham was written down 1539 years afterit occurred. The transactions between Yahve andMoses were written down 1114 years after theyoccurred.

To gauge the full significance of this, let us call tomind that the poet Tennyson a few years back compiledfrom old ballads and chronicles the story ofArthur, a king separated from him by about the samegap of time that parted Ezra and Moses. The poetwas honest, according to our ideas of honesty, andsought to give a faithful picture of Arthur's court—witha success that is only moderate. But Ezra wasnot honest, that is, in our sense of the word. Hisnation had been a captive of the Babylonians, and hadbeen released from slavery and the lash by Cyrus.In consequence, the molten bulls of the temples ofthe Jewish taskmasters stank in his nostrils, and led[Pg 8]him to advocate the severe nakedness of the Persianfire-altar. And he proposed to do this, not so muchby writing new books as by altering the old recordsand legends, and proclaiming his views through themouths of the time-honoured patriarchs.

But all this involved a grotesque inference that heseems not to have anticipated. If Abraham, Jacob,Moses, Solomon, knew in their secret hearts that theone fierce hatred of Yahve was the graven image,their assiduous idolatry spread over 1500 years musthave been a pure comedy, intended to insult Yahve,not to conciliate him.

What is the object of the religion of the savage?Anthropology has recently answered this question.

The religion of the savage is a slavish reign ofterror. His rites and prohibitions are a vast apparatusof magic, to obtain food for the tribe, and safetyfrom the plague and the foeman. In languageborrowed from the New Zealander, it is a GreatTaboo.

Early man found himself in the presence of themighty forces of nature. The thunder roared. Thelightning struck his rude shelter. A hurricane ruinedhis crops. The fever or the foeman came upon him.He had to guess the meaning of all this. Some deadchief, much feared in life, is seen in a dream, or hisghost appears. He is silent and looks very sad.What is the cause of his sorrow? Want of food.The early savage knows no other. A storm, a pestilencevexes the clan, and the chief appears again,looking angry. The two facts are connected together.Beasts are slaughtered, and perhaps human victims,[Pg 9]and placed near his cairn. The pestilence ceases. Inthis way the Hottentots have made an ancestor, TsuiGoab, into their god. Indeed, ancestor worship is thebasis of all religions. But by and by, to resume ourillustration, new calamities vex the tribe. Tsui Goabis angry once more. Fresh efforts are made to soothehim. Soon the Taboo develops into a number ofcomplicated superstitions.

"The savage," says Sir John Lubbock, "is nowherefree. All over the world his daily life is regulated bya complicated, and often most inconvenient set ofcustoms (as forcible as laws), of quaint prohibitionsand privileges.... The Australians are governedby a code of rules and a set of customs which formone of the most cruel tyrannies that has ever, perhaps,existed on the face of the earth." ("Origin of Civilisation,"p. 304.)

"The lives of savages," says Mr. Lang, "are boundby the most closely-woven fetters of custom. Thesimplest acts are 'tabooed.' A strict code regulatesall intercourse." ("Custom and Myth.," p. 72.)

Now, unless this system is clearly understood, Mosaismwill remain a riddle. It is to be observed thatEzra, far from having relaxed the reign of terror ofthe Great Taboo of savage survival, had enlarged thenumber of petty faults and superstitions; and theLevites and Pharisees at the date of Christ, far fromconsidering all this a comedy, were the most stiff-neckedof believers. It results that a new religionthat proposed to ignore the chief edicts of the Taboomust have come from some strong outside influence.

The two great foes of the savage, as Mr. Frazer[Pg 10]shows in his able work, the "Golden Bough," werethe ghost and the necromancer. The first was deemedall-powerful, and the second sought to use this powerto help the tribe and injure its rivals. His art wasthat of the farmer, the warrior, the doctor—in fact, inhis view, pure science. And the laws and ordinanceswere a Great Taboo, acts forbidden or enjoined tocontrol the ghosts.

Let the Deuteronomist himself tell us what Israelwas to expect if she kept these laws and ordinances.

Yahve, it is said, "will love thee, and bless thee, andmultiply thee, and he will also bless the fruit of thywomb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thywine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine and theflocks of thy sheep.... The Lord will take awayfrom thee all sickness, and will put none of the evildiseases of Egypt which thou knowest upon thee, butwill lay them upon all them that hate thee....Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornetamongst them, until they that are left, and hide themselvesfrom thee, be destroyed."

This was the religion of Moses. The ghostly headof the clan would give abundant flocks and fertileground to those who fed him with burnt-offerings, butfailing these, would send "the blotch, the itch, thescab" (Deut. xxviii. 27), the victorious foeman—andchange the fertilising rain to the "powder and dust"of the desert.

"It must be admitted that religion," says Sir JohnLubbock, "as understood by the lower savage races,differs essentially from ours. Thus their deities areevil, not good. They may be forced into compliance[Pg 11]with the wishes of man. They require bloody, andrejoice in human sacrifices. They are mortal, notimmortal; a part not the author of nature. They areto be approached by dances rather than prayers, andoften approve what we call vice rather than what weesteem as virtue." ("Origin of Civil.," p. 133.)

In point of fact, the savage believes that sickness,death, thunder, and other human ills come not fromnature, but the active interference of the god. Helooks upon every one outside his tribe as an enemy.The west coast negroes represent their deities as"black and mischievous, delighting to torment themin various ways." The Bechuanas curse their deitieswhen things go wrong. All this throws light on thegod of the Hebrews. Professor Robertson Smith, inthe new "Encyclopædia Britannica," describes him asimmoral, but perhaps it would be more correct to saythat he has the gang morality of a savage chief. Hecounsels the Jews to borrow the poor silver bangles ofthe Egyptian women, and then to treacherously carrythem off (Exod. iii. 22), because gang moralityrecognises no rights of property outside the gang.All through the early books, stories of cheating andlying are popular.

Palestine is a narrow strip of land between theJordan and the Mediterranean, surrounded by deserts.To it, from a city named Ur, in Chaldea, 1996 yearsB.C., came Abraham and the Hebrews, or "Men fromBeyond." These little Semite clans were like themodern Bedouins. They did not live in towns; theypitched their tents in the country. The soil ofPalestine, even in Abraham's day, was quite unable[Pg 12]to support these teeming hordes, for the sons ofAbraham went several times to Egypt to escapefamine. In similar fashion, ten or twelve thousandArabs from Tripoli and Bengazi lately left their owncountry to reach Egypt.

All this must be borne in mind. It has been debatedwhether the earliest god of Israel was a sun-godor a moon-god, and whether his name was El orYahve. In point of fact, his name was Starvation,and the Jewish Taboo a great food-making apparatus.This accounts for the extreme ferocitywith which the struggle for the land flowing withmilk and honey was carried on by the rival tribes.

"And it shall be, if it make thee an answer of peaceand open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the peoplethat is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee,and they shall serve thee.

"And if it will make no peace with thee, but willmake war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:

"And when theLord thy God hath delivered it intothy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof withthe edge of the sword;

"But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle,and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof,shalt thou take unto thyself: and thou shalt eat thespoil of thine enemies, which theLord thy God hathgiven thee.

"Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which arevery far off from thee, which are not of the cities ofthese nations."

The "cities that are very far off" mean, in reality,those that are nearer to Moses in the desert than thecities of the promised land, but the writer, composingimaginary laws for Moses in Jerusalem, some hundredyears after his death, overlooked this. These are notpretty ones. These cities have to choose at oncebetween slavery or extinction.

"But of the cities of these people, which theLordthy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shaltsave alive nothing that breatheth.

"But thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely theHittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites and thePerizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as theLordthy God hath commanded thee." (Deut. xx. 10-17.)

It accounts, too, for the ferocity of the punishmentsfor the infringement of the Taboo. Death was thepenalty. The man who fails to pour dust on theblood of a pigeon that he has knocked down with anarrow, the man who picks up sticks upon the Sabbath,the perfumer who imitates a temple smell, the manwho roasts the smallest particle of fat or blood, thelabourer who has an abscess and fails to take twoturtle doves as a "sin offering" to the priest at "thedoor of the tabernacle of the congregation" (Levit. xv.15), may all be cut off. Every one may be stoned forinfringing the Taboo.

Sir John Lubbock has pointed out that the god ofthe savage is of limited power and intelligence, andthat the Taboo was designed to control rather thanconciliate him. He cites the "Eeweehs" of theNicobar Islands, who put up scarecrows to frightentheir gods, and the inhabitants of Kamtschatka, who[Pg 14]insult their deities if their wishes are unfulfilled. Hecites also the Rishis and heroes of the Indian epics,who are constantly overcoming the gods of the Indianpantheon. Certainly the early god of the Jew wasnot deemed all-powerful. When the Jews foughtagainst Askelon it is recorded:—

"TheLord was with Judah, and he drove out theinhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive outthe inhabitants of the valley, because they hadchariots of iron." (Judges i. 19.)

He wrestles with Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 29), and thesuperior wrestling of the man forces the god to givehis blessing. He strives to kill Moses, but fails to doit. (Exod. iv. 24.) He is a purely local god, likeKemosh and other Semitic deities.

"David himself," says M. Soury, "who was notand could not have been the monotheistic king oftradition, David, who hadteraphim in his house, ashad Jacob in his time, does he not seem to restrict thekingdom of Yahve to the land of Israel when he complainsthat Saul has driven him out from abiding inthe inheritance of Yahve, saying, 'Go, serve othergods'? Finally, many centuries afterwards the contemporariesof Ezekiel still believed that Yahve,having abandoned the country, could no longer seethem." (Ezek. ix. 9.) (Soury, "Religion of Israel,"c. v.)

Anthropology divides the early races who usedstone implements into two groups, the palæolithic orrough-stone-using man, and the neolithic man, who[Pg 15]polished his implements. The editing of Ezra hasburnished up the early Hebrew a little, but it is plainthat he had not emerged from the stone age. Hisgod is a stone. Jacob erected a menhir. A menhiris a piece of chipped rock, erect, huge, imposing, theneolithic man's first rude piece of sculpture, theneolithic man's god. Moses erected a circle of thesestone monoliths. Joshua erected twelve stone godson the Jordan, and sacrificed to them. (Josh. iv. 9.)Palestine abounds in such circles archæologists tellus. These circles were the "high places" of scripture.

Some hold that the Yahve who travelled withIsrael in the Ark was a stone. The mighty God ofJacob is called the "Stone of Israel." (Gen. xlix. 24.)We read of Eben-ezer, the "Stone of Help," when theArk gives the victory to Samuel. (1 Sam. vii. 12.)Daniel's "stone cut out of the mountain without hands"brake in pieces the kings and the kingdoms. (Dan.ii. 45.) The "Shem Hamphoras," the stone in theHoly of Holies in Solomon's temple, was said to bethe "Stone of Jacob."

Circumcision, a savage rite, was performed with"knives of flint." (Josh. v. 2.) Mr. Tylor ("EarlyHistory of Mankind," p. 216) shows us that even atthe date of the Mishna, the beast at the altar waskilled with the kelt of the neolithic man. Stoneswere the official weights in Israel, and also the instrumentsof execution. David used the sling, and perhapsthe chipped stone missiles that we see inmuseums, and his singing and dancing naked beforethe fetish, and the very unpleasant scalps that[Pg 16]purchased him a wife, savour a little of the latitudeof Polynesia. And his hanging up the hands andfeet of Rechab and Baanah remind us of the stakescrowned with sculls round the huts of the Dyaks ofBorneo.

"At a late date," says M. Soury, "we perceive inHebrew legislation the repression of monstrous habitsand depraved tastes which are only found amongstthe very lowest savages. They are forbidden totattoo themselves, to eat insects, reptiles," etc. (Levit.xi. 31; xix. 28.)

I have still to record a quaint use of stones inIsrael, another survival from the stone age. InAstley's "Collection of Voyages" (vol. ii., p. 674,) itis announced that the savages of West Africa consulttheir god with a sort of "Odd or Even!" with nuts.In Israel, the weightiest questions were settled by thesame rude divination. "The pebble is cast into thelap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord."(Prov. xvi. 33.) By this odd or even Saul was chosento be king and Jonah to be thrown overboard. Bystones also malefactors were judged in the Holy ofHolies, but the exact method of this is a secret thatis lost.

In writing thus, of course, I do not believe myselfto be dealing with the actual neolithic period. Itssurvivals are tough. In India before the Mutiny Iwas employed with a force sent to put down therebellion of the Santals. These, a branch of theKolarias, represent the early races that the Arya displaced.And their institutions were singularly likethose of the Jews. They worshipped in "high[Pg 17]places" rude circles of upright monoliths. They worshippedin "groves;" and on one occasion we cameacross a slaughtered kid still warm, that under theholy Sal tree had been sacrificed to obtain the help ofSingh Bonga against us. They had, like the Jews,twelve tribes. They believed, like them, that deathended consciousness. They had marriage by capture,softened down into a comedy, like other savage tribes.They believed that all diseases were due to the wrathof evil spirits, or the spell of a sorcerer. All throughthe night we could hear their war tom-toms sounding,the tuph of the Jews (whence "tympanum," accordingto Calmet). They fought with the bows and arrowsand axes that are marked "aboriginal weapons" inthe South Kensington Museum. When we met themin action a chief came forward like Goliath withgestures and shouts of defiance. Like the Jews theywere stiff-necked in their conservatism. Buddhismand Buddha had risen in their very midst. Brahmins,Mussulmans, Christians, had ruled them andplied them with missionaries; but pious Hindoos, insteadof converting them, had been persuaded to offersacrifices to Bagh Bhut, a tiger god, all-powerful inSantal jungles. They recited at night their deeds oftheft and pillage and slaughter, like the SiouxIndians or the early Jews.

Circumcision is another savage rite. We find itwith the Papuans. We find it in Central America.We find it amongst the Australian aborigines. Thatit was performed in Israel with knives of flint(Josh. v. 4) argues a survival from the men of stoneimplements. Sanitary precautions have been sug[Pg 18]gestedas the origin of the rite, but such an ideawould be in advance of the filthy savages using it.The "Encyclopædia Britannica" holds that it was asacrifice to Aschera, the goddess of generation, like asomewhat similar mutilation of females. ProfessorSayce ("Ancient Empires," p. 199) shows that withyoung men a complete mutilation in honour of thePhœnician Ashtoreth was common.

Mr. Frazer ("Golden Bough," i. 169) explains anothercruel law of Leviticus. The Maoris believe thatif anyone touches a dead body, and then accidentallytouches food, any one partaking of that food will jointhe dead man in the shades. This superstition aboutthe power of the dead is the root idea of otherpractices, covering pictures and looking-glasses whilstthe corpse is still in the house, shunning the graveyardat night when it is buried. It is treated as anenemy who might pass his soul into the picture anddo mischief. The death penalty for touching Yahve'sfood (Levit. vii. 21) is probably the same superstition.When God is supposed to be walking about on earthin human form, as in the instance of a semi-divinesavage chief, the danger of touching his food increasesenormously. Mr. Frazer shows that the Mikado usedto eat every day off new rude earthenware platters,which were at once broken and buried, that no onemight lose his life by accidentally touching a particleof his food. ("Golden Bough," i. 166.) Mr. Frazergives numerous instances, where the same fatality isbelieved to result from food contaminated by amenstruous woman.

In the view of M. Soury, the early Jew was a[Pg 19]tattooed savage, who ate insects; but anthropologyhas shed an unexpected light on this. The families,and small clans of early savages, had each someanimal as a Totem. They were tattooed with thisfor distinction, and it was everywhere ruled that catcould not marry cat, or fox fox. A young mantattooed as a fox would have to capture a lady withanother crest, "stunning her first with a blow fromhis dowak" perchance, like the Australian savage describedby Sir John Lubbock.

It has been shown by Professor Robertson Smiththat the "unclean" animals of the Old Testament arethese totems. "So I went in and saw, and beholdevery form of creeping things and abominable beastsand all theidols of the house of Israel pourtrayedupon the wall round about." (Ezek. viii. 10.) Thisaccounts for the hare being "abominable" in Israel,and the beetle edible. It was meritorious to eat thetotems of one's foes, but the totems of friendly tribes,and one's own totems, were tabooed. The origin ofthese ideas is much debated. The custom is believedto be closely connected with marriage by capture.Female infanticide was prevalent, as women only attractedravishers. The story of the sons of Benjamincapturing the daughters of Shiloh is a frequent sortof story in savage annals. (Judges xxi.)

It is urged that rites are necessary to religion, andthat the sacrifice was an apparatus to train Israel toa deep sense of sin, and a necessity for a blood atonement.It is contended that it was merely a form, asonly the useless portions of the carcase were given to[Pg 20]Yahve. Those who talk like this libel the Jewishpatriarchs. With savages the blood and the fat areconsidered the choicest morsels. To stone a poor Jewbecause he ate a little fat with his supper would havebeen infamous, if the whole affair was a harmlesscomedy. We have shown that the one thought of theJew was a mighty terror, a Great Taboo. Starvationor rich harvests, victory or slavery, were duedirect to Yahve; and the bloody sacrifice was the oneand sole instrument by which he might be controlled.

As late as Leviticus it was believed that the burnt-offeringactually provided food and drink to theMaker of the universe. It is called the "food ofGod" (Levit. xxi. 8), a phrase softened into "bread ofGod" in our version, as the "Encyclopædia Britannica"(article "Bible") has shown. It was believed alsothat God specially loved the smell. (Levit. viii. 21.)More important still, as pointed out by Sir JohnLubbock in his "Origin of Civilisation," p. 272,human sacrifices are expressly ordered in Leviticus(xxvii. 28, 29):—

"Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a manshall devote unto theLord, of all that he hath,both ofman and beast, and of the field of his possession, shallbe sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is mostholy unto theLord.

"None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shallbe redeemed, but shallsurely be put to death."

"There is indeed no doubt that human victims wereoffered to Yahve," says M. Soury. "The young ofman belonged to Yahve, just as did the young of theanimal and the fruit of the tree. All the gods of the[Pg 21]Semites,—El, Schaddai, Adon, Baal, Moloch, Yahve,Kemosh,—were conceived in the likeness of Easternmonarchs. They had right absolute over all that wasborn and all that died in their realms. Man admitshis vassalage. He adores the 'master,' and brings tohis lord the first-fruits of his flock, his field, and hisfamily." ("Religion of Israel," c. vi.)

The French author goes on to say that during theirsojourn in Egypt the Jews sacrificed human victims.(Ezek. xx. 26.) "In all the history of religions thereis no human sacrifice better established than that ofthe daughter of Jephthah to Yahve. In the time ofthe Judges, who does not know the story of Samueland Agag? It is 'before Yahve,' at Gilgal, thatSamuel kills his victim. David appeased the wrathof Yahve, who had afflicted the land with famineduring three years, by delivering up to the Gibeonitesseven men of Saul's blood. The seven victims beinghanged 'on the hill before Yahve,' the deity wassatisfied." (2 Sam. xxi. 1-14.)

This human sacrifice is, of course, a survival ofcannibalism. The Australians, as Lumholtz ("AmongCannibals," p. 70) shows, consider "talgoro" (humanflesh) the daintiest of food. At their watchfires theydiscourse upon the delicate fat round the kidneys asan alderman might talk of calipash.

What is all this leading up to? Simply to this,that we must put far away from us the theory ofmodern pulpits that the bloody sacrifice was a comedyof the priest, a comedy of the Almighty. The sacrificewas not a comedy at all. To the mind of the savageit was at once business and science. It was the bank,[Pg 22]the war office, the bureau of agriculture, the collegeof physicians of the nation. By it alone could theblood-loving Semite gods be influenced to give harvests,shekels, victory; and the ferocious Taboo waspure science likewise. The archer, for instance, whokilled a partridge without covering the blood withearth was killed in turn, because the Taboo was amechanism that could only be kept in working orderby a remorseless attention to its most minute rules.Writers like Kuenen and Lightfoot assure us that it isquite impossible that Christianity can be due to anyinfluence outside Judaism, because it is such a veryobvious development of Jewish thought. This is astartling statement. Christianity pronounced theslaughter of animals at the altar a piece of uselessfolly, and tore up the great ordinances of Taboo, theCovenant between Israel and the Maker of theHeavens. It proclaimed three Gods instead of one.It pronounced that the Jewish holy books wereparables rather than a statement of actual facts.Such ideas were at this epoch current in the West,owing to the activity of the missionaries of an Easterncreed.

CHAPTER II.

I propose now to give a short life of Buddha, notingits points of contact with that of Jesus.

The early Buddhists, following the example of theVedic Brahmins, divided space into Nirvritti, the darkportion of the heavens, and Pravritti, the starrysystems. Over this last, the luminous portion, Buddhafigures as ruler when the legendary life opens. TheChristian Gnostics took over this idea and gave toChrist a similar function. Buthos was Nirvritti ruledby "The Father" (in Buddhism by Swayambhu, theself-existent), Pravritti was the Pleroma. "It wasthe Father's good pleasure that in him the wholePleroma should have its home." (Col. i. 19.)

Exactly 550 years before Christ there dwelt inNorth Oude, at a city called Kapilavastu, the modernNagar Khas, a king called Suddhodana. Thismonarch was informed by angels that a mightyteacher of men would be born miraculously in the[Pg 24]womb of his wife. "By the consent of the king,"says the "Lalita Vistara," "the queen was permittedto lead the life of a virgin for thirty-two months."Joseph is made, a little awkwardly, to give a similarprivilege to his wife. (Matt. i. 25.)

Some writers have called in question the statementthat Buddha was born of a virgin, but in the southernscriptures, as given by Mr. Turnour, it is announcedthat a womb in which a Buddha elect has reposed, islike the sanctuary of a temple. On that account, thather womb may be sacred, the mother of a Buddhaalways dies in seven days. The name of the queenwas borrowed from Brahminism. She was MâyâDevî, the Queen of Heaven. And one of the titles ofthis lady is Kanyâ, the Virgin of the Zodiac.

Queen Mâyâ was chosen for her mighty privilegebecause the Buddhist scriptures announce that themother of a Buddha must be of royal line.

Long genealogies, very like those of the New Testament,are given also to prove the blue blood of KingSuddhodana, who, like Joseph, had nothing to do withthe paternity of the child. "King Mahasammata hada son named Roja, whose son was Vararoja, whose sonwas Kalyâna, whose son was Varakalyâna," and so on,and so on. (Dîpawanso,see "Journ. As. Soc.," Bengal,vol. vii., p. 925.)

How does a Buddha come down to earth? Thisquestion is debated in Heaven, and the Vedas weresearched because, as Seydel shows, although Buddhismseemed a root and branch change, it was attemptedto show that it was really the lofty side of the oldBrahminism, a lesson not lost by and by in Palestine.[Pg 25]The sign of Capricorn in the old Indian Zodiac is anelephant issuing from a Makara (leviathan), and itsymbolises the active god issuing from the quiescentgod in his home on the face of the waters. In consequence,Buddha comes down as a white elephant,and enters the right side of the queen without piercingit or in any way injuring it. Childers sees a greatanalogy in all this to the Catholic theory of the perpetualvirginity of Mary. Catholic doctors quote thispassage from Ezekiel (xliv. 2):—

"Then said theLord unto me, This gate shall beshut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter inby it; because theLord, the God of Israel, hath enteredin by it, therefore shall it be shut."

It is recorded that when Queen Mâyâ received thesupernal Buddha in her womb, in the form of abeautiful white elephant, she said to her husband:"Like snow and silver, outshining the sun and themoon, a white elephant of six defences, with unrivalledtrunk and feet, has entered my womb.Listen, I saw the three regions (earth, heaven, hell,)with a great light shining in the darkness, and myriadsof spirits sang my praises in the sky."

"The spirits of the Pure Abode flying in the air,showed half of their forms, and hymned King Suddhodanathus:

In the Christian scriptures there is also a doubleannunciation. In Luke (i. 28) the angel Gabrielis said to have appeared to the Virgin Mary beforeher conception, and to have foretold to her the miraculousbirth of Christ. But in spite of this astoundingmiracle, Joseph seems to have required a secondpersonal one before he ceased to question the chastityof his wife. (Matt. i. 19.) Plainly, two evangelistshave been working the same mine independently, anda want of consistency is the result.

When Buddha was in his mother's womb thatwomb was transparent. The Virgin Mary was thusrepresented in mediæval frescoes. (See illustration,p. 39, in my "Buddhism in Christendom.")

In the Buddhist legend the devas in heaven announcethat Buddha will be born when the Flower-staris seenin the East. (Lefman, xxi. 124; Wassiljew,p. 95.)

Amongst the thirty-two signs that indicate themother of a Buddha, the fifth is that, like Mary themother of Jesus, she should be "on a journey" (Beal,"Rom. History," p. 32) at the moment of parturition.This happened. A tree (palâsa, the scarletbutea) bent down its branches and overshadowed her,and Buddha came forth. Voltaire says that in the[Pg 27]library of Berne there is a copy of the First Gospelof the Infancy, which records that a palm tree bentdown in a similar manner to Mary. ("Œuvres," vol.xl.) The Koran calls it a "withered date tree."

In the First Gospel of the Infancy, it is statedthat, when Christ was in His cradle, He said to Hismother: "I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Wordwhom thou didst bring forth according to the declarationof the angel Gabriel to thee, and my Father hathsent Me for the salvation of the world."

In the Buddhist scriptures it is announced thatBuddha, on seeing the light, said:—

"I am in my last birth. None is my equal. Ihave come to conquer death, sickness, old age. Ihave come to subdue the spirit of evil, and give peaceand joy to the souls tormented in hell."

In the same scriptures (see Beal, "Rom. History,"p. 46) it is announced that at the birth of the Divinechild, the devas (angels) in the sky sang "their hymnsand praises."

"Five days after the birth of Buddha," says BishopBigandet, in the "Burmese Life," "was performed theceremony of head ablution and naming the child."(p. 49.)

We see from this where the ceremony of headablution and naming the child comes from. In the"Lalita Vistara" Buddha is carried to the temple.Plainly we have the same ceremony. There the idolsbow down to him as in the First Gospel of the[Pg 28]Infancy the idol in Egypt bows down to Jesus. InLuke the infant Jesus is also taken to the temple byhis parents to "do for him after the custom of thelaw." (Luke ii. 27.) What law? Certainly not theJewish.

It is recorded in the Chinese life (Beal, "Rom.History," p. 103) that King Bimbisâra, the monarchof Râjagriha, was told by his ministers that a boywas alive for whom the stars predicted a mightydestiny. They advised him to raise an army and goand destroy this child, lest he should one day subvertthe king's throne. Bimbisâra refused.

At the birth of Buddha the four Mahârâjas, the greatkings, who in Hindoo astronomy guard each a cardinalpoint, received him. These may throw light on thetraditional Persian kings that greeted Christ.

In some quarters these analogies are admitted, butit is said that the Buddhists copied from the Christianscriptures. But this question is a little complicatedby the fact that many of the most noticeablesimilarities are in apocryphal gospels, those that wereabandoned by the Church at an early date. In theProtevangelion, at Christ's birth, certain marvels arevisible. The clouds are "astonished," and the birdsof the air stop in their flight. The dispersed sheep ofsome shepherds near cease to gambol, and the shepherdsto beat them. The kids near a river arearrested with their mouths close to the water. Allnature seems to pause for a mighty effort. In the[Pg 29]"Lalita Vistara" the birds also pause in their flightwhen Buddha comes to the womb of Queen Mâyâ.Fires go out, and rivers are suddenly arrested in theirflow.

Asita dwells on Himavat, the holy mount of theHindoos, as Simeon dwells on Mount Zion. The"Holy Ghost is upon" Simeon. That means that hehas obtained the faculties of the prophet by mysticaltraining. He "comes by the Spirit" into the temple.Asita is an ascetic, who has acquired the eight magicalfaculties, one of which is the faculty of visiting theTawatinsa heavens. Happening to soar up into thosepure regions one day, he is told by a host of devatas,or heavenly spirits, that a mighty Buddha is born inthe world, "who will establish the supremacy of theBuddhist Dharma." The "Lalita Vistara" announcesthat, "looking abroad with his divine eye, and consideringthe kingdoms of India, he saw in the greatcity of Kapilavastu, in the palace of King Suddhodana,the child shining with the glitter of pure deeds, andadored by all the worlds." Afar through the skiesthe spirits of heaven in crowds recited the "hymn ofBuddha."

This is the description of Simeon in the First Gospelof the Infancy, ii. 6—"At that time old Simeonsaw Him (Christ) shining as a pillar of light when St.Mary the Virgin, His mother, carried Him in her arms,and was filled with the greatest pleasure at the sight.And the angels stood around Him, adoring Him as aKing; guards stood around Him."

Asita pays a visit to the king. Asita takes thelittle child in his arms. Asita weeps.

"I weep because this child will be the great Buddha,and I shall not be alive to witness the fact."

The points of contact between Simeon and Asitaare very close. Both are men of God, "full of theHoly Ghost." Both are brought "by the Spirit" intothe presence of the Holy Child, for the express purposeof foretelling His destiny as the Anointed One.

A little Brahmin was "initiated," girt with the holythread, etc., at eight, and put under the tuition of aholy man. When Vis'vâmitra, Buddha's teacher, proposedto teach him the alphabet, the young princewent off:—

In the First Gospel of the Infancy, chap. xx., it is recordedthat when taken to the schoolmaster Zaccheus,"The Lord Jesus explained to him the meaning ofthe letters Aleph and Beth.

"8. Also, which were the straight figures of theletters, which were the oblique, and what letters haddouble figures; which had points and which hadnone; why one letter went before another; and many[Pg 31]other things He began to tell him and explain, ofwhich the master himself had never heard, nor read inany book.

"9. The Lord Jesus further said to the master,Take notice how I say to thee. Then He beganclearly and distinctly to say Aleph, Beth, Gimel,Daleth, and so on to the end of the alphabet.

"10. At this, the master was so surprised, that hesaid, I believe this boy was born before Noah."

In the "Lalita Vistara" there are two separateaccounts of Buddha showing his marvellous knowledge.His great display is when he competes for hiswife. He then exhibits his familiarity with all lore,sacred and profane, "astronomy," the "syllogism,"medicine, mystic rites.

The disputation with the doctors is considerablyamplified in the twenty-first chapter of the FirstGospel of the Infancy:—

"6. Jesus answered that He had read both booksand the things which were contained in books.

"7. And he explained to them the books of the lawand precepts and statutes, and the mysteries whichare contained in the books of the prophets—thingswhich the mind of no creature could reach.

"8. Then said that rabbi, I never yet have seen orheard of such knowledge! What do you think thatboy will be?

"9. Then a certain astronomer who was presentasked the Lord Jesus whether He had studied astronomy.

"10. The Lord Jesus replied, and told him thenumber of the spheres and heavenly bodies, as alsotheir triangular, square, and sextile aspects, their progressiveand retrograde motions, their size and severalprognostications, and other things which the reason ofman had never discovered.

"11. There was also among them a philosopher,well skilled in physic and natural philosophy, whoasked the Lord Jesus whether He had studiedphysic.

"16. The several constitutions of body, hot and dry,cold and moist, and the tendencies of them.

"20. And, lastly, the manner of its composition anddissolution, and other things which the understandingof no creature had ever reached.

"21. Then that philosopher worshipped the LordJesus, and said, O Lord Jesus, from henceforth I willbe Thy disciple and servant."

I have now come to a stage in this narrative whena few remarks are necessary. The "Lalita Vistara" professesto reveal the secrets of the Buddhas, the secretsof "magic," the secrets of Yoga, or union with Brahma.And whether it be fiction or history, it does so moreroundly than any other work. The Christian gospelsprofess also to teach a similar secret. Read by thelight of the Buddhist book, I think they do teach it.But read alone, eighteen centuries come forward toshow that they do not.

The highest spiritual philosophers in Buddhism, inBrahminism, in Christendom, in Islam, announce twokingdoms distinct from one another. They are calledin India the Domain of Appetite (Kâmaloca), and theDomain of Spirit (Brahmaloca). The "Lalita Vistara"throughout describes a conflict between these twogreat camps. Buddha is offered a crown by his father.He has wives, palaces, jewels, but he leaves all for thethorny jungle where the Brahmacharin dreamt hisdreams of God. This is called pessimism by somewriters, who urge that we should enjoy life as we findit, but modern Europe having tried, denies that life isso enjoyable. Its motto isTout lasse, tout casse, toutpasse. Yes, say the optimists, but we needn't all livea life like Jay Gould. A good son, a good father, agood husband, a good citizen, is happy enough. True,reply the pessimists, in so far as a mortal enters thedomain of spirit he may be happy, for that is not aregion but a state of the mind. But mundane acci[Pg 34]dentsseem, almost by rule, to mar even that happiness.The husband loses his loved one, the artist hiseyesight. Philosophers and statesmen find their greatdreams and schemes baffled by the infirmities of age.

Age, disease, death! These are the evils for whichthe great Indian allegory proposes to find a remedy.Let us see what that remedy is.

CHAPTER III.

"The young boy will, without doubt, be either aking of kings, or a great Buddha. If he is destinedto be a great Buddha, four presaging tokens willmake his mission plain. He will see—

"If he fails to see these four presaging tokens of anavatâra, he will be simply a Chakravartin" (king ofearthly kings).

King Suddhodana, who was a trifle worldly, wasvery much comforted by the last prediction of thesoothsayers. He thought in his heart, It will be aneasy thing to keep these four presaging tokens fromthe young prince. So he gave orders that threemagnificent palaces should at once be built—thePalace of Spring, the Palace of Summer, the Palaceof Winter. These palaces, as we learn from the "LalitaVistara," were the most beautiful palaces ever conceivedon earth. Indeed, they were quite able to copein splendour with Vaijayanta, the immortal palace of[Pg 36]Indra himself. Costly pavilions were built out in alldirections, with ornamented porticoes and burnisheddoors. Turrets and pinnacles soared into the sky.Dainty little windows gave light to the rich apartments.Galleries, balustrades, and delicate trellis-workwere abundant everywhere. A thousand bellstinkled on each roof. We seem to have the lacqueredChinese edifices of the pattern which architects believeto have flourished in early India. The gardens ofthese fine palaces rivalled the chess-board in the rectangularexactitude of their parterres and trellis-workbowers. Cool lakes nursed on their calm bosomsstorks and cranes, wild geese and tame swans; ducks,also, as parti-coloured as the white, red, and bluelotuses amongst which they swam. Bending to theselakes were bowery trees—the champak, the acaciaserisha, and the beautiful asoka tree with its orange-scarletflowers. Above rustled the mimosa, the fan-palm,and the feathery pippala, Buddha's tree. Theair was heavy with the strong scent of the tuberoseand the Arabian jasmine.

It must be mentioned that strong ramparts wereprepared round the palaces of Kapilavastu, to keepout all old men, sick men, and recluses, and, I mustadd, to keep in the prince.

And a more potent safeguard still was designed.When the prince was old enough to marry, his palacewas deluged with beautiful women. He revelled inthe "five dusts," as the Chinese version puts it. Buta shock was preparing for King Suddhodana.

This is how the matter came about. The king hadprepared a garden even more beautiful than the[Pg 37]garden of the Palace of Summer. A soothsayer hadtold him that if he could succeed in showing theprince this garden, the prince would be content toremain in it with his wives for ever. No task seemedeasier than this, so it was arranged that on a certainday the prince should be driven thither in his chariot.But, of course, immense precautions had to be takento keep all old men and sick men and corpses fromhis sight. Quite an army of soldiers were told off forthis duty, and the city was decked with flags. Thepath of the prince was strewn with flowers and scents,and adorned with vases of the rich kadali plant.Above were costly hangings and garlands, andpagodas of bells.

But, lo and behold! as the prince was driving along,plump under the wheels of his chariot, and before thevery noses of the silken nobles and the warriors withjavelins and shields, he saw an unusual sight. Thiswas an old man, very decrepit and very broken.The veins and nerves of his body were swollen andprominent; his teeth chattered; he was wrinkled,bald, and his few remaining hairs were of dazzlingwhiteness; he was bent very nearly double, andtottered feebly along, supported by a stick.

"What is this, O coachman?" said the prince."A man with his blood all dried up, and his musclesglued to his body! His head is white; his teethknock together; he is scarcely able to move along,even with the aid of that stick!"

"Prince," said the coachman, "this is Old Age.This man's senses are dulled; suffering has destroyedhis spirit; he is contemned by his neighbours. Un[Pg 38]ableto help himself, he has been abandoned in thisforest."

"Is this a peculiarity of his family?" demandedthe prince, "or is it the law of the world? Tell mequickly."

"Prince," said the coachman, "it is neither a law ofhis family, nor a law of the kingdom. In everybeing youth is conquered by age. Your own fatherand mother and all your relations will end in old age.There is no other issue to humanity."

"Then youth is blind and ignorant," said the prince,"and sees not the future. If this body is to be theabode of old age, what have I to do with pleasureand its intoxications? Turn round the chariot, anddrive me back to the palace!"

Consternation was in the minds of all the courtiersat this untoward occurrence; but the odd circumstanceof all was that no one was ever able to bringto condign punishment the miserable author ofthe mischief. The old man could never be found.

King Suddhodana was at first quite beside himselfwith tribulation. Soldiers were summoned from thedistant provinces, and a cordon of detachmentsthrown out to a distance of four miles in eachdirection, to keep the other presaging tokens fromthe prince. By and by the king became a littlemore quieted. A ridiculous accident had interferedwith his plans: "If my son could see the Garden ofHappiness he never would become a hermit." Theking determined that another attempt should bemade. But this time the precautions were doubled.

On the first occasion the prince left the Palace of[Pg 39]Summer by the eastern gate. The second expeditionwas through the southern gate.

But another untoward event occurred. As theprince was driving along in his chariot, suddenly hesaw close to him a man emaciated, ill, loathsome,burning with fever. Companionless, uncared for,he tottered along, breathing with extreme difficulty.

"Coachman," said the prince, "what is this man,livid and loathsome in body, whose senses are dulled,and whose limbs are withered? His stomach isoppressing him; he is covered with filth. Scarcelycan he draw the breath of life!"

"Prince," said the coachman, "this is Sickness.This poor man is attacked with a grievous malady.Strength and comfort have shunned him. He isfriendless, hopeless, without a country, without anasylum. The fear of death is before his eyes."

"If the health of man," said Buddha, "is but thesport of a dream, and the fear of coming evils canput on so loathsome a shape, how can the wise man,who has seen what life really means, indulge in itsvain delights? Turn back, coachman, and drive meto the palace!"

The angry king, when he heard what had occurred,gave orders that the sick man should be seized andpunished, but although a price was placed on hishead, and he was searched for far and wide, he couldnever be caught. A clue to this is furnished by apassage in the "Lalita Vistara." The sick man was inreality one of the Spirits of the Pure Abode, masqueradingin sores and spasms. These Spirits of the PureAbode are also called the Buddhas of the Past, in many[Pg 40]passages. The answers of the coachman were due totheir inspiration.

It would almost seem as if some influence, maleficor otherwise, was stirring the good King Suddhodana.Unmoved by failure, he urged the prince to a thirdeffort. The chariot this time was to set out by thewestern gate. Greater precautions than ever wereadopted. The chain of guards was posted at leasttwelve miles off from the Palace of Summer. But theBuddhas of the Past again arrested the prince. Hischariot was suddenly crossed by a phantom funeralprocession. A phantom corpse, smeared with theorthodox mud, and spread with a sheet, was carriedon a bier. Phantom women wailed, and phantommusicians played on the drum and the Indian flute.No doubt also, phantom Brahmins chanted hymns toJatavedas, to bear away the immortal part of the deadman to the home of the Pitris.

"What is this?" said the prince. "Why do thesewomen beat their breast and tear their hair? Whydo these good folks cover their heads with the dust ofthe ground? And that strange form upon its litter,wherefore is it so rigid?"

"Prince," said the charioteer, "this is Death! Yonform, pale and stiffened, can never again walk andmove. Its owner has gone to the unknown cavernsof Yama. His father, his mother, his child, his wifecry out to him, but he cannot hear."

"Woe be to youth, which is the sport of age! Woebe to health, which is the sport of many maladies!Woe be to life, which is as a breath! Woe be to the[Pg 41]idle pleasures which debauch humanity! But for the'five aggregations' there would be no age, sickness,nor death. Go back to the city. I must compass thedeliverance."

A fourth time the prince was urged by his fatherto visit the Garden of Happiness. The chain ofguards this time was sixteen miles away. The exitwas by the northern gate. But suddenly a calm manof gentle mien, wearing an ochre-red cowl, was seenin the roadway.

"Who is this," said the prince, "rapt, gentle, peacefulin mien? He looks as if his mind were far awayelsewhere. He carries a bowl in his hand."

"Prince, this is the New Life," said the charioteer."That man is of those whose thoughts are fixed onthe eternal Brahma [Brahmacharin]. He seeks thedivine voice. He seeks the divine vision. He carriesthe alms-bowl of the holy beggar [bhikshu]. Hismind is calm, because the gross lures of the lower lifecan vex it no more."

"Such a life I covet," said the prince. "The lustsof man are like the sea-water—they mock man'sthirst instead of quenching it. I will seek the divinevision, and give immortality to man!"

King Suddhodana was beside himself. He placedfive hundred corseleted Sakyas at every gate of thePalace of Summer. Chains of sentries were roundthe walls, which were raised and strengthened. Aphalanx of loving wives, armed with javelins, wasposted round the prince's bed to "narrowly watch"him. The king ordered also all the allurements ofsense to be constantly presented to the prince.

"Let the women of the zenana cease not for aninstant their concerts and mirth and sports. Letthem shine in silks and sparkle in diamonds andemeralds."

The allegory is in reality a great battle betweentwo camps—the denizens of the Kâmaloca, or theDomains of Appetite, and the denizens of theBrahmaloca, the Domains of Pure Spirit. The latterare unseen, but not unfelt.

For one day, when the prince reclined on a silkencouch listening to the sweet crooning of four or fivebrown-skinned, large-eyed Indian girls, his eyessuddenly assumed a dazed and absorbed look, andthe rich hangings and garlands and intricate trellis-workof the golden apartment were still present, butdim to his mind. And music and voices, more sweetthan he had ever listened to, seemed faintly to reachhim. I will write down some of the verses.

In the end the Buddhas of the Past triumph. They[Pg 43]persuade Buddha to flee away from his cloying pleasuresand become a Yogi.

"THEN WAS JESUS LED UP BY THE SPIRIT INTO THEWILDERNESS, TO BE TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL."

Comfortable dowagers driving to church three timeson Sunday would be astonished to learn that theessence of Christianity is in this passage. Its meaninghas quite passed away from Protestantism, almostfrom Christendom. The "Lalita Vistara" fully showswhat that meaning is. Without Buddhism it would belost. Jesus was an Essene, and the Essene, like theIndian Yogi, sought to obtain divine union and the"gifts of the Spirit" by solitary reverie in retiredspots. In what is called the "Monastery of our Lord"on the Quarantania, a cell is shown with rude frescoesof Jesus and Satan. There, according to tradition,the demoniac hauntings that all mystics speak ofoccurred.

A novice in Yoga has a guru, or teacher. Buddha,in riding away from the palace by and by reached ajungle near Vaisalî. He at once put himself under aBrahmin Yogi named Arâta Kâlâma, but his spiritualinsight developed so rapidly that in a short time theYogi offered to Buddha, the arghya, the offering ofrice, flowers, sesamun, etc., that the humble noviceusually presents to his instructor, and asked him to[Pg 44]teach instead of learning. (Foucaux, "Lalita Vistara,"p. 228.)

M. Ernest de Bunsen, in his work, "The AngelMessiah," says that Buddha, like Christ, commencedpreaching at thirty years of age. He certainly musthave preached at Vaisalî, for five young men becamehis disciples there, and exhorted him to go on withhis teaching. ("Lalita Vistara," p. 236.) He wastwenty-nine when he left the palace, therefore hemight well have preached at thirty. He did not turnthe wheel of the law until after a six years' meditationunder the Tree of Knowledge.

The Buddhist rite of baptism finds its sanction intwo incidents in the Buddhist scriptures. In thefirst, Buddha bathes in the holy river, and Mâra, theevil spirit, tries to prevent him from emerging. Inthe second, angels administer the holy rite (Abhisheka).

Buddha, immediately previous to his great encounterwith Mâra, the tempter, fasted forty-ninedays and nights. ("Chinese Life," by Wung Puh.)

The first temptation of Buddha, when Mâra assailed[Pg 45]him under the bo tree, is precisely similar to that ofJesus. His long fast had very nearly killed him."Sweet creature, you are at the point of death. Sacrificefood." This meant, eat a portion to save yourlife.

The second temptation of Mâra is also like one ofSatan's. The tempter, by a miracle, shows Buddhathe glorious city of Kapilavastu, twisting the earthround like the "wheel of a potter" to do this. Heoffers to make him a mighty king of kings (Chakravartin)in seven days. (Bigandet, p. 65.)

Jewish prudery has quite marred the third temptation.From the days of Krishna and the phantomnaked woman, Kotavî, to the days of St. Anthonyand St. Jerome, or even to the days of mediævalmonasteries with their incubi and succubi, sex temptationshave been a prominent feature of the fastingascetic's visions. The daughters of Mâra, the tempter,in exquisite forms, now come round Buddha. In theend he converts these pretty ladies, and converts andbaptises Mâra himself.

Buddha, on vanquishing Mâra, left Buddha Gaya forthe deer forest of Benares. There he began to preach.His doctrine is called Subha Shita (glad tidings).(See Rajendra L. Mitra "N. Buddhist Lit.," p. 29.)

Five disciples who left him when he gave over therigid fasts of the Brahmins, called out on seeing himin the deer forest, "Behold a gluttonous person!"(relaché et gourmand).

Almost his first converts were thirty profligateyoung men, whom he met sporting with lemans in theKappasya jungle. "He received them," says ProfessorRhys Davids, "into the order, with the formula,'Follow Me.'" ("Birth Stories," p. 114.)

"Except in my religion, the twelve great disciplesare not to be found." (Bigandet, p. 301.)

One disciple was called Upatishya (the beloveddisciple). In a former existence, he and Maudgalyâyanahad prayed that they might sit, the one on theright hand and the other on the left. Buddha granted[Pg 47]this prayer. The other disciples murmured much.(Bigandet, p. 153.)

From Benares Buddha sent forth the sixty-onedisciples. "Go ye forth," he said, "and preachDharma, no two disciples going the same way."(Bigandet, p. 126.)

Professor Rhys Davids points out that Yâsas, ayoung rich man, came to Buddha by night for fear ofhis rich relations.

On one point I have been a little puzzled. Thepassword of the Buddhist Wanderers was Sadhu!which does not seem to correspond with the "PaxVobiscum!" (Matt. x. 13) of Christ's disciples. But Ihave just come across a passage in Renan ("LesApôtres," p. 22) which shows that the Hebrew wordwas Schalom! (bonheur!) This is almost a literaltranslation of Sadhu!

Burnouf says that by preaching and miracle Buddha'sreligion was established. In point of fact itwas the first universal religion. He invented thepreacher and the missionary.

"By love alone can we conquer wrath. By good[Pg 48]alone can we conquer evil. The whole world dreadsviolence. All men tremble in the presence of death.Do to others that which ye would have them do toyou. Kill not. Cause no death." ("Sûtra of Forty-twoSections," v. 129.)

"Say no harsh words to thy neighbour. He willreply to thee in the same tone." (Ibid. v. 133.)

"'I am injured and provoked, I have been beatenand plundered!' They who speak thus will nevercease to hate." (Ibid. v. 4, 5.)

"That which can cause hate to cease in the worldis not hate, but the absence of hate."

"If, like a trumpet trodden on in battle, thou complainestnot, thou has attained Nirvâna."

"Silently shall I endure abuse, as the war-elephantreceives the shaft of the bowman."

"The awakened man goes not on revenge, butrewards with kindness the very being who has injuredhim, as the sandal tree scents the axe of thewoodman who fells it."

The Buddhists, like the Christians, have got theirBeatitudes. They are plainly arranged for chant andresponse in the temples. It is to be noted that theChristian Beatitudes were a portion of the earlyChristian ritual.

Certain subtle questions were proposed to Buddha,such as: What will best conquer the evil passions ofman? What is the most savoury gift for the alms-bowlof the mendicant? Where is true happiness tobe found? Buddha replied to them all with oneword,Dharma (the heavenly life). (Bigandet, p.225.)

A merchant from Sûnaparanta having joinedBuddha's society, was desirous of preaching to hisrelations, and is said to have asked the permission ofthe master so to do.

"The people of Sûnaparanta," said Buddha, "areexceedingly violent; if they revile you what will youdo?"

"Death," said the missionary, "is no evil in itself.Many even desire it to escape from the vanities oflife." (Bigandet, p. 216.)

"Commit no adultery." Commentary by Buddha:"This law is broken by even looking at the wife ofanother with a lustful mind." (Buddhaghosa's "Parables,"by Max Müller and Rogers, p. 153.)

It is recorded that Buddha once stood beside theploughman Kasibhâradvaja, who reproved him for hisidleness. Buddha answered thus:—"I, too, ploughand sow, and from my ploughing and sowing I reapimmortal fruit. My field is religion. The weeds thatI pluck up are the passions of cleaving to this life.My plough is wisdom, my seed purity." ("HardyManual," p. 215.)

On another occasion he described almsgiving asbeing like "good seed sown on a good soil that yieldsan abundance of fruits. But alms given to thosewho are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions,are like a seed deposited in a bad soil. The passionsof the receiver of the alms, choke, as it were, thegrowth of merits." (Bigandet, p. 211.)

In the "Sutta Nipâta," chap. ii., is a discourse onthe food that defiles a man (Âmaghanda). Therein itis explained at some length that the food that is[Pg 52]eaten cannot defile a man, but "destroying livingbeings, killing, cutting, binding, stealing, falsehood,adultery, evil thoughts, murder,"—this defiles a man,not the eating of flesh.

"A man," says Buddha, "buries a treasure in adeep pit, which lying concealed therein day after dayprofits him nothing, but there is a treasure of charity,piety, temperance, soberness, a treasure secure, impregnable,that cannot pass away, a treasure that nothief can steal. Let the wise man practise Dharma.This is a treasure that follows him after death."("Khuddaka Pâtha," p. 13.)

"It [the seen world] is like a city of sand. Itsfoundation cannot endure." ("Lalita Vistara," p. 172.)

"Who is not freed cannot free others. The blindcannot guide in the way." (Ibid. p. 179.)

"Whosoever piously bestows a little water shall receivean ocean in return." ("Ta-chwang-yan-king-lun,"sermon 20).

"Give to him that asketh, even though it be but alittle." ("Udânavarga," ch. xx. ver. 15.)

"With pure thoughts and fulness of love I will dotowards others what I do for myself." ("LalitaVistara," ch. v.)

"Buddha's triumphant entry into Râjagriha (the"City of the King") has been compared to Christ'sentry into Jerusalem. Both, probably, never occurred,and only symbolise the advent of a divine Being toearth. It is recorded in the Buddhist scriptures thaton these occasions a "Precursor of Buddha" alwaysappears. (Bigandet, p. 147.)

Professor Kellogg, in his work entitled "The Lightof Asia and the Light of the World," condemnsBuddhism in nearly all its tenets. But he is especiallyemphatic in the matter of the metempsychosis.The poor and hopeless Buddhist has to begin againand again "the weary round of birth and death,"whilst the righteous Christians go at once into lifeeternal.

Now it seems to me that this is an example of thedanger of contrasting two historical characters whenwe have a strong sympathy for the one and a strongprejudice against the other. Professor Kellogg hasconjured up a Jesus with nineteenth century ideas,and a Buddha who is made responsible for all thefancies that were in the worldB.C. 500. ProfessorKellogg is a professor of an American university, andas such must know that the doctrine of thegilgal(the Jewish name for the metempsychosis) was asuniversal in PalestineA.D. 30, as it was in RâjagrihaB.C. 500. An able writer in theChurch QuarterlyReview of October, 1885, maintains that the Jewsbrought it from Babylon. Dr. Ginsburg, in his workon the "Kabbalah," shows that the doctrine continuedto be held by Jews as late as the ninth century of ourera. He shows, too, that St. Jerome has recordedthat it was "propounded amongst the early Christiansas an esoteric and traditional doctrine."

The author of the article in theChurch Quarterly[Pg 55]Review, in proof of its existence, adduces the questionput by the disciples of Christ in reference to the manthat was born blind. And if it was considered that aman could be born blind as a punishment for sin, thatsin must have been plainly committed before his birth.Oddly enough, in the "White Lotus of Dharma"there is an account of the healing of a blind man,"Because of the sinful conduct of the man [in aformer birth] this malady has risen."

But a still more striking instance is given in thecase of the man sick with the palsy. (Luke v. 18.)The Jews believed, with modern Orientals, that gravediseases like paralysis were due, not to physical causesin this life, but to moral causes in previous lives.And if the account of the cure of the paralytic is to beconsidered historical, it is quite clear that this wasChrist's idea when He cured the man, for He distinctlyannounced that the cure was affected not by anyphysical processes, but by annulling the "sins" whichwere the cause of his malady.

Traces of the metempsychosis idea still exist inCatholic Christianity. The doctrine of original sin issaid by some writers to be a modification of it. Certainlythe fancy that the works of supererogation oftheir saints can be transferred to others is theBuddhist idea of good karma, which is transferablein a similar manner.

"As when a string of blind men are clinging one to[Pg 56]the other, neither can the foremost see, nor the middleone see, nor the hindmost see. Just so, methinks, Vâsitthais the talk of the Brahmins versed in the ThreeVedas." (Buddha, in the "Tevigga Sutta," i. 15.)

In the days of St. Thomas à Kempis the worshipperwas modelled on the Christ. In our days, the Christseems modelled on the worshipper. The Bodleian professorof Sanscrit writes thus: "Christianity teachesthat in the highest form of life love is intensified.Buddhism teaches that in the highest state of existenceall love is extinguished. According to Christianity—Goand earn your own bread and supportyourself and your family. Marriage, it says, ishonourable and undefiled, and married life a fieldwhere holiness can grow."

But history is history; and a French writer hasrecently attacked Christ for attempting to bring intoEurope the celibacy and pessimism of Buddhism.This author in his work, "Jésus Bouddha," citesLuke xiv. 26:—

"If any man come to Me, and hate not his father,and mother, andwife, and children, and brethren, andsisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be Mydisciple."

"Think not that I have come to send peace onearth: I come not to send peace, but a sword. For Iam come to set a man at variance against his father,[Pg 57]and the daughter against her mother, and thedaughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And aman's foes shall be they of his own household."(Matt. x. 34-36.)

"And the brother shall deliver up the brother todeath, and the father the child; and the children shallrise up against their parents, and cause them to beput to death." (Ibid. ver. 21.)

"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsakethnot all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."(Luke xiv. 33).

The author says that all this is pure nihilism, andEssene communism. "The most sacred family tiesare to be renounced, and man to lose his individualityand become a unit in a vast scheme to overturn theinstitutions of his country."

"The anticosmic tendency of the Christian doctrine,"says Mr. Felix Oswald ("Secret of the East,"p. 27), "distinguishes it from all religions exceptBuddhism. In the language of the New Testamentthe 'world' is everywhere a synonym of evil and sin,the flesh everywhere the enemy of the spirit.... TheGospel of Buddha, though a pernicious, is, however, aperfectly consistent doctrine. Birth, life, and re-birthis an eternal round of sorrow and disappointment.The present and the future are but the upper andlower tire of an ever-rolling wheel of woe. The onlysalvation from the wheel of life is an escape to thepeace of Nirvâna. The attempt to graft this doctrineupon the optimistic theism of Palestine has made the[Pg 58]Christian ethics inconsistent and contradictory. Apaternal Jehovah who yet eternally and horriblytortures a vast plurality of his children. An earththe perfect work of a benevolent God, yet a vale oftears not made to be enjoyed, but only to be despisedand renounced. An omnipotent heaven, and yetunable to prevent the intrigues and constant victoriesof hell. Christianity is evidently not a homogeneousbut a composite, a hybrid religion; and considered inconnection with the indications of history, and theevidence of the above-named ethical and traditionalanalogies, these facts leave no reasonable doubt thatthe founder of the Galilean Church was a disciple ofBuddha Sakyamuni." (p. 139.)

All this is very well if the Buddhists by "salvation"meant escape from life, and not from sin. A"pessimist" Buddhist kingdom, according to this,ought to present the universal sad faces of the"Camelot" of a modern school of artists, and yet theBurmese are pronounced by all to be the merriest andhappiest of God's creatures. We know, too, thatIndia never was so prosperous as in the days ofBuddhist rule. The monks carried agriculture tohigh perfection; and Indian fabrics were famouseverywhere. A convent meant less a career than aneducation in spiritual knowledge. Like the Essene,the Buddhist monk was not forced to remain for life.Catholicism introduced that change.

It is recorded that on one occasion when a "must"[Pg 59]elephant charged furiously, "all the disciples desertedBuddha. Ananda alone remained." ("Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king,"iv. 21.)

Mr. Felix Oswald ("The Secret of the East," p. 134)announces, without however giving a more detailedreference, that according to Max Muller's translationof the "Ocean of Worlds," a young monk meets a richwoman who pities his hard lot.

"Lovely!" replied the monk. "Look here!" Andplucking out one of his eyes he held it up, bleedingand ghastly, and asked her to correct her opinion.

Certain villagers, hard of belief, were listening toBuddha on the shore of a mighty river. Suddenlyby a miracle the great teacher caused a man to appearwalking on the water from the other side, withoutimmersing his feet. ("Chinese Dhammapada," p. 51.)

Pûrna, one of Buddha's disciples, had a brother indanger of shipwreck in a "black storm." But theguardian spirits of Pûrna informed him of this. Heat once transported himself through the air from thedistant inland town to the deck of the ship. "Im[Pg 60]mediatelythe black tempest ceased as if Sumeru hadarrested it." (Burnouf, Introd., p. 229.)

Buddha once narrated a story of a former Buddha,who visited King Sudarsana in his city of Jambunada(Fu-pen-hing-tsi-king).

Now in that city was a man who was the next dayto be married, and he much wished the Buddha tocome to the feast. Buddha, passing by, read hissilent wish, and consented to come. The bridegroomwas overjoyed, and scattered many flowers over hishouse and sprinkled it with perfumes.

The next day Buddha with his alms-bowl in hishand and with a retinue of many followers arrived;and when they had taken their seats in due order,the host distributed every kind of exquisite food,saying, "Eat, my lord, and all the congregation,according to your desire."

But now a marvel presented itself to the astonishedmind of the host. Although all these holy men atevery heartily, the meats and the drinks remainedpositively quite undiminished; whereupon he arguedin his mind, "If I could only invite all my kinsmento come, the banquet would be sufficient for themlikewise."

And now another marvel was presented. Buddharead the good man's thought, and all the relativeswithout invitation streamed in at the door. They,also, fed heartily on the miraculous food.

The Courtesan Amrapalî invited Buddha and hisdisciples to a banquet in the mango grove at Vaisalî.Buddha accepted. Some rich princes, sparkling inemeralds, came and gave him a similar invitation.He refused. They were very angry to see him sit atmeat with Amrapalî. He explained to his disciplesthat the harlot might enter the kingdom of Dharmamore easily than the prince. (Bigandet, p. 251.)

Buddha confronts a terrible bandit in his mountainretreat and converts him. ("Chinese Dhammapada,"p. 98.)

Professor Beal, in his "Catena of Buddhist Scriptures"(p. 52), tells us that, in the "Saddharma PrâkasaSasana Sûtra," a great war in heaven is described.In it the "wicked dragons" assault the legions ofheaven. After a terrific conflict they are drivendown by Indra and the heavenly hosts.

"THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE UNTO A MERCHANT-MANSEEKING GOODLY PEARLS, WHO, WHEN HEHAD FOUND ONE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE, WENTAND SOLD ALL THAT HE HAD AND BOUGHT IT."(Matt. xiii. 45.)

The most sacred emblem of Buddhism is called the[Pg 62]mani (pearl), and in the Chinese biography, a merchant-manseeking goodly pearls finds it, and unfortunatelydrops it into the sea. Rather than lose it hetries to drain the sea dry. ("Rom. Hist.," p. 228.)

In the "White Lotus of Dharma" (ch. xiv.) Buddhais asked how it is that having sat under the bo treeonly forty years ago he has been able, according to hisboast, to see many Buddhas and saints who diedhundreds of years previously. He answers that hehas lived many hundred thousand myriads of Kotis,and that though in the form of a Buddha, he is inreality Swayambhu, the Self-Existent, the Father ofthe million worlds. In proof of this statement, hecauses two Buddhas of the Past, Prabhûtaratna andGadgadesvara, to appear in the sky. The first pronouncesloudly these words: "It is well! It is well!"[Pg 63]These Buddhas appear with their sepulchral canopies(stupas) of diamonds, red pearls, emeralds, etc. Peter,at the scene of the Transfiguration, said to Christ:—

"Let us make here three tabernacles, one for Thee,one for Moses, and one for Elias." Why should Peterwant to adopt a Buddhist custom and build tabernaclesfor the dead Moses and the dead Elias? Why, also,should Moses come from the tomb to support a teacherwho had torn his covenant with Yahve to shreds?

Buddha, leaving Maudgalyâyana and another discipleto represent him, went off through the air to theDevaloca, to the Heaven Tus´ita, to preach to thespirits in prison and to convert his mother. Whenhe came down from the mountain (Mienmo), a staircaseof glittering diamonds, seen by all, helped hisdescent. His appearance was blinding. The "sixglories" glittered on his person. Mortals and spiritshymned the benign Being who emptied the hells.(Bigandet, p. 209.)

In the Gospel according to the Hebrews is a curiouspassage, which Baur and Hilgenfeld hold to bethe earliest version of the Transfiguration narrative.

"Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took meby one of my hairs and bore me up on to the greatmountain of Tabor."

This is curious. Buddha and Jesus reach theMount of Transfiguration, each through the influenceof his mother. But perhaps the Jewish writer did[Pg 64]not like the universalism inculcated in the Buddhistnarrative.

In a vihâra at Gandhâra was a monk so loathsomeand stinking, on account of his maladies, thatnone of his brother disciples dare go near him. Thegreat Teacher came and tended him lovingly andwashed his feet. ("Chinese Dhammapada," p. 94.)

In the "Lalita Vistara" (p. 51) it is stated thatthose who have faith will become "sons of Buddha,"and partake of the "food of the kingdom." Fourthings draw disciples to his banquet,—gifts, soft words,production of benefits, conformity of benefits.

In a Chinese life of Buddha by Wung Puh (seeBeal, "Journ. As. Soc.," vol. xx. p. 172), it is announcedthat Buddha at Vaisalî delivered a Sûtra,entitled, "The baptism that rescues from life anddeath and confers salvation."

Buddha had also a treacherous disciple, Devadatta.He schemed with a wicked prince, who sent men[Pg 65]armed with bows and swords to slaughter Buddha.Devadatta tried other infamous stratagems. His endwas appalling. Coming in a palanquin to arrestBuddha, he got out to stretch himself. Suddenlyfierce flames burst out and he was carried down tothe hell Avichi (the Rayless Place). There, in a red-hotcauldron, impaled by one red bar and pierced bytwo others, he will stay for a whole Kalpa. Then hewill be forgiven. (Bigandet, p. 244.)

Buddha had his last supper or repast with hisdisciples. A treacherous disciple changed his alms-bowl,and apparently he was poisoned. (See Rockhill's"Buddha," p. 133.) Fierce pains seized him as hejourneyed afterwards. He was forced to rest. Hesent a message to his host, Kunda, the son of thejeweller, to feel no remorse although the feast hadbeen his death. Under two trees he now died.

It will be remembered that during the last supperof Jesus a treacherous disciple "dipped into his dish,"but as Jesus was not poisoned, the event had nosequence.

"NOW FROM THE SIXTH HOUR THERE WAS DARKNESSOVER ALL THE LAND UNTIL THE NINTH HOUR."

The critical school base much of their contentionthat the gospels do not record real history on thisparticular passage. They urge that such an astoundingevent could not have escaped Josephus and[Pg 66]Tacitus. When Buddha died, the "sun and moonwithdrew their shining," and dust and ashes fell likerain. "The great earth quaked throughout. Thecrash of the thunder shook the heavens and the earth,rolling along the mountains and valleys." ("Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king,"v. 26.) The Buddhist account iscertainly not impossible, for the chronicler takesadvantage of the phenomena of an Indian dust-stormto produce his dark picture. At Lucknow, before thesiege, I remember a storm so dense at midday thatsome ladies with my regiment thought the Day ofJudgment had arrived.

When Buddha died at Kus'inagara, Ananda andanother disciple saw many denizens of the unseenworld in the city, by the river Yigdan. (Rockhill's"Life of the Buddha," p. 133.)

The newly discovered fragments of the Gospel ofPeter give striking evidence of the haphazardway in which extracts from the Buddhist books seemto have been sprinkled among the gospels. It recordsthat Mary Magdalene, "taking with her her friends,"went to the sepulchre of Jesus to "place themselvesbeside him and perform the rites" of wailing, beatingbreasts, etc. Amrapalî and other courtesans did thesame rites to Buddha, and the disciples were after[Pg 67]wardsindignant that impure women should have"washed his dead body with their tears." (Rockhill,"Thibetan Life," p. 153.)

In the Christian records are three passages, all due,I think, to the Buddhist narrative. In one, "a woman"anoints Jesus; in John (xii. 7), "Mary" anoints him;in Luke, a "sinner," who kisses and washes his feetwith her hair. Plainly these last passages are quiteirrational. No woman could have performed thewashing and other burial rites on a man alive and inhealth.

The Abbé Huc tells us ("Voyages," ii. p. 278) that onthe death of the Bokté Lama his garments are cutinto little strips and prized immensely.

Buddha prophesied that he would appear after hisdeath. ("Lotus," p. 144.) In a Chinese versionquoted by Eitel ("Three Lectures," p. 57), Buddhato soothe his mother, who had come down weepingfrom the skies, opens his coffin lid and appears to her.In the temple sculptures he is constantly depictedcoming down to the altar during worship. (Seeillustrations to my "Buddhism in Christendom.")

Mr. Upham, in his "History of Buddhism" (pp. 56,[Pg 68]57), gives a description of the Buddhist heaven. Thereis a "high mountain," and a city "four square" withgates of gold and silver, adorned with precious stones.Seven moats surround the city. Beyond the lastone is a row of marble pillars studded with jewels.The great throne of the god stands in the centre of agreat hall, and is surmounted by a white canopy.Round the great throne are seated heavenly ministers,who record men's actions in a "golden book." Amighty tree is conspicuous in the garden. In theChinese heaven is the "Gem Lake," by which standsthe peach tree whose fruit gives immortality.

The idea of transferred good Karma, the merits ofthe former lives of an individual being passed on toanother individual, is of course quite foreign to thelower Judaism, which believed in no after life at all.In the view of the higher Buddhism, Sakya Munisaved the world by his teaching, but to the lower, theBuddhism of offerings and temples and monks, thisdoctrine of Karma was the life-blood. It was proclaimedthat Buddha had a vast stock of superfluousKarma, and that offerings at a temple might causethe worshipper in his next life to be a prince insteadof a pig or a coolie. In the "Lalita Vistara" (Chineseversion, p. 225) it is announced that when Buddhaovercame Mâra all flesh rejoiced, the blind saw, thedeaf heard, the dumb spake, the hells were cleared,and all by reason of Buddha's Karma in previouslives.

"As by the offence of one, judgment came upon allmen to condemnation, even so by the righteousness ofone the free gift came upon all men unto justificationof life.

"For as by one man's disobedience many were madesinners, so by the obedience of one shall many bemade righteous."

Now Dr. Kuenen, whose main proposition is thatChristianity emerged from Judaism alone, should tellus how Paul got this idea. The priests and theLevites were the sole interpreters of the law, andthey had settled that a certain Hebrew had so brokenthat law that it was necessary to execute him. Andnow another Hebrew proclaims that the righteousnessof this man is so great that he can bestow the "freegift of life" to "all men." Would not Caiaphas havecalled the second Hebrew out of his mind.

But St. Paul was a Pharisee, and as a Pharisee heknew that the Pharisees that he tried to convertbelieved that nothing but blood could wipe out sin.In the person of Christ he mixed up the two ideas.

"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiationthrough faith in His blood, to declare His righteousnessfor the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearanceof God." (Rom. iii. 25.)

But according to our first quotation, Christ hadalready saved "all men" by his righteousness alone.Plainly St. Paul, who viewed the Old Testament as"allegory," "carnal ordinances," "beggarly elements,"[Pg 70]and so on, never meant his trope about Adam's sin tobe taken too literally.

Buddha taught in parables. I will give one or two.The reader is referred to my "Popular Life ofBuddha" for some very beautiful ones.

A certain man had a son who went away into a farcountry. There he became miserably poor. Thefather, however, grew rich, and accumulated muchgold and treasure, and many storehouses and elephants.But he tenderly loved his lost son, and secretlylamented that he had no one to whom to leave hispalaces and suvernas at his death.

After many years the poor man, in search of foodand clothing, happened to come to the country wherehis father had great possessions. And when he wasafar off his father saw him, and reflected thus in hismind: "If I at once acknowledge my son and give tohim my gold and my treasures, I shall do him a greatinjury. He is ignorant and undisciplined; he is poorand brutalised. With one of such miserable inclinations'twere better to educate the mind little by little.I will make him one of my hired servants."

Then the son, famished and in rags, arrived at thedoor of his father's house; and seeing a great throneupraised, and many followers doing homage to himwho sat upon it, was awed by the pomp and thewealth around. Instantly he fled once more to the[Pg 71]highway. "This," he thought, "is the house of thepoor man. If I stay at the palace of the king perhapsI shall be thrown into prison."

Then the father sent messengers after his son; whowas caught and brought back in spite of his cries andlamentations. When he reached his father's house hefell down fainting with fear, not recognising hisfather, and believing that he was about to suffer somecruel punishment. The father ordered his servantsto deal tenderly with the poor man, and sent twolabourers of his own rank of life to engage him as aservant on the estate. They gave him a broom and abasket, and engaged him to clean up the dung-heap ata double wage.

From the window of his palace the rich manwatched his son at his work: and disguising himselfone day as a poor man, and covering his limbs withdust and dirt, he approached his son and said, "Stayhere, good man, and I will provide you with food andclothing. You are honest, you are industrious. Lookupon me as your father."

After many years the father felt his end approaching,and he summoned his son and the officers of theking, and announced to them the secret that he hadso long kept. The poor man was his son, who inearly days had wandered away from him; and nowthat he was conscious of his former debased condition,and was able to appreciate and retain vast wealth, hewas determined to hand over to him his entiretreasure. The poor man was astonished at thissudden change of fortune, and overjoyed at meetinghis father once more.

The parables of Buddha are reported in the Lotusof the Perfect Law to be veiled from the ignorant bymeans of an enigmatic form of language. The richman of this parable, with his throne adorned byflowers and garlands of jewels, is announced to beTathagata (God), who dearly loves all his children,and has prepared for them vast spiritual treasures.But each son of Tathagata has miserable inclinations.He prefers the dung-heap to the pearl mani. Toteach such a man, Tathagata is obliged to employinferior agents, the monk and the ascetic, and towean him by degrees from the lower objects of desire.When he speaks himself, he is forced to veil much ofhis thought, as it would not be understood. His sonsfeel no joy on hearing spiritual things. Little bylittle must their minds be trained and disciplined forhigher truths.

Ananda, a favourite disciple of Buddha, was onceathirst, having travelled far. At a well he encountereda girl named Matanga, and asked her togive him some water to drink. But she being awoman of low caste, was afraid of contaminating aholy Brahmana, and refused humbly.

"I ask not for caste, but for water!" said Ananda.His condescension won the heart of the girl Matanga.

It happened that she had a mother cunning in lovephiltres and weird arts, and when this woman heardhow much her daughter was in love, she threw hermagic spells round the disciple and brought him to[Pg 73]her cave. Helpless, he prayed to Buddha, who forthwithappeared and cast out the wicked demons.

But the girl Matanga was still in wretched plight.At last she determined to repair to Buddha himselfand appeal to him.

"Could you wear his clothes, sleep under the sameroof?" said Buddha, alluding to the nakedness andbeggary of the "houseless one."

By slow degrees the girl began to take in his meaning,and at last she took refuge in the Three GreatJewels.

A common objection to Buddhism is that it fails toproclaim the fatherhood of God.

"Our loving Father and Father of all that breathes."("Imit. Buddha," p. 67.) (" Daily Manual of the Shaman,"cited by Mr. Bowden.)

"I am the Heavenly Father (loka pita Swayambhu),the Healer, the Protector of all creatures." (Kern,"Lotus," p. 310.)

Once there was an old man, broken, decrepit, but[Pg 74]very rich. He possessed much land and many goldpieces. Moreover, he possessed a large ramblingmansion which also showed plain proofs of Time'sdecay. Its rafters were worm-eaten; its pillars wererotten; its galleries were tumbling down; the thatchon its roof was dry and combustible. Inside thismansion were several hundreds of the old man's servantsand retainers, so extensive was the collection oframbling old buildings.

The old man was also the father of many children—five,ten, twenty, let us say. One day there was asmell of burning, and he ran out by the solitary door.To his horror he saw the thatch in a mass of flame,the rotten old pillars were catching fire one by one,the rafters were blazing like tinder. Inside, his children,whom he loved most tenderly, were rompingand amusing themselves with their toys.

The distracted father said to himself, "I will runin and save my children. I will seize them in mystrong arms. I will bear them harmless through thefalling rafters and the blazing beams!" Then thesad thought seized him that his children were rompingand ignorant. "If I tell them that the house ison fire they will not understand me. If I try toseize them they will romp about and try to escape.Alas! not a moment is to be lost!"

Suddenly a bright thought flashed across the oldman's mind. "My children are ignorant," he mentallysaid, "but they love toys and glittering playthings.I will promise them some playthings of unheard-ofbeauty. Then they will listen to me!"

So the old man shouted out with a loud voice,"Children, children, come out of the house and seethese beautiful toys. Chariots with white oxen, allgold and tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes!Whoever saw such goats as these! Children, children,come quickly or they will all be gone!"

Forth from the blazing ruin came the children inhot haste. The word "playthings" was almost theonly word that they could understand. Then thefond father, in his great joy at seeing his offspringfreed from peril, procured for them some of the mostbeautiful chariots ever seen. Each chariot had acanopy like a pagoda. It had tiny rails and balustrades,and rows of jingling bells. It was formed ofthe seven precious substances. Chaplets of glitteringpearls were hung aloft upon it; standards and wreathsof the most lovely flowers. Milk-white oxen drewthese chariots. The children were astonished whenthey were placed inside.

The meaning of this parable is thus rendered inthe "White Lotus of Dharma." The old man isTathagata, and his children the blind, suffering childrenof sin and passion. Tathagata fondly lovesthem, and would save them from their unhappiness.The old rambling mansion, unsightly, rotten, perilous,is the Domain of Karma, the Domain of Appetite. Thisold mansion is ablaze with the fire of mortal passions,and hates, and lusts. Tathagata in his "immensecompassion" would lead all his beloved childrenaway from this great peril, but they do not understandhis language. Their only thought is of tinseltoys and childish pastimes. If he speaks to them of[Pg 76]the great inner quickening which makes man conquerhuman pain, they cannot understand him. If hetalks to them of wondrous supernatural gifts accordedto mortals, they turn a deaf ear to him. The tinselchariots provided for the children of Tathagata arethe "Vehicles" of the Buddhist teaching.

CHAPTER IV.

From Buddha's death we turn to Buddha's religionand its progress. And I think the narrative formwill help us best, but a few preliminary remarks arenecessary.

"The religion of Buddha," says Professor MaxMüller in his "Chips from a German Workshop,""was made for a madhouse."

"Buddha," says Sir Monier Williams in his "Buddhism,""altogether ignored in human nature any spiritualaspirations."

Having heard the dictum of Oxford, perhaps it isfair to listen to a real Buddhist. In a work called"Happiness," an anonymous writer sketches hisreligion.

The teaching of Buddha, as set forth by him, issimple and sublime. There are two states of the soul,call them ego and non-ego—the plane of matter andthe plane of spirit—what you will. As long as welive for the ego and its greedy joys, we are feverish,restless, miserable. Happiness consists in the destructionof the ego, by the Bodhi, and Gnosis. Thisis that interior, that high state of the soul, attainedby Fenelon and Wesley, by Mirza the Sufi andSwedenborg, by Spinoza and Amiel.

"The enlightened view both worlds," says Mirzathe Sufi, "but the bat flieth about in the darknesswithout seeing."

"Who speaks and acts with the inner quickening,"says Buddha, "has joy for his accompanyingshadow. Who speaks and acts without the innerquickening, him sorrow pursues as the chariot wheelthe horse."

"Once upon a time there was a man born blind,and he said, 'I cannot believe in a world of appearances.Colours bright or sombre exist not. There isno sun, no moon, no stars. None have witnessedsuch things.' His friends chid him; but he still repeatedthe same words.

"In those days there was a Rishi who had theinner vision; and he detected on the steeps of thelofty Himalayas four simples that had the power tocure the man who was born blind. He culled them,and, mashing them with his teeth, applied them. Instantlythe man who was born blind cried out, 'I seecolours and appearances. I see beautiful trees andflowers. I see the bright sun. No one ever saw likethis before.'

"Then certain holy men came to the man who wasborn blind, and said to him, 'You are vain andarrogant and nearly as blind as you were before.[Pg 79]You see the outside of things, not the inside. Onewhose supernatural senses are quickened sees thelapis-lazuli fields of the Buddhas of the Past, andhears heavenly conch shells sounded at a distance offive yoganas. Go off to a desert, a forest, a cavern inthe mountains, and conquer this mean thirst of earthlythings.'"

The man who was born blind obeyed; and theparable ends with its obvious interpretation. Buddhais the old Rishi, and the four simples are the fourgreat truths. He weans mankind from the lower lifeand opens the eyes of the blind.

I think that Sir Monier Williams's fancy, thatBuddha ignored the spiritual side of humanity is dueto the fact that by the word "knowledge" he conceivesthe Buddhist to mean knowledge of materialfacts. That Buddha's conceptions are nearer to theideas of Swedenborg than of Mill is, I think, provedby the Cingalese book, the Samanna Phala Sutta.Buddha details, at considerable length, the practicesof the ascetic, and then enlarges upon their exact object.Man has a body composed of the four elements.It is the fruit of the union of his father and mother.It is nourished on rice and gruel, and may betruncated, crushed, destroyed. In this transitorybody his intelligence is enchained. The ascetic, findinghimself thus confined, directs his mind to thecreation of a freer integument. He represents tohimself in thought another body created from thismaterial body—a body with a form, members, andorgans. This body, in relation to the material body,is like the sword and the scabbard, or a serpent[Pg 80]issuing from a basket in which it is confined. Theascetic, then, purified and perfected, commences topractise supernatural faculties. He finds himself ableto pass through material obstacles, walls, ramparts, etc.:he is able to throw his phantasmal appearance intomany places at once; he is able to walk upon thesurface of water without immersing himself; he canfly through the air like a falcon furnished with largewings; he can leave this world and reach even theheaven of Brahma himself.

Another faculty is now conquered by his force ofwill, as the fashioner of ivory shapes the tusk of theelephant according to his fancy. He acquires thepower of hearing the sounds of the unseen world asdistinctly as those of the phenomenal world—moredistinctly, in point of fact. Also by the power ofManas he is able to read the most secret thoughts ofothers, and to tell their characters. He is able to say,"There is a mind that is governed by passion. Thereis a mind that is enfranchised. This man has nobleends in view. This man has no ends in view." As achild sees his earrings reflected in the water, and says,"Those are my earrings," so the purified ascetic recognisesthe truth. Then comes to him the faculty of"divine vision," and he sees all that men do on earthand after they die, and when they are again reborn.Then he detects the secrets of the universe, and whymen are unhappy, and how they may cease to be so.

I will now quote a conversation between Buddhaand some Brahmins which, I think, throws muchlight on his teaching. It is given in another Cingalesebook, the "Tevigga Sutta."

When the teacher was dwelling at Manasâkata inthe mango grove, some Brahmins, learned in the threeVedas, came to consult him on the question of unionwith the eternal Brahma. They ask if they are in theright pathway towards that union. Buddha repliesat great length. He suggests an ideal case. He supposesthat a man has fallen in love with the "mostbeautiful woman of the land." Day and night hedreams of her, but has never seen her. He doesnot know whether she is tall or short, of Brahmin orSudra caste, of dark or fair complexion; he does noteven know her name. The Brahmins are asked if thetalk of that man about that woman be wise or foolish.They confess that it is "foolish talk." Buddha thenapplies the same train of reasoning to them. TheBrahmins versed in the three Vedas are made to confessthat they have never seen Brahma, that they donot know whether he is tall or short, or anythingabout him, and that all their talk about union withhim is also foolish talk. They are mounting acrooked staircase, and do not know whether it leadsto a mansion or a precipice. They are standing onthe bank of a river and calling to the other bank tocome to them.

Now it seems to me that if Buddha were the uncompromisingteacher of atheism that Sir MonierWilliams pictures him, he has at this point an admirableopportunity of urging his views. The Brahmins,he would of course contend, knew nothing aboutBrahma, for the simple reason that no such being asBrahma exists.

But this is exactly the line that Buddha does not[Pg 82]take. His argument is that the Brahmins knewnothing of Brahma, because Brahma is purely spiritual,and they are purely materialistic.

"Are the Brahmins versed in the three Vedas inpossession of wives and wealth, or are they not?"

These replies provoke, of course, the very obviousretort that no point of union can be found betweensuch dissimilar entities. Brahma is free from malice,sinless, self-contained, so, of course, it is only the sinlessthat can hope to be in harmony with him.

Vasettha then puts this question: "It has beentold me, Gautama, that Sramana Gautama knows theway to the state of union with Brahma?"

"Brahma I know, Vasettha!" says Buddha in reply,"and the world of Brahma, and the path leadingto it!"

The humbled Brahmins learned in the three Vedasthen ask Buddha to "show them the way to astate of union with Brahma."

Buddha replies at considerable length, drawing asharp contrast between the lower Brahminism andthe higher Brahminism, the "householder" and the"houseless one." The householder Brahmins aregross, sensual, avaricious, insincere. They practisefor lucre black magic, fortune-telling, cozenage. Theygain the ear of kings, breed wars, predict victories,sacrifice life, spoil the poor. As a foil to this, hepaints the recluse, who has renounced all worldlythings, and is pure, self-possessed, happy.

To teach this "higher life," a Buddha "from timeto time is born into the world, blessed and worthy,abounding in wisdom, a guide to erring mortals." Hesees the universe face to face, the spirit world of[Pg 84]Brahma and that of Mâra the tempter. He makes hisknowledge known to others. The houseless one, instructedby him, "lets his mind pervade one quarterof the world with thoughts of pity sympathy, andequanimity; and so the second, and so the third, andso the fourth. And thus the whole wide world,above, below, around, and everywhere, does he continueto pervade with heart of pity, sympathy, andequanimity, far-reaching, grown great, and beyondmeasure."

"Verily this, Vasettha, is the way to a state ofunion with Brahma," and he proceeds to announcethat the bhikshu, or Buddhist beggar, "who is freefrom anger, free from malice, pure in mind, master ofhimself, will, after death, when the body is dissolved,become united with Brahma." The Brahmins at oncesee the full force of this teaching. It is as a conservativein their eyes that Buddha figures, and not aninnovator. He takes the side of the ancient spiritualreligion of the country against rapacious innovators.

Sir Monier Williams quotes a part of this Sutta,and, oddly enough, still maintains that Buddha wasan atheist.

There are two great schools of Buddhism, andthey are quite agreed on this point that Buddhism isthe quickening of the spiritual vision.

1. The earliest school, the Buddhism of Buddha,taught that after Nirvâna, or man's emancipationfrom re-birth, the consciousness of the individualsurvived, and that he dwelt for ever in happiness in[Pg 85]the Brahma heavens. This is the Buddhism of the"Little Vehicle."

2. The second, or innovating school, maintainedthat after Nirvâna the consciousness of the individualceased. Their creed was the blank atheism of theBrahmin S'unyavâdi.

The first serious study of Buddhism took place inone of our colonies, and the first students were missionaries.Great praise is due to the missionaries ofCeylon for their early scholarship, but naturally theyransacked the Buddhist books less as scholars thanmissionaries. Soon they discovered with delight theteaching of the atheistic school, and statements thatthe Ceylon scriptures were the earliest authenticBuddhist scriptures, brought to the island by Mahinda,King Asoka's son (B.C. 306). In consequenceof this the missionaries concluded that Ceylon hadpreserved untainted the original teaching of Buddha,and that the earliest school, that of the "LittleVehicle," was atheistic.

But the leading Sanscrit scholar of the world, Dr.Rajendra Lala Mitra, has completely dissipated thisidea. In his work, "Nepalese Buddhist Literature,"p. 178, he shows conclusively that it is the Buddhismof the innovating school, that of the "Great Vehicle,"which preaches atheism. About the epoch of Christ,Kanerkos or Kanishka, a king who conquered India,introduced this innovating teaching. Hweng Thsang,the Chinese pilgrim, who visited India in the seventhcentury, confirms this. There was in India at thisdate amongst the followers of Siva, a school who heldthat Nothingness was God, and Nothingness the[Pg 86]future of man. They were called the S'unyavâdis,the proclaimers of Nothingness. Two priests, Parsvikaand Vasabandhu, were with Kanerkos, and theypersuaded this monarch to force this Pyrrhonism onthe Buddhists. A mighty conflict was the consequence.The old Buddhists remonstrated. Theysaid that Buddha knew nothing of all this. Theycalled the "Great Vehicle" Sunyapushpa (the Carriagethat drives to Nowhere). But Parsvika packeda convocation like Constantine, and forced the newteaching down their throats. ("Hweng Thsang, Hist."p. 114.,et. seq. "Memoirs," pp. 174, 220.) RajendraLala Mitra says that the Buddhist books of the"Great Vehicle" are in a servile manner copied fromBrahmin treatises.

Let us examine this "Great Vehicle," as writerslike Sir Monier Williams tells us that it was thisschool that introduced the ideas of God and immortalityinto Buddhism, which until then was pureatheism. Its main Bible is a collection of writingscalled the "Rakshâ Bhagavatî." (Rajendra Lala Mitra,p. 179.) Bryan Hodgson confirms this. ("Literatureof Nepal," p. 16.) The work itself is an avowedattack on the Hinayâna or "Little Vehicle," which is"refuted repeatedly," says the learned Hindoo. (p. 178.)

Let us now see what sort of god and what sort ofimmortality the "Rakshâ Bhagavatî" in its title ofchapters proclaimed.

Chap. XII. The doctrine of Mahâyâna and its advantages,derived principally, if not entirely, from itsrecognition of the greatness of S'unyavâda (Nihilisticdoctrine of the Brahmin sect of S'unyavâdis).

Chap. XIII. To the Bodhisattwa there is nothingeternal, nothing transient, nothing painful, nothingpleasant. All qualities are unreal as a dream.

Chap. XIV.-XVI. The principle of the PrajnâParamitâ imparted by Buddha to Indra. The endsought is the attainment of vacuity.

Chap. XXXV. All objects attainable by the studyof Nihilism. ("Nepalese Buddhist Literature," p. 180.)

Hodgson gives a bit of what he calls this "purePyrrhonism" from the same book. Buddha is madeto talk thus:—

"The being of all things is derived from belief,reliance, in this order: from false knowledge, delusiveimpression; from delusive impression, general notions;from them, particulars; from them, the six seats of thesenses; from them, contact; from it, definite sensationand perception; from it, thirst or desire; from it, embryolic(physical) existence; from it, birth or actualexistence; from it, all the distinctions of genus andspecies among animate things; from them, decay anddeath, after the manner and period peculiar to each.Such is the procession of all things into existence fromdelusion (avidyâ), and in the inverse order to that oftheir procession they retrograde into non-existence."(p. 79.)

Another book, the "Suvarna Prabhâsa," makes"grand non-existence," the Bodhi, the divine knowledge."I now instruct you on the means of acquiringthe knowledge of nothingness," Buddha is madeto say to his disciples. (Rajendra Lala Mitra, p.243.)

But there is a third school of Buddhism, the Madhyamika,or "Middle Pathway." Unless all this isdefinitely understood, Buddhism will remain a riddle.For a long time the "Great" and the "Little" Vehiclesfought furiously. I believe that the "Middle Pathway"was a rude attempt at conciliation. No onecan read many Buddhist writings without observingflat contradictions at every page. Thus the BrahmajâlaSûtra, much quoted by missionaries, who areplainly unaware that it belongs to the literature ofthe "Carriage that drives to Nowhere," announces thatthe existence of the soul after death in a conscious oreven an unconscious state is impossible. But there isa passage which the missionaries do not quote.Buddha also tells his disciples that the statement ofthe Brahmins and Buddhist teachers, that "existingbeings are cut off, destroyed, annihilated," is foundedon their ignorance and want of perception of thetruth. (See my "Popular Life of Buddha," p. 223.)

Having thus cleared the way, I will now proceedwith the history of the progress of Buddha's religion.Before, it would have been unintelligible.

Buddha died B.C. 470. Asoka, the Buddhist Constantine,gained India B.C. 260. Unfortunately, betweenthese two dates there is scarcely any authentichistory at all. Buddha left behind him brief instruc[Pg 89]tionsto his disciples, which are called the "TwelveObservances." They were never to sleep under aroof. In Ceylon even to this day a Buddhist monk iscalled Abhyâvakâsika (he whose covering is theheavens). They were never to stop two nights in thesame spot. What was to be their food? Refusevictuals. What was to be their dress? Rags fromthe graveyard, dung-heap, etc. What was his followingto be called? The "Mob of Beggars" (BhikshuSangha). Jumping fromB.C. 470 toB.C. 302, historyflashes a sudden light upon these wandering beggars.

At this date Seleucus Nicator sent an ambassadornamed Megasthenes to King Chandragupta at Patna.His account of the India of that day is, unfortunately,lost; but through Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Arrian,and Clement of Alexandria, some valuable fragmentshave come down to us. Patna, it must be remembered,was in the heart of the Buddhist Holy Land.Clement of Alexandria cites a passage from Megasthenesabout the Indian "philosophers." "Of thesethere are two classes, some of them called Sarmanæ(Sramanas) and other Brahmins. And those of theSarmanæ, who are called Hylobii, neither inhabitcities nor have roofs over them, but are clothed inthe bark of trees, feed on nuts, and drink water intheir hands. Like those called Encratites in thepresent day, they know not marriage, nor begettingof children. Some, too, of the Indians obey the preceptsof Buddha, whom, on account of his extraordinarysanctity, they have raised to divine honours."

Strabo also describes the Brahmins and the Hylobii,or Germanes, with similar details. He draws a dis[Pg 90]tinctionbetween the Germanes and the Brahmins onthe subject of continency, the Brahmins being polygamists.

No doubt these Sarmanæ and Brahmins of Megastheneswere the Brahmins and Buddhist Sramanas, orascetics. To the first were confided sacrifices andceremonies. They were a caste apart, and none outsidethis caste could officiate. Their ideas of life anddeath, it is announced, were similar to those of Platoand the Greeks. The Brahmins ate flesh and hadmany wives. Every new year there was a greatsynod of them. They dwelt in groves near the greatcities on "couches of leaves and skins."

The Hylobii, on the other hand, insisted on absolutecontinence and strict vegetarianism, and water drinking.Clitarchus gives us an additional fact fromMegasthenes. The Hylobii "derided the Brahmins.""By their means," says Strabo, "kings serve andworship God." (See for all that can be recoveredfrom Megasthenes, Cory, "Ancient Fragments," pp.225-227.)

That the Buddhists at first were wandering beggarswithout any convents is the opinion of the RussianOrientalist, Wassiljew, who supports it from a valuableChinese history by Daranatha. It asserts thatthe King Ajatasatru passed Varsha or Lent in a graveyard;and that until the date of Upagupta, a contemporaryof Asoka, there were no temples. The firstwas built at Mathura. (Ch. iv., cited by Wassiljew,"Buddhism," p. 41.)

Daranatha asserts that a disciple of Ananda reachedCashmir. M. Wassiljew remarks that this would[Pg 91]mean a spread of the doctrines in intermediate lands.I must point out that the first ritual of Buddhism wasthe "Praise of the Seven Mortal Buddhas," who wereworshipped, as Gen. Cunningham has shown from theBharhut Stupa, in the form of trees. This seems tohave been the sole form of worship even in the daysof King Asoka, who enjoins his subjects to worshipround Buddha's tree, the ficus indicus.

I think that my readers are now in a position tojudge whether India was gained by houseless Parivrajakas,ever marching, ever preaching, ever enduringhunger, thirst, buffets, death if necessary, or bylazy monks, living in sumptuous convents, and debatingwhether their couches should have fringes andtheir dress be silk or cotton. This last is the contentionof the Buddhist histories, and these dishonestdocuments have even deceived learned men in theWest, more skilful in Pâli roots, perhaps, than judicialanalysis. These books record that three months afterBuddha's death a vast convocation of monks wasassembled at Râjâgriha to render canonical certainholy books, in bulk four times as big as our Bible.Eighteen disused monasteries were hastily cleared oftheir cobwebs and rubbish, and set in order for thesemonks, and a cave temple, whose columns and splendidstone carvings vied with Ellora, was cut out of therock in what must be thought a very small space oftime, namely, two months. I have shown in my"Popular Life of Buddha" that we have here mostprobably the details of a real convocation, that ofKing Kanerkos, assembled about 20A.D., by the"Carriage that drives Nowhere" (Sunyapushpa) to[Pg 92]force their Pyrrhonism on the old faith, and that theyhave dishonestly antedated this convocation by nearly500 years, to make it appear that their innovations werethe earliest Buddhism. Hweng Thsang, the Chinesepilgrim, has given us the details of the convocation.

The number of monks was fixed at four hundredand ninety-nine. The ambitious Vasubandhu, leaderof the "Great Vehicle" movement, presented himself atthe door, but the traditions of early Buddhism werestill strong. Some of the monks desired him to depart,as none but Arhats (the fully enfranchised) couldremain near the building.

"I care little for the enfranchisement of study" (therank of Arhat), said Vasubandhu. Then, with someinconsistency, he performed a great miracle to provethat he had attained that dignity. He flung into theair a ball of thread, and one end remained fixed inthe sky. A similar prodigy was witnessed by MarcoPolo and other old travellers. Vasubandhu was chosenpresident, and the convocation proceeded to discusstheir Pyrrhonism. All this is servilely repeated inthe fictitious narrative of the first convocation. Adifficulty arose about Ananda, who had not acquiredthe miraculous powers that stamp the adept in theknowledge of Prajñâ Pâramitâ, the wisdom of the unseenworld. Thus, as first constituted, the convocationconsisted of 499 members and a vacant carpet wasspread for Ananda. During the night he meditatedon the Kâyagastâ Sâtiyâ, and in the morning thesepowers came; and in proof he reached his seatthrough the medium of the floor of the temple.

To culminate this silliness, Ananda is then called[Pg 93]upon to disclose this "wisdom of the unseen world,"because, being Buddha's chief disciple, he is the onlyone who knows much about it. The Bible of the"Carriage that drives Nowhere" is the chief book discussed,the Brahmajâla Sûtra, which Hoa Yen, thegreatest Chinese authority (see Rémusat, "Pilgrimageof Fa Hian," p. 108), says is distinctly a "Great Vehicle"scripture. In it Buddha discusses every conceivabletheory about the next world, and contradicts them all.Could such an insane Bible, in a few years, havetumbled to pieces the great priesthoods of India,China, Persia?

We now come to King Asoka, a monarch whosedominions stretched from Grândhâra, or Peshawur,to Chola and Pândiya, the extreme southern provincesof India. On the extreme west he cut a rock-inscriptionat Girnar, on the Gulf of Cutch. On theeast coast at Ganjam were the Dhauli and Jaugadainscriptions. His rule was a broad one.

He became a convert to Buddhism, and made it theofficial creed. He carved his "Edicts" on rocks andstone columns. Let us see from them whether earlyBuddhism was the atheism and negation of an immortallife that is depicted in popular treatises. Heis called Devânampiya, the friend of the spirits.

"Much longing after the things [of this life] is adisobedience, I again declare; not less so is thelaborious ambition of dominion by a prince whowould be a propitiator of Heaven. Confess and[Pg 94]believe in God [Isâna], who is the worthy object ofobedience. For equal to this [belief], I declare untoyou, ye shall not find such a means of propitiatingHeaven. Oh, strive ye to obtain this inestimabletreasure." (First separate Edict, Dhauli, Prinsep.)

"Thus spake King Devânampiya Piyadasi:—Thepresent moment and the past have departed underthe same ardent hopes. How by the conversion ofthe royal born may religion be increased? Throughthe conversion of the lowly born if religion thus increaseth,by how much [more] through the convictionof the high born and their conversion shall religionincrease? Among whomsoever the name of Godresteth, verily this is religion."

"Thus spake Devânampiya Piyadasi:—Whereforefrom this very hour I have caused religious discoursesto be preached. I have appointed religious observancesthat mankind, having listened thereto, shallbe brought to follow in the right path, and give gloryto God." (Edict No. vii., Prinsep.)

"On the many beings over whom I rule I conferhappiness in this world; in the next they may obtainSwarga [paradise]." (Edict vi., Wilson.)

"This is good. With these means let a man seekSwarga. This is to be done. By these means it is tobe done, as by them Swarga [paradise] is to begained." (Edict ix., Wilson.)

"I pray with every variety of prayer for those whodiffer with me in creed, that they, following after my[Pg 95]example, may with me attain unto eternal salvation."(Delhi Pillar, Edict vi., Prinsep.)

"And whoso doeth this is blessed of the inhabitantsof this world; and in the next world endless moralmerit resulteth from such religious charity." (Edictxi., Prinsep.)

"Unto no one can be repentance and peace of minduntil he hath obtained supreme knowledge, perfectfaith, which surmounteth all obstacles, and perpetualassent." (Rock Edict, No. vii., Prinsep.)

"In the tenth year of his anointment, the belovedKing Piyadasi obtained the Sambodhi or completeknowledge." (Rock Edict, No. vii., Burnouf.)

"All the heroism that Piyadasi, the beloved of thegods, has exhibited is in view of another life. Earthlyglory brings little profit, but, on the contrary, producesa loss of virtue. To toil for heaven is difficultto peasant and to prince unless by a supreme efforthe gives up all." (Rock Edict, No. x., Burnouf.)

"May they [my loving subjects] obtain happinessin this world and in the next." (Second separateEdict, Burnouf.)

"Devânampiya has also said—Fame consisteth inthis act, to meditate with devotion on my motivesand on my deeds, and to pray for blessings in thisworld and the world to come." (Dhauli, separateEdict, No. ii., Prinsep.)

"I pray with every variety of prayer for thosewho differ with me in creed, that they, following[Pg 96]after my example, may with me attain unto eternalsalvation." (Delhi Pillar, Edict vi., Prinsep.)

"As the soul itself, so is the unrelaxing guidance ofDevânampiya worthy of respect." (Dhauli, separateEdict, No. ii., Prinsep.)

On the Bairât rock the king, too, gives a list of theholy books that his monks were to learn by heart.

Nothing can be more important than this. If theBairât rock-inscription is genuine, the Ceylon historyof the convocations is pure fiction.

It must be remembered that in the old Indiancreeds, holy books were handed down entirely by recitation.The letters of the alphabet, according toProfessor Max Müller, General Cunningham, and thechief authorities, were not known in India untilAsoka's day. We know from the Mahâwanso thatthe holy books of Ceylon were not committed towriting until the reign of King Wattaganini (104 to76B.C.). So the books that Asoka ordered to behanded down by the recitation and chantings of hismonks must have plainly constituted the entire bodyof the recognised scriptures. In what way could any[Pg 97]other scriptures come down? Dr. Oldenburg talksof these seven books as if they were "passages" only,he believing that the large body of Pâli scriptures ofCeylon were in existence as early as the second convocation.But if they were "passages," who was toremember and recite the rest of the voluminouscanon? Asoka's monks were expressly forbidden soto do.

Of immense importance is one more fact. TheDhauli inscription announces that the four Greekkings (Chapta Yoni Raja), who took over Alexander'sempire, had allowed their subjects to "follow thedoctrine" of Asoka. He mentions Antiochus andPtolemy. Also "Gongakenos" and Megas of Cyrene.This plainly proves that his missionaries had reachedEgypt and Greece.

CHAPTER V.

There are two Zoroasters, or rather a sort of dualpersonality. One of these Zoroasters lived sixthousand yearsB.C. according to Darmesteter, andthe other about five hundred yearsB.C. The earlierZoroaster swathed Persia in a network of silly ritesand regulations. A culprit who "threw away a deaddog" was to receive a thousand blows with the horsegoad, and one thousand with the Craosha charana.A culprit who slew a dog with a "prickly back" anda "woolly muzzle" was to receive a similar punishment.("Fargard," xxx.) This Zoroaster was particularabout the number of gnats, ants, lizards, thatthe devout had to kill. ("Fargard," xiv.) ThisZoroaster proclaimed a god who loved to see on hisaltar a "hundred horses, a thousand cows, tenthousand small cattle," and so on. ("KhordahAvesta," xii.) But the second Zoroaster proclaimeda bloodless altar, and sought to tear the network ofthe first Zoroaster to shreds. What was the meaningof this? Simply that the Buddhist Wanderers hadby this time invaded Persia, and had fastened theirdoctrines upon the chief local prophet. This wastheir habit. A study of this second religion, thereligion of Mithras, will help us to some of the secretsof Buddhist propagandism.

Mr. Felix Oswald cites Wassiljew as announcingthat the Buddhist missionaries had reached WesternPersia,B.C. 450. This date would, of course, dependon the date of Buddha's life and Buddha's death.The latter is now definitely fixed by Buhler's translationof Asoka's Rupnath rock-inscription,B.C. 470.Wassiljew, citing Daranatha, announces that Madeantica,a convert of Ananda, Buddha's leading disciple,reached Ouchira in Cashmir. From Cashmir Buddhismpassed promptly to Candahar and Cabul. (p. 40).Thence it penetrated quickly to Bactra, and sooninvaded "all the country embraced by the wordTurkistan, where it flourished until disturbed byMahomet."

He says that the devil, to "pervert the truth," by"the mystic rites of his idols vies even with theessential portions of the sacraments of God. He toobaptises some—that is, his own believers and faithfulfollowers. He promises the putting away of sins bya laver (of his own), and, if my memory still servesme, Mithras there (in the kingdom of Satan) sets hismark on the foreheads of his soldiers, celebrates alsothe oblation of bread, and introduces an image of theresurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown."(Pres. v., Hœr. chap. xl.)

"Some soldier of Mithras, who at his initiation inthe gloomy cavern,—in the camp, it may well be said,of darkness,—when at the sword's point a sword is[Pg 100]presented to him as though in mimicry of martyrdom,and thereupon a crown is put upon his head, isadmonished to resist and cast it off, and, if you like,transfer it to his shoulders, saying that Mithras is hiscrown. He even has his virgins and his ascetics(continentes). Let us take note of the devices of thedevil, who is wont to ape some of God's things."("De Corona," xv.)

From this it is plain that the worshippers ofMithras had the simple rites of Buddhists andChristians, baptism and the bloodless altar; also anearly Freemasonry, which some detect veiled in theIndian life of Buddha. Thus the incident of thesword and crown in the Mithraic initiation is plainlybased on the menacing sword of Mâra in the "LalitaVistara" and the crown that he offered Buddha. Inmodern masonry it is feigned that Hiram Abiff, thearchitect of Solomon's temple, made three efforts toescape from three assassins. These are plainly OldAge, Disease, and Death. He sought to evade the firstat the east of the temple, in the same way thatBuddha tried to escape by the eastern gate. Thesecond and third flights of Hiram and Buddha wereto the same points of the compass. Then Buddhaescaped the lower life through the Gate of Benediction,and Hiram was killed. The disciples of Mithras had,in the comedy of their initiation, "seven tortures,"—heat,cold, hunger, thirst, fire, water, etc.,—experiencesby no means confined to histrionics in the experienceof Buddha's Wanderers. A modern mason goesthrough the comedy of giving up his gold and silverand baring his breast and feet, a form that once had[Pg 101]a meaning. Mithras was born in a cave; and atEaster there was the ceremony called by Tertullianthe "image of the resurrection." The worshippers,Fermicus tells us ("De Errore," xxiii.), placed by nighta stone image on a bier in a cave and went throughthe forms of mourning. The dead god was thenplaced in a tomb, and after a time withdrawn from it.Then lights were lit, and poems of rejoicing soundedout, and the priest comforted the devotees. "Youshall have salvation from your sorrows!" Dupuisnaturally compares all this to thecierge pascal andCatholic rites. In Jerusalem the Greek pontiff goesinto the cave called Christ's sepulchre and brings outmiraculous fire to the worshippers, who are fightingand biting each other outside, imaging unconsciouslyBuddha's great battle with Mâra and the legions ofhell, its thunder and lightning and turmoil, followedby a bright coruscation, and by the angels whogreeted his victory. This sudden illumination, whichis the chief rite of Freemasonry, of Mithraism, and ofChristianity, has oddly enough been thrown overboardby the English Church.

That Mithraism was at once Freemasonry andBuddhism is proved by its great spread. Buddhismwas the first missionary religion. Judaism and theother old priestcrafts were for a "chosen people." Atthe epoch of Christ, Mithraism had already honeycombedthe Roman paganism. Experts have discoveredits records in Arthur's Oon and other Britishcaves.

A similar Freemasonry was Pythagoreanism inGreece. Colebrooke, the prince of Orientalists, saw[Pg 102]at once that its philosophy was purely Buddhist. Itsrites were identical with those of the Mithraists andEssenes. These last must now be considered. Theyhave this importance, that they are due to a separatepropagandism. Alexandria was built by the greatinvader of India, to bridge the east and the west.And an exceptional toleration of creeds was theresult.

3. Essenism, Israel mystical—a "co-mingling ofJudaism with the old Oriental theosophy."

Concerning this latter section, Philo wrote a letterto a man named Hephæstion, of which the followingis a portion:—

Here we have the higher Buddhism, which seeks toreach the plane of spirit, an "alliance with the upperworld" by the aid of solitary reverie. That Philoknew where this religion had come from is, I think,proved by another passage.

"Among the Persians there is the order of Magiwho deeply investigate the works of nature for thediscovery of truth, and in leisure's quiet are initiatedinto and expound in clearest significance the divinevirtues.

"In India, too, there is the sect of the Gymnosophists,who, in addition to speculative philosophy, diligentlycultivate the ethical also, and have made their life anabsolute ensample of virtue.

"Palestine, moreover, and Syria are not without theirharvest of virtuous excellence, which region is inhabitedby no small portion of the very populousnation of the Jews. There are counted amongst them[Pg 105]certain ones, by name Essenes, in number about fourthousand, who derive their name, in my opinion, byan inaccurate trace from the term in the Greeklanguage for holiness (Essen or Essaios—Hosios, holy),inasmuch as they have shown themselves pre-eminentby devotion to the service of God; not in the sacrificeof living animals, but rather in the determination tomake their own minds fit for a holy offering." (Philo,"Every virtuous man is free.")

Plainly here the Essenes are pronounced of the samefaith as the Gymnosophists of India, who abstain fromthe bloody sacrifice, that is the Buddhists.

I will now jot hastily down the points of contactbetween one of these monasteries described by Philoand a Buddhist monastery. In the centre is thesanctuary. Round it, in an enclosure "four square,"are ranged the cells of the monks. The monks inThibet, according to the Abbé Huc, may be dividedinto three categories.

1. Those who live in monasteries and perform thereligious services, and also, like the Essenes describedby Josephus, farm the convent land.

3. Wandering missionaries (Parivrajakas) who, likethe "Apostles" described in the recently discovered"Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," are not allowedto remain more than a day in the same place.

In the Buddhist Lent the community goes into ahastily built group of mud huts in the jungle. Eachof these is tenanted by a monk and two novices.Each has a "guest chamber" for a sick man, or a[Pg 106]wandering beggar. This throws light on much. Letus continue our parallelism.

Enforced vegetarianism, community of goods, rigidabstinence from sexual indulgence, also a high standardof purity, were common to both the Buddhistsand the Therapeuts.

The Therapeut left "for ever," says Philo, "brothers,children, wives, father and mother," for the contemplativelife.

The preacher and the missionary, two original ideasof Buddhism, were conspicuous amongst the Therapeuts.This was in direct antagonism to the spirit ofMosaism.

Turning to the kindred society of the Essenes weget a few additional points of contact.

The Essenes, like the Buddhist monks, had ridiculouslaws relating to spitting and other natural acts,those of the Essenes being regulated by a superstitiousveneration for the Sabbath day, those of theBuddhists, by a superstitious respect for a pagoda.

In Buddhist monasteries a rigid obedience, togetherwith a quite superstitious respect for the person of asuperior, is enacted. In Buddhaghosa's Parables is apuerile story of a malicious Muni, who, when an inferiormonk had gone out of a hut where the two[Pg 107]were sleeping, lay across the doorway in order tomake the novice inadvertently commit the great sinof placing his foot above his superiors head. Thepenalty of such an act is that the offender's headought to be split into seven pieces. With the Essenessimilar superstitions were rife. If an Approacheraccidentally touched the hem of the garment of an Associate,all sorts of purifications had to be gone through.

The principle of thrift and unsavouriness in dresswas carried to extremes by both Essenes andBuddhists. The sramana (ascetic) was required tostitch together for hiskowat the refuse rags acquiredby begging. The Essenes were expected to wear theold clothes of their co-religionists until they tumbledto pieces.

In the Thibetan "Life of Buddha," by Rockhill, itis announced that when the great teacher first castoff his kingly silks he donned a foul dress that hadbeen previously worn by ten other saints. Thisthrows light on the story of Elisha.

Dr. Ginsburg ("The Essenes," p. 13) shows that theEssenes had eight stages of progress in inner orspiritual knowledge.

6. The body becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost,and the mystic acquires the gift of prophecy.

The Buddhists have likewise eight stages of innerprogress, the Eightfold Holy Path. The first step,"Those who have entered the stream, the Naírañjana,the mystic river of Buddha," is precisely the same asthe first Essene step. Then follow advances in purity,holiness, and mastery of passion. In the last twostages the Buddhists, like the Essenes, gained supernaturalpowers, to be used in miraculous cures,prophecies, and other occult marvels. It must bementioned that the Essenes were circumcised as wellas the other Jews.

The word "Essenes," according to some learnedphilologists, means the "Bathers," or "Baptisers,"baptism having been their initiatory rite. Josephustells us that this baptism was not administered until theaspirant had remained a whole year outside the community,but "subjected to their rule of life."

I will here give the rite of Buddhist baptism(abhisheka) when a novice is about to become amonk. It consists of many washings, borrowedplainly by the early Buddhists from the Brahmins,and brings to mind the frequent use of water attributedto the Hemero Baptists or disciples of John.It may be mentioned that in some Buddhist countries—Nepal,for instance—the various monkish vows arenow taken only for form sake. This makes the letter,retained after the spirit has departed, all the morevaluable.

The neophyte having made an offer of scents and[Pg 109]unguents (betel-nut, paun, etc.) to his spiritual guide(guru), the latter, after certain formalities, draws fourcircles in the form of a cross, in honour of the TriRatna (trinity), on the ground, and the neophyte,seated in a prescribed position, recites the followingtext: "I salute Lord Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha,and entreat them to bestow on me the PravrajyaVrata." The first and second days of the ceremonialare consumed in prayers and formalities carried on bythe guide and his pupil alone. On the second dayanother mystical cross is drawn on the ground, theSwastica. A pot containing water and other mysticingredients, a gold lotus, and certain confections andcharms, figure in these early rites. At last it ispoured on the neophyte's head. This is the baptism.

Previous to this there is a confession of sins andmuch catechising. The catechumen's name is changedat the baptism, and his head is shaved. A light islit which reminds one of the φωτισμός [Greek: phôtismos] of the earlyChristians. Besides their baptism, the Essenes andTherapeuts had a mystery (sacramentum), an oblationof bread. Part of this was placed upon the bloodlessaltar, and part eaten. The Buddhists with theirwheat and rice do exactly the same thing.

The Buddhists have a Trinity, Buddha or Swayambhu,the Self-Existent, Dharma or Prajnâ, which isthe same word as Philo's Sophia Wisdom. From thesetwo the Father and the Mother have been produced.Sangha, literally Union, the union of matter and spirit,like St. Paul's Christ, Humanity—ideal Humanity.

That a nation so "stiff-necked" as the Jews in the[Pg 110]matter of their one God, should have accepted aTrinity, shows certainly a foreign influence.

The second point is stronger still. The Buddhistteachers in Persia and Egypt in days before Christ;in Japan, in Islâm, during the Middle Ages; in Europenow,—have had and have one method of procedure.They say practically, "Religion as we conceive it hasonly one lesson—knowledge of God. This is to beacquired not externally through creeds and priests,but internally by the education and purification ofthe soul. Keep your Bibles if the weaker brethreninsist on them, but explain that they are symbols, nothistory. Keep your prophets, your Moses, yourMahomet, your Zoroaster, and fasten our teaching onhim. Keep your hob-goblins and folklore, but giveup your bloody altar."

Now, in the view of the Jew, God had made a covenantwith Israel, which was to last as long as the sun,the moon, and the stars. In return for the "offerings ofthe Lord made by fire" (Levit. xxiv. 9) on the templealtar of Jerusalem, Israel was to triumph over its foesand receive every temporal blessing. The advice ofthe Buddhist was practically that the Jewish half ofthe bargain was to be broken, but that the Bible, thedocument containing the contract, was to be retained.A priori could any one have guessed that advice ofthis sort could be taken?

And yet we see the Essenes "allegorize" the bloodyaltar out of their Bible, but cling to the documentmore fondly than ever. The early Christians andJustin and Irenæus do the same. Scripture for theearly Church was the Old Testament.

CHAPTER VI.

Papias, the Bishop of Hieropolis (aboutA.D. 140),wrote a small sentence which, examined criticallyrecently, has revolutionised all our ideas about thefour eye-witnesses of Paley.

He tells us that Matthew first in the Hebrewdialect wrote the λόγια [Greek: logia] (sayings), and each persontranslated as he was able.

This tells us everything. Matthew in Aramaicwrote down all the "sayings" of Christ that hecould remember, and our three gospels and a numberof other gospels were translations, enlargements, andfanciful versions of this. Matthew's work emerged inthe Church at Jerusalem, and was their sole scripture.Jerome (416A.D.), writing against the Pelagians, says:

"In the Gospel according to the Hebrews—which iswritten, indeed, in the Chaldee and Syriac language,but in Hebrew letters, which the Nazarenes use tothis day—according to the Apostles, or, as very manydeem, according to Matthew." ("Dial. adv. Pelag.,"ch. iii.)

This gives us its title. The Gospel according to theHebrews was first called the Gospel according to theApostles, and sometimes the Gospel according toMatthew. What do we know about this Gospel[Pg 112]according to the Apostles? In a great trial, three orfour obscure witnesses often unexpectedly assume adominant importance. In the great trial now goingon of Christianity (as distinguished from the religion ofChrist), four such witnesses have suddenly surged up.

They are Hegesippus, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenæus.What do they tell us of the Gospel of theApostles—the Gospel according to the Hebrews?

Hegesippus (170A.D.) was the earliest Churchhistorian, but his history has been destroyed. Eusebiustells us ("Hist.," iv. 22) that he was a Jew,and that he used the Gospel according to theHebrews.

Papias, according to Eusebius, also used it, for hequotes from it the story of the woman taken inadultery.

Irenæus (Hœr. i. 26) tells us that the Ebionites(Church of Jerusalem) used "that Gospel which isaccording to Matthew." As we have overwhelmingevidence that the Ebionites used the Gospel accordingto the Hebrews, it is plain that the Gospel accordingto Matthew of Irenæus was the Gospel according tothe Hebrews.

Remains Justin Martyr, and now the din of battlegrows loud. Did he know anything of the sayings(λόγια [Greek: logia] )? Had he ever heard of the Gospel accordingto the Apostles? Or did he, according to the conventionaldefence, know only our Matthew, Mark, Luke,and John?

The answer on the surface seems convincing.Justin never mentions the Gospels of Matthew, Mark,Luke, or John at all. He makes one hundred and[Pg 113]ninety-seven quotations from the Old Testament, withthe names of the authors and books attached. Healludes to "a man amongst us named John," as theauthor of the Revelations. He gives two hundredgospel quotations, and professes to get them from thesayings of our Lord, though he does not mentionMatthew. He announces also that he is citing the"Memoirs of the Apostles," the alternative titleapparently of the Gospel according to the Hebrews.Are the sayings of our Lord quoted by Justin preciselysimilar to the words of Christ in our gospels?As a matter of fact, they differ considerably in theEnglish translation, and still more in the Greek, asshown by Dr. Giles in his "Hebrew and ChristianRecords." It is replied that Justin quoted from ourgospels and made mistakes.

Much has been made by the conventional defenceof certain words used by Justin in reference to theworks he was quoting from, "which are calledgospels," but Schliermacher contends that the passageis an interpolation, and an instance in which amarginal note has been incorporated into the text.He urges, and so does Dr. Giles, that, at the date ofJustin, ευαγγελια [Greek: euangelia] could not have been used in theplural for books. It is twice used in the singular byJustin elsewhere, and then means simply the Christianrevelation (literally, glad tidings).

I propose now to give all that can be recoveredfrom the writings of the Fathers of the Gospel accordingto the Apostles. To this I will add the "Sayingsof our Lord" as quoted by Justin. If these are notfrom the Gospel of the Hebrews, at any rate we get a[Pg 114]much earlier version of Christ's words than thoseread in our churches. For the Gospel according tothe Hebrews, consult Renan, "Les Evangiles," chap.vi.; Hilgenfeld, "Novum Testamentum extra CanonemReceptum," Fasc. iv.; Nicholson, "The Gospel accordingto the Hebrews;" and Baring-Gould.

"There was a certain man, by name Jesus, and he ofabout thirty years, who chose us out.

"And when he had come to Capernaum, he enteredinto the house of Simon, who was surnamed Peter, andopened his mouth and said,

"Passing by the Lake of Tiberias, I chose out Johnand James, sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew,... and Thaddæus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judasthe Iscariot;

"And thee, Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom,I called, and thou didst follow me.

"That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of theprophet, Out of Egypt have I called my son."

Now, supposing that there were no class interests in[Pg 115]the way, it would be difficult to read the openingverses of this gospel without seeing what Justinmeant by the "Memoirs of the Apostles." In it theApostles expressly announce that Jesus has "chosenthem out" to produce a "testimony," testament,memorial; and Matthew, apparently, is to be theamanuensis. This "testimony" was the entire NewTestament, with the earliest Church, the Church ofJerusalem. It was called indiscriminately, as wehave seen from Jerome, the Gospel according to theApostles, and the Gospel according to Matthew.Papias and Hegesippus, the immediate predecessors ofJustin, used it, and Irenæus some years later.

"And John had a raiment of camel's hair and aleathern girdle about his loins, and his food was wildhoney, whereof the taste was that of manna.

"And behold the mother of the Lord and hisbrethren said to him, John the Baptist baptizeth forremission of sins. Let us go and be baptized by him.

"But he said to them, Wherein have I sinned that Ishould go and be baptized by him? except, perchance,this very thing that I have said is ignorance.

"And when the people had been baptized, Jesus alsocame and was baptized by John.

"And as he went up, the heavens were opened, andhe saw the Holy Spirit, in shape of a dove, descendingand entering into him.

"And a voice from heaven said, Thou art mybeloved Son. I have this day begotten thee.

"And straightway a great light shone around theplace. And John fell down before him, and said,I pray thee, Lord, baptize thou me.

"But he prevented him, saying, Let be; for thusit is becoming that all things be fulfilled.

"And it came to pass when the Lord had come upfrom the water, the entire fountain of the Holy Spiritdescended and rested upon him, and said to him,

"My Son, in all the prophets did I wait thee, thatthou mightest come and I might rest in thee;

"And the Lord said, If thy brother hath sinned inword, and hath made thee amends seven times in aday, receive him.

"The Lord answered and said unto him, I tell theealso unto seventy times seven, for in the prophetslikewise after they were anointed by the Holy Spiritutterance of sin was found."

"And there was a man whose right hand waswithered, and he said, I was a mason, seeking sustenanceby my hands. I beseech thee, Jesus, thatthou restore me to health that I may not shamefullybeg for food. And Jesus healed him.

"And he stretched out his hand over the disciples,and said, These are my brethren and mother that dothe wishes of my Father.

"But he said, Call me not good, for he that is goodis one, the Father in the heavens.

"The other of the rich men said to him, Master,what good thing shall I do and live?

"He said unto him, Go, sell all that thou hast anddivide it with the poor, and come, follow me.

"And the Lord said unto him, How sayest thou, Ihave performed the law and the prophets? seeingthat it is written in the law Thou shalt love thyneighbour as thyself. And behold many of thybrethren, sons of Abraham, are clad with dung, dyingfor hunger, and thy house is full of much goods, andthere goeth from it nought unto them.

"And he turned and said to Simon, his disciple,sitting by him, Simon, son of John, it is easier for acamel to enter through the eye of a needle than arich man into the kingdom of the heavens."

"To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offeralso the other, and him that taketh away thy cloakor thy coat forbid not. And whosoever shall be angryshall be in danger of the fire. And every one thatcompelleth thee to go with him a mile follow himtwo. And let your good works shine before men,that they, seeing them, may glorify your Father whichis in heaven.

"Give to him that asketh, and from him that wouldborrow, turn not away. For if ye lend to them ofwhom ye hope to receive, what new thing do ye?Even the publicans do this. Lay not up for yourselvestreasures upon earth, where moth and rustcorrupt, and where thieves break through, but lay upfor yourself treasure in heaven, where neither mothnor rust doth corrupt. For what is a man profited ifhe gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Andwhat shall a man give in exchange for it? Lay up,therefore, treasure in heaven, where neither moth norrust doth corrupt.

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thyheart, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbouras thyself.

"Swear not at all, but let your yea be yea, and yournay, nay; for whatsoever is more than this comethof evil.

"If ye love them that love you, what new thing doye? For even fornicators do this. But I say untoyou, pray for your enemies, and love them that hateyou, and bless them that curse you, and pray for themthat despitefully use you.

"There are some who have been made eunuchs of men[Pg 119]and some who were born eunuchs, and some who havemade themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven'ssake; but all cannot receive this saying.

"If thy right eye offend thee, cut it out; for it is betterfor thee to enter the kingdom of heaven with oneeye than having two eyes to be cast into everlasting fire.

"Whoso looketh on a woman to lust after hercommitteth adultery with her already in his heartbefore God.

"Fear not them that kill you and after that can dono more, but fear him who after death is able to castboth soul and body into hell.

"The children of this world marry and are given inmarriage, but the children of the world to comeneither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall belike the angels in heaven.

"Many false Christs and false apostles shall arise andshall deceive many of the faithful.

"Beware of false prophets, who shall come to youclothed outwardly in sheep's clothing, but inwardlythey are ravening wolves.

"And he overthrew the money-changers, and exclaimed,Woe unto ye scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,because ye pay tithe of mint and rue butdo not observe the love of God and justice. Yewhited sepulchres, appearing beautiful outwardly, but[Pg 120]are within full of dead men's bones. Woe unto yescribes, for ye have the keys, and ye do not enter inyourselves, and them that are entering in ye hinder.Ye blind guides, ye are become twofold more thechildren of hell.

"The law and the prophets were until John theBaptist. From that time the kingdom of heavensuffereth violence, and the violent take it byforce.

"And if you can receive it, he is Elijah who was tocome. He that hath ears to hear let him hear.

"Elijah must come and restore all things. But I sayunto you, Elijah is already come, and they knew himnot, but have done to him whatever they chose.Then the disciples understood that he spake to themabout John the Baptist.

"The Son of Man must suffer many things, and berejected by the Pharisees and scribes, and be crucified,and the third day rise again.

"Not every one who saith to me, Lord, Lord, shallenter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeththe will of my Father which is in heaven. Forwhosoever heareth me and doeth my sayings, hearethhim that sent me. And many will say unto me, Lord.Lord, have we not eaten and drunk in thy name anddone wonders? And then will I say unto them,Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. Then shallbe wailing and gnashing of teeth, when the righteousshall shine like the sun, and the wicked are sent intoeverlasting fire. For many shall come in my nameclothed outwardly in sheep's clothing, but inwardlybeing ravening wolves. By their works ye shall[Pg 121]know them. Every tree that bringeth not forth goodfruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

"I give you power to tread on serpents and on scorpionsand on scolopendras, and on all the might ofthe enemy.

"They shall come from the East and shall sit downwith Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdomof heaven. But the children of the kingdom shallbe cast into outer darkness.

"No man knoweth the Father but the Son, nor theSon but the Father, and they to whom the Son revealethhim.

"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after asign, and no sign shall be given it save the sign ofJonah.

"Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, andunto God the things that are God's.

"I have come to abolish sacrifices; and if ye do notcease to sacrifice, the wrath of God against you willnot cease.

"No servant can serve two masters. If we wish toserve both God and Mammon it is unprofitable to us.

"I am not come to take away from the law of Moses,nor add to the law of Moses am I come.

"There is not thank to you if ye love them that loveyou; but there is thank to you if ye love yourenemies and them that hate you.

"For there shall be false Christs, false prophets,false apostles, heresies, lovings of rule.

"Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall besaved, but he that doeth righteousness.

"If ye have been gathered with me into my bosom,and do not my commandments, I will cast you awayand will say unto you, Depart from me, I know notwhence ye are, workers of iniquity.

"And the Lord said, Ye shall be as lambkins inthe midst of wolves. And Peter answered and said,If then the wolves rend the lambkins asunder?Jesus said to Peter, Let not the lambkins after theyare dead fear the wolves. And do ye not fear themthat kill you and can do nought unto you. But fearhim who, after you are dead, hath authority oversoul and body to cast into the Gehenna of fire.

"Just now my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me byone of my hairs and bore me up to the great mountainof Tabor.

"I am he concerning whom Moses prophesied, saying,A prophet will the Lord our God raise unto you fromyour brethren even as me. Him hear ye in all things,for whosoever heareth not that prophet shall die."

Here is the account of the woman taken in adulteryafterwards borrowed by John:—

The evidence accumulates. Justin gives the voice[Pg 124]from the sky exactly as it is given in the Gospel ofthe Apostles.

He then proceeds to argue against an hereticaltheory that these words meant that Jesus was theSon of God on receipt of the Holy Spirit at baptism,and not before. But that is plainly the meaning ofthe passage, for the Ebionites "assert," says Hippolytus,"that our Lord was a man in like sense with all."(L. vii. 2). This is so patent that our first gospelhas changed the words to "in thee I am wellpleased." Had Justin known the false Matthew'sfalse version, he would have quoted it eagerly insteadof taking the trouble to refute the heretics.

I come to a second piece of evidence. In the livesof Krishna, Râma, Buddha, etc., many incidents areplainly inserted as authority for rites. Thus Buddhahas his hair cut off by the god Indra, and receivesthe Abhisheka (baptism) at the hands of the heavenlyhost; and true Buddhists are expected to imitate himin this. The baptism of the early church was calledφωτισμός [Greek: phôtismos] (Illumination), Justin tells us; and in theCoptic Church, as in Buddhism, the lighting of a taperis still a part of the ceremony. Now Justin informsus that a light was kindled on the Jordan on theoccasion of Christ's baptism. It is plain again herethat he is quoting from the Gospel according to theApostles, and not from our gospels, who have cut outthis light altogether.

Here is another strong piece of evidence. TheGospel according to the Apostles had a passage about[Pg 125]"false Christs, false prophets, falseapostles." Justinalso has a passage about "false Christs, falseapostles"This is most important, as it refers to St. Paul. Renanshows that in the original Gospel according to theHebrews, there must have been more than one attackon this "false apostle." He is "the enemy" whosowed tares amongst the gospel wheat. The "enemy"was his nickname with the Church of Jerusalem.Pseudo Matthew softens this to "the devil," and cutsout the "false apostle" altogether. It is plain thatJustin is not quoting from him.

Renan refers to another attack on St. Paul fromthe Gospel according to the Hebrews.

"People have prophesied and cast out devils in thename of Jesus. Jesus openly repudiates them, becausethey have "practised illegality.""(Les Evangiles,chap. vi.)

Stronger still is this. Justin records that whenthe question was put to Christ, "Show us a sign!"he answered, "An evil and adulterous generationseeketh after a sign, and no sign shall be given them,save the sign of Jonah." Justin goes on to say thatJesus "spoke this obscurely" (Trypho, ch. vii.), andhe explains the meaning of the sign. Had he possessedour Matthew, he could not possibly have donethis, for in the 40th verse of the twelfth chapter,Jesus, instead of "speaking obscurely," explains thatJonah's three days' sojourn in the whale's belly typifieshis own three days' sojourn in the tomb.

"For an ass's foal was standing at a certain entrance[Pg 126]to a village, tied to a vine." Our gospels knownothing about the vine incident when they narratethe story of Christ's entry to Jerusalem. Justin saysthat Jesus wrought amongst yokes and ploughs. Ofthis our gospels know nothing.

He says, too, that Jesus was born in a cave. (Trypho,ch. lxxviii.) The First Gospel of the Infancy confirmshim here.

"The Magifrom Arabia came to Bethlehem andworshipped the child." (H. Trypho, ch. lxxviii.)Here again Justin is plainly using some other gospel.Our gospels know nothing of the Magi coming fromArabia.

There is one passage used in the conventional defenceto show that Justin knew the fourth gospelalso, but Dr. Abbott, in the "Encyclopædia Britannica,"holds that this is impossible.

It is so obvious that baptism is a new birth, thatthe Brahmins have been the "twice born" from timeimmemorial. The Buddhist Abhisheka too is calledthe "whole birth." Baptism must have been comparedto a birth in the young Christian Church froman early date. And if Justin had known Christ's explanationsabout the birth from water and the Spirit,he could have scarcely wandered on like this. "Now,that it is impossible for those who have once beenborn to re-enter the wombs of those that bear them, isevident to all."

But there is a more overwhelming argument.Justin was a Platonic philosopher converted to Chris[Pg 127]tianity,as he thought. But in the view of the soberDr. Lamson, he brought with him into the fold Philo'sdoctrine of the Logos. It does not appear in Christianityuntil his date. This Logos, according to Justin andto Philo, was a distinct being, a second God. And inJustin's dialogue with Trypho, he tries to prove allthis, enlisting three times into his argument thepassage, "No man knoweth the Father but the Son."(Varied in Matt. xi. 27). Is it conceivable that if hehad had at his command the opening verses of thefourth gospel, and believed them to be by an apostleof Christ, he would have spared Trypho the inflictionof them? The poor Jew would have heard of nothingelse.

But a new witness has surged up, coming, as itwere, from the tomb. I allude to the fragment of theGospel of Peter. Justin writes:—

"For also, as said the prophet, mocking him, theyplaced him on atribunal, and said, Give judgmentto us." Our gospels know nothing of the incident ofthetribunal, nor of the mocking speech recordedby Justin. "Let him who raised the dead save himself."Now, the newly-discovered Gospel of Petersays that they did place Christ on the judgment-seatin mockery. It affirms also at the end that it was inspiredby the twelve disciples, just like the Gospelof the Hebrews.

In point of fact, the traditional argument of theadvocates of the miraculous origin of our four gospelsgoes practically on the hypothesis that only these fourgospels were in existence in Justin's time. But Dr.Giles shows that Christendom at this period was[Pg 128]flooded with spurious gospels, spurious "revelations,"spurious "epistles." He cites from Lucian an accountof a contemporary of Justin, one Peregrinus, whomurdered his father.

"Consigning himself to exile, he took to flight, andwandered about from one country to another. Atthis time it was that he learnt the wonderful philosophyof the Christians, having kept company withtheir priests and scribes in Palestine. And what wasthe end of it? In a short time he showed them to bemere children, for he became a prophet, a leader oftheir processions, the marshaller of their meetings, andeverything in himself alone.

"And of their books, he explained and cleared upsome, and wrote many himself; and they deemed hima god, made use of him as a legislator, and enrolledhim as their patron." ("Hebrew and Christian Records,"p. 82.)

Irenæus bears the same testimony. "But in additionto these things, they introduce an unspeakablenumber of apocryphal and spurious writings, whichthemselves have forged, to the consternation of thosethat are foolish, and who do not know the writings ofthe truth." (Hœr. i. 19.)

But worse than the composition of imaginary gospelsis the falsification of canonical scriptures. "Itis obvious," says Origen, "that the difference betweenthe copies is considerable, partly from conclusions ofindividual scribes, partly from the impious audacity ofsome in correcting what is written, partly, also, fromthose who add or remove what seems good to them inthe work of correction." (Origen in Matt. xv. 14.)

It might be imagined that a gospel that gives to usthe only authentic record of Christ's words, writtendown at an early date under the sanction of James,Christ's immediate successor as the head of his Churchand of the other Apostles, would be cherished inChristendom as the holiest of treasures. Instead ofthat, it was garbled, truncated, vilified, pronouncedheretical by a Pope, and finally suppressed. Whywas this? This question is the crux of historicalChristianity.

At present we must content ourselves with a briefanalysis of the gospel, and say a few words first aboutthe Ebionites.

The word "Ebionite" signifies "poor," and seems tobe the Greek rendering of bhikshu or beggar, theword by which Buddha described his followers. TheEbionites were the earliest Christians. They composedthe Church of Jerusalem. It fled to Pella, on theJordan, just before the destruction of the Holy City.Bishop Lightfoot calls them the Essene-Ebionites,because they were plainly in all their rites simpleEssenes.

1. They held Jesus to be "a man in like sense withall," as we have seen from Hippolytus.

2. They rejected the writings of Paul, and indeedall other New Testament scriptures, except the Gospelaccording to the Hebrews.

4. Like the Essenes also they rejected wine, evenin the Sacramentum. "Therefore do these men re[Pg 130]jectthe co-mixture of the heavenly wine, and wish itto be the water of the world only, not receiving Godso as to have union with him," says Irenæus (Hœr. v.3) speaking of them.

5. Like the Essenes they also insisted on the rite ofcircumcision. Here is another passage from Irenæus,"They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, andrepudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he wasan apostate from the law. As to the propheticalwritings, they endeavour to expound them in a somewhatsingular manner. They practice circumcision,persevere in the observance of those customs whichare enjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in theirstyle of life that they even adore Jerusalem as if itwere the House of God." (Hœr. iii. 1.) Irenæus saysalso that their opinions were similar to those of Cerinthus,who held that Jesus was the son of Joseph andMary, and that at his baptism the Holy Spirit cameto him.

These are the main peculiarities of the Ebionites,and they seem on the surface to show that if Christwas an Essene, and James was an Essene, and theirChurch after 150 years were still orthodox Essenes, the"heresy" should be sought elsewhere. But at presentwe will consider the Gospel according to the Apostles.

"And they have the Gospel according to Matthewvery full in Hebrew. For assuredly this is still keptamongst them as it was at outset written in Hebrewletters. But I do not know whether at the same timethey have taken away the genealogies from Abrahamto Christ." (Hœr. xxix. 9.)

This lets in a flood of light. The main "heresy" ofthe Gospel according to the Hebrews is that it containsno genealogies. But the same must be said ofMark and John. And there is a version of Luke thatwas used by the Marcionites that was also withoutthe genealogies. And critics affect to show that ourLuke was plainly once without them also:—

"And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape,like a dove, upon him; and a voice came from heaven,which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I amwell pleased. And Jesus being full of the HolyGhost, returned from Jordan, and was led by theSpirit into the wilderness."

This is a consecutive sentence, and yet the genealogieshave been clumsily pitchforked into the middleof it. (Luke iii. 23.)

And with regard to Matthew, it can, at least, beproved that Justin Martyr knew nothing of hisgenealogies.

"He was the Son of Man, either because of hisbirth by the Virgin, who was, as I said, of the familyof David, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham."Plainly Justin thought that it was the Virgin andnot Joseph that had descended from Abraham.

But the suppressing of genealogies that were notinvented until one hundred years after the Apostleswere slumbering in forgotten tombs, was only a detailof their "heresy." Their gospel makes out Christ tobe not the Logos masquerading in a human form, buta man and a prophet. "A prophet will the Lord ourGod raise up unto you from your brethren," he says.And prophets can sin, and he can sin, for he was[Pg 132]plainly without the Holy Ghost until his baptism.It comes down, in the Hebrew gospel, notupon, butinto him. And he is the Son of God from thatmoment, not before.

"Call me not good, for he that is good is one theFather in the heavens!" Pseudo-Matthew weakensthis considerably, "There is none good but one, thatis God."

"He that is good is one." That was the motto ofthe Essenes of Jerusalem. Tertullian tells us thatcertain "unlearned" Christians in his day protestedagainst the Trinity. "They declare that we proclaimtwo or three gods, but they, they affirm, worshiponly one." (Adv. Prax. c. 3.) The unlearned werethe Church of Jerusalem that still clung to the text,"He that is good is One."

We come to other "heresies." The early gospelknew nothing of Matthew's interpolation about Johnthe Baptist eating locusts, because John the Baptist,as an Essene, could do nothing of the sort. AndJerome tells us that the wicked Ebionites garbled thepassage, Luke xxii. 15, to make it appear that Jesusactually refused to eat flesh at the Passover supper.

Still more instructive is the question of wine at the[Pg 133]Lord's Supper. Of course, the genuine gospel beingwritten by water drinkers, had no passage about the"fruit of the vine." But Luke, fortunately, has twoaccounts of the celebration in chap. xxii.

"And he took the cup and gave thanks, and said,Take this and divide it amongst yourselves.

"For I say unto you I will not drink of the fruit ofthe vine until the kingdom of God has come.

"And he took bread and gave thanks, and brake it,and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which isgiven for you. This do in remembrance of me.

"Likewise the cup after supper, saying, This cup isthe new testament in my blood, which is shed for you."

Now it is perfectly plain that verses 17 and 18have been clumsily added. They are not in Marcion'sversion. Mark and Matthew have been more clever.They have garbled the passage better. Verses 19 and20 fairly represent, I think, the real Gospel of theHebrews. Justin says that in the "Memoirs of theApostles," were these words:—

In the scene of the Lord's Supper, James wasapparently the most prominent character. His removalfrom the list of the twelve apostles in thecanonical gospels is significant.

"And when the Lord had given his shroud to theservant of the priest, he went to James and appearedto him.

"For James had sworn that he would not eat breadfrom the hour wherein he had drunk the cup of theLord until he saw him rising again from the dead.

"And he took the bread, and blessed and broke, andafterwards gave it to James the Just, and said, Mybrother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risenfrom them that sleep."

Now, the suppression of all this in the orthodoxgospels is, as Renan shows, of immense importance.("Les Evangiles," ch. vi.)

"Then was he seen by James," says St. Paul(1. Cor. xv. 7), "then by all the Apostles."

CHAPTER VII.

Historical questions are sometimes made more clearby being treated broadly. Let us first deal with thisfrom the impersonal side, leaving out altogether thealleged words and deeds of Christ, Paul, etc. Fiftyyears before Christ's birth there was a sect dwellingin the stony waste where John prepared a people forthe Lord. Fifty years after Christ's death there wasa sect in the same part of Palestine. The sect thatexisted fifty years before Christ was called Essenes,Therapeuts, Gnostics, Nazarites. The sect thatexisted fifty years after Christ's death was called"Essenes or Jesseans," according to Epiphanius,Therapeuts, Gnostics, Nazarites, and not Christiansuntil afterwards.

Each had two prominent rites: baptism and whatTertullian calls the "oblation of bread." Each hadfor officers, deacons, presbyters, ephemereuts. Eachsect had monks, nuns, celibacy, community of goods.Each interpreted the Old Testament in a mystical way,so mystical, in fact, that it enabled each to discoverthat the bloody sacrifice of Mosaism was forbidden,not enjoined. The most minute likenesses have been[Pg 136]pointed out between these two sects by all Catholicwriters from Eusebius and Origen to the poet Racine,who translated Philo's "Contemplative Life" for thebenefit of pious court ladies. Was there any connectionbetween these two sects? It is difficult to conceivethat there can be two answers to such a question.

And if it can be proved, as Bishop Lightfootaffirms, that Christ was an anti-Essene, who announcedthat His mission was to preserve intactevery jot and tittle of Mosaism as interpreted by therecognised interpreters, this would simply show thathe had nothing to do with the movement to whichhis name has been given.

The first prominent fact of His life is His baptismby John. If John was an Essene, the full meaning ofthis may be learnt from Josephus:—

"To one that aims at entering their sect, admissionis not immediate; but he remains a whole year outsideit, and is subjected to their rule of life, being investedwith an axe, the girdle aforesaid, and a whitegarment. Provided that over this space of time hehas given proof of his perseverance, he approachesnearer to this course of life, and partakes of the holierwaters of cleansing; but he is not admitted to theircommunity of life. Following the proof of hisstrength of control, his moral conduct is tested fortwo years more; and when he has made clear hisworthiness, he is then adjudged to be of their number.But before he touches the common meal, he pledgesto them in oaths to make one shudder, first that he[Pg 137]will reverence the Divine Being, and, secondly, thathe will abide injustice unto men, and will injure noone, either of his own accord or by command, butwill always detest the iniquitous, and strive on theside of the righteous; that he will ever show fidelityto all, and most of all to those who are in power, forto no one comes rule without God; and that, if hebecome a ruler himself, he will never carry insolenceinto his authority, or outshine those placed under himby dress or any superior adornment; that he willalways love truth, and press forward to convict thosethat tell lies; that he will keep his hands from peculation,and his soul pure from unholy gain; that hewill neither conceal anything from the brethren ofhis order, nor babble to others any of their secrets,even though in the presence of force, and at the hazardof his life. In addition to all this, they take oath notto communicate the doctrines to any one in any otherway than as imparted to themselves; to abstain fromrobbery, and to keep close, with equal care, the booksof their sect and the names of the angels. Such arethe oaths by which they receive those that join them."(Josephus, De B. J., ii. 8, 2, 13.)

As a pendant to this, I will give the early Christianinitiation from the Clementine "Homilies."

"If any one having been tested is found worthy,then they hand over to him according to the initiation ofMoses, by which he delivered his books to the Seventywho succeeded to his chair."

These books are only to be delivered to "one whois good and religious, and who wishes to teach, andwho is circumcised and faithful."

"Wherefore let him be proved not less than sixyears, and then, according to the initiation of Moses,he (the initiator) should bring him to a river orfountain, which is living water, where the regenerationof the righteous takes place." The novice thencalls to witness heaven, earth, water, and air, that hewill keep secret the teachings of these holy books,and guard them from falling into profane hands, underthe penalty of becoming "accursed, living and dying,and being punished with everlasting punishment."

Now if, as is believed by Dr. Lightfoot, the chiefobject of Christ's mission was to establish for ever theMosaism of the bloody altar, and combat the mainteaching of the ἀσκητής [Greek: askêtês], or mystic, which "postulatesthe false principle of the malignity of matter," whydid He go to an ἀσκητής [Greek: askêtês] to be baptised? Whether ornot Christ belonged to mystical Israel, there can beno discussion about the Baptist. He was a Nazarite"separated from his mother's womb," who had induceda whole "people" to come out to the desertand adopt the Essene rites and their community ofgoods. And we see, from a comparison of the Esseneand early Christian initiations, what such baptismcarried with it. It implied preliminary instructionand vows of implicit obedience to the instructor.

It is plain too that the Essene Christ knows atfirst nothing of any antagonism to his teacher.

"The law and the prophets were until John. Sincethat time the kingdom of God is preached, and everyman presseth into it." (Luke xvi, 16.)

This shows that far from believing that he hadcome to preserve the Mosaism of the bloody altar, heconsidered that John and the Essenes had power toabrogate it.

"Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in yourpurses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats,neither shoes."

Here again we have the barefooted Essenes withoutsilver or gold. "He that hath two coats let him impartto him that hath none," said the Baptist. "Andinto whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquirewho in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence.And when ye come into an house, salute it. And ifthe house be worthy, let your peace come upon it;but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear yourwords, when ye depart out of that house or city, shakeoff the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, Itshall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom andGomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst ofwolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmlessas doves. But beware of men; for they willdeliver you up to the councils, and they will scourgeyou in their synagogues; and ye shall be broughtbefore governors and kings for my sake, for a testimonyagainst them and the Gentiles. But when they[Pg 140]deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shallspeak; for it shall be given you in that same hourwhat ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak,but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death,and the father the child: and the children shall riseup against their parents, and cause them to be put todeath. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name'ssake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved."

This passage is remarkable. No Christian disciplehad yet begun to preach, and yet what do we find?A vast secret organisation in every city. It is composedof those who are "worthy" (the word used byJosephus for Essene initiates); and they are plainlybound to succour the brethren at the risk of theirlives. This shows that Christ's movement was affiliatedwith an earlier propagandism.

There is another question. On the hypothesis thatChrist was an orthodox Jew, why should he, plainlyknowing beforehand what mistakes and bloodshed itwould cause, make his disciples mimic the Essenes inexternals? The Essenes had two main rites, baptismand the bloodless oblation. Christ adopted them.The Essenes had a new name or conversion.

"Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation,a stone." (John i. 42.)

"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast,and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure inheaven; and come and follow me." (Matt. xix. 21.)

"All men cannot receive this saying, save they towhom it is given.... There be eunuchs which havemade themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven'ssake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."(Matt. xix. 11, 12.)

"And I looked, and, lo! a Lamb stood on MountZion, and with him an hundred and forty-four thousand,having his Father's name written on their foreheads....These are they which were not defiledwith women, for they are virgins." (Rev. xiv. 1, 4.)

Divines tell us that this first passage is to haveonly a "spiritual" interpretation. It forbids notmarriage but excess. We might listen to this if wehad not historical cognizance of a sect in Palestineat this date which enforced celibacy in its monasteries.The second passage shows that the disciplesunderstood him literally.

"Unless ye cease from sacrificing, the wrath shallnot cease from you." (Cited from Gospel of the Hebrewsby Epiphanius, Hær. xxx. 16.)

Bishop Lightfoot, as I have mentioned, considersthat Jesus was an orthodox Jew, whose mission wasto perpetuate every jot and tittle of Mosaism; andthat "emancipation" from the "swathing-bands" ofthe law came from the Apostles. (Com. on Galatians,pp. 286, 287.) It might be thought that this was aquaint undertaking for the Maker of the millionmillion starry systems to come to this insignificantplanet in bodily form to "perpetuate" institutions[Pg 142]that Titus in thirty years was to end for ever; evenif we could forget that human sacrifices, concubinage,polygamy, slavery, and border raids were amongstthese institutions. But if this Christ is the historicalChrist, it appears to me that we must eliminate theChrist of the gospels almost entirely. For capitaloffences against the Mosaic law, the recognised authoritiesthree times sought the life of Jesus, twice afterformal condemnation by the Sanhedrim. Theseoffences were Sabbath-breaking, witchcraft, andspeaking against Mosaic institutions. According tothe Synoptics, he never went to Jerusalem during hisministry until just the end of it; although the threevisits for the yearly festivals were rigidly exacted.

In my "Buddhism in Christendom" I give reasonsfor supposing that the "multitudes" whose suddenappearance in stony wastes have bewildered critics,were in reality the gatherings for the Therapeutfestivals described by Philo.

Bishop Lightfoot makes much of the fact thatJohn's gospel makes Christ go up once for the feastof tabernacles. But did he go as an orthodox worshipper,to present his offerings for the bloody sacrifice?On the contrary, on this very occasion he wasaccused of Sabbath-breaking and demoniac possession;and the rulers of the people sent officers toarrest him.

Leaving Mr. Gladstone and Professor Huxley todiscuss whether Christ's acts in the temple among themoney changers were illegal, I must point out thatHis dispersing the sellers of doves goes quite againstthe theory that He desired to perpetuate Mosaic in[Pg 143]stitutions,for the sale of these doves was a necessityfor the temple sacrifices.

Much has been made in modern pulpits of a vagueword, "fulfilling." Christ, it is said, did not overthrowthe old law, he "fulfilled" it. This is nonsense.

Mosaism was an "eternal covenant." It was a "perpetualstatute," offerings of the "food of the Deity"on the altar of burnt sacrifice. It was concubinage,slavery, polygamy, thelex talionis made eternalinstitutions. To say that a teacher who preaches forgivenessin place of revenge, continence for concubinage,slaving for, instead of slaving others, immortalityof the soul for the religion of to-day, is "fulfilling"merely an abuse of words.

CHAPTER VIII.

I have said that in the New Testament there is anEssene and an anti-Essene Christ. Both are mostconspicuous in the Gospel of St. Luke. Catholic andProtestant disputants are aware of this.

Until the days of Ferdinand Christian Baur, St.Luke had an immaculate reputation. He was believedto be the companion of St. Paul on his voyages. Hewas believed to have written the third gospel almostas early as the date of Paul's imprisonment. He wasthe reputed author of the Acts of the Apostles.

In the Second Epistle to Timothy, and in the Epistleto Philemon, he is also mentioned.

In the first place, two out of the three epistles thatname him are pronounced to be forgeries by all competentcritics; and very few hold even the Epistle tothe Colossians to be by the pen of St. Paul. Then itis pointed out that there is no mention of St. Luke'sgospel or of the Acts of the Apostles until the dateof Irenæus (A.D. 180.)

Let us give the opening verses of the gospel asamended by that eminent Greek scholar, Dr. Giles:—

"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to setforth in order a narrative of those things which havebeen brought to fulfilment in us, even as they whichfrom the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministersof the word have handed down to us, it hath seemedgood to me also, following all accurately from thebeginning, to write unto thee, in order, most excellentTheophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty ofthose things wherein thou hast been instructed."

Now, here it is plain, as Dr. Giles remarks, that theauthor "does not profess to have been an originalwriter, or to have had perfect understanding of allthings from the very first," which is the erroneousrendering of our authorised version, but that hefollows the accounts of others, who "were eye-witnessesand ministers of the word." (Giles, "ApostolicalRecords," p. 34.)

Next comes the pertinent question, Who was the"most excellent Theophilus?" The word used isKratistos, "which is thought by Gibbon to designatea man holding a civil or official dignity. If this beso, we might find it difficult to suppose that such atitle would have been given to a Christian, even ifthere were any one of exalted station, within a fewyears after the first promulgation of Christianity."("Apostolical Records," p. 13.)

But at Antioch, about the year 171, there was aTheophilus, the sixth bishop. He might have beencalled Kratistos without anything inappropriate. Hewas a convert late in life, which may explain thepassage about "those things in which thou has beeninstructed." Eusebius tells us that this Theophilus[Pg 146]wrote a treatise against Marcion. But in the view ofmodern critics, the forged epistles of Paul to Timothywere also levelled against Marcion.

This has its significance. For the followers ofMarcion have always maintained that Luke's gospel isMarcion's gospel enlarged and falsified. One of these,Megethius, declared it was full of errors and contradictions.This controversy has been revived in moderntimes.

But before we deal with this important gospel, wemust say a word about what the Germans call Luke's"tendency,"—his scheme of colour, to use an artisticexpression.

Baur, comparing the Acts with other scriptures,was struck with the many discrepancies and absolutefalse statements that it contained. He perceived alsothat these false statements were not accidental butsystematic. Soon their motive dawned upon him.It was plain that this "Luke," writing long after theanimosities of Paul against the historical Apostles hadceased, desired to tone down and conceal these animosities.Hence the book of the Acts of the Apostlescould not be the work of a contemporary. And a strongmotive for this has been suggested by erudite Germans.

The early enemy of Christianity was the Jew.The Roman official at first treated the animositiesof the dominant party as part of the incomprehensibleJewish superstition, and sided, when practicable,with the weaker section. But when Christianitybegan to gain ground, the Roman began to examineit more closely, and soon found much to condemn.For the Essenes proclaimed that the State gods of[Pg 147]the Romans were wicked demons. The Essenes forbadethe use of wine and flesh meat, important elementsin the ceremonial of the Roman religion.The Essenes forbade slavery. The Essenes forbademarriage, replacing it, according to rumour, with lewdrites in their secret orgies. Soon violent persecutionsarose.

Now it has been suggested by the Germans that atthe date of Kratistos, the school of Antioch sought toconciliate the Roman authority by showing thatChristianity was a harmless form of Judaism, equallyentitled to State toleration.

This "tendency" of "Luke" must be borne inmind. It is very plain in the earlier chapters of theActs. The gospels announce that at Christ's deathconsternation and cowardice were amongst hisfollowers. The "lambs" had fled in all directionsfrom the "wolves." St. Paul also speaks of the fiercepersecutions that followed the event,—Stephen stoned,and the "havoc" and the "slaughter." And yet inthe opening chapters of the Acts we find the "wolves"more gentle than the "lambs." They are "pricked intheir heart." They at once allow Peter to proclaimin the temple, and also before the Sanhedrim, thatthere is no salvation in any name other than that ofthe malefactor they have just executed (by inferencenot even in Yahve); and that all who will not hearthis malefactor shall be destroyed. And the Sanhedrim,in solemn conclave, let him go, "finding nothinghow they might punish him." (Acts iv. 21.) AndGamaliel, a solemn doctor, advises his colleagues tolet the hated "lambs" alone, "lest haply they be[Pg 148]found to fight against God." Had a "wolf" talkedlike that, his brother "wolves" would have made shortwork of him.

The "tendency" here is very plain. "Luke" wantsit to be understood that from the first the chiefdoctors saw no harm in Christianity, and allowed itto be preached in the temple. I shall not waste timeover the controversy, whether "Luke" is an enlargementof Marcion's or some other shorter gospel. Aswe know that the earliest and only authentic gospelcame from the Essene Ebionites, it is plain that allanti-Essenism is an accretion.

We now come to the opening chapters of Luke'sgospel. Let us see if it is possible at this distance oftime to trace how they were built up.

In the Jerusalem Talmud, and also in the Babylonish,is a somewhat fanciful account of the slaughterof a priest named Zacharias. who was killed in thecourt of the priests,near the altar. A great miraclenow occurred: his blood began to bubble, that itmight cause fury to come up to take vengeance!Soon Nebuzaradan (this fixes the date of the story tothe reign of Nebuchadnezzar) arrived at the temple.He asked the meaning of the bubbling. He was toldthat the blood was the blood of calves, and rams, andlambs. He caused some calves, and rams, andlambs to be slaughtered; still the blood bubbled.He slaughtered a number of rabbins; still theblood bubbled. Ninety-four thousand priests wereslaughtered before the blood of the dead Zachariaswas appeased. (Talmud Hierosol. in Taannith, fol. 69,Lightfoot the Hebraist.)

We now come to the Protevangelion, a fancifulgospel attributed to James, the "Bishop of Bishops,"as he is called on the title page. It has incorporatedthis story of Zacharias and his avenging blood; andtacked on to it an account of the birth of the VirginMary. One Joachim was much afflicted becauseAnna his wife had no issue. He "called to mind thepatriarch Abraham, how that God in the end of hislife had given him his son Isaac," and he went intothe wilderness and fasted forty days. An angel appearedto Anna and promised offspring. Mary thechild was born, and dedicated to God. Zacharias,the high priest, received her in the temple. Whenshe was twelve years old a veil was wanted, and thehigh priest cast lots to find out what maiden shouldspin it. The lot fell on Mary, and from this momentZacharias was dumb.

Meantime, Mary was espoused to Joseph, who,shortly afterwards finding his betrothed with child,was sorrowful. Both were summoned before thedeputy of Zacharias, who caused them to go throughthe prescribed ordeal of drinking "the water of theLord." Christ was born. The wise men came.Herod slew the infants, and murdered Zacharias inthe temple. Then a mighty miracle occurred. Theroofs of the temple howled, and were rent from thetop to the bottom. And a voice from heaven said,"Zacharias is murdered, and his blood shall not bewiped away until the revenger of his blood shallcome."

Let us now suppose that Luke comes across thisstory, the "Luke" of the epoch of the most excellent[Pg 150]Theophilus, the Luke with the "tendency" to softensubversive Essenism. How would he proceed? Hemight argue that John the Baptist would make amore suitable hero. He could be born of old parentslike Mary. And the story would certainly gain inunity and dramatic vigour, if Zacharias the priestwas made the old father.

The question now arises, Which author has copiedfrom the other? Three theories are possible.

1. Bishop Lightfoot is angry that an "evangelist"should be accused of copying from an "apocryphalgospel." But there is the difficulty here, that theZacharias of both stories is plainly the Zacharias ofthe Talmudic narrative. So that, if the bishop couldprove that "James" had stolen from Luke, therewould still be an "apocryphal" document behindboth. And if "Luke" was the first to use the Talmudicstory, how is it that he misses the point of thatstory, and James copying him, hits it? That point isthe avenging blood.

2. The details of the picture and the whole localcolour point plainly to an age when past eventshave so faded away from the memory of livingpeople that a writer can afford to play tricks withthem. The huge animosity with which dominantIsrael viewed spiritual Israel would have made evenTorquemada feel lukewarm. Christ called the twothe "wolves" and the "lambs." And yet a chief"wolf," on being informed that his son is to be awater-drinking Nazarite, a leader of the abominableschismatics who prated about the "power of Elias,"and called themselves a "people prepared for theLord," feels ecstasy rather than wrath. ImaginePhilip of Spain learning that a son of his had helpedto steer the English fire-ships at the great battle ofGravelines. Imagine Legree composing an originalsong of triumph on learning that Uncle Tom was afree citizen. If there was a historical Luke, and hewas the genuine companion of Paul, he of all menwould know of the "haling men and women andcommitting them to prison," of the "havoc and the[Pg 152]slaughter." He would have known how the priestlyparty in Jerusalem would view a proposal to annulthe eternal covenant of Yahve with a better, a more"holy covenant," and substitute remission of sins bypenitence for remission of sins by the bloody sacrifice.

3. If the opening chapters of Luke are historical,many events in his own and the other gospels areplainly unhistorical. If John the Baptist was thecousin of Christ, brought up with him from childhood,how is it that he failed to recognise him on theJordan (John i. 33) until the First Person of theTrinity intervened, and performed the miracle ofsending down a dove to indicate him? Why, too,should he have sent, as Luke himself announces(vii. 19), messengers to his cousin to ask if he was thecoming Messiah, when he must have known from hismother the announcement of the angels that hiscousin was the "Son of the Highest," destined to"reign over Jacob for ever"? Why, too, did Mary,knowing all this, forget it when the boy-Christ disputedin the temple? and why did Luke forget ittoo? (Luke ii. 48.)

4. If John the Baptist was really the son of a chiefpriest, the silence of the other gospels is unaccountable.Certainly if Justin Martyr had had the openingchapters of Luke before him, he would have usedthem against Trypho.

5. When I first read Luke critically, I asked myself,Why has he omitted the death of Zacharias, ashe has dragged him in? Then I was struck with thewords that he has put into the mouth of Christ:—

"From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias[Pg 153]whichperished between the altar and the temple."(Ch. xi. 51.)

This passage convinced me that he had theProtevangelion before him. It is to be remarked thatthis verse does not appear in Marcion's version.

Then I came across a whimsical passage in BishopLightfoot. He shows that an "early tradition identifiedthe Zacharias who is mentioned in the gospelsas having been slain between the temple and thealtar (Matt. xxiii. 35) with this Zacharias, the fatherof the Baptist." ("Supernatural Religion," p. 256.) Thebishop then triumphs over the author of "SupernaturalReligion," who had declared that Luke makesno announcement of Zacharias's death. "He appears,"says Bishop Lightfoot, "to have forgotten Luke xi.51." (Op. cit. p. 257.)

But surely the bishop has overlooked one whimsicalobjection to accepting this story as historical. If theJohn the Baptist was the son of Zacharias, the sonof Barachias, he must have been 531 years old whenhe baptised Christ.

Bishop Lightfoot makes much of these openingchapters, because they show that the parents of Jesuswere orthodox Jews, who went up every year to thefeast of the Passover, and offered doves at the prescribedtimes. But what about Herod and the flightinto Egypt? If the first four chapters which "Luke"is accused of adding to Marcion's gospel be historical,the flight into Egypt is a fiction.

The Buddhist story about Simeon, and the Buddhistdisputation with the doctors, are borrowed from theFirst Gospel of the Infancy. They are not in any[Pg 154]other canonical gospel, and the First Gospel of theInfancy is the great armoury of Buddhist legends.

It is to be remarked that a young Buddhist, that hemay acquire readiness in controversy, is pestered withquestions by doctors and theologians. But the rabbisat Jerusalem would scarcely have allowed a little boyto talk to them about the Messiah. (First Infancy,xxi. 3.)

We now come to the two passages most relied on bythose who desire to show that Jesus condemned theasceticism of John. Let us read each with itscontext.

It is a singular fact that this short passage has beenmade the chief armoury of the disciples of gastronomic,and also of interior Christianity. Thus Migne's"Dictionnaire des Ascétes" cites it to show thatChrist approved of the asceticism of the Baptist. Doesnot this at starting seem to argue two teachings, and,as a corollary, two distinct teachers? If we omit thepassages that I have marked in italics it is difficultto find a more eloquent eulogy of ascetic mysticism.The Buddhist mystics are called the Sons of Wisdom(Dharma or Prajñâ), and Christ adopts the sameterminology. Plainly the gist of the passage is thatthe children of the mystic Sophia have no rivalry andno separate baptism. The lower life of soft raimentand palaces is contrasted with John's ascetic lifeamongst the "reeds" that still conspicuously fringethe rushing Jordan. John is pronounced the greatestof prophets, and his teaching the "counsel of God."Then comes my first passage in italics, the statementthat the most raw catechumen of Christ's instruction is[Pg 156]superior to this the greatest of God's prophets. It completelydisconnects what follows from what precedes,and involves the silliest inconsequence, as shown bythe action of Christ's hearers. It is said that theycrowded to the "baptism of John." Had that speechbeen uttered, of course they would have stayed awayfrom it.

The subsequent insertion of the gospel of eating anddrinking, and piping and dancing, involves a greaterfolly. It betrays a writer completely ignorant ofJewish customs. The fierce enmity of anti-mysticalIsrael to the Nazarites pivoted on the very fact thatthe latter were pledged for life to drink neither winenor strong drink. This was the Nazarite's bannerwith victory already written upon it. Hence thefierce hatred of the Jewish priesthood. If Christ intheir presence had drunk one cup of wine, there wouldhave been no crucifixion, and certainly no upbraiding.

"And they said unto him, Why do the disciples ofJohn fast often, and make prayers, and likewise thedisciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink?And he said unto them, Can ye make the children ofthe bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is withthem? But the days will come, when the bridegroomshall be taken away from them, and then shall theyfast in those days.

"And he spake also a parable unto them: No manputteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; ifotherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and thepiece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with[Pg 157]the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles;else the new wine will burst the bottles, and bespilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine mustbe put into new bottles; and both are preserved.Noman also having drunk old wine straightway desirethnew: for he saith, The old is better." (Luke v. 33-39.)

I have again resorted to italics. I think we havehere a genuine speech of Christ, and a very importantone. His doctrine was "new wine," and it was quiteunfit for the "old bottles" of Mosaism. The gravityof this speech was felt by the Roman monks who weretrying to force the new wine into the old bottles (withmuch prejudice to the wine), so they tried to nullifyit with flat contradiction let in both above and below.

This completely contradicts Christ's eulogy of theChristian's "new wine." Moreover, the words are notfound in Matthew's version, which makes the cheatmore palpable. There, too, we have the gospel ofeating and drinking, a gospel that did not require anavatâra of the Maker of the Heavens for its promulgation.

But supposing that we concede the two passages tobe genuine, I do not see that the priests of materialismwill gain very much.

These texts are internecine, involving contradictionsdue either to more than one author, or to an interpolatorsingularly deficient in logical consistencyand common sense. The statement, as far as it isintelligible, is that Christ, having determined to forsakemystical for anti-mystical Israel, made thefollowing enactments:—

1. That the ascetic practices that He had takenover from John the Baptist and the Nazarenes, andwhich in other gospels He enjoins under the phrase of"prayer and fasting" as the machinery for developingmiraculous gifts, interior vision, etc., shall be discontinuedby His disciples during His lifetime and thenagain renewed.

2. That feastings and the use of wine, which asNazarites He and His disciples had specially forsworn,should be again resumed, with no restrictions in thiscase in the matter of His death. So that by oneenactment His disciples after His death were toremain jovial "wine-bibbers" by the other fastingascetics. It is scarcely necessary to bring forwardthe true Luke to confute the pseudo Luke.

A valuable historical transaction is recorded by thereal Luke which throws a strong light on the relationsbetween Christ and John the Baptist. Towards theclose of the Saviour's career, at Jerusalem itself, thechief priests accosted Him and asked Him by whatauthority He did what He did. Now if the relationsbetween Christ and John the Baptist had been whatthe pseudo Luke would have us believe, Christ hadonly to state all this and He might have saved manyvaluable lives. He had only to plainly announce thatHis movement was not from anti-mystical to mysticalIsrael, but from mystical to anti-mystical Israel;that he had introduced wine and oil as a protestagainst Essenism; that He had forbidden its asceticfastings, and brought many disciples back from "thebaptism of John" to the orthodox fold. If He hadstated all this clearly, the high priest and elders would[Pg 159]have hailed Him as a friend instead of slaying Him asa foe. But the Saviour, evidently quite unaware thatHe had led a great movement against the Baptist,takes refuge behind John instead of condemning him.He asks the pregnant question, Was he a prophet ofGod, or was he not? inferring, of course, that he was,and that the prophetic gift was "authority" enough.(Luke xx. 1,et seq.) "For I say unto you, Amongthose that are born of women there is not a greaterprophet than John the Baptist." (Luke vii. 28.) Hereagain we have the real Luke confronting his unskilfulinterpolator.

CHAPTER IX.

Competent critics hold that Luke has based the Actson earlier records. Certainly the picture of the earlyChurch at Jerusalem is very Essenic. The disciples hadall things in common. They lived in groups of houses,with a central house of assembly, like the Therapeuts.They had two main rites, baptism and the breakingof bread. They had for officers, deacons, presbyters,ephemereuts. Wine and flesh meat were forbidden,if we may judge the parent from the daughter. Forthe Roman Christians before the advent of St. Paulforbade wine and flesh meat, and the Roman Churchwas the eldest daughter of the Church at Jerusalem.Also we see from the Apocalypse that the saints ofthe New Jerusalem were "virgins."

Thus history flashes a light, transient but vivid, onthe rising religion at three distinct periods.

1. When Christ by the Sea of Tiberias preachedthe memorable λόγια [Greek: logia], and said, "Be eunuchs, sell allworldly goods. Blessed are the poor!"

2. When James started the vegetarian water-drinkingcelibates of the Church of Jerusalem.

3. When Irenæus attacked the vegetarian water-drinkingcelibates of the Church of Jerusalem whichhad migrated to Pella (A.D. 180).

Now, these three flashes of light seem to me to dispelmuch, notably all disquisitions which seek tocombine the Essene Christ and the anti-EsseneChrist. Renan holds that the Church of Jerusalemwere Pharisees. If so, why had they Essene rites,A.D. 34 andA.D. 181? He admits that these riteswere borrowed from the Mendaites, or Disciples ofJohn, and that there is the closest analogy betweenthe rise of Christianity and the rise of "other asceticreligions, Buddhism for example." ("Les Apôtres,"pp. 78-90.) He admits that the accounts in the Actsof Peter's bold preachings in the temple, are not to bereconciled with passages about "closed doors for fewof the Jews." What has chiefly led to misapprehensionsis not so much the dishonesty of writers like"Luke," as the fiction of the Essenes themselves thatthey were orthodox Jews. They were most particularabout circumcision. They had a Sanhedrim ofJustice, and so had the early Christians. The Churchof Jerusalem had its "chief priest," as we see fromthe First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians."The daily sacrifices are not offered everywhere, northe peace-offerings, nor the sacrifices appointed forsins and transgressions, but only at Jerusalem, nor inany place there, but only at the altar before thetemple." (Ch. xviii.)

This chief priest must not be confused with theJewish one. He has been established by God throughChrist. (Ch. xix. 7.) It is also stated that Christ haslaid down what "offerings and service" must be performed.(Ch. xviii. 14.) This gives a significance tothe passages in Revelations describing the temple of[Pg 162]the mystic Jerusalem, which would of course bemodelled on the "temple" familiar to the white-robedvirgin saints of the material New Jerusalem, the"angel" taking the "golden censer" and filling itwith the fire of the altar, the "lamps," the "candlesticks,"the "golden altar," the "incense." Theground near Jerusalem is perforated with caverns.This temple, probably, was some secret crypt like achapel in the catacombs. Keim points out that thecommand given in chap. xi. verse 2 of the Revelationsto leave out the court of the bloody sacrifices in theideal temple of the New Jerusalem, is an additionalpiece of evidence in favour of the Essenism of theearly Church.

This is what Hegesippus, the earliest Christianhistorian, says about James, described in the Protevangelionas the "chief apostle and first Christianbishop."

"He was consecrated from his mother's womb. Hedrank neither wine nor strong drink, neither ate heany living thing. A razor never went upon his head.He anointed not himself with oil, nor did he use abath. He alone was allowed to enter into the holies.For he did not wear woollen garments, but linen.And he alone entered the sanctuary and was foundupon his knees praying for the forgiveness of thepeople, so that his knees became hard like a camel'sthrough his constant bending and supplication beforeGod, and asking for forgiveness for the people."(Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." ii. 33.)

This passage seems to settle the question whetherthe early Christians were Essenes or Pharisees.[Pg 163]Here we have the chief apostle depicted as anEssene of Essenes. He rejects wine and flesh meat.And the "temple" of the Essenes was plainly not theJewish temple. The temple guards would have madeshort work of any one rash enough to attempt to enterthe Holy of Holies.

Epiphanius adds the two sons of Zebedee to thelist of the ascetics, and also announces that James,the chief apostle, entered the Holy of Holies once ayear. He gives another detail, that the Christianbishop wore the bactreum or metal plate of the highpriest. (Epiph. Hær. lxxviii. 13, 14.)

"It is far better to be happy than to have a demondwelling in us. And happiness is found in the practiceof virtue. Accordingly, the Apostle Matthew partookof seeds, and nuts, and vegetables without flesh."(Pædag. ii. 1.)

The Clementine "Homilies" give a far moreauthentic picture of the Church of Jerusalem thanthe Acts. In them St. Peter thus describes himself:—

"The Prophet of the Truth who appeared on earthtaught us that the Maker and God of all gave twokingdoms to two (beings), good and evil, granting tothe evil the sovereignty over the present world....Those men who choose the present have power to berich, to revel in luxury, to indulge in pleasures, andto do whatever they can; for they will possess noneof the future goods. But those who have determinedto accept the blessings of the future reign have no[Pg 164]right to regard as their own the things that are here,since they belong to a foreign king, with the exceptiononly of water and bread and those things procuredwith sweat to maintain life (for it is not lawful tocommit suicide); and also only one garment, for theyare not permitted to go naked." (Clem. Hom. xv. 7.)

A word here about the "Sepher Toldoth Jeshu," awork which orthodoxy as usual would moderniseovermuch. It is a brief sketch of Christ's life, and, atany rate, represents the Jewish tradition of that importantevent. It announces that the Saviour washanged on a tree for sorcery. After that there was abitter strife between the "Nazarenes" and the"Judeans." The former, headed by Simeon BenKepha, (who, "according to his precept," abstainedfrom all food, and only ate "the bread of misery," anddrank the "water of sorrow,") altered all the datesof the Jewish festivals to make them fit in withevents in Christ's life. This seems to make Peterand the "Nazarenes" or Nazarites water-drinkingvegetarian ascetics.

Old Jerusalem, considered as a religious centre,quite eclipsed holy cities like Benares or mediævalRome, for the chief rites could only be performedthere. The Jewish Christians plainly traded withthis exceptional importance, adding a more powerfulclaim. For in Israel, for at least a hundred years,there had been a strange prophetic book, believed,even by the writer of one Christian scripture (Jude),to be written by the patriarch Enoch. This book wasbelieved to be genuine by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria,Origen, and Tertullian. For a thousand years[Pg 165]it was lost to Christendom, and then Bruce broughtback three copies from Abyssinia. ArchbishopLaurence translated the work in 1821.

The importance of the Book of Enoch is that itgives quite a new view of the mission of the Messiah.From their prophets the Jews expected a conquerorwho was to come with a "bow" and the "sword ofthe mighty," and to "have dominion from the Jordanto the ends of the earth." That he was to be a meremortal is proved by the fact that, according to Daniel,he was by-and-by to be "cut off." (Dan. ix. 26.) Butthe Son of Man of Enoch differed from this:—

"Before the sun and the signs were created, beforethe stars of heaven were formed, his name was invokedin the presence of the Lord of Spirits. Asupport shall he be for the righteous and the holy tolean upon, without falling, and he shall be the lightof nations.

"He shall be the hope of those whose hearts aretroubled. All who dwell on earth shall fall downand worship before him." (Enoch xlviii.)

"Behold he comes with ten thousand of his saintsto execute judgment upon them and destroy thewicked." (Enoch ii.) This is the passage cited byJude.

"In those days shall the earth deliver up from herwomb, and hell deliver up from hers, that which ithas received, and destruction shall restore that whichit owes. He shall select the righteous and holy fromamong them." (Enoch i.)

"In those days shall the mouth of hell be opened,into which they shall be immerged. Hell shall[Pg 166]destroy and swallow up sinners from the face of theelect." (Enoch liv.)

"I beheld that valley in which ... arose a strongsmell of sulphur.... Through that valley rivers offire were flowing." (Enoch lxvi. 5-8.)

"He shall select the righteous and holy from amongthem, for the day of their salvation has approached." ...(Enoch l. 2.)

"I saw the habitations and couches of the saints.Then my eyes beheld their habitations with theangels and their couches with the holy ones. Thusshall it be with them for ever and ever." (Enochxxxix. 4.)

"The former heaven shall depart and pass away, anew heaven shall appear." (Enoch xcii. 17.)

These texts show where the Jews got the idea of aSon of Man coming in the clouds of heaven andsummoning the dead from their graves for a greatassize. They show where Christianity got its heavenand its hell. The author of the "Evolution ofChristianity" gives in parallel columns a number ofother passages which seem to have suggested correspondingpassages in the Christian scriptures. Thedefenders of conventional orthodoxy urge that thesepassages and the passages I have quoted are post-Christianinterpolations. In the way of this theorystands the fact that Enoch describes only one advent,that of a superhuman, triumphant Messiah. Heknows nothing of a suffering, crucified mortal. Thatadvent, according to the Jewish ideas of the time,seemed at first blush a failure. Surely the firstobject of an interpolator would have been to suit his[Pg 167]prophecies to the double advent, and make thesecond explain the failure of the first. It is to beobserved, too, that Enoch's Son of Man rules inheaven. There is no mention of Jerusalem. Itseems very plain that the Apocalypse has attemptedto fuse together the Messiah of Enoch and theMessiah of Micah, and the clumsy expedient of athousand years preliminary rule in Jerusalem, entailing,as it does, two resurrections and two judgmentdays, is the result.

The Messiah of Enoch is plainly Craosha of thePersians, who will, one day, summon the dead tojudgment in their old material bodies, sending thewicked to Douzakh, and the good to Behisht.

2. Ancestor worship (the S'raddha). The Buddhasof the Past had offerings given to them at statedperiods at their topes, for which they were expected toperform miracles.

Nothing can be more explicit than the statementsin the gospels about the fate of the dead. Souls andbodies are to remain in the festering grave until atrumpet shall sound. Then the body as well as thesoul will arise for an universal judgment.

But side by side with this idea soon sprang up aconflicting one, the "Communion of Saints."

"God dwells in the bones of the martyrs," said St.Ephrem, "and by his power and presence miracles arewrought." ("Wiseman's Lectures," xi. 105.) Soonthe Buddhist saint worship and the Buddhist purga[Pg 168]torywere taken over by the Church, AlexandrianBuddhism fighting with the dualism of PersianBuddhism.

But if there has been no judgment, how can we tellwho is in purgatory, and who are the saints? Thisquestion seems to have stirred Cardinal Newman,and he attempted an answer in his "Dream of St.Gerontius." Christ has a "rehearsal of judgment."This is, of course, preposterous.

CHAPTER X.

The Indians of old observed that one portion of thesky was dark at night and one portion lit with stars.They judged that the dark portion was spirit—primarysubstance, and that the light portion was thesame substance made tangible to the senses under theform of matter. The Buddhists took over these ideasand called the dark portion Nirvritti and the lightportion Pravritti. In Nirvritti dwelt the formless,passionless, inconceivable God—Swayambhu the Self-Existent.Pravritti contained numerous world-systems(Buddha-Kshetras), the Ogdoads of the Gnostics.These christened Nirvritti "Buthos," and Pravritti,the luminous worlds, the "Pleroma." In Buddhism,Pravritti was presided over by five beings, emanationsfrom Swayambhu. These are announced in theBuddhist books to be simply the attributes of Swayambhupersonified. They were probably invented toprovide the vulgar with a substitute for the oldBrahmin hierarchy. Each has a Sakti (wife, femaleenergy). I give a list of them with their Saktis, andthe divine attributes that they personify.

Turning to Basilides we find that he placed inButhos the "Unnameable," a being similar to Swayambhu.From the Unnameable emanated also fivebeings, whom he called Æons (Eternals), a substitutefor the Dhyani Buddhas. Their names were Nous(Mind), Logos (Speech), Phronesis (Prudence), Sophia(Wisdom), Dunamis (Power).

Plainly these also are simply divine attributes personified,the five Dhyani Buddhas.

Valentinus has also a supreme Æon, Unbegotten,Invisible, Self-Existent, remaining from everlasting inimpassive serenity. This God, named Bythus, has hisSakti like the Dhyani Buddhas. She is called Ennœa(Idea), also Charis (Grace).

Bythus is also called Propator (First Father). Aftercountless ages he determines to evolve the Pleroma,and for that purpose brings forth Nous (Mind) andAletheia (Truth).

From Nous, according to Valentinus, by the aid of[Pg 171]Aletheia proceeded Logos (Word) and Zoe (Life).Nous was also called Monogenes (the Only Begotten).

Zoe brought forth Anthropos (Man) and Ecclesia(Church). These brought forth other Æons.

In this system Christ figures as Phos (Light), Soter(Saviour), and Logos (Word). He gives light to thePleroma.

Now let us turn to the famous opening verses ofthe fourth gospel. I copy down the translation ofthem by the author of the "Evolution of Christianity."

"In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logoswas with God, and the Logos was divine. The samewas in the beginning with God. All things came intoexistence through him, and without him nothing cameinto existence. That which hath been made in himwas Zoe (Life), and Zoe was the Phos (Light) of men,and Phos shineth in the darkness, and the darknessapprehended it not....

"And the Logos became flesh, and dwelt amongst us,full of Charis (Grace) and Aletheia (Truth). And webeheld his glory, glory as of Monogenes (the OnlyBegotten) from the Father."

As the author of the "Evolution of Christianity"truly says, we have here a condensation of the Æonsof Valentinus. John unifies Christ in Monogenes,Logos, Phos, and Soter. He descends as Phos (Light).He has Æonic relationship with Charis and Aletheia.

"It was the Father's good pleasure that in him thewhole Pleroma should have its home" (Col. i. 19).

"The Church, which is his body, the Pleroma ofhim that filleth all in all." (Eph. i. 23.)

The author of the "Evolution of Christianity"shows that the authorised version has no sense. Heamends it thus:—

In chapter ii. I said that Buddha, like the GnosticChrist, ruled the Pleroma or Pravritti. In the "LalitaVistara" many pages are devoted to show that he isPurusha, the God-man of the Hindoos. Purusha isalways contrasted with Pracriti, the Buthos of theGnostics, that part of the Kosmos which is un-fashionedand non-luminous. Purusha is like thedivine man of the Kabbalah, the Christ of St. Paul,humanity, ideal humanity. Valentinus proclaimedthat from Sophia the Mother, proceeded Ecclesia theChurch. Jesus called his flock the sons of Sophia,and said that his mother, the Holy Spirit, had carriedhim up to the top of Mount Tabor.

3. Sangha (literally Union). Sangha "created theworlds," says the Pûja Kanda. (For this triad, seeHodgson, "Lit. Nepal," p. 88.) This triad with thevulgar is now Buddha, his Law, and the Church.

A version of this was not unknown in Palestine, forHegesippus records of the early Christians:—

CHAPTER XI.

I have left myself little space to write of the manypoints of close similarity between the Buddhists andthe Roman Catholics.

The French missionary Huc, in his celebratedtravels in Thibet, was much struck with this similarity.

"The crozier, the mitre, the dalmatic, the cope orpluvial, which the grand lamas wear on a journey, orwhen they perform some ceremony outside the temple,the service with a double choir, psalmody, exorcisms,the censer swinging on five chains, and contrived tobe opened and shut at will, benediction by the lamas,with the right hand extended over the heads of thefaithful, the chaplet, sacerdotal celibacy, Lenten retirementsfrom the world, the worship of saints, fasts,processions, litanies, holy water—these are the pointsof contact between the Buddhists and ourselves."

Listen also to Father Disderi, who visited Thibet inthe year 1714. "The lamas have a tonsure like ourpriests, and are bound over to perpetual celibacy.They study their scriptures in a language and incharacters that differ from the ordinary characters.They recite prayers in choir. They serve the temple,present the offerings, and keep the lamps perpetuallyalight. They offer to God corn and barley and paste[Pg 175]and water in little vases, which are extremely clean.Food thus offered is considered consecrated, and theyeat it. The lamas have local superiors, and a superiorgeneral." ("Lettres edifiantes," vol. iii., p. 534.)

Father Grueber, with another priest named Dorville,passed from Pekin through Thibet to Patna in the year1661. Henry Prinsep ("Thibet Tartary, etc.," p. 14)thus sums up what he has recorded:—

"Father Grueber was much struck with the extraordinarysimilarity he found, as well in the doctrineas in the rituals of the Buddhists of Lha Sa, to thoseof his own Romish faith. He noticed, first, thatthe dress of the lamas corresponded with that handeddown to us in ancient paintings as the dress of theApostles. Second, that the discipline of themonasteries and of the different orders of lamas orpriests bore the same resemblance to that of theRomish Church. Third, that the notion of an Incarnationwas common to both, so also the belief inparadise and purgatory. Fourth, he remarked thatthey made suffrages, alms, prayers, and sacrifices forthe dead, like the Roman Catholics. Fifth, that theyhad convents filled with monks and friars to thenumber of thirty thousand, near Lha Sa, who allmade the three vows of poverty, obedience, andchastity, like Roman monks, besides other vows.Sixth, that they had confessors licensed by thesuperior lamas or bishops, and so empowered toreceive confessions, impose penances, and give absolution.Besides all this there was found the practice ofusing holy water, of singing service in alternation, ofpraying for the dead, and of perfect similarity in the[Pg 176]customs of the great and superior lamas to those ofthe different orders of the Romish hierarchy. Theseearly missionaries further were led to conclude fromwhat they saw and heard that the ancient books ofthe lamas contained traces of the Christian religion,which must, they thought, have been preached inThibet in the time of the Apostles."

In the year 1829, Victor Jacquemont, the Frenchbotanist, made a short excursion from Simla intoThibet. He writes: "The Grand Lama of Kanum hasthe episcopal mitre and crozier. He is dressed justlike our bishops. A superficial observer at a littledistance would take his Thibetan and Buddhist massfor a Roman mass of the first water. He makestwenty genuflexions at the right intervals, turns tothe altar and then to the congregation, rings a bell,drinks in a chalice water poured out by an acolyte,intones paternosters quite of the right sing-song—theresemblance is really shocking. But men whose faithis properly robust will see here nothing but a corruptionof Christianity." (Corr. vol. i., p. 265.)

It must be borne in mind that what is calledSouthern Buddhism has the same rites. St. FrancisXavier in Japan found Southern Buddhism so likehis own that he donned the yellow sanghâti, andcalled himself an apostle of Buddha, quieting hisconscience by furtively mumbling a little Latin ofthe baptismal service over some of his "converts."

This is what the Rev. S. Beal, a chaplain in thenavy, wrote of a liturgy that he found in China:—

"The form of this office is a very curious one. Itbears a singular likeness in its outline to the common[Pg 177]type of the Eastern Christian liturgies. That is tosay there is a 'Proanaphoral' and an 'Anaphoral'portion. There is a prayer of entrance (τῆς εἰσοδου [Greek: tês eisodou]), aprayer of incense (τοῦ θυμιάματος [Greek: tou thymiamatos]), an ascription ofpraise to the threefold object of worship (τρισαγίον [Greek: trisagion]), aprayer of oblation (τῆς προσ θεσεως [Greek: tês pros theseôs]), the lections, therecitations of the Dharanî (μυστηριον [Greek: mystêrion]), the Embolismusor prayer against temptation, followed by a 'Confession,'and a 'Dismissal.'" ("Catena of BuddhistScriptures," p. 397.)

Turning to architecture, I must point out that Mr.Fergusson, the leading authority in ancient art, was ofopinion that the various details of the early Christianbasilica—nave, aisle, columns, semi-domed apse, cruciformground plan—were borroweden bloc from theBuddhists. Mr. Fergusson lays special stress on theDâgoba and its enshrined relics, represented in theChristian Church by the high altar, the bones of asaint, the baldechino. Relic worship, he says, wascertainly borrowed from the East. Of the rock-cuttemple of Kârle (B.C. 78) he writes:—

"The building resembles, to a great extent, anearly Christian church in its arrangements, consistingof a nave and side aisles terminating in an apse orsemi-dome, round which the aisle is carried.... As ascale for comparison, it may be mentioned that itsarrangements and dimensions are very similar to thoseof the choir of Norwich Cathedral, and of theAbbaye aux Hommes at Caen, omitting the outeraisles in the latter buildings.

Immediately under the semi-dome of the apse, andnearly where the altar stands in Christian churches, is[Pg 178]placed the Dâgoba. ("Indian and Eastern Architecture,"p. 117.)

The list of resemblances is by no means exhausted.The monks on entering a temple make the gesturethat we call the sign of the cross. The Buddhistshave illuminated missals, Gregorian chants, a tabernacleon the altar for oblations, a pope, cardinals,angels with wings, saints with the nimbus. For afull account I must refer the reader to my "Buddhismin Christendom," where I give (pp. 182, 184)drawings of monks and nuns, the Virgin and Child(p. 205), the adoration of the rice cake on the altar(p. 83), Buddha coming down to the altar with theheavenly host (p. 210), the long candles, artificialflowers, cross, incense burner, and divine figure withthe aureole, of the Buddhist temple (p. 208). Theelection of the Grand Lâma I show to be pin for pinlike the election of the Pope. The list is endless.

The first attempts to make light of the matter altogether.All religions, it says, have sacrifice, incense,priests, the idea of faith, etc. This may be called theorthodox Protestant theory, and many bulky bookshave recently appeared propounding it. But as thesebooks avoid all the strong points of the case, theycannot be called at all satisfactory to the bewilderedinquirer.

To this theory the Roman Catholics reply that thesimilarities between Buddhism and Catholicism are somicroscopic and so complete, that one religion musthave borrowed from the other. In consequence they[Pg 179]try to prove that the rites of Buddhism and the lifeof its founder were derived from Christianity, fromthe Nestorians, from St. Thomas, from St. Hyacinthof Poland, from St. Oderic of Frioul. (See AbbéProuvéze, "Life of Gabriel Durand," vol. ii., p. 365.)

In the way of this theory, however, there are alsoinsuperable difficulties. Buddha died 470 yearsbefore Christ, and for many years the ChristianChurch had no basilicas, popes, cardinals, basilicaworship, nor even for a long time a definite life of thefounder. At the date of Asoka (B.C. 260) there was ametrical life of Buddha (Muni Gatha), and the incidentsof this life are found sculptured in marble onthe gateways of Buddhist temples that precede theChristian epoch. This is the testimony of SirAlexander Cunningham, the greatest of Indianarchæologists. He fixes the date of the BharhutStupa at from 270 to 250B.C. There he finds QueenMâyâ's dream of the elephant, the Rishis at theploughing match, the transfiguration of Buddha andthe ladder of diamonds, and other incidents. At theSanchi tope, an earlier structure (although the presentmarble gateways, repeated probably from wood, arefixed at about 19A.D.), he announces representationsof Buddha as an elephant coming down to hismother's womb, three out of the "Four PresagingTokens," Buddha bending the bow of Sinhahanu,King Bimbisâra visiting the young prince, and otherincidents.

A man who invents a novel high explosive, or aquick-firing gun, at once puts his idea to a practicaltest. Let us try and construct a working model here.[Pg 180]Suppose that the present ruler of Afghanistan werepaying us a visit, and, introduced at Fulham Palace,he were to suggest that the life of Mahomet shouldsupersede that of Jesus in our Bible, and Mussulmanrites replace the Christian ritual in the diocese ofLondon. What would be the answer? The bishop,anxious to deal gently with a valuable ally, wouldpoint out that he was only a cogwheel in a vastmachinery, a cogwheel that could be promptly replacedif it proved the least out of gear. He would showthat the Anglican Church had a mass of very definiterules called canon law, with courts empowered to punishthe slightest infringement of these rules. He wouldshow that even an archbishop could not alter a tittleof the gospel narrative. Every man, woman, andchild would immediately detect the change.

Similar difficulties would be in the way of St. Hyacinthof Poland in, say, a monastery of Ceylon. The abbotthere would be responsible to what Bishop Bigandetcalls his "provincial," and he again to his "supérieurgénéral" (p. 478), and so on to the Âchârya, the"High Priest of all the World," who, in his palace atNalanda, near Buddha Gayâ, was wont to sit in state,surrounded by ten thousand monks. Buddhism, bythe time that a Christian missionary could havereached it, was a far more diffused and conservativereligion than Anglicanism. It had a canon law quiteas definite. It had hundreds of volumes treating ofthe minutest acts of Sakya Muni.

INDEX.

Amrapalî, the Buddhist Magdalene,61.
Alexandria, bridges East and West,102.
Altar, Apostles of the Bloodless,99et seq.
Antiochus, mentioned by King Asoka,97.
Apostles, the Buddhist Parivrajakas,105.
Appearances of Buddha after death,67.
Architecture, Christian, derived from the Buddhist rock temples,177.
Asita, the Indian Simeon,29.
Asoka, King,93et seq.
Atheism, early Buddhist disproved,77et seq.
Atonement,68.
Baptism, the Buddhist,43,108.
Beal, Rev. S., on a Buddhist liturgy,176.
Beatitudes, the Buddhist,48.
Bigandet, Catholic bishop, his "Life of Gautama" cited,27et passim.
Bimbisâra, advised like Herod to kill the Holy Child,28.
Bhikshu, Buddhist beggar, Ebionite,129.
Bodhi, Gnosis, interior knowledge,77.
Brahma, union with, object of early Buddhism,80.
Buddha, born of a virgin,24;
Star in the East,26;
Baptism and fasting,44;
Temptation,45;
Disputation with the doctors,30;
Third commandment,51;
Triumphant entry into the city of the king,54;
Forsaken by disciples,58;
Transfigured,63;
Last supper,65;
Death,65;
Darkness over all the land at his death,65.
Buddhism defined,77;
Schools of,84;
Eight spiritual states,108.
Burnouf, Emile, considers Christianity due to a conflict between Mosaism and Buddhism,1.
Ceylon scriptures,85.
Chakravartin, King of Kings, Messiah,35.
Chief priest in early Church modelled on Jewish,161.
Circumcision widely spread amongst savages,15.
Church of Jerusalem, creed,129; Description of,160.
[Pg 182]Clement of Alexandria on the Hylobii and followers of Buddha,89.
Colebrooke, Henry, Orientalist, sees Buddhist philosophy in the teaching of Pythagoras,101.
Cunningham, Sir Alexander, traces incidents of Buddha's life in pre-Christian sculptures in the Buddhist temples,179.
Darkness over the land at Buddha's death,65.
Daranatha, Chinese historian, valuable testimony about early Buddhism,90,99.
Disciple whom Buddha loved,46.
Disciples, twelve great,46.
Disderi, Father, visits Lha Sa,174.
Ebionite, Buddhist bhikshu,129.
Enoch, Book of,164.
Epiphanius cited,130.
Essenes, due to Buddhist propagandism, Philo on,103.
"Evolution of Christianity," author of cited,171.
Ezra compiles Old Testament,6,7.
Faith in Buddhist books,62.
Fergusson, James, architect, derives Christian basilica from Buddhist rock temple,177.
"Follow me!" phrase used by Buddha,46.
Freemasonry in Buddhism, Mithraism, etc.,100.
"Fulfilling," vague word without any meaning in modern polemics,143.
Giles, Rev., on the Christian forgeries of Peregrinus,128;
Amended version of Luke's opening verses,144.
Ginsburg, Dr., on the eight spiritual states of the Essenes,107.
"Glad tidings" (Subha Shita), word used for the Buddhist revelation,46.
Golden book for the Buddhist recording angels,68.
"Golden Bough," by Mr. Frazer, cited,9.
Grueber, Father, on Buddhist rites, etc.,175.
Gymnosophists, Buddhists,104.
Heaven, the Buddhist,68.
Hebrews, Gospel according to,114et seq.;
St. Jerome on,101;
Condemned and suppressed,129.
Hegesippus used Gospel according to the Hebrews,112;
Describes James,162.
Hippolytus cited to show that the early Church held Christ to be a mere man,129.
Hodgson, Bryan, on the Pyrrhonism of the second or "Great Vehicle" school of Buddhism,86.
Holy Ghost descendsinto Christ, in the Gospel according to the Hebrews,131.
[Pg 183]Hylobii, Greek term for Buddhists,89.
Irenæus, on Gospel according to Hebrews,112;
On the many spurious gospels in his day,128;
Shows that early Church of Jerusalem used water in the communion,130.
Jacquemont, Victor, French botanist, on similarity of Buddhist and Catholic mass,176.
James succeeds Christ, who appears and gives him communion bread on the very night of the Crucifixion,133;
Account by Hegesippus,162.
Jerome, St., on the Gospel of the Hebrews,111.
Jerusalem, Church of,160et seq.
Josephus, initiation of Essenes,137.
Judas, the Buddhist,64.
Justin Martyr,112et seq.
Kanishka, or Kanerkos, introduces atheistic Buddhism and Pyrrhonism,85.
Kârle, cave temple, described,177.
Karma, the Buddhist doctrine, mixed up with the Atonement,68.
Lang, Andrew, on savage terrorism,9.
Lightfoot, Bishop, on the "swathing bands" of Judaism,141.
Luke, Gospel of, analysed,144.
Magic, Buddhist,79.
Maitreya, Buddha of Brotherly Love,2.
Man born blind, parable,79.
Matthew, St., an ascetic,164.
Marcion's gospel, testimony of Megethius that it has been added to and falsified,146.
Megasthenes on the Buddhists,90.
Mithras, religion of,99.
Müller, Max, on Buddhism,77.
Newman, Cardinal, his "Dream of St. Gerontius,"168.
Nicator, Seleucus, sends an ambassador to Patna,89.
Nicholson, E. B., best authority on the Gospel according to the Hebrews,114.
Nirvritti the same as the Pleroma of the Gnostics,169.
Nuns in Buddhism and Essenism,106.
Origen on the abundant falsification of the gospels in his day,128.
Oswald, Felix, cited,57.
Papias, Bishop, on the composition of the gospels,111.
Parables, the Buddhist,70et seq.
Pax Vobiscum! the Hebrew "Schalom!" the Buddhist "Sadhu!"47.
Peregrinus composes Christian scriptures,128.
Peter, Gospel according to, cited,127.
Philo on the Essenes and Therapeuts,104;
[Pg 184]Connects them with the Gymnosophists of India,104.
Photismos in early Church,107.
Pravritti, the Buthos of the Gnostics,169.
Prodigal Son, Buddhist parable,70.
Protevangelion compared with Luke's gospel,149.
Pythagoras, Buddha's teaching fathered on,101.
Racine translates the "Contemplative Life of Philo,"136.
"Rakshà Bhagavatî" the great Bible of atheistic Buddhism,86.
Rajendra Lala Mitra proves atheistic Buddhism to have been forced on early Buddhism by the "Great Vehicle,"A.D.20,85.
Renan on the Church of Jerusalem,161;
On the status of St. James,134.
Revue des Deux Mondes defines Christianity as due to a conflict between Buddhism and Mosaism,1.
Saints appear at Buddha's death,66.
Samanna Phala Sutta cited,79.
Sayings of Christ, according to Justin Martyr,117.
Semites,4,5.
Smith, Professor Robertson, on the "Totems" of the Old Testament,19.
Son of Perdition, the Buddhist,64.
Sunyapushpa (the "Carriage that drives Nowhere"), nickname of early Buddhists for innovating Pyrrhonism,91.
Supper, Buddhist last,65.
Sutta, Tevigga, gives Buddha's ideas about God,80.
Therapeuts,see Essenes.
Throne, great white,67.
Transfiguration, the Buddhist,63.
Twelve great disciples of Buddha,46.
"Vehicle, Great,"85;
"Little,"84,85.
Valentinus, fourth gospel due to his teaching,172.
Walking on water, miracle,59.
War in Heaven,61.
Washing feet,64.
Wassiljew cited,90.
Williams, Sir Monier, his views on Buddhism,77.
Woman at the well,70.
Zacharias, legend about,148.
Zoroaster, Buddha as,98.

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	B.C.
Adam	4004
Abraham	1996
Moses	1571
Nebuchadnezzar leads Jews in captivity to Babylon	587
Jews restored	517
Ezra	457

ATTRIBUTES.	DHYANI BUDDHAS.	SAKTIS.
Su-vis'uddha Dharma Dhâtu. (Purifying eternal law.)	Vairochana. (Sun-born.)	Vajra Dhateswatî. (Goddess of eternal elements.)
Adarsana. (Invisibility).	Akshobhya. (Immovable.)	Lochanâ.(Eye goddess.)
Prativekshana. (Eyes that sleep not.)	Ratna-Sambhava. (Born of the jewel.)	Mamukhî.
Sânta. (Calmness.)	Amitabha. (Diffusing infinite light.)	Pândarâ. (Pale goddess.)
Krityânushtana.(One who performs rites.)	Amogha-Siddha. (Unfailing aim.)	Târâ. (Star.)

CHAP.	PAGE
	INTRODUCTORY	1
I.	MOSES	4
II.	BUDDHA	23
III.	THE FOUR PRESAGING TOKENS	35
IV.	AFTER BUDDHA'S DEATH	77
V.	THE APOSTLES OF THE BLOODLESS ALTAR	98
VI.	THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS	111
VII.	THE ESSENE JESUS	135
VIII.	THE ANTI-ESSENE JESUS	144
IX.	THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM	160
X.	JOHANNINE BUDDHISM	169
XI.	RITES	174
	INDEX	181

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