Skip to main content

Full text of "Buddhism and Christianity, a parallel and a contrast"

See other formats 


,1    ,   ■■•  ' 


•'.'•<,'■  V 


1  .    ■ 


;-,^',:V!.'\- 


vvt\\^^i 


.0^ 


^^  ^  ftt  ito%iai  j^^;  ^ 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


% 


Skel/-. 


Division 

Section.. 
Number. 


I       ■>,  =.  M. 


%*i<  ^ 


:,  i-'- 


I  ip*  J. 


,*  •^'. 


M       ^       4  J,. 


r 


Tin 


■^^MS 


^^  .-Tit  .  •< 


l^¥ 


W . 


%    ■    ■ 


#r    ' 


3.'' .     ■* 


BUDDHISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY 

A  PARALLEL  AND  A  CONTRAST 


1 


FEB  14197? 


BUDDHISM 

A^D    CHRISTIANITY 


A  PAEALLEL  AND  A  CONTRAST 


BEING 


TRB  CEOALL  LECTURE  FOE  18S9-90 


BY 


ARCHIBALD   SCOTT,   D.D. 

MINISTER  OF  ST.  OEORGE'S  PARISH,  EDINBURGH 


EDINBURGH:   DAVID    DOUGLAS 

MDCCCXC 


[All  rights  reserved.] 


PREFACE 

In  endeavouring  to  sketch  in  so  limited  a  space 
even  the  most  salient  features  of  the  many- 
sided  religion  of  Buddhism  it  is  possible  that 
here  and  there  I  may  have  misrepresented  it. 
If  so,  I  hope  the  fault  will  be  attributed  to  inad- 
vertence, or  rather  to  disadvantages  under  which 
I  have  worked.  The  sacred  beliefs  of  any  section 
of  mankind  are  entitled  to  receive  at  our  hands  not 
only  justice  but  kindly  consideration,  and  a  religion 
so  vast  and  in  some  respects  so  wonderful  as 
Buddhism  ought  to  have  much  to  commend  it  to 
our  sympathy.  Long  and  patient  study  of  it  has 
indeed  greatly  modified  opinions  originally  formed 
concerning  it,  but  it  has  only  tended  to  increase 
respect  for  so  earnest  an  effort  of  the  intellect  to 
solve  the  mystery  of  human  life  and  destiny. 
Even    Christians   may    have    something    to    learn 


vi  PREFACE. 

from  Buddhists.  The  divers  and  seemingly  anta- 
gonistic Churches  of  Christendom  help  to  educate 
and  reform  each  other,  and  non- Christian  religions 
may  perform  a  similar  office  to  Christianity  in 
bringing  into  prominence  some  universal  truths 
which  its  creeds  have  allowed  to  slip  into  forgetful- 
ness.  Our  perception  and  apprehension  of  what 
Christianity  really  is  will  be  all  the  clearer  and 
firmer  for  an  impartial  study  of  the  system 
formulated  so  long  ago  by  Gotama  the  Buddha. 

The  aim  of  the  Lecture  has  not  been  to  use  the 
extravagances  of  Buddhism  as  a  foil  to  set  off  the 
excellencies  of  Christianity.  That  Christianity  as 
a  religion  is  immensely  superior  to  Buddhism  goes 
without  saying,  unless  in  the  case  of  a  very  small 
and  conceited  and  purblind  minority.  I  have  tried 
by  a  fair  exposition  of  what  is  best  and  highest 
in  this  religion  to  discover  its  feeling  after  some- 
thing better  and  higher  still,  and  to  suggest  rather 
than  indicate  the  place  which  it  occupies  in  the 
religious  education  of  humanity.     As 

t 

"  Man  hath  all  which  nature  hath,  but  more, 
And  in  that  more  lie  all  his  hopes  of  good," 

so  Christianity,  while  having  in  it  in  fuller  measure 
and  clearer  form  every  truth  that  has  vivified  any 
other  religion,  has  in  it,  as  the  new  creation  to  which 


PREFACE.  vii 

the  long  travail  of  the  soul  under  every  form  of 
faith  has  from  the  first  been  pointing,  something 
pecuhar  and  contrasted — whicli  is  the  Divine  an- 
swer to  all  their  aspirations.  This  we  do  not  need 
to  demonstrate :  indeed  it  may  be  a  verity,  as 
incapable  of  demonstration  as  is  that  of  the  ex- 
istence of  Deity  or  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
It  is  sure  eventually  to  be  almost  universally 
recognised,  and  meanwhile,  whether  accepted  or 
denied,  we  may  say — B  jnir  si  muove. 

Very  gratefully  would  I  acknowledge  my  pro- 
found obligations  to  all  who  have  instructed  me  in 
this  subject.  Though  we  no  longer  regard  the 
Saddharma-Pundarika  and  Lalita  Vistara  as  good 
specimens  of  Buddhism,  we  still  venerate  the  great 
scholars  who  first  introduced  them  to  our  notice. 
The  splendid  productions  of  Burnouf,  Foucaux, 
Koppen,  Stanislas  Julien,  Hodgson  and  Turnour ; 
the  excellent  works  of  Spence  Hardy,  Gogerly, 
Biganclet  and  H.  H.  Wilson,  and,  among  the 
best  of  all,  the  laborious  and  faithful  Dictionary 
of  Professor  Childers,  though  several  of  them  are 
unfortunately  out  of  print,  are  not  likely  to  be 
soon  out  of  date.  It  is  with  pleasure  that  we 
find   them    so   frequently   quoted   or    referred    to 


viii  PREFACE. 

by  our  latest  and  Ijest  authorities.  Still,  ever 
since  Professor  Max  Muller  organised  his  truly 
catholic  enterprise  of  the  translation  of  the 
Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  he  has  brought  us 
very  considerably  nearer  to  real  Buddhist  teachers 
themselves.  To  praise  the  scholarship  of  him- 
self, and  Oldenberg,  and  Rhys  Davids,  and  Kern, 
and  Fausboll,  and  others  of  his  colJahorateurs, 
would  be  unwarrantable  j^vesumption  on  my  part ; 
but  as  a  humble  disciple  very  willing  to  learn,  I 
am  glad  to  have  this  opportunity  of  publicly 
expressing  my  apj)reciation  of  the  great  services 
which  in  their  editions  of  old  Eastern  texts,  and  in 
these  series  of  translations,  they  are  rendering  to 
the  cause  of  religion. 

The  lectures  were  drafted  and  in  great  part 
written  before  I  read  the  very  valuable  works  of 
Sir  Monier  Williams  on  Buddhism  and  of  Dr. 
Kellogg  on  the  Light  of  Asia  and  the  Light  of  the 
World.  I  specially  mention  these  books  as  likely 
to  prove  very  useful  guides  to  any  one  desirous  of 
prosecuting  the  subject  of  the  present  Lecture. 
In  the  notes  I  have  marked  my  indebtedness  to 
them,  and  to  many  authors  of  what  has  already 
become  a  great  literature.  Many  others  whose 
works  have  been  of  service   to  me   in  a  course  of 


PREFACE.  IX 

reading  extending  over  many  years  are  not 
noted,  simply  because  in  the  caprices  of  memory 
my  peculiar  obligations  to  them  could  not  at  the 
time  be  recalled. 

For  in  regard  to  Buddhism  I  do  not  profess  to 
add  any  original  information  to  the  stock  already 
acquired.  Others  have  extracted  the  ore  from  these 
old  and  interesting  fields,  and  minted  it  into  gold 
and  silver.  What  has  thus  been  rendered  available 
many  like  myself  can  only  reduce  into  copper  or 
bronze,  but  if  only  our  work  be  faithfully  done, 
we  may  thus  help  in  increasing  the  currency  and 
in  extending  its  circulation.  With  this  in  view 
I  accepted  the  honour  which  the  Croall  Trustees 
conferred  upon  me  in  calling  me  to  undertake  this 
Lecture,  and  if  the  only  effect  of  my  eflbrts  be  to 
stimulate  other  ministers  of  the  Church  more  advan- 
tageously situated  to  prosecute  their  researches  to 
much  bettei-  purpose,  no  one  will  be  more  pleased 

than  myself. 

ARCHIBALD   SCOTL 

Edinburgh,  25th  December  1889. 


CONTENTS 

LECTUEE    I. 

INTRODUCTORY  :    NECESSITY   FOR   A   PROPER   COMPARISON    OF 
BUDDHISM   AND    CHRISTIANITY. 

Schopenhauer's  prediction  as  to  the  influence  of  Oriental  studies  upon 
European  religion  and  philosophy — New  science   of  Comparative 
Theology — Its  value  to  the  expounders  of  Christianity — Study  of^ 
all  religions  binding  upon  Christians — Special  claims  of  Buddhism 
— Its  duration  and  wide-spread  diftusion — The  quality  of  its  doc- 
trinal and   ethical  system — The   correspondences   between  it  and  - 
Christianity— Instructive    parallels    of    historical    development — 
Kesemblances,  if  granted  or  assumed,  not  to  be  accounted  for  by 
theory   of  derivation — Renan — E.  Burnouf — Ernest  de  Bunsen — 
Both  religions  independent  in  origin,  though  analogous  in  develop- 
ment— What  the  significance  of  this— True  answer  to  be  found,  not 
by  examining  alleged  resemblances  between  the  religions,  but  theirP" 
points  of  contradiction  and  contrast — Unity  of  humanity  involves 
organic   unity   of  language   and   of  religion — What  is  meant  by 
organic  unity  and  development  of  religion — Declarations  of  Scripture 
— Christianity  as  the  universal  religion  has  mucli  in  common  with 
all — has  something  peculiar  to  itself  which  it  possesses  in  contrast 
— In  this  will  be  found  not  only  its  superiority  to  all  the  rest,  but   , 
the  answer  to  all  their  cravings  and  aspirations,        .         Pages  1-5S 

LECTUEE   11. 

THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIAN- 
ITY, AND  THE  EVIDENTIAL  VALUE  OF  THEIR  RESPECTIVE 
SCRIPTURES. 

Both  religions  inherited  and  produced  scriptures — Christian  scriptures 
criticised  for  eighteen  centuries — Buddhist  scriptures  as  yet  only  in 
part  available  for  examination — Admissions  made  by  translators  in 
regard  to  them — Strong  contrasts  between  two  sets  of  scriptures, 


/ 


xii  CONTENTS. 

in  respect  of  authenticity  and  genuineness — Impossible  to  regard 
the  two  as  of  similar  canonical  or  authoritative  value — In  Buddhism 
only  oral  traditions  for  centuries — Effect  of  the  lack  of  a  real  canon 
in  primitive  Buddhism — Effect  of  a  fixed  and  written  canon  in  the 
development  of  Christianity — ^Antecedents  of  Buddhism — Vedic 
India — Brahmanic  India — Development  of  Brahmanic  speculation — ■ 
Its  higliest  reach  in  philosophical  Brahmanism — The  Upanishads — 
Pursuit  of  Atman — Antecedents  of  Christianity — Patriarchal  belief 
in  Deity — Mosaic  stage  of  religious  belief —The  religion  of  Moses 
and  the  prophets  too  pure  for  the  people  under  the  kings — 
Destruction  of  the  kingdom — Effect  of  Captivity  on  the  prophets 
— on  the  people — Difference  between  the  beliefs  and  hopes  of  the 
Diaspora  and  those  of  the  returned  Palestinian  Jews — Prepara- 
tion of  the  Empire  and  world  beyond  it  for  the  dawn  of 
Christianity,      .....  Pages  59-125 

LECTURE   III. 

THE  BUDDHA   OF  THE    PITAKAS  :   THE  CHRIST   OF  THE 
NEW    TESTAMENT. 

Palestine  at  the  birth  of  Christ — India  at  the  birth  of  Gotama — Like, 
yet  unlike — Analogies  in  development  of  previous  beliefs  and 
speculation — Contrasts — Gotama's  life  and  ministry  contrasted 
with  the  life  and  ministry  of  Jesus — The  difference  between 
their  personal  relations  to  the  religions  which  they  founded — 
"I  take  refuge  in  Buddha" — "I  believe  in  Christ"— The  super- 
natural in  both  religions — Pre-existence,  incarnation,  and  miracles 
ascribed  to  Buddha — Sources  of  information  as  to  these  beliefs 
examined  and  compared  with  the  Gospel  accounts — Relation  of  the 
miracles  to  each  religion — -Nature  of  the  miracles  themselves — 
Growth  of  Buddhist  legends  described  by  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids — 
Implied  growth  of  the  Christian  legends  examined  —  Essential 
contrasts  manifest  all  through — Buddha  can  be  accounted  for,  but 
Christ  is  the  Miracle  of  History,        .  .  Par/es  126-191 

LECTURE   IV. 

THE   DHARMA   OF   BUDDHA  :   THE   GOSPEL    OF   CHRIST. 

Gotama's  discovery  at  Bohimanda — The  Four  Sacred  Verities — The 
noble   Eightfold   Way  —  His   theory   of   life   different    from   but 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

not  wholly  antagonistic  to  that  of  speculative  Brahmanism  — 
Existence  not  illusion,  but  essentially  evil  —  Transmigration 
—  "  Modern  Buddhists'  "  defence  of  the  dogma  —  Contrast 
between  it  and  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Fall  —  Christianity 
in  its  sorest  struggle  with  evil  hopeful  —  Buddhism  hopeless  — 
atheistic  —  materialistic,  yet  has  its  own  way,  not  of  victory, 
but  of  retreat  and  escape  —  Doctrine  of  Karma  analogous  to 
Christian  doctrine  of  Heredity,  yet  really  contrasted — Goal  of  all 
Buddhist  aspiration  and  effort— Nirvana,  point-blank  contradiction 
to  Christian  goal,  yet  way  to  it  analogous — Arhatship  as  essential 
in  Buddhism  as  holiness  is  in  Christianity — Noble  quality  of 
Buddhist  ethical  code — Its  approach  to  the  Christian  rule — A  law 
not  for  all — Its  degrees  or  paths  of  perfection — Uprightness — 
Meditation — Enlightenment — Christ's  way  of  salvation  and  sancti- 
fi  cation  by  the  Holy  Spirit  through  the  truth — Essential  defects  of 
Buddhist  scheme,  ....  Pages  192-252 


LECTUKE   V. 

THE   BUDDHIST   SANGHA  :   THE   CHRISTIAN    CHURCH. 

The  Church  the  fruit  of  Christianity,  the  Sangha  the  root  out  of  which 
Buddhism  sprang — The  Sangha  not  a  Church  but  an  Order — Dif- 
ferent from  the  many  Orders  then  existing,  yet  with  a  likeness  to 
them  which  it  never  lost — Eenunciation  of  secular  life  an  indis- 
pensable qualification  for  membership — Analogous  to  yet  essentially 
different  from  Monachism  in  Christianity,  and  in  utter  contrast 
to  the  idea  and  reality  of  the  Christian  Church — The  Sangha  as 
theoretically  open  to  all,  and  propagandist  in  its  purpose,  a  precursor 
of  the  Church — Actual  disqualifications  for  membership  —  Cere- 
monial of  admission — The  "outgoing"  from  the  world — Ceremonial  of 
Confirmation — The  "arrival" — The  novitiate  or  tutelage — The  rule 
of  the  Sangha —  No  vows  of  obedience  to  superiors — Stringent  vows  of 
poverty  and  chastity — Difference  between  a  Buddhist  Vihara  and 
a  Christian  monastery— Favourable  features  of  Buddhist  monastic 
life  —  The  Uposatha  gathering  —  The  Patimokkha  catechising  — 
The  Pavarana  invitation — Relation  of  women  to  the  Sangha — 
Institution  of  Order  of  Bikkhuni — The  relation  of  the  laity  to  the 
Sangha — The  Buddhist  layman's  only  possible  "  merit,"  and  his 
only  hope,  .....  rages  253-313 


xiv  CONTET^TTS. 

LECTUEE   VI. 

THE    1!ELIGI0NS   IN   HISTOllY. 

External  diffusion — Both  religions  missionary — Vastly  different  in  respect 
of  their  messages — -Buddhist  endeavour  to  perpetuate  a  system — 
Christian  endeavour  to  set  forth  and  interpret  the  facts  of  a  mira- 
culous life — Effect  of  belief  in  Christ's  continued  presence  u^son  the 
Church  —  Rapid  diffusion  of  Christianity  during  the  first  four 
centuries — Condition  of  Buddhism  during  a  similar  period — Spread 
of  Christianity  after  Constantine — Spread  of  Buddhism  after  Asoka 
— Difference  in  the  peoi^les  affected  by  both  religions — Inferences — 
Internal  history — Buddhism  and  Brahmanisni — Christianity  and 
Judaism — In  Buddhism  an  early  abandonment  of  fundamental 
principles  manifest — Recoil  of  human  nature  from  its  Atheism  into 
Polytheism  and  Tantrism — Degradation  of  Southern  and  Northern 
Buddhism  —  Buddhism  in  Tibet — Christianity  in  Abyssinia — 
History  of  Chinese  Buddhism  from  fourth  century  a.d.  analogous 
to  that  of  Christianity  in  Europe  from  same  date — Deterioration  of 
both  religions  similarly  indicated  —  Bodiharma  —  Modern  Neo- 
Buddhism — The  T'ien-t'ai  School — Reformed  Buddhism  in  China — 
in  Japan — Its  most  modern  attitude — Difi'erence  between  Buddhism 
and  Christianity — Alike  in  their  tendency  to  deteriorate — Chris- 
tianity alone  manifests  a  reforming  and  progressive  power — Re- 
sources of  Buddhism  manifestly  exhausted — Christianity  appar- 
ently in  only  an  initial  stage  of  develoijment,      .         Pages  314-386 

Postscript,  .....  Paj/es  387-391 


\ 


BUDDHISM   AND   CHRISTIANITY 


LECTUKE    I. 

NECESSITY    FOR   A    PROPER   COMPARISON    OF 
THE    TWO    RELIGIONS. 

Early  in  this  century  Schopenliauer,  fascinated  by 
the  contents  of  the  Upanishads,  which  had  been 
translated  from  the  Persian  into  Latin  by  the  iUus- 
trious  discoverer  of  the  Zend-Avesta,  ventured  to 
predict  that  the  influence  of  the  newly-found  Sans- 
krit literature  upon  the  philosophy  of  the  future 
would  not  be  less  profound  than  was  that  of  the 
revival  of  Greek  upon  the  religion  of  the  fourteenth 
century.^  That  century  was  marked  by  the  close  of 
the  mediaeval  age,  and  the  beginning  of  the  times 
of  Reformation  in  which  we  are  privileged  to  live. 
The  Reformation  was  not  an  event,  but  the  inaugu- 
ration of  a  period.  Its  significance  was  far  deeper 
than  that  of  a  revolt  from  ecclesiastical  supersti- 
tion and  corruption.  It  meant  a  quickening  of  the 
human  spirit,  and  a  consequent  awakening   of  the 

^  Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,  Pref.  xiii. 

A 


2         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON       lect.  i. 

human  intellect,  to  which  many  forces  other  than 
the  leading  religious  ones,  contributed ;  and  its 
effects  are  visible  not  simply  in  the  changes  which 
it  immediately  produced,  but  in  the  revolution 
which  is  still  actively  progressing  in  all  our  social, 
political,  and  religious  relations.  The  movement 
designated  by  the  Keformation  is  manifestly  far 
from  having  exhausted  itself,  and  there  can  be  no 
question  that  its  course  has  been  greatly  accelerated 
by  the  studies  to  which  Schopenhauer  referred. 

The  re-discovery  of  India,  lost  to  Europe  for 
centuries  after  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era, 
almost  as  completely  as  America  was  hidden  from 
it,  was  a  fact  of  even  greater  import  than  the  resur- 
rection of  Greece.  It  was  no  wilderness  of  ruins 
which  was  thus  disclosed,  from  which  only  the 
shards  of  a  long-buried  civilisation  could  be  ex- 
humed, but  a  living  and  cultured  world,  whose 
institutions  were  rooted  in  an  antiquity  more  pro- 
found than  Greece  could  claim,  and  whose  language 
and  manners  and  religion  were  separated  from  the 
West  by  far  more  than  a  hemisphere.  So  totally 
unlike  to  the  Western  world  was  it,  that  the  labours 
and  sacrifices  of  several  generations  of  the  finest 
intellects  of  Europe  were  required  before  a  key 
could  be  found  to  interpret  its  significance.  Since 
the  days  when  Anquetil  Duperron,  after  many 
adventures  and  hardships,   succeeded   in    breaking 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  3 

through  the  tangled  thicket  which  guarded  its 
treasures,  the  scholars  of  all  nations  have  pressed 
into  it,  each  one  announcing,  as  he  emerged,  the 
dawn  or  the  progress  of  another  Renaissance,  whose  ' 
meaning  and  direction  and  ultimate  issues  only 
the  rash  will  venture  to  predict  or  pretend  to  fore- 
see. 

One  of  the  first-fruits  of  their  combined  or  inde- 
pendent researches  is  the  new  science  of  Religion.  ^ 
By  a  careful  collection,  analysis,  and  comparison  of 
all  the  beliefs  of  mankind  available,  with  the  view 
of  eliciting  what  is  peculiar  to  each,  and  what  they 
all  share  in  common,  its  professors  aim  at  discover- 
ing what  may  be  the  real  nature  and  origin  and  pur- 
pose of  all  religion.^  As  yet  it  should  hardly  be 
designated  a  science,  for  though  the  elements  for  it 
undoubtedly  exist,  they  are  too  widely  scattered  to 
be  of  service  for  immediate  induction.  The  mate- 
rials already  collected  have  not  been  sufficiently 
sifted,  and  moreover,  it  requires  the  assistance  of 
other  sciences,  as  yet  too  immature,  to  render  it 
effective  support.  The  title  may  not  be  a  "  mis- 
nomer,"^ but  only  a  somewhat  inflated  expression  by 
which  an  age,  rather  wise  in  its  own  conceit,  pro- 

'  Professor  Max  Miiller,  Gifford  Lectures  for  1888,  on  Natural 
Religion,  p.  IL 

-  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Hibbert  Lectures,  1881,  "  On  the  Origin  and 
Growth  of  Religion  as  ilhistrated  by  some  points  in  the  History  of  Indian 
Buddhism,"  p.  10. 


/. 


4  NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON     lect.  i. 

claims  the  discovery  of  a  new  field  of  learning  which 
it  means  assiduously  to  cultivate.  The  discovery 
however  is  a  solid  one,  and  the  assiduity  of  those 
who  would  improve  it  is  unmistakable ;  year  by 
year  their  numbers  increase,  their  implements  im- 
prove in  quality,  and  this  generation  may  not  pass 
away  before  an  abundant  harvest  has  been  reaped. 

Another  indication  of  the  change  that  is  coming 
over  the  world  is  the  attitude  which  Christian 
divines  now  assume  toward  other  religions.  Fifty 
years  ago  the  attempt  to  compare  our  Bible  and  our 
Creed  with  the  scriptures  of  other  religions  would 
have  been  regarded  as  a  sacrilegious  surrender  of 
what  was  holy  to  the  dogs.  This  was  due  not  so 
much  to  prejudice  on  the  part  of  the  expounders  of 
Christianity  as  to  aversion  to  the  avowedly  anti- 
christian  spirit  in  which  these  researches  were 
prosecuted.  The  Comparative  method  was  then 
frequently  employed,  as  it  had  been  by  the  Ency- 
clopasdists  of  last  century,  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
crediting and  degrading  Christianity.  The  conclu- 
sion was  often  foregone  before  the  process  began  ; 
and  so  it  was  natural  that  reverent  but  timid  minds 
jealous  for  their  religion,  and  anxious  to  guard  it 
from  insult,  should  decline  such  encounters.  Now, 
however,  orthodox  theologians  are  quite  aware  that 
in  this  matter  thev  have  to  reckon  with  other 
than   the   professed  enemies  of  Christianity.     The 


LECT.  1.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  5 

ablest  advocates  of  Comparative  Theology  are  not 
only  free  from  antichristian  prejudice,  but  they 
protest  against  it  as  inimical  to  the  science  itself.^ 
It  is  not  infidelity,  but  Providence,  that  is  forcing 
us  to  investic^ate  the  orio^in  of  our  reliQ;ion,  and  to 
search  its  scriptures  in  the  fuller  light  which  we 
now  enjoy.  We  are  being  divinely  taught  that  we 
cease  to  revere  a  heavenly  gift  the  moment  we 
begin  to  idolise  it ;  that  the  disposition  most  fatal 
to  ourselves,  most  dishonouring  to  our  religion,  is 
that  which  would  regard  its  scriptures  as  charmed 
relics  too  sacred  to  be  examined,  and  only  to  be 
brought  by  an  undevout  and  apostate  Church,  in 
the  moment  of  its  extreme  peril,  into  the  field  of 
battle  with  the  Philistines.  To  shrink  from  the 
comparison  of  our  Faith  with  the  religious  beliefs  of 
those  whom  we  acknowledge  to  be  bone  of  our  bone, 
and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  is  to  manifest  a  cowardly  lack 
of  confidence  in  its  Author.  It  is  at  the  judgment- 
bar  of  all  the  ages  that  He  means  to  make  good  His 
claim  to  be  the  Judge  of  all  mankind.  The  more 
He  is  tried,  the  more  will  His  authority  be  con- 
fessed to  be  divine.  He  certainly  invited  inspec- 
tion and  comparison,  and  He  may  have  had  other 
than  Hebrew  scriptures  in  His  view  when  He  in- 
structed us  to  "search  them,  for  they  testify  of  Me."  ^ 

'  Max  Miiller,  Introdnction  to  the  Science  of  Bcligion,  p.  38. 
-  John  V.  39. 


6  NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON     lect.  i. 

The  comparative  study  of  other  rehgions,  so  far 
from    being    prejudicial   to    the   claims    of    Chris- 
tianity, will  be  helpful  in  establishing  its  sublime 
pre-eminence  among  them,  and  in  enabling  us  to 
discharge   to    their  adherents  the   duty   which  its 
Founder  has   imposed   upon    us.     It   may   modify 
considerably  our  theology,   but  it  will  strengthen 
our   fundamental   beliefs.     As   a  general  rule,   we 
may  assert  that  the  strength  of  a  man's  faith  will 
be  found  to  be  in  direct  proportion  to  his  know- 
ledge of  the  everlasting  and  unchangeable  laws  by 
which  the  universe  is  governed.     It  is  our  theology 
alone  that  is   assailed,   and   we   are   learning  that 
theology,  as  a  system  of  reasoning  upon  materials 
furnished  not   only  by  religion  itself,  but  also  by 
some  other  "  ologies,"  must  be  based  on  other  and 
higher  authority  than  that  of  an  infallible  Council, 
or  that  of  a  chapter  whose  significance  was  supposed 
to  be  unalterably  fixed  two  or  three  thousand  years 
ago.     The  religion  which  revolted  against  the  as- 
sumption  of  the    Scribe   in   our   Lord's   day,   and 
which  disallowed  the  claim  of  the  Pope  some  three 
centuries  ago  to  be  the  sole  interpreters  of  revelation, 
is  not  only  testing  the  authenticity  of  the  texts  to 
which  the  appeal  was  then  made,  but  is  inquiring 
into  their  actual  significance  by  collating  them  with 
the   truths  of  another  revelation  as  divine.     It  is 
not    that    men    want    to   get    rid    of    dogma,    for 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  7 

dogma  of  some   kind  there  must  ever  be.     There 
will  always  be  a  vast  deal  which  we  must  believe, 
because  there  is  much  that  can  onlv  thus  be  known  ; 
but  a  satisfactory  dogmatic  foundation  must  hence- 
forth be  sought  in  facts  anterior  to  any  scriptures, 
or  to  any  church  that  would  interpret  them,  viz.,  in 
the   elemental   necessities   and   aspirations   of    our 
common  human  nature.     It  has  been   wisely  said 
that  "  the  theology  which  fails  to  meet  the  demands ^^^  , 
of  the   whole  man  is    simply  doomed."  ^     What  is 
wanted  therefore   for  theology  is  some  broad  and 
solid  basis,  to  be  laid  by  analysing,  comparing,  and 
co-ordinating  all  religious  beliefs  within    our  reach. 
In  each  of  them  we  may  hope  to  find  some  truth — 
it  may  be  very  feebly  and  very  partially  expressed 
— of  no  more  value  by  itself  than  a  flake  of  gold 
found  in  an  immense  drift  of  sand  or  mass  of  quartz, 
but  yet  of  immense  value  as  indicating  the  source 
from  which  it  came  and  the  substance  to  which  it 
claims  affinity.     All  separate  and  imperfect  truths 
point  towards  some  higher  truth  which  will  unite 
and  fulfil  and  interpret  them.     And  so  every  reli- 
gion, however  erroneous  it  may  be,  is  prophetic — 
because  found  in  a  humanity  that  is  essentially  one 
— of  a  universal  religion,  a  faith  which  is  not  just 
one  of  the  faiths  of  the  nations,  but  is  the  divine 

^  Baring  Gould,  Origin  and  Development  of  Religious  Belief,  vol.  i. 
p.  1:21. 


8  XECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lbct.  i. 

answer,  unclianged  and  inexhaustible,  to  all  the 
aspirations  of  mankind.  The  study  of  other  reli- 
gions therefore,  even  of  those  of  the  most  de- 
graded peoples,  and  of  those  most  contradictory  of 
our  own,  is  as  binding  upon  us  as  is  the  study  of 
our  Bibles.  For  us  "  history  "  has  been  truly  said 
^"  to  stand  in  the  place  of  prophecy,"  ^  and  it  is  only 
by  gathering  up  and  considering  its  testimony  that 
we  can  appreciate  the  worth  of  the  treasure  which 
has  been  given  to  us,  that  we  may  communicate  it 
to  all  the  world. 

Prominent  among  the  religions  that  challenge 
our  consideration  is  the  one  which,  following 
authorities  acknowledged  to  be  the  best,  we  will 
endeavour  briefly  to  sketch  and  to  expound.  It  is 
not  an  obsolete  system,  appealing  only  to  the  poetic 
sentiment  from  a  vanished  past,  like  the  religion 
of  Greece,  but  one  which  confronts  us  with  vitality 
sufficient  to  ovei'shadow  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  populous  East.  Two  thousand  four  hundred 
years  have  passed  since  it  was  first  proclaimed, 
and  though  it  disappeared  long  ago  from  the  land 
of  its  birth,  it  still  reigns  in  many  kingdoms,  and 
continues  to  spread  its  influence  in  several  direc- 
tions in  Central  and  Northern  Asia.  To  tell  its 
story  completely  would  be  to  write  the  history  of 
t     nearly  the  whole  of  China,  India,  and  the  countries 

^  Westcott,  Victory  of  the  Cross,  pp.  3,  6. 


LECT.  1.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  9 

that  lie  around  or  between  them.  Till  very 
recently  it  was  generally  computed  that  quite  one- 
third  of  the  human  family,  though  widely  separated 
geographically  and  otherwise,  professed  to  hnd  in 
Buddhism  consolation  sufficient  to  strengthen  them 
to  do  the  work  and  endure  the  suiferino-s  of  life, 
and  to  confront  with  calmness  the  necessity  of 
death. 

Were  this  computation  correct.  Buddhism  would 
have  to  be  accounted  by  far  the  most  widely  accepted 
of  all  the  religions  of  mankind.  It  has  however 
been  seriously  challenged  by  those  whose  experi- 
ence and  candour  are  beyond  question.  According 
to  their  enumeration,  Buddhism  must  rank  only 
fourth  in  the  scale  of  numerical  comparison  among 
the  great  faiths  of  the  world,  for  instead  of  there 
being  live  hundred  millions  of  adherents,  as  we 
were  previously  led  to  believe,  probably  not  more 
than  one  hundred  millions  of  professing  Buddhists 
can  be  found  in  all  the  world.  ^  The  question  in 
dispute  after  all  is  one  of  only  secondary  import- 
ance, for  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  any  one  other 

^  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids  estimates  the  number  at  five  hundred  millions 
(Handbook  of  Buddhism,  p.  6).  The  previous  general  estimate  was  about 
four  hundred  millions  ;  but  Dr.  A.  J.  Happer,  missionary  at  Canton  for  J,,  j 

forty-five  years,  reduces  this  number  to  seventy-three  millions.  Sir 
Monier  Williams,  in  his  recent  book  on  Buddhism,  quoting  Professor 
Legge's  introduction  to  Travels  of  Fa-Hian,  calculates  the  number  at  one 
hundred  millions,  and  claims  for  Christianity,  with  its  four  hundred  and 
thirty  millions  of  adherents,  the  numerical  preponderance  over  all  others. 


10  NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

than  some  democratic  fanatic  who  would  propose 
to  settle  the  truth  of  a  religion  by  a  reckoning  of 
the  suffraofes  which  it  could  command.  Numeri- 
cal  statistics  of  religious  adherence  furnish  only 
an  indirect  test  even  of  influence.  It  is  impossible 
to  indicate  even  geographically  the  range  of  a 
religion.  We  are  very  properly  reminded  that 
"  the  influence  of  Buddhism  in  India  may  be 
immense,  though  not  a  single  Buddhist  temple 
exists  in  it,  while  its  influence  in  China  and 
Ceylon  may  be  vastly  over-stated  in  figures,  for 
many  Chinese  Buddhists  may  be  called  Confuci- 
anists  and  Taoists,  and  many  Singhalese  worship- 
pers at  Buddha's  shrines  are  far  from  being  only 
or  altogether  Buddhists."  ^  Indeed  everywhere, 
though  chiefly  in  Thibet,  Nepaul,  and  Mongolia, 
the  religion  which  is  called  Buddhism  is  no  more 
Buddhist  than  the  survivals  of  Pagan  worship 
and  belief  which  are  found  in  some  extreme  forms 
of  Romanism  can  be  called  Christian. 

The  rapidity  with  which  and  the  extent  to 
which  a  religion  has  spread  is  no  certain  indica- 
tion of  its  capability  to  meet  and  satisfy  the  real 
spiritual  necessities  of  mankind.  A  religion  may 
rapidly  gain,  and  retain  for  long,  an  ascendency 
over    many    men,    without    possessing   any    of  the 

'  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhism,  pp.  4,  7  ;    Sir  Monier  Williiuns, 
Btiddhism,  p.  171. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  ii 

qualities  essential  to  its  being  recognised  as  the 
one  religion  of  all  men.  The  catholicity  of  a  faith 
is  indicated  not  by  the  extent  of  the  supremacy 
which  it  has  acquired,  but  by  the  quality  of  its 
contents.  Universal  truths  are  not  necessarily  the 
truths  which  have  won  the  consent  of  the  greatest 
numbers.  The  test  of  quod  ubique,  semjye^',  et  ah 
omnibus,  if  thoroughly  applied,  would  have  estab- 
lished the  truth  of  many  a  degrading  superstition 
in  former  times.  "  It  is  not  that  which  is  common 
to  barbarism  and  civilisation  which  is  most  truly 
human,  but  precisely  that  in  which  civilisation 
differs  from  barbarism."  ^  The  divinity  of  a 
religion,  instead  of  being  attested  by  the  readiness 
with  which  it  is  accepted,  may  be  indicated  by  the 
antagonism  which  it  at  first  evokes.  Truth  at  no 
time  depends  upon  majorities,  at  least  in  this 
world,  for  here  truth  of  any  kind,  when  first  pro- 
claimed, instead  of  meeting  a  generally  friendly 
reception,  has  to  win  its  victory  by  conflict  and 
lay  in  martyrdom  the  foundation  of  its  throne.^ 

'  Dr.  Caird,  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion.,  Croall  Lec- 
tures, 1878-9,  pp.  82  seq.  ;  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Hibbert  Lectures,  1881, 
On  the  Origin  and  Groioth  of  Religion  as  illustrated  by  Buddhism,  p.  7. 

-  To  draw  proper  inferences  from  statistics  of  the  spread  and  supre- 
macy of  a  religion,  we  must  first  investigate  the  circumstances  in  which 
it  was  propagated,  and  the  intellectual  and  moral  conditions  of  the 
peoples  whom  it  has  converted.  If  it  has  gained  only  the  belief  of  one 
section  of  the  human  race,  it  is  evidently  not  entitled  to  rank  with 
another  which  proves  itself  influential  among  all  sections  A  religion 
dominant  only  over  inferior  races  is  manifestly  of  less  value  than  another 


'^  / 


12         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON     lect.  i. 

It  is  not  on  account  of  its  adherents,  however, 
nor  of  the  superficial  extent  of  its  supremacy — 
though  such  facts  have  indeed  a  very  pathetic 
significance — but  it  is  in  respect  of  the  quality  of 
its  original  faith,  that  Buddhism  is  considered 
worthy  of  comparison  with  Christianity.  We 
must  not  be  repelled  by  the  childish  superstitions 
and  gross  absurdities  with  which  it  is  incrusted, 
for  in  a  religion  bo  ancient  and  extensive  this  is 
just  what  we  might  expect  to  find ;  nor  should 
we  be  surprised  at  the  marvellous  and  grotesque 
legends  which  profess  to  relate  its  origin  and 
early  history,  for  these,  as  Professor  Miiller  has  very 
properly  reminded  us,  "  are  the  clouds,  not  alway 
rosy,  that  gather  round  the  sunrise  of  any  reli- 
gion." ^  In  the  estimation  of  its  severest  critics, 
Buddhism  must  occupy  a  grand  and  exalted 
place  in  the  general  history  of  religions.^  Among 
the  various  systems  of  the  non-Christian  world, 
ancient  or  modern,  none  can  compare  with  it  in 
/  respect  of  its  ethical  code,  its  spirit  of  toleration 
)^    and  gentleness,  and  its  beneficent  influence  upon 

which,  while  satisfying  the  wants  of  the  lowest  and  most  degraded 
peoples,  is  yet  fulfilling  the  spiritual  aspirations  of  the  highest.  The 
lirst,  if  in  any  way  related  to  the  second,  can  only  be  so  as  preparatory 
and  prophetic  of  the  mission  which  the  second  alone  can  accomplish. 

1  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  i.  Introd. 

-  Koppen,  Die  Religion  des  Buddha,  s.  231  ;  J.  Barthelemy  Saint- 
Hilaire,  Le  Bouddha,  etc.,  pp.  78,  144,  181  ;  Spence  Hardy,  Manual  of 
Buddhism,  p.  358. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  13 

many  wild,  populations  that  have  embraced  it. 
Neither  Zeno  nor  Marcus  Aurelius  conceived  a 
higher  theory  of  morals,  in  which  justice  and 
temperance  were  infused  by  kindness,  than  that 
which  the  founder  of  Buddhism  successfully  re- 
duced to  practice.  It  was  the  most  natural  of  all 
things  therefore,  that  it  had  only  to  be  intro- 
duced to  the  notice  of  Christendom  to  win  for 
itself  a  degree  of  admiration  accorded,  to  no  other 
heathen  faith,  ^ 

We  would  be  understating  its  claims,  however, 
if  we  referred  to  it  as  appealing  only  to  our 
Christian  consideration  and  sympathy.  It  has 
been  brought  into  the  lists  of  criticism  as  the  rival 
of  Christianity.  Modern  unbelief  is  forcing  it 
upon  our  notice  as  a  much  truer  philosophy  of  j 
existence  and  a  more  satisfactory  theory  of  the 
universe  than  that  furnished  by  Christianity. 
We  cannot  let  it  alone,  were  it  for  no  other 
reason  that  it  will  not  let  us  alone.  In  the 
civilised  and  semi-civilised  portions  of  the  East 
its  disciples  have  long  ago  ceased  to  propagate  it, 
and  as  a  form  of  belief  it  may  be  said  that  there 
not  only  has  it  reached  the  limits  of  its  extension, 
but  that  its  present  condition  is  one  of  "increas- 
ing disintegration  and  decay."  ^  Even  in  the 
East,  however,  among  the  classes  who  have  most 

'  Sir  Monier  AVilliams,  Buddhisin,  p.  xv,  Introd. 


14         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON     lect.  i. 

come  under  the  influence  of  Western  culture,  the 
spirit  of  Buddhism  shows  considerable  vitality,  and 
there  its  spirit  is  coming  into  constant  and  active 
collision  with  Christianity  every  day.  The  edu- 
cated or  intelligent  Buddhist  of  Burmah  or  Siam 
tells  us  plainly  that  he  will  not  give  up  his 
ancient  faith  for  Christianity  ;  for  notwithstand- 
ing the  manifold  and  manifest  absurdities  of  his 
ancestral  religion,  he  professes  to  find  the  same 
in  the  forms  in  which  Christianity  has  been  pre- 
sented to  him.  By  the  light  of  our  science  we 
have  helped  him  to  weed  out  his  old  superstitions, 
and  he  will  not  accept  from  us  any  new  ones. 
In  language  marvellously  akin  to  that  of  the 
founder  of  Buddhism,  he  discards  every  religion  as 
involving  the  worship  of  deity,  and  he  professes 
to  find  in  Suttas  more  ancient  than  our  Gospels 
a  morality  as  sublime,  a  charity  as  comprehensive, 
and  a  system  of  faith  sufficient  to  bear  the  strain 
of  all  his  necessities,  whether  present  or  future.^ 
In  short.  Buddhism  as  professed  by  a  modern 
Oriental  with  any  pretension  to  culture,  is  almost 
identical  with  that  paradoxical  condition  of  thought 
or  belief  which  maintains,  and  indeed  professes  to 
be  spreading  in  Christendom  as  modern  Agnos- 
ticism. 

^  Alabaster,  Modern  Buddhist ;  in   the  Wlieel  of  the  Law,  p.  73  ; 
Triibiier  and  Co.,  1871. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  15 

But  it  is  not  in  an  attitude  of  resistance  only 
that  Buddhism  confronts  Christianity  even  in  the 
East.  In  Ceylon,  if  we  are  to  trust  the  Times 
of  India, ^  it  numbers  among  its  typical  gains  "a 
young  highly  educated  European  lady  and  a 
clergyman  of  the  English  Church,"  and  these,  it  is 
averred,  "  are  not  the  first,  and  are  not  likely  to  be 
the  last  of  its  direct  converts  from  the  Christian 
churches."  In  Europe  and  America  also,  not 
among  the  lower  and  less  educated,  but  among 
the  higher  ranks  of  society,  among  people  affect- 
ing culture  and  new  light,  are  to  be  found  not  a 
few  jwofessing  admirers,  if  not  practical  followers, 
of  Buddha  and  his  law.  The  admiration  of  many 
of  these  dilettanti  may  sometimes  be  found  to  be  in 
exact  proportion  to  their  ignorance  of  Buddhism. 
Their  information  is  drawn  almost  exclusively  from 
such  sources  as  are  supplied  by  the  romance  of 
Sir  Edwin  Arnold  and  works  like  those  produced 
by  Mr.  Sinnett  and  Colonel  Olcott ; '"  but  even 
when  we  discount  all  these,  we  must  own  that 
here  and  there  we  find  some  thouofhtful  and 
earnest  people  who  profess  to  have  come  out  from 
bondage  to  the  beggarly  elements  of  the  Church's 

^  5th  April  1S85.  In  the  Madras  Times  for  October  29,  1886,  a 
meeting  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  True  Religion  is  advertised, 
for  reading  and  exposition  of  the  Bhagavad-Gita. 

-  77(6  Light  of  Asia  ;  The  Occult  World  ;  Esoteric  Buddhism  ;  Theo- 
sophij  of  Archaic  Religions. 


16         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON     lect.  i. 

faith  to  gentle  Buddha's  better  gospel  of  liberty. 
Mr.  Alabaster's  Modern  Buddhist  finds  a  co- 
religionist not  only  in  the  disciples  of  Feuerbach 
and  Von  Hartmann,  but  in  every  "  fervent  atheist" 
who,  acknowledging  nothing  in  the  universe  save 
man,  and  a  system  of  unbending  law  in  which  he 
is  involved,  and  with  which  he  is  sometimes  con- 
founded, has  been  compelled  to  deify  humanity 
and  to  demand  for  its  idol  a  service  worthy  of  a 
divine  object  of  faith. 

So  another  prediction  of  Schopenhauer's,  uttered 
in  the  beginning  of  the  century,  seems  to  be  repeated 
in  many  publications  at  its  close.  '"  In  India,"  he 
affirmed,  "  our  religion  will  never  strike  root ;  the 
primitive  wisdom  of  the  human  race  will  never  be 
pushed  aside  by  any  incidents  in  Galilee.  On 
the  contrary,  Indian  wisdom  will  flow  back  upon 
Europe,  and  produce  a  thorough  change  in  our 
knowing  and  thinking."  ^  He  certainly  laboured 
hard  to  bring  about  the  fulfilment  of  his  prophecy, 
preaching  Nirvana  as  the  goal  of  moral  effort, 
though  confessing  that  his  own  animal  propensities 
allowed  him  no  hope  of  attaining  it.  In  his  lifetime 
his  strenuous  endeavours  were  unsuccessful,  and  he 
died  in  1860  in  comparative  neglect.  Since  then, 
and  especially  since  the  publication  of  his  book 
Die  Welt  ah   Wille   und    Yorstellung,  the  doctrine 

^  Parerga,  3d  ed.  i.  59. 


LKCT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  17 

[>ainfullj  planted,  has  taken  root  in  the  congenial 
soil  prepared  for  it  by  Comte  and  his  disciples. 
Spiritualism  again — which,  though  originating  only 
in  1848,  in  circumstances  almost  ludicrous,  has 
spread  so  rapidly  and  extensively  that  it  now 
claims  to  count  its  converts  by  millions  all  over 
the  world — has  obviously  contributed  to  the  dis- 
semination and  growth  of  pseudo-Buddhist  ideas. 
With  a  literature  of  over  five  hundred  psycho- 
logical works — many  of  them  voluminous  and  very 
costly — and  with  forty-six  jDeriodicals  regularly 
published  in  Europe  and  America,  it  not  only 
assails  Christianity,  but  supports  the  doctrine 
that  "the  Reign  of  Law  has  supplanted  the 
Reign  of  God ;  that  just  as  we  have  ceased  to 
embody  the  conception  of  the  State  in  a  person,  it 
is  time  we  should  cease  similarly  to  embody  the 
conception  of  the  universe,  for  loyalty  to  a  personal 
ruler  is  an  anachronism  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  will  some  day  become  extinct."^  Its  ajDOstles 
profess  to  find  in  the  Christian  faith  many  signs  of 
disintegration,  and  they  look  "  to  the  bloodless  and 
innocent  record  of  Buddhism  for  the  reconstruction 
of  true  religious  faith  upon  a  permanent  basis." " 
This  they  expound  in  a  so-called  theosophy  in 
phraseology  largely  borrowed  from  the  New  Testa- 

1   Westminster  Revini;  New  Series,  vol.  xlviii.  p.  469. 
'^  Gerald  Massey,  Lifjhi,  16th  June  1883. 

B 


18         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

ment,  but  descriptive  of  a  curious  amalgam  of  later 
Buddhist  and  Hindu  doctrines  utterly  contradictory 
to  the  essential  teaching  of  Christianity. 

Occultism,  Esoteric  Buddhism,  which  professes  to 
supplant  the  religion  of  Jesus,  and  to  prepare  the 
way  of  the  twelfth  of  the  Messiahs,  whose  mission 
is  to  harmonise  the  perverted  teaching  of  his  prede- 
cessors,^ and  thus  establish  the  universal  religion  of 
humanity,  is  not  likely  to  occasion  serious  concern. 
It  is  just  another  of  those  instances  in  which  the 
diseases  of  a  lower  civilisation  are  communicated  to 
one  superior  and  more  robust.  Just  as  plagues 
originating  in  the  ruined  or  degraded  populations 
of  the  East  have  repeatedly  desolated  large  portions 
of  Europe,  where  they  found  physical  conditions 
favourable  to  their  spread,  so  there  are  mental  and 
moral  epidemics  which,  generated  among  inferior 
religions,  propagate  themselves  in  the  very  highest, 
for  reasons  almost  similar.  There  are  modern  con- 
ditions which  present  -very  close  affinities  to  those 
out  of  which  Buddhism  arose.  It  has  been  truly 
^  called  the  religion  of  despair,  and  it  seems  suited  to 
that  intellectual  ennui  in  which  many  profess  to 
live  who  find  themselves  confronted  by  problems 
which  they  are  unable  to  solve.  The  enervating 
agnosticism    and     sentimental    pessimism    of    our 

1  Among  these  are  reckoned  Adam,  Fohi,  Laotze,  Jesus,  Mohammed, 
and  Jenghiz  Khan.— Kinnealy,  Commentar>j  on  the  Ajjocalypse,  p.  685. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  19 

generation  furnish  the  veiy  soil  in  which  the  germs 
of  Buddhism  are  most  likely  to  mature ;    but  the 
spiritual  life  of  Christendom  is  too  robust  to  succumb 
to  its  heresy  of  inertion  and   moral  defeat.       The 
system  of  Buddha,  even  as  laid  out  by  himself,  is 
not  at  all  likely  to  entrap  any  considerable  number 
of  Western  nineteenth-century  thinkers  ;  and  this 
mongrel  system  of  Neo-Buddhism,  though  23rofessing 
to  be  founded  on  that  ancient  creed,  will  only  find 
adherents  among  peculiar  people.      There  is  always 
a  tendency  in  the  most  advanced  civilisation,  on  the 
part  of  some  who  are  freed  from  the  necessity  of 
industry,  so   essential  to  man's  mental  and  moral 
as  well   as   to    his   physical   health,    to   revert    to 
beliefs  and  customs  peculiar  to  earlier  and  inferior 
stages  of  culture.      It  is  a  curious  and  significant 
fact,-^  that  not  among  the  working  and  professional 
classes,  but  among  the  upper  and  fashionable  ranks 
of  modern  society,  such  survivals  of  ancient  super- 
stition as  intercourse  with  spirits  and  palmistry  are 
chiefly  now  to  be  found.     For  such  unstable  souls 
as  have  been  or  may  be  tempted  to  be  drawn  into 
these  practices  by  an  appeal  to  the  authority  of  the 
beautiful  character  limned  for  our  generation  in  the 
Light  of  Asia,  I  know  no  better  restorative  than  a 
plain  exposition  of  primitive  Buddhism.     It  will  be 
seen  then    that   this  modern  fungus  is  a  growth 

^  Pember,  Earth's  Earlier  Ages,  p.  326. 


20         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

almost  as  foreign  in  its  nature  to  real  Buddhism  as 
it  is  to  true  Christianity.  The  degenerate  Bud- 
dhism from  which  it  borrows  its  largest  stock  of 
ideas  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  actual  teaching 
of  Buddha  that  the  Cabbala  bear  to  the  prophecies 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  doctrines  which  it 
counts  upon  as  most  popular  and  attractive  are 
precisely  those  which  Buddha  would  have  treated 
with  his  most  withering  scorn. 

There  is  yet  another  characteristic  of  this  religion 
which  has  commended  it  more  to  the  unbelief  than 
the  belief  of  our  age.  Many  agreements  are  alleged 
to  subsist  between  the  contents  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  those  of  the  sacred  books  which  profess  to 
record  the  life  and  express  the  teaching  of  Buddha. 
Its  ancient  Pitakas  are  said  to  be  filled  with  stories 
resembling  the  narratives  of  the  EvangeHsts,  with 
sayings  which  recall  the  parables,  and  miracles 
reflecting  the  signs  and  wonders  which  signalised 
the  ministry  of  Jesus.  It  is  averred  that  with  the 
single  exception  of  the  Crucifixion — and  how  im- 
mense is  the  significance  of  that  exception  I  shall 
endeavour  in  a  subsequent  lecture  to  show, — it 
would  be  easy  to  find  in  them  a  parallel  to 
almost  every  incident  related  in  the  Gospel.  Most 
startling  of  all  are  said  to  be  the  resemblances  be- 
tween the  central  figures  in  both  sets  of  scriptures. 
For   Buddhism,  as   truly  as  Christianity,   has   its 


LEcT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  21 

ideal  of  a  perfect  human  life,  illustrated  in  one  who, 
like  unto  the  Son  of  Man,  went  about  doing  good,  and 
enforcing  by  his  example  the  pure  morality  which 
he  preached,  but  who,  most  unhke  the  Son  of  Man, 
without  any  sustaining  belief  in  deity,  or  hope  of 
sympathy  or  help  from  any  divine  being,  professed 
to  have  made  good  his  own  salvation,  and  to  teach 
all  whom  he  could  reach  the  way  to  work  out  theirs. 
When  we  come  to  examine  its  history,  we  find 
that  it  has  followed  a  line  of  development  strik- 
ingly  parallel    to   that    of  Christianity,    and    the 
parallels    thus   furnished    by   its   antecedents    and 
progress,    and    by   the    external   and    foreign    in- 
fluences  which   encountered   and   modified   it,   are 
those  which  have  the  most  interest  and  instruction 
for  the  student  of  Eeligion.     In  order,  however,  to 
ascertain  their  significance,  we  must  examine  these 
alleged  correspondences    of  story  and  of  doctrine  ; 
for  these  have  powerfully  influenced  a  certain  class 
of  thinkers,  as  supplying  confirmation  of  a  charge 
brought  against  our  religion  in  almost  the  begin- 
ning   of    its    history,    that    after    all    there    was 
nothing    original    in    Christ,  and    nothing  new  in  -jA/^^ 

His   teaching.       That   resemblances   do  exist,    not'    --         ^ 
only  between  the  forms  in  which  Buddhism  con- 
fronts us  in  some  quarters  of  the  world  and  the 
ritual  and   organisation   of  a  large  section  of  the 
Christian  Church,  but  between  the  contents  of  the 


22         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

Buddhist  scriptures  as  we  have  them  now,  and 
those  of  the  New  Testament,  all  must  admit.  As 
we  cast  a  hasty  and  general  glance  over  them  we 
see  how  natural  and  how  pardonable  was  the  old 
rough  and  ready  method  of  accounting  for  them  by 
the  supposition  of  direct  transference  of  the  various 
lineaments  from  the  one  to  the  other.  The  early 
Jesuit  missionaries  did  not  hesitate  to  assert  that 
the  Buddhists,  by  assimilating  and  incorporating 
the  rites  and  doctrines  of  the  primitive  mission- 
aries, had  succeeded  in  producing  a  caricature  of 
Christianity.  In  like  manner,  when  in  Central 
America — till  then  as  independent  of  Europe  as  if  it 
had  been  separated  not  by  untraversed  oceans,  but 
by  the  immensities  that  divide  the  planets — the 
Spaniards  found  to  their  amazement  a  most  com- 
plex religion,  with  priests,  and  monasteries,  and 
temples  adorned  with  the  cross  and  statues  of  a 
goddess  with  an  infant  in  her  arms,  they  could  only 
explain  the  mystery  by  averring  that  it  was  a 
gigantic  mimetic  ruse  of  the  devil  to  lead  the 
unhappy  nations  astray.  The  suppositions  in  both 
cases  are  not  likely  to  be  seriously  supported  now. 
Indeed,  it  is  far  more  likely,  as  the  author  of  Ancient 
Christianity  and  Dr.  Prinsep  and  others  have 
attempted  to  show,  that  in  the  East  we  have  to 
seek  for  the  origin  of  several  institutions  and  rites 
once  considered  the  peculiar  growth  of  Greek  or 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  23 

Latin  Christianity.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
as  these  religions  spread  they  would  come  in  con- 
tact with  and  react  upon  each  other.  ^  It  is  difficult 
in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  to  indicate 
their  first  conjunction,  or  to  trace  their  various 
intercommunications,  but  that  they  have  been 
mutually  indebted  to  each  other  is  sufficiently 
attested  by  their  histories.  In  later  Hinduism 
and  Buddhism  and  Lamaism  there  are  plain  in- 
dications of  the  action  of  the  Western  upon  the 
Eastern  religions.  Romanism,  on  the  other  hand,  t, 
has  set  its  official  seal  upon  the  relationship,  by 
incorporating  a  legend  of  Buddha  among  its  "  Lives 
of  the  Saints,"  by  canonising  the  founder  of  this 
most  antichristian  of  all  religions,  and  by  con- 
secrating the  27  th  November  as  a  day  on  which 
he  may  be  invoked  for  intercession.^ 

Though  as  yet  the  field  is  only  opening  out,  and 
its  exploration  is  only  beginning,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  it  will  be  found  that  in  their  advanced 
stages  Buddhism  and  Greek  and  Latin  Christianity 
have  contributed  to  each  other's  resources  ;  but  it  ^ 
is  quite  another  matter  to  assert  that  the  exist- 
ence of  the  one  religion  accounts  for  the  origin  of 
the  other,  and  that  Christianity,  as  the  junior  of 

^  H.    H.  Wilson,  Essays,  vol.  ii.  jx  .376  ;  Hue   and  Gabet,  Travels 
in  Tartary  and  Thibet ;  translated  by  Mrs.  P.  Sinnett  and  W.  Hazlitt. 

2  Buddhist  Birth  Storiea,  translated  by  T.  W.  Ehys  Davids,  vol.  ij^ 
Introd.  p.  xli. 


24         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect. 


the  two,  is  simply  "  a  product  of  India  spoiled  in 
its  route  to  Palestine."^  Those  who  allege  that 
the  sources  of  Christianity  may  be  discovered  in 
Buddhism  are  bound  not  to  assume  but  clearly  to 
trace  and  demonstrate  the  medium  of  communi- 
cation between  the  two.  As  yet  the  allegation, 
though  frequently  made,  appears  to  be  incapable 
^  xof  proof.  E-enan's  picture  of  "  wandering  Buddhist 
monks  who  overran  the  whole  world,  and  converted 
on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  by  their  garb  and 
manners,  people  who  did  not  understand  their 
language,  like  the  Franciscan  monks  in  later  days," 
is  only  a  pious  imagination.^  And  so  are  the 
theories  elaborated  by  M.  Emile  Burnouf  in  the 
^  Science  of  EeUgions  and  by  M.  Ernest  de  Bunsen 
in  his  Angel  Messiah  of  the  Buddhists.  Both  these 
authors  have  explained  to  their  own  satisfaction 
the  derivation  of  Christianity  from  old  Indian  or 
Aryan  beliefs,  which,  transmitted  through  Parthia 
to  the  Babylonian  Jews,  by  them  communicated  to 
the  Essenes  John  Baptist  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
and  from  them  again  passed  on  to  the  Therapeut 
Stephen,  were  formulated  in  the  plastic  mind  of  Paul 
of  Tarsus  into  the  Christian  dogmas  which  we  now 
revere.  The  scheme  is  devised  with  thoroughly 
French  jD^ecision,  and  the  treatises  in  which  it  is 

1  Foucher  de  Careil,  Hegel  et  Schopenliauer,  p.  306. 
-   Vic  de  Jesus,  p.  98,  4th  ed.;  Paris,  1863. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  25 

elaborated,  full  as  they  are  of  indications  of  great 
ingenuity  and  laborious  research,  are  interesting  as 
any  romance.  For  scientific  purposes,  however,  they 
have  hardly  more  historic  worth  than  a  romance. 
Based  upon  assumptions,  they  are  constructed  almost 
entirely  of  hypotheses  :  when  a  difficulty  emerges, 
it  is  solved  by  a  supposition  which  further  on  is  con- 
firmed by  a  "  reasonable  expectation  "  of  something 
else,  so  that  by  and  by  the  supposition  meets  us  as 
an  established  result.  They  abound  in  analogies, 
some  of  which  transgress  as  flagrantly  the  laws  of 
time  as  the  theory  once  advanced  that  the  story  of 
Christ  is  only  a  reflection  of  the  legend  of  Krishna, 
/seeing  that  belief  in  Krishna  did  not  arise  in  India 
\  till  centuries  after  Christianity  had  reached  its 
shores.  "  The  laws  of  lan^uasfe  ^  are  also  violated 
as  openly  as  they  were  by  the  discovery  that 
the  mysterious  word  '  Om '  of  the  Upanishads  is 
the  equivalent  of  the  '  Amen  '  in  ancient  Hebrew 
worship."  It  may  be  as  possible  by  this  method 
to  prove  the  connection  between  the  Vedic  and 
Levitical  institutions,  as  it  is  possible  to  establish 
the  conclusion  that  the  old  Aryan  symbol  of  the 
fire  sticks  is  the  fontal  idea  of  the  Cross,  or  that 

^  The  Buddhists,  as  Pi'ofessor  Kuenen  remarks,  do  not  believe  in 
angels,  and  they  have  no  Messiah.  Tathagata,  which  Mr.  de  Biinsen 
translates  "The  Coming  One,"  i.e.  Messiah,  means  "One  who  has  gone" 
or  "has  arrived  at"  (Nirvana),  like  his  in-edecessors.  So  Oldenberg, 
Rhys  Davids,  Bigandet,  Edkins,  Enjendralal  Mitra  :  see  too  Dr.  Kellogg, 
Light  of  Asia  and  the  Light  of  the  World,  pp.  lOG,  107. 


26         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

the  Vedic  word  "  Agni "  is  equivalent  to  the 
Latin  "Agnus  Dei."  Dr.  J.  Estlin  Carpenter^  and 
Professor  Kuenen'-  have  most  exhaustively  and 
decisively  exposed  the  vanity  of  such  speculations, 
which,  on  the  whole,  may  be  regarded  as  a  good 
confirmation  of  a  saying  uttered  by  Professor  H.  H. 
Wilson  some  thirty  years  ago,  in  reference  to 
those  who  would  derive  Christianity  from  Indian 
sources,  that  "  the  disposition  to  draw  impossible 
analogies  is  not  yet  wholly  extinct."' 

As  far  as  the  history  of  Buddhism  can  be  traced 
it  presents  no  actual  point  of  contact  with  either 
Syria  or  Egypt  or  Europe.  Even  after  it  became 
a  missionary  religion  its  progress  was  never  west- 
wards, and  at  no  period  did  it  reach  further  in  this 
direction  than  the  region  now  known  as  Afghanistan. 
The  civilisation  of  the  West  ofiered  no  opportunity 
for  its  enthusiasm,  and  none  of  the  great  Western 
cities  appear  in  its  records.  In  the  few  scattered 
extracts  which  survive  of  the  writings  of  those 
Greeks  who  visited  India  during  or  subsequent  to 
the  period  of  Alexander's  invasion,  there  is  no 
indication  of  a  knowledge  of  Buddhism,  nor  any 
allusion  to  Buddha  by  name.  We  have  to  come 
down  to  the  times  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  ^  and 

1  See  for  these  and  other  curious  instances  his  article  on  "The  Obliga- 
tions of  the  New  Testament  to  Buddhism,"  Nineteenth  Century,  Dec.  1880. 

2  Natural  and  Universal  Religions,  Hibbert  Lectures,  1882. 
^  Strom,  i.  15  ;  Porphyry,  de  Abstin.  iv.  17. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  27 

of  Bardesanes  the  Syrian  before  we  have  any 
tangible  evidence  of  the  sUghtest  acquaintance  on 
the  part  of  the  West  with  Buddhism.  The  first 
writer  mentions  Buddha  by  name,  the  second  dis- 
tinguishes his  monks  from  the  Brahmans,  and  gives 
some  details  as  to  their  customs,  but  it  is  impossible 
from  their  statements  to  conjecture  how  much 
they  knew  of  the  faith  to  which  they  alluded,  and 
most  absurd  to  infer  from  them  that  they  were 
affected  with  the  slio:htest  admiration  for  it.^ 

If  Christianity  be  the  offspring  of  Buddhism,  or  \y 
even  if  Buddhism  exercised  any  direct  influence 
upon  its  earliest  development,  some  indications  of 
that  influence  should  be  traceable  in  the  Jewish 
and  Greek  literature  of  that  period.  Yet  in  spite 
of  the  most  searching  examination  none  have  as  yet 
been  found,  and  it  is  not  at  all  likely  that  they  ever 
will  be  found.^     Our  religion  was  well  advanced  in 

^  Schwanbeck,  Megasthenes  Indica,  p.  20  ;  Lassen,  Ind.  Alterthums- 
kunde,  209  ;  H.  H.  Wilson,  Essmjs,  ii.  p.  314  scq.  ;  Reinaud,  lielations 
Politiques  et  Comrtur dales  de  VEmjnre  Romain  avec  VAsie  Central,  Paris, 
1863  ;  Priaulx,  Travels  of  Ajwllonius  and  the  Indian  Embassies  to 
Rome,  Paris,  1873. 

^  The  question  of  the  disciples  in  John  ix.  2,  concerning  the  man  who 
was  born  blind,  "  Who  did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born 
blind  ? "  is  alleged  by  Professor  Seydel  {Das  Evangelmm  von  Jesu  in 
scinen  Verhaltnissen  ::u  Buddha-Sage  und  Buddha-Lchre)  to  indicate  an 
idea  introduced  into  the  Gospel  from  a  foreign  source,  as  the  doctrine  of 
the  pre-existence  of  souls  was  then  unknown  among  the  Jews  Meyer 
in  his  critical  and  exegetical  Handbook  to  St.  John's  Gospel  has  shown 
that  no  one  required  to  go  outside  the  sphere  of  Jewish  thought  for  an 
explanation  of  this  part  of  the  disciples'  question.     In  addition   to  his 


28         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

its  course  before  we  find  in  the  works  of  its 
defenders  any  sign  of  acquaintance  with  the 
Buddhist  legend,  or  any  expression  of  suspicion,  as 
on  the  part  of  Cyril  and  Ephraim  of  Jerusalem  in 
the  fourth  century,  that  the  taint  of  some  of  the 
heresies  which  had  infected  the  Church  might  be 
traced  to  its  contagion.  Then,  unfortunately  for 
the  ingeniously  constructed  theory  that  the 
doctrines  were  secretly  transmitted  by  the  channel 
already  indicated  till  they  reached  St.  Paul  through 
Stephen  the  Therapeut,  the  only  passage  on  which 
the  existence  of  Therapeuts  in  Apostolic  times  could 
be  founded  has  been  recently  proved  to  be  a 
spurious  interpolation  in  the  writings  of  Philo  of  a 
treatise  forged  several  centuries  after  his  death. ^ 
Besearch  can  find  no  trace  of  Therapeuts  in  Alex- 
andria nor  anywhere  else  till  Monachism  had  be- 
come the  fashion  in  the  Christian  Church.  Bishop 
Lightfoot  has  convincingly  proved  that  the  theory 

quotations  from  the  Rabbinical  books  illustrating  tliis  Jewish  belief, 
Kuenen  in  his  brief  criticism  of  Seydel  adduces  another  from  the 
Wisdom  of  Solomon  viii.  20,  as  also  rendering  the  Buddhist  derivation 
of  this  "  thought  quite  superfluous  "  (Hibbert  Lectures,  1882,  Appendix). 
JNIany  instances  of  agreement  in  thuiight  and  phraseology  with  the 
Gospels  in  passages  in  Buddhist  works  are  adduced  by  Dr.  Kellogg, 
Light  of  Asia,  etc.,  p.  137  seq.,  and  are  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  the 
similarity  of  circumstances  under  Avhich  Buddha  and  the  Saviour  taught 
and  the  condition  of  men  which  they  both  perceived  and  described. 

^  Lucius,  Die  Thcrapeidcn  und  Hire  Stellung  in  der  Geschichte  der 
Ashese,  Strassburg,  1880 ;  also  Der  Essenismus  in  seinem  Verluiltniss 
ziim  Judenthum,  Strassburg,  1881. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  29 

of  the  transmission  of  Christian  doctrine  from  the 
Buddhists  of  India  through  the  Babylonian  Jews 
to  the  Essenes  has  not  the  sHghtest  trnce  of  evi- 
dence to  support  it,  hut  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
weight  of  evidence  and  probabihty  is  all  against  it.^ 
Again,  any  one  who  comj)ares  the  Gospel  account 
of  the  life  of  the  Baptist  with  the  description  given 
in  Josephus  '^  of  the  manners  and  tenets  of  the 
Essenes  will  find  that  just  as  the  Essenes  owed 
nothing  to  Buddha,  so  Christ,  and  even  John 
Baptist,  owed  nothing  to  them.  Though  similar  in 
a  few  external  points,  the  Baptist's  j)i'eaching  and 
manner  of  living  were  essentially  antagonistic  to 
those  of  the  little  Jewish  sect  which  had  severed 
itself  not  only  from  Jewish  society  but  from  Jewish 
hojDes.  The  teaching  of  Christ,  again,  whose  man- 
ner of  life,  notoriously  in  contrast  to  that  of  His 
herald,  was  throughout  a  powerful  though  silent 
contradiction  to  every  doctrine  which  the  Essenes 
held,  and  it  would  be  extravagant  to  assert  that 
He  owed  to  it  even  an  illustration  of  His  own.^  It 
may  be  safely  asserted  that  the  theory  of  the 
derivation  of  Christianity  from  Buddhism  breaks 
down  at  every  point  at  which  it  is  tested.  We  may 
dismiss  it  in  the  words  of  Professor  Kuenen,  that  the 

^  Dissertation  in  Commentary  on  Colossians,  pp.  119,  157. 
2  Jeivish  Wars,  ii.  8.  2-13  ;    Antiq.  xiii.  5.  9  ;    xv.  10.  4,  5  ;    xviii. 
1.  2-6. 

'■^  Edersheim,  Life  and  Times  of  Jcsv,s  the  Messiali,  vol.  i.  p.  325. 


30         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

"  so-called  connection  between  Essenism  and  Chris- 
tianity cannot  bear  serious  inquiry  for  a  moment," 
and  in  tliose  of  the  learned  Bishop/  "that  though 
the  Essenes  may  have  had  some  connection  with 
Persia,  their  system  was  antagonistic  to  that  of 
Buddhism  in  everything  save  the  spirit  of  despair 
which  called  both  into  existence." 

The  whole  supposition  of  Burnouf  and  De  Bunsen, 
and  writers  of  the  school  to  which  they  belong,  is 
based  upon  a  most  exaggerated  and  indeed  ficti- 
tious estimate  of  the  Indian  contribution  to  the 
sum  of  human  knowledge.  It  assumes  that  India 
was  the  cradle  of  all  wisdom,  and  that  from  that 
favoured  land  of  primeval  light  went  forth  from 
time  to  time  the  apostles  of  religion  and  the 
expounders  of  all  philosophy.  Yet  history  reveals 
not  the  slightest  trace  of  any  such  propaganda 
westward  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  and  though 
centiu'ies  after  we  have  slight  notices  of  Indian 
travellers  to  the  West,  we  do  not  find  a  missionary 
among  them.  We  have  historic  evidence,  however, 
of  the  Western  races  reaching  India  certainly  before 
the  coming  of  Christ,  and  probably  long  before 
the  birth  of  the  founder  of  Buddhism,  and  we  can 
hardly  suppose  that  races  with  enterprise  and 
intelligence  sufiicient  to  discover  and  conquer  the 
Hindus  would  appear  only  before  them  as  beggars 

I  1  Hibbert  Lectures,  1882,  p.  203. 


LECT.  1.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  31 

to  receive  their  alms.  We  forget  that  the  wave  of 
Aryan  humanity  that  poured  downward  into  India 
really  deflected  from  the  path  of  progress,  and  that 
under  climatic  and  other  unfavourable  conditions, 
and  through  intermixture  with  inferior  races,  it 
stagnated,  while  that  which  proceeded  westward 
improved  the  more  the  farther  it  advanced.  We 
have  a  tolerably  clear  idea  of  the  civilisation  of 
Western  Asia  in  the  time  of  Solomon,  whose  navy 
is  supposed  to  have  traded  with  India.  It  com- 
prehended capitals  with  magnificent  buildings, 
public  works,  and  well-guarded  highways ;  com- 
merce protected  and  encouraged  ;  law  administered  ; 
religion  observed,  and  learning  cultivated.  What 
Indian  civilisation  meant  at  the  same  period  we  can 
only  conjecturally  infer  from  the  literature  that  is 
extant,  but  we  have  clearer  glimpses  of  it  five 
centuries  later  as  the  home  of  a  mixed  race, 
geographically  severed  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
living  in  village  settlements,  which  only  here  and 
there  were  large  enough  to  be  called  towns,  divided 
into  clans  whose  wealth  consisted  chiefly  in  pasture 
and  tillage  lands,  and  flocks  and  herds.  ^  A  kingdom 
in  the  sense  in  which  Solomon  would  have  used  the 
word  did  not  exist.  In  respect  of  civilisation 
Palestine  was  far  ahead  of  India,  and  in  respect  of 

^  Oldenberg,  Buddlia,  scin  Ltben,  seine  Lchrc,  seine  Gemcindc,  trans- 
lated by  W.  Hoey,  ]  882,  p.  6  ;  Williams  and  Norgate. 


/ 


32        NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON       lect.  i. 

religious  development,  its  theology,  though  greatly 
tainted  with  heathen  superstitions,  was  sufficiently 
pure  and  strong  to  save  the  Hebrew  from  requiring 
instruction  at  the  wattle  huts  of  a  race  that  con- 
founded God  with  His  works.  If  Ophir  be  the  name 
of  an  Indian  port,  then  Solomon's  navy  brought  back 
from  it  gold,  and  ivory,  and  curious  things  indicated 
by  Sanskrit  words  for  which  the  Hebrew  chronicler 
could  find  no  equivalent.  The  sailors  may  have 
picked  up  a  few  fables  and  riddles  and  proverbs, 
but  surely  in  regard  to  religion  and  philosophy,  the 
superior  and  stronger  race  would  be  more  likely  to 
impart  of  their  abundance  to  the  lower  and  weaker 
than  to  enrich  themselves  out  of  their  poverty. 

When  we  come  to  the  Greek  invasion  we  move 
on  more  solid  ground,  and  we  can  handle  events 
which  have  left  permanent  and  very  traceable 
effects ;  but  in  the  historic  notices  that  remain, 
we  have  no  trace  of  Hindu  influence  upon  Greek 
civilisation.  Instead  of  Greek  religion  and  philo- 
sophy being  enriched  by  the  Indian,  the  opposite 
is  more  likely  to  have  been  the  case.  The  invasion 
of  Alexander  must  have  originated  a  host  of  new^ 
thoughts  in  India,  which  may  yet  be  traced  in  the 
works  of  the  prolific  Buddhist  scholars,  wdio  are 
said  to  have  lived  in  the  Punjab  during  the  period 
of  the  Greek  domination.^    It  is  alleged  with  fair 

1  Dr.  .Joseph  Edkins,  Chinese  Buddhism,  pp.  250,  343  ;  Triibner,  1880. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  33 

sliuNv  of  reason  to  have  given  rise  to  some  new 
products,  such  as  the  art  of  Avriting,  a  currency  in 
com,  stone  sculpture,  none  of  whicli  have  as  yet 
been  traced  in  India  in  any  previous  period.^  The 
appearance  in  India  of  the  drama,  the  e\Ac,  of  new 
views  of  mathematics,  astronomy,  physics,  are  all 
said  to  be  subsequent  to  and  consequences  of  the 
Greek  invasion.  And  this  is  what  we  might 
expect,  for  all  through  the  historical  ages  the 
Hindu,  instead  of  enriching  Western  nations,  has 
been  a  needy  borrower  from  them.  He  has  always 
been  more  ready  to  absorb  than  impart,  ever 
greedy  of  foreign  ideas,  and  ever  ready  to  be 
modified  by  external  culture.  The  beneficent  in- 
fluence of  India  is  indeed  traceable  in  China,  whose 
science  it  undoubtedly  improved,  and  whose  litera- 
ture it  has  greatly  enriched  ;  but  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  cipher  so  useful  in  our  arithmetical 
notation,  it  is  questionable  whether  India  has 
contributed  to  the  stock  of  Western  wisdom  one 
single  religious  or  philosophic  or  scientific  truth. - 

The  wealthy  are  more  likely  to  lend  to  than 
to  borrow  from  the  poor  ;  the  wise  more  likely  to 
teach,  though  they  do  sometimes  learn  from  the 
less   instructed.     The  strong   may   be  infected    by 

^  Fergusson,  Tree  and  Serpent  Wors]ii2),  lutroductioii,  p.  77. 
-  This  must  be  read  iu  the  light  of  Professor  Max  Miiller's  What 
can  India  teach  vx  ? 

C 


34  NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lk<  t.  t. 

the  disGcases  of  the   feeble,  but  generally  the  con- 
tagion   of  health    radiates   from    the    more    robust 
to  the  weaker  vitalities.      The  "jDower"  which  the 
touch  of  the  East  has  "made  to  go  forth  from  us"^ 
no   doubt  flows  back  in  quickened  life  upon  our- 
selves.      As   these    Oriental  studies   proceed,    the 
tables    will    perhaps    be    turned    upon    the    school 
that  would  derive  all  our   philosopliy  and  religion 
from   old    Indian   soiu'ces.       We    have    seen    that 
two  successive  waves  of  Western  life  flowed  east- 
wards  upon   the   shores    of   India.       Another   rich 
stream     of    Semitic     thought     in     pre-Buddhistic 
times,    represented    by    such    religious   teachers  as 
the    second    Isaiah    and    Jeremiah    and    Ezekiel, 
reached    the    Tigris,    and    we  may    ask.    Was    the 
Indus  unknown  to  them  ?     We  do  not  assert  that 
they    knew   it,    but    surely    it    was  just    as    easy 
for    a    Jew   to    reach    India  as   for  Burnouf  or   de 
Bunsen's  Buddhists  to  reach  Babylon.     It  was  just 
as  probable   that   a   Jewish  pedlar  found   his  way 
eastward    through    Parthia    to    India,    with    other 
and   more    precious   goods    in    his   possession   than 
the  Babylonian  wares  in  his  pack,   as  it  was  that 
Benan's    wanderino'    Buddhist     monk    found    his 
way  to  the  Jordan.     Later  on  there  is  a  tradition 
— and  though  it  is  only  a  tradition,  what  a  find  to 
Messieurs  Kenan,  Burnouf,  and   de  Bunsen  would 

'  Luke  viii.  4(J. 


LKCT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  35 

one  similar  Buddhist  tradition  be  ! — that  one  of  the 
original  twelve  apostles  of  Jesus  evangelised  a  por- 
tion of  the  western  shores  of  India.     So,  founding 
on  all  these  data,  only  assuming — as  we  are  entitled 
to  assume — that  the  East  was  well  connected  with 
the  West  by  the  sea  routes  from  Arabia   and  by 
the  land  route  through  Persia,  and  remembering 
that  there  is  nothing  so  volatile  and  permeating  as 
thought,   is   the   speculation   so   very    extravagant 
that   old   Indian   philosophy   and    religion,   though 
followino'  their  own  course,  mav  have   been  modi- 
fied  and  purified  by  contact  with  the  thoughts  of 
the  West  ?     What  if  the  conjecture  be  hazarded 
that  from   the   West   a  thousand    years    B.C.   was 
communicated  the  theistic  impulse  which  produced 
what  is  best  in  the  Upanishads — the  truth,  viz.,  of 
the  unity  which   is  behind  and  above  all  variety, 
the  One  Absolute  into  which  all  thought  and  all 
being    is   resolved  ?  ^       What   if    it    be   some    day 
asserted  that  the  teaching  of  the  Hebrew  prophets 
before   the  Diasj^ora,    as   to    the    worthlessness    of 
sacrifice    to    put    away    sin    and    to    promote    com- 
munion with  God,  may  have  insinuated  itself  into 

^  Even  Kuenen  aufl  Wellhausen  assume  as  established  that 
Monotheism  shows  itself  with  unmistakable  distinctness  in  Hebrew 
prophecies  of  the  eighth  century  b.c.  (Hibbert  Lectures,  1882,  p.  119; 
Theological  Review,  1874,  pp.  329,  336  ;  Encyc.  Brit,  art.  Israel).  Pro- 
fessor H.  Schultz  maintains  that  Monotheism  was  established  in  Israel 
from  the  time  of  Moses  downward,  among  the  leaders  of  thought  at  least. 
{Alttest.  rheolog.,  2d  ed.,  1878,  pp.  440,  4-57.) 


36  NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  t. 

the  reveries  of  Indian  ascetics  in  tlieir  forest 
retreats,  and  made  the  teaching  of  reformers  hke 
Buddha  possible  ?  And  what  if  to  St.  Thomas 
may  be  indirectly  traced  that  influence  which 
made  later  Buddhism  difl^er  so  materially  from 
the  primitive,  and  approach  in  the  similarities 
of  its  legends  so  close  to  the  Gospel  narratives  ? 
Dr.  Kellogg  already  proclaims  that  "  it  may  be 
affirmed  with  certainty  that  no  man  can  show  that 
the  legend  of  Buddha,  in  a  form  containing  any 
coincidence  which  could  be  held  to  argue  a  borrow- 
ing from  it  by  Christians,  was  in  existence  before 
the  Christian  era";  "that  all  the  various  versions 
of  the  legend  in  any  language  date  from  a  time 
later  than  the  Christian  era "  ;  "  that  the  chief 
Sanskrit  authority  for  it  cannot  be  proved  in  the 
judgment  of  the  most  competent  critics  to  have 
existed  in  its  present  form  nearly  as  far  back  as 
the  Christian  era  "  ;  and  though  he  does  not  allege 
any  actual  transference  from  the  Gospel  to  the 
Buddha  legend,  he  avers  with  justifiable  confidence 
that  the  opportunity  for  "  such  a  transference 
before  the  Sanskrit  version  assumed  its  present 
form  is  an  indubitable  fact."  ^ 

These  suggestions,  though  just  as  worthy  of 
consideration  and  support  as  the  theory  that  Chris- 
tianity is  either  an  offshoot  of  Veclic  Brahminism 

1  Light  of  Asia  and  Light  of  the  IVorld,  pp.  40,  102,  161. 


LEOT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  '     .37 

or  ii  direct  product  of  Buddhist  speculation,  need 
not  be  discussed  at  present.     We  may  content  our-'^ 
selves    with   the   conclusions  formed  by   our  most 
reliable  authorities,  that  Buddhism  and  Christianity 
in  their  origin  and  earliest  development  were  per- 
fectly independent   of  each   other.     The  births   of 
their  founders  were  separated  by  centuries,  and  the 
spheres  of  their  ministry  by  almost  the  whole  extent 
of  Asia.      While  thus  sundered  by  the  conditions 
of  both  time  and  space,  they  were  still  more  so  by 
their  intellectual  peculiarities  and  antecedents.     The 
Indian  differed   very  widely   from  the  Jew  in    his 
way  of  looking  at  and  reasoning  about  things.     He 
would  be  very  differently  impressed  by  the  same  or 
similar  phenomena,  and  he  w^ould  communicate  his 
impressions  by  a  very  different  method.     Geographi- 
cally India  was  shut  up  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
and  the  Aryans  who  went  down  into  it  were  left 
in   a  manner  hardly  paralleled  by  other  peoples  to 
develop  their  own  life  out  of  itself,  and  according 
to   its  own  laws.     In  far   less   favourable    circum- 
stances,   and  ftir   removed    from    the    educational 
stimulus  of  contact  with  alien  or  cognate  nations, 
they  came  to  stand  alone  as   a  people  scarcely  in- 
telligible by  others.     The  Jews,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  early  brought  into  the  stream  of  human  move- 
ment.    Mingled  with  many  peoples,  sent  from  land 
to  land,  they  became  in  spite  of  their  passionate  love 


38         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

foi-   their    own    country   the   cosmopolitans   of   the 
world.      Consequently  when  the  two  races  came  in 
contact,  the  circles  of  thought  and  feeling  in  which 
they  moved   could   hardly  be   said  to  touch.     Solo- 
mon's sailors,  as   regards  religious   or  philosophical 
treasures,  could  neither  give  nor  take  away.     They 
had   almost   nothing   in   common  with   the  strange 
people  whom  they  met.     The  Sanskrit  words  which 
they  took  home  to  designate  the  peculiar  products 
obtained    in    Ophir    indicated    how  helpless    they 
would  have  been  to  understand  the  metaphysics  of 
India   even   had   they  inquired  about  them.     The 
natives  of  Western  India  a  thousand   years  before 
Christ    were   as    helpless    to   understand  the  Jew. 
You  have  only  to  compare  a  prophecy  of  Israel  of 
the  eighth   century  B.C.    with  the  earliest   of  the 
Upanishads   to  find  how  widely  separated  at  that 
date   was   the   Semite  from   the   Aryan    of  India. 
Even  when  their  own  kinsmen  visited  them,  when 
the  descendants  of  sires  who  had  occupied  the  same 
cradle  and  had  heard  the  same  stories   told  over 
them  in  the  one  primeval  home,  met  for  deadly  strife 
in  the  wars  of  Alexander  on  the  plains  of  the  Pun- 
jab, they  were  aliens  in  almost  everything.     Later 
on,  when  Christian  missionaries,  anxious  to  teach 
them  better  ways,  succeeded  in   influencing  their 
religious  conceptions,  the  Hindus  always  modified 
what  of  our  faith  they  adopted.     The  question  how 


i^Err.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  39 

far  the  early  proclamation  of  the  Gospel  in  India  in- 
Huenced  the  development  of  Hindnism  is  by  the  best 
of  judges  considered  not  yet  settled/  but  even  those 
who  affirm  the  reality  of  this  influence  admit  that 
Hinduism  did  not  so  much  incorporate  the  doctrines 
as  assimilate  the  ideas  of  Christianity.  The  ultimate 
decision  of  this  question,  however,  does  not  in  any 
way  aflect  the  one  before  us.  We  may  be  almost 
certain  that  the  great  mass  of  Indian  speculation  on 
man  and  his  relations  to  the  infinite,  for  many  cen- 
turies before  our  era,  was  developed  originally  from 
the  resources  of  the  Indian  mind  quite  apart  from 
foreign  influences.  The  same  assertion  will  hold 
good  as  to  the  rise  of  Greek  philosophy  and  of  the 
Christian  religion.  Not  one  of  the  three  can 
be  understood  without  careful  reference  to  their 
particular  antecedents,  but  they  can  never  be 
accounted  for  by  any  theory  of  derivation  of  the 
one  from  the  other. 

It  is  the  fact  of  this  complete  independence  of 
each  other  in  origin,  coupled  with  their  analogous 
development,  and  the  many  supposed  agreements 
in  their  systems,  which  makes  the  study  of  Bud- 
dhism so  interesting.  What  does  this  signify  ?  What 
important   law   in    providence   does   it   indicate  or 

1  Weber,  Indisrhc  Studien,  vol.  i.  p.  400;  J.  Muir,  Sanslrit  Texfx, 
p.  xxxiv  ;  Loi-in.ser,  Bhagavadgita,  Appendix,  transhited  by  IMuir  in 
Ind.  Antiq.  vol.  ii.  p.  283. 


40        NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON       legt.  i. 

illustrate  ?      Our    Ijest   guides   content    themselves 
with  calling  attention   to   the   analogies,  and  they 
are  chary  as  yet  of  drawing  inferences  from  them. 
The  wisdom  of  such  caution  is  apparent  when  we 
find  that  the   supposed   coincidences   require   to   be 
examined  and  discussed.     Most  of  them  have  been 
found   to  be  superficial  and  accidental,  and,  when 
probed,  very  essential  and  fundamental  contrasts  are 
discovered  beneath  them.     Now  to  judge  correctly 
concerning  these   religions   we   nuist  try  not   their 
analogies   but  their  contradictions.     The  analoo-ies 
may  be  only  seeming,  and  the  contrasts  may  be  very 
real  and  profound.     On  every  point  that  is  truly 
characteristic  the  two  religions   may  be  separated 
as   widely   as   the  zenith  is  from  the  nadir.       All 
religions  are  parallel  in  their  tendencies,  and  every 
approach   to   truth    must    inevitably   produce    re- 
semblances in  religious  belief.      The  resemblances 
may  indicate  the  aspirations  of  a  moral  and  religious 
nature  common  to  all  men  ;  and  in  what  is  peculiar  to 
Christianity,  what  it  possesses  in  contrast,  may  be 
found  the  divine  answer  to  these  aspirations.     The 
two  religions  may  proceed  in  parallel  lines,  but  on 
very  different  planes,  and  from  quite  opposite  direc- 
tions.   Thus  the  morality  of  Buddhism  so  deservedly 
^dmired  is  in  no  sense  peculiar  to  Buddhism,  for 
much   of  it  was   taught    in   India    before    Buddha 
appeared,   and    in    China  before  his  law   was  pro- 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  1 1 

claimed  in  it.  It  is  the  natural  outgrowth  of  the 
moral  sense  of  mankind  where  circumstances  are 
favourable  to  its  development.  But  high  as  the 
law  of  Buddha  is,  it  only  "  approaches,  swings 
toward,"  as  Oldenberg  tells  us,  but  never  reaches  or 
touches  the  law  of  Christ.'  There  is  in  the  Christian 
Gospel  something  which  the  Buddhist  system  plainly 
lacks,  and  which  Buddhism  out  of  any  evolution 
of  its  own  inherent  energy  could  never  produce. 
Christianity  seems  to  be  superior  to  it,  not  in  the 
sense  that  the  infant  is  superior  to  the  embryo,  but 
as  man  is  superior  to  the  animal,  which  yet  may  be 
said  of  very  necessity  to  precede  him.  The  lower 
organism  in  creation,  though  not  accounting  for  the 
higher,  may  reach  out  after  and  indicate  the  neces- 
sity for  it,  and  the  higher  by  fulfilling  the  lower 
will  interpret  it.  Just  as  the  mineral,  vegetable, 
and  animal  world  all  point  to  some  higher  creative 
flict,  which  in  man  is  to  sum  up  and  perfect  them, 
so  the  many  lower  religions  of  the  human  race  all 
point  to  a  higher,  which  is  to  annul  and  fulfil  them. 
No  theory  of  evolution  has  yet  accounted  for  man. 
He  appears  in  the  universe  as  a  new  creature  while 
part  of  a  very  old  system  of  creation,  and  related  to 
all  its  inferior  forms.  So  Christianity,  in  one  sense 
as  old  as  human  history,  and  related  to  every  form 

^  Buddha,  scin  Leben,  seine  Lehre,  seine  Gcmeinde,  translated   by 
AViii.  Hoey,  1882,  p.  292. 


42  NECESSITY  FOli  A  PKOPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

of  religion  by  which  niaii  has  tried  to  satisfy  his 
spiritual  cravings,  may  not  be  elaborated  out  of  any 
of  them  as  their  products,  but  confronts  us  as  a 
new  fact  of  history  to  satisfy  and  complete  them. 

This  conclusion  is  one  whicli  many  students  of  the 
science  of  religion  are  not  prepared  to  accept.       To 
them    Christianity   is    simply    one    of    the    natural 
religions,  and  at   best  their  highest   but  necessary 
outgrowth.      Just  as  they  allege  that  the  origin  of 
man  is  to  be  found  in  the  lowest  type  of  the  savage, 
so  they  seek  for  the  genesis  of  his   religious  con- 
sciousness  in   his   lowest   animal   wants   and    fears, 
and    they    profess    to    trace    the    development    of 
that  consciousness   from   its  first   almost   shapeless 
forms,  through  the  monstrosities  of  Fetichism,  then 
of  Animism,  Polytheism,  Monotheism,  till  it  finds  its 
ultimate  culmination  in  Christ.     Now  Christianity 
is  indeed  a  natural  religion;   were  it  otherwise,   it 
would  cease  to  be  divine.      It  supplies  all  man's 
natural   wants,    and    it    satisfies   and   educates   all 
man's  natural  aspirations.      While,  however,  there 
is  nothing  i^77natural  in  it,  we  aver  that   there   is 
something  supranatural  in  its  ideal,  fitting  it  to  an- 
"^  swer  the  necessities  of  a  being  who  has  in  him  all  that 

nature  has,  and  a  great  deal  more.  Man  is  a  being 
akin  on  one  side  of  his  nature  to  both  the  ape  and 
the  worm,  but  he  is  also  what  they  are  not.  "  The 
pressure   of  the    infinite   on   his    senses "    awakens 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  4:i 


feelings,  and  originates  a  train  of  thought  in  whicli 
he  soon  becomes  conscious  of  relations  to  a  hlo-her 
than  nature  his  inferior,  and  to  other  than  men  liis 
equals.     There  is  that  in  him  which  once  it  is  aroused 
refuses  to  believe  that  what  he  sees  or  handles  or 
tastes  is  all,  and  tliat  there  can  be  no  hio-her  beino- 
than  himself.    If  his  own  most  perfect  machine  does 
not  express  all  his  intelligence,  he  cannot  believe 
that  all  possible  intelhgence  is  comprehended  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  world  of  nature.     Behind  and  beyond 
all  these  physical  arrangements  of  the  world,  which 
seem  fully  to  meet  the  lower  wants  of  his  being,  he 
feels  that  there  must  be  higher  arrangements  cor- 
responding to  his  peculiar  wants.     Just  because  he 
finds   every  appetite   has   its  corresponding  object, 
and  every  organ  implies  an  element  for  which  it  is 
fitted, — so  that  if  there  be  an  eye  there  must  be 
light,  and    if  lungs    there    must    be    air, — so    this 
feeling  or  instinct  which  impels  him  to  seek  tlie 
unknown    Power,    "for    whose   sake   he  feels    con- 
strained to  do  what  he  does  not  like  to  do,  or  to 
abstain  from  what  he  Avould  like   to   do,"  ^  is  the 
pledge  not   only  that  He  exists,  but   that   he  has 
already  and  always  been  found  by  Him,  as  One  who 
understands  perfectly  his  thoughts  and  wants,  and 
is  freely  communicating  with  him. 

It  is   not  in  the  anthropoid  ape  that  we   may 

^  ^luUer,  Gitibrd  Lectures,  Natural  Bcliijio)),  p.  \(>\). 


44  NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

hope  to  lind  the  origin  of  man,  and  it  is  not  in  tlie 
terror  of  the  savage    cowering  before   the  majesty 
and  mystery  of  nature  that  we  are  hkely  to  find 
the  genesis  of  his  rehgion.      Even  if  anthropology 
succeeded  in  proving  that  savagery  was   the  first 
type  in  which  humanity  was  expressed,  and   that 
its  bestial  rites  inspired  by  terror  was  the  first  form 
of  human  religion,  it  would  not  then  have  accounted 
for  their  origin.      The  gulf  between  the  religious 
savage  and  the  non-religious  speechless  ape  would 
remain    as   vast    as    ever.       The    first    manifested 
beginning    of  a    work    may   be    rude   enough,   "as 
is  the  rouo'h  block  which  receives  the  first  stroke 
of  the    sculptor    who    has    designed   to   produce   a 
statue  ;    but  the  real  beginning,"  as  we  have  been 
eloquently  reminded,   "  is  in  the  plan  of  the  artist, 
and  to  perceive  his  ideal  we  have  to  wait  for  the 
final    result.'"^      It   is    in    the    end   therefore   that 
w^e  may  be  said  to  find  and  understand  the  author. 
So  the  origin  of  man,  and  the  genesis  of  his  religion, 
is  more  likely  to  be  indicated  by  that  divine  fiat 
which  one  of  the   ancient  authors   of  Genesis  has 
dared    to    formulate,    "  Let   us    make   man    in    our 
image,  and  after  our  likeness."     According  to  that 
conception,   man  is  a  creature,  neither  equal  with, 
nor  perfect  as  the  Being  who   conceived  him,  but 
having    afiinity    with    his    Creator,   and    from    the 

'  Di-.  Caiicl,  Introdndion  (o  the  Philosophy  of  Beligion,  p.  343  scq. 


LKCT.  r.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  45 

very  first  manifesting  capacity  and  potentiality  of 
indefinite  progress  to  be  gained  l)y  the  divine  educa- 
tion to  which  he  is  everlastingly  subjected. 

It  is  not  in  the  plan  of  our  lecture  to  discuss 
these  momentous  questions,  or  to  enter  the  lists 
against  the  representatives  of  the  sciences  of 
Anthropology  or  Religion.  Anthropology  is  not 
sufficiently  advanced  to  scatter  the  mystery  that 
surrounds  the  cradle  of  the  human  race  :  and  it 
would  be  rash  for  the  apostles  of  the  other  science 
to  maintain  that  they  have  succeeded  in  tracing 
the  lines  of  that  process,  out  of  wdiich  Christianity 
or  even  Buddhism  is  alleged  to  have  evolved  from 
the  shapeless  superstitions  of  the  primitive  savage, 
before  they  confront  us  as  facts  in  the  history  of 
human  thought.  Observation  and  experience  alike 
seem  to  counsel  greater  caution  in  making  our 
deductions  and  drawing  our  inferences.  Indeed 
there  seems  to  be  almost  as  much  evidence  in 
favour  of  the  theory  of  degradation  as  there  is  in 
favour  of  that  of  evolution.  There  is  no  inherent 
tendency  in  human  society  to  pass  ever  on  and  ever 
up  to  something  better  and  nobler.  No  race,  by  its 
own  inherent  strength,  seems  to  have  raised  itself 
from  barbarism  into  anything  that  can  be  called 
true  civilisation  ;  but  we  have  abundant  proof  in 
the  Aztecs  of  former  generations,  and  the  negroes 
of  the   Black  Republic    in    the   present   day,   that 


46  XECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

races  can  terribly  decline.      A  state  of  civilisation  is 
very  difficult  to  keep,  as  well  as  difficult  to  gain.^ 
And   so    far   as   observation   goes,   savage    life   and 
religion    appear    to    be    -'not    the    dawning    of    a 
society  about   to   rise,   but    the   flicling   remains  of 
one   sinking  in   storms,   overthrown   and   shattered 
l)y    overwhelming    catastrophes."       Humboldt   and 
Niebuhr,    quoted    by    Whately   in    his    lecture    on 
the  Origin  of  Civilisation,  both  protest  as  strongly 
as  he  did  himself  against  those  who  profess  to  find 
in  the  wreck  of  the  civilised  and  religious  man  his 
original  representative,^  and  our  best  authority  in 
the   science  of  religion  assures  us  that  Fetichism, 
far    from   being    the   initial    of  an   upward    course, 
marks  the  very  last  stage  in  the  downward  course 
of  religion.'^     It  should  content  us,  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  to  find  that  humanity  is 
capable    both    of    development    and    degradation. 
Savagery  and  civilisation    are    not  separated  from 
each  other  by  impassable  l^arriers  :    savagery  is    at 
least  a  possibility  to  a  civihsed  race  ;  ^  civilisation  is 
not  beyond  the  reach  of  the  savage.    On  the  surface 
of  the  very  highest  civilisation  many  things  appear 

1  Sir  A.  Mitchell,  Rhind  Lectures  for  1876  and  1878,  The  Past  in. 
the.  Present,  pp.  207,  214  ;  Edinburgh,  Douglas,  1880. 

2  Whately,  Political  Economy,  p.  68. 

^  Max  Miiller,  Gifford  Lectures,  Nattmd  Beligion,  p.  54. 
■*  The  savagery  of  a  great  city  is  in  some  aspects  more  awful  than 
that  of  Africa. 


LFX'T.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  47 

which  are  also  to  be  seen  in  the  lowest :  and  just  as 
in  the  lowest  organisms  certain  rudimentary  traces 
are  found  of  members  which  are  perfected  in  organ- 
isms above  them,  so  the  very  lowest  savagery  seems 
to  exhibit  an  upward  tendency.  In  the  same  way 
the  very  purest  religions  have  clinging  to  them 
traces  of  the  lowest  superstitions.  Not  in  Bud- 
dhism only,  but  even  in  Christianity,  we  find  forms 
of  Animism  and  Fetichism  ;  but  the  question 
whether  both  religions  first  manifested  themselves 
in  these  lower  forms,  with  which  they  are  still 
partly  incrusted,  must  not  be  held  to  be  settled 
in  the  affirmative  because  these  traces  of  them 
exist.  Instead  of  being  survivals  which  they 
have  not  yet  sloughed  off  or  outgrown,  they  may 
])e  parasitical  growths  indicating  degradation  and 
disease. 

Though  the  researches  hitherto  prosecuted  have 
not  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  a  law  regulating 
the  development  of  religion,^  they  all  point  to  a 
common  religious  faculty  peculiar  to  man,  and 
indicate  that  the  religious  instinct  is  co-extensive 
with  the  lunnan  race.  Nothing,  it  is  true,  in  the 
nature  of  things  forbids  the  discovery  of  tribes 
absolutely  without  religion ;  l)ut  as  matter  of  fact, 
no  such  have  been  found.  And  as  Tylor  remarks, 
"  those     who    assert    the    contrary    disprove    their 

1  T.  W.  Rliys  D;ivi<ls,  Hibl)ert  Lectures,  p.  10, 


48  NECESSITY  FOK  A  PKOPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

theories  by  the  facts  which  they  allege  in 
support  of  them."  ^  Now,  if  we  find  in  all  sections 
of  humanity,  even  far  apart  from  each  other,  the 
same  groping  after  an  Author  and  Governor  of  our 
being,  and  the  same  forecasting  of  our  destiny, 
though  in  most  contradictory,  and,  alas  !  often  fear- 
fully perverted  ways,  we  may  safely  infer  as  a 
fundamental  truth  that  humanity,  though  broken 
up  into  many  fragments,  is  really  an  organic  unity, 
and  that  the  Christian  dogma  simply  expresses  a 
scientific  fact,  "  that  God  hath  made  of  one  all 
nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth." 

If  the  organic  unity  of  humanity  he  granted, 
the  organic  unity  of  language  and  of  religion  too 
would  seem  to  be  deducible  from  it  as  simple 
coroUaiies.  But  we  must  be  careful  in  defining 
wherein  this  organic  unity  consists.  We  may 
assume  that  in  regard  to  language  it  does  not 
consist  in  a  perfect  primitive  speech,  broken  up  at 
later  times  into  numberless  forms  to  be  used  richly 
and  copiously  by  some  civilised,  but  scantily  by 
barbarous  peoples.'^  In  regard  to  religion  it  does 
not  mean  a  complete  compendium  of  truth  super- 
naturally  given  to  the  fathers  of  the  human  race, 
from  which,  while  all  men  have  erred  more  or  less, 
some   have    fearfully   fallen   away.       Such  a   view, 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  i.  p.  380. 

-  Miiller,  Introductiun  to  the  Science  of  Religion,  ]>.  41  ;  Chips  from 
a  German  Worlshof,  vol.  ii.  p.  254. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  49 

though  held  generally  once,  would  be  condemned 
by  Christian  theologians  now  as  irreligious  in  prin- 
ciple, for  it  would  seek  for  the  roots  of  religion 
not  in  the  nature  of  man,  but  in  some  external 
enactment,  and  would  make  religion,  which  is 
essentially  spontaneous,  to  be  something  mechani- 
cal or  compulsory  in  action.^  The  unity  of  lan- 
guage does  not  consist  in  a  common  vocabulary, 
but  in  a  common  faculty  which  all  men  have  of 
expressing  their  feelings  and  their  thoughts ;  and 
the  unity  of  religion  does  not  consist  in  a  number 
of  fundamental  beliefs  which  all  men  have  in 
common  ;  but  in  the  universal  instinct  to  believe 
in,  and  reverence  and  obey,  a  power  higher  and 
better  than  ourselves.  The  faculty,  the  instinct 
in  each  case  is  one ;  yet  it  has  been  developed, 
if  we  are  to  use  that  word,  in  very  different 
degrees.  In  some  tribes  the  faculty  of  reckoning 
is  so  weak,  that  they  have  numerals  only  to  five, 
and  their  vocabulary  is  so  poor  as  to  exjoress  only 
objects  around  them  or  their  own  sensuous  wants. 
In  the  same  way  in  some  peoples  the  religious 
faculty  is  so  stunted  as  almost  to  be  amorphous. 
It  exists  as  it  were  in  embryo  ;  in  other  peoples 
it  perplexes  us  by  the  monstrosities  in  which  it  is 
expressed,  but  the  monstrosity,  as  we  are  reminded,^ 

1  Fiiirbairn,  Studies  in  Religion  and  Philosophy,  p.  13. 

2  Baring  Gould,  Origin  and  Development  of  Meligious  Belief,  vol.  i. 
p.  109. 

D 


.  ..^t^-i"-*^^ 


50         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON     lect.  i. 

may  mark  a  further  growth.  Avhich  also  points  on- 
ward to  something  more  complete,  and  may  be  in 
itself  a  type  of  things  not  seen  as  yet.  Observa- 
tion therefore  seems  to  detect  a  religious  tendency 
in  process  of  evolution,  and  if  so,  the  only  question 
is  as  to  whether  that  tendency  develops  by  its  own 
inherent  power,  or  by  a  process  of  education  intelli- 
gently conducted  ;  in  other  words,  whether  man 
grows  into  his  religion,  or  whether  he  is  instructed 
in  it  by  the  revelation  of  a  mind  higher  than  his  own. 
The  New  Testament  writers,  while  proclaiming 
the  organic  unity  of  humanity,  proclaim  as  clearly 
that  the  organic  development  of  religion  proceeds 
under  Divine  control.  The  phrase  "  organic  de- 
velopment of  religion  "  may  only  be  a  modern  way 
of  designating  that  long  continuous  process  by 
which  God  reveals  His  mind  and  will  for  the 
education  of  the  human  race,  which  culminated 
when  He  "who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  man- 
ners," in  various  ways  and  in  diflPerent  measures, 
"spake  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets,"  spoke  unto 
us  by  His  Son.  Holy  Scripture  from  first  to  last 
is  consistent  in  its  teaching  as  to  this.  It  tells  of 
a  Divine  Spirit  not  operative  only  in  one  race  or  in 
one  part  of  the  world  during  a  few  centuries  of  its 
history,  but  striving  with  human  souls  always  and 
everywhere.  It  tells  us  that  God  never  left  the 
world  without  a  witness  of  Himself;  it  reminds  us 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  51 

of  prophets — certainly  not  all  of  the  one  nation — 
who,  trained  to  grasp  and  to  proclaim  moral  and 
spiritual  truths,  were  sent  to  lead  among  their  fellow- 
men  lives  so  pure  and  unselfish  as  profoundly  to 
affect  the  moral  progress  of  the  whole  human  race. 
In  a  word,  it  reveals  Deity  not  as  apart  from  man 
and  uninterested  in  him,  but  as  an  everlasting 
agent  in  human  history, — working  out  an  eternal 
purpose  hid  as  a  mystery  from  all  ages,  but  now 
manifested  in  the  last  times  to  us ;  the  purpose  of 
gathering  together  not  only  the  scattered  and  alien- 
ated nations,  but  "  all  things  which  are  in  heaven 
and  which  are  on  earth  in  One,"  even  in  Christ. 

The  proclamation  of  this  universality  of  the 
Divine  purpose  is  one  of  the  chief  distinctive  char- 
acteristics of  Christianity.  Its  canonical  Scriptures 
from  beginning  to  end  contradict  the  Jewish  heresy, 
that  God,  though  He  has  made  of  one  all  nations, 
has  only  taken  one  or  two  under  His  protection, 
and  has  no  care  for  the  rest.  They  tell  us  that  God 
cares  for  the  sparrow  that  flits  over  the  heads  of  the 
most  degraded  of  the  human  race,  and  for  the  worm 
that  crawls  under  their  feet ;  and  by  implication  they 
warn  us  that  to  assert  that  He  who  has  provided  for 
the  wants  of  the  reptile  and  the  bird  has  made  no 
provision  for  the  spiritual  wants  of  those  whom  He 
is  said  to  have  made  in  His  image,  is  blasphemy 
more   heinous   than    ever   heathen    or   atheist    has 


52         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

uttered.  "  The  same  Lord  over  all  is  rich,  in  mercy 
unto  all,"  and  "He  is  not  far  from  any  one"  of  them. 
He  has  left  none  "  without  a  witness."  Though  He 
has  given  some  more  than  others,  He  has  left  no 
one  without  something.  The  religious  instinct  in 
some  He  has  specially  trained  and  illuminated,  not 
because  He  regards  them  as  favourites — for  He  is 
no  respecter  of  persons — but  because  through  them 
He  would  work  out  His  beneficent  plan  for  all.  A 
few  are  indeed  chosen,  but  that  many  may  be 
called,  and  when  one  individual  or  one  people  is 
selected  and  peculiarised,  it  is  that  through  them 
all  nations  may  be  blessed, 

St.  Paul,  quoting  to  the  Athenians  from  one  of 
their  own  poets,  reminded  them  that  "we  are  all  His 
offspring,"  and  as  such  we  are  all  divinely  cared  for. 
It  is  true  that  He  does  not  deal  with  all  after  the 
same  fashion,  and  His  dealings  will  always  be  per- 
plexing if  we  apply  to  them  only  the  standard  of 
man  and  the  measures  of  time  ;  but  if  we  remember 
that  "He  is  God,  and  not  man,"  that  "His  years 
are  throughout  all  generations,"  and  that  we  "  can 
see  only  a  portion  of  His  ways,"  we  may  trust  that 
by-and-by  He  will  show  that  He  has  wasted  neither 
His  own  patience  nor  His  creatures'  strength.  For 
though  He  may  not  be  dealing  with  us  after  the 
same  fashion.  He  is  dealing  with  all  toward  the 
same  blessed  end,  the  end  which  He  has  revealed  in 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  53 

Christ,  through  whom,  and  by  whom,  and  in  whom, 
all  men  and  things  are  to  be  reconciled. 

We  can  only  judge  of  His  purpose  by  what  of 
it  has  been  disclosed.  Humanity,  essentially  and 
fundamentally  one,  exhibits  most  manifold  Variety. 
While  the  unity  of  the  race  secures  its  sympathy 
with  all  its  members,  in  its  variety  there  is  secured 
its  indefinite  expansion  and  progress.  No  family 
could  always  keep  together  in  one  spot  :  the 
differences  of  disposition  and  character  among  its 
members  demand  their  separation  as  the  condi- 
tion of  harmony.  The  family  of  man  is  a  scat- 
tered one,  not  merely  to  prevent  jealousy  and 
hostility  between  its  members,  but  to  promote 
their  education.  The  training  of  the  race  seems  to 
proceed  on  principles  somewhat  analogous  to  those 
which  we  ourselves  have  adopted  in  the  education 
of  our  children.  We  never  could  hope  to  educate  a 
large  number  of  children  of  vaiious  ages  and  mental 
capacities,  by  keeping  them  all  in  one  class ;  so  we 
break  them  up,  and  isolate,  and  grade  them,  and 
train  some  of  them  specially  for  the  sake  of  all, 
that  they  may  be  their  leaders  and  teachers. 
Even  so,  we  find  nations  widely  separated  by 
natural  barriers,  that  the  characteristic  energies  of 
each  may  be  developed,  till  the  time  comes  when 
one  or  other  of  them  is  needed  for  the  elevation  or 
reformation  of  the  rest.    That  the  division  of  nations 


54         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON      lect.  i. 

and  the  separate  training  of  nations  entered  deeply 
into  the  counsels  of  Providence,  may  be  learned  by 
a   glance  at  the   configuration  of  the   world,   and 
the    influences   which    are    exercised    by    soil    and 
climate  and  circumstance  upon  any  single   nation. 
The  blessed  effect  of  this  division  may  be  seen  by 
the  slightest  survey  of  history  in  the  corrective, 
educative,   redemptive   influence  which   they  have 
exercised  upon  each  other/     And  yet  a  survey  of 
the  history  of  the  last  eighteen  centuries  will  just 
as  plainly  indicate  a  Divine  purpose  of  drawing  the 
nations  toward  unity.     Babel  may  mark  the  Divine 
purpose   of  the  primeval  economy,  and  Pentecost 
may  be  the  sign  of  the  present.     The  wonder  in  the 
plain  of  Shinar  was,  that  through  diversity  of  speech 
men  were  ceasing  to  understand  each  other.     The 
wonder  in   Jerusalem  was,  that   men   of  the  most 
widely  separate  nationalities  heard,  each  in  their 
own  tongue.  Christian  evangelists  proclaim  the  mar- 
vellous works  of  God.     Pveligion,  which  up  till  the 
coming  of  Christ,  had  proved  a  repellent  and  divi- 
sive force,  began  at  that  time  to  prove  an  attrac- 
tive, harmonising,  and  transforming  power.     A  new 
spring-tide  dawned  upon  man's   religious    concep- 

1  "Nations,"  says  Professor  Goldwin  Smith,  "redeem  each  other. 
They  preserve  for  each  other  principles,  truths,  and  hopes,  and  aspira- 
tions which,  committed  to  the  keeping  of  one,  might  become  extinct  for 
ever.  They  thus  not  only  raise  each  other  again  when  fallen,  but  they 
prevent  each  other  from  falling." — Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History, 
delivered  in  Oxford  1859-61,  p.  71. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  55 

tions,  and  truths  after  which  all  had  been  groping, 
but  which  none  had  attained  to,  emerged  grandly 
into  prominence.  The  Fatherhood  of  the  One  living 
and  eternal  God,  the  Divine  Son,  in  whom  all  men 
are  brethren,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  dealing  with 
every  man,  working  upon  him  and  in  him  to  con- 
form him  to  the  likeness  of  the  highest  and  best, 
beofan  to  be  revealed ;  and  the  more  that  revela- 
tion  is  accepted  the  more  the  reconciliation  of  the 
race  advances. 

It  is  not  our  interest,  therefore,  to  sever  Chris- 
tianity from  all  connection  with  the  manifold  forms 
in  which  the  religious  instinct  and  faculty  of  man 
has  found  expression.  If  it  could  be  proved  that 
our  religion  stands  in  no  relation  to  anything  which 
men  in  other  religions  thought  or  believed,  it  would 
be  discovered  defective,  and  we  would  have  to  aban- 
don the  claim  that  it  is  the  universal  religion  of 
humanity.  To  assert  that  all  previous  religious 
ideas  must  be  expunged  as  erroneous  or  false,  so  that 
an  entirely  new  message  might  be  written,  is  to  con- 
tradict the  evangelical  doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of 
Christ  and  the  purpose  of  His  mission  to  the  world. 
The  New  Testament  writers  assert  that  Christ  is 
the  source  of  all  the  truth  that  was  ever  uttered, 
the  inspirer  of  all  the  goodness  that  was  ever  seen, 
and  that  He  is  the  stimulator  and  educator  of  man's 
every  reaching  out  after  God.  The  noblest  thinkers, 
it  is  true,  failed  to  comprehend  the  truth,  and  their 


56         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON     lect.  i. 

highest  rehgion  failed  to  satisfy  them  ;  but  we  must 
not  think  of  them  as  divinely  permitted  to  fail  to 
teach  us  the  glory  of  Christ  as  the  ultimate  revela- 
tion of  God.  Here,  as  in  all  similar  cases,  failure 
was  rather  a  partial  success  ;  for  by  the  efPort  to 
reach  it  the  mind  was  trained  to  receive  and  grasp 
the  reality  when  it  was  disclosed.  Some  one  has  said 
that  all  pre-Christian  religions  are  just  Christ  par- 
tially— very  very  partially— realised.  Certainly  they 
all  point  to  Him,  and  but  for  Him  they  would  have 
been  abortive.  They  all  suggest  Him,  in  respect 
that  they  each  claim  something  to  satisfy  and  unite 
them.  Christianity  thus  proves  itself  Divine,  not 
in  being  absolutely  different  from,  nor  even  in  being 
vastly  superior  to,  but  in  the  fact  that  it  harmonises 
and  completes  them.  Instead,  therefore,  of  being 
scared  by  the  resemblances  to  Christianity  which  we 
meet  in  other  religions,  we  should  be  thankful  for 
their  discovery.  The  early  Aj)ologists  were  not 
frightened  when  Celsus,^  in  the  second  century, 
submitted  his  alleged  parallels  to  Christian  doc- 
trine and  ethics,  in  order  to  prove  that  what  Chris- 
tians called  revelation  had  already  been  attained 
by  the  unassisted  efforts  of  heathen  minds.  Anti- 
cipating  the   language  of  the  eighteenth  century 

^  Celsus,  quoting  our  Lord's  saying,  Matt.  xix.  24,  and  the  exhor- 
tation to  forgive  our  enemies.  Matt.  v.  43,  45,  alleged  they  were 
transferred  and  coarsely  perverted  from  Plato,  de  Legihus,  and  Crito. 
— Origen,  contra  Cdsiim,  Book  vi.  chaps.  15,  16,  and  Book  vii.  chap.  61. 


LECT.  I.  OF  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS.  57 

Deists,  he  proclaimed  that  "  Christianity  was  as  old 
as  creation."  His  parallels  were  often  found  to  be 
defective,  and  many  of  them  had  only  to  be  looked 
at  to  show  the  immense  superiority  of  the  Christian 
quotations.  Augustine  turned  them  against  him- 
self, when  he  showed  that  to  claim  entire  originality 
for  Christianity,  to  deny  the  existence  of  any  light 
before  Christ  came,  and  the  possibility  of  any  silent 
universal  revelation  through  reason  and  conscience, 
was  to  contradict  His  Messiahship,  To  ignore 
what  God  had  done  before,  would  have  cut  Him  oft* 
from  God  and  man.  We  would  expect  the  Son 
of  Man  to  confirm  the  deepest  convictions  of  the 
human  race.  We  would  expect  the  Son  of  God 
to  claim  and  utilise  all  the  truth  God's  Spirit  had 
spoken  in  ages  past.  "  Siquis  vera  loquitvu',  prior 
est  quam  ipse  Veritas?  O  Homo,  attende  Christum, 
non  quando  ad  te  venerit,  sed  quando  te  fecerit."  ^ 

The  more  of  Christian  doctrine  and  ethics  we 
find  in  other  religions,  the  more  Divine  will  Chris- 
tianity appear.  There  is  not  a  truth  which  has 
verified  and  sustained  any  other  religion  which  is 
not  found  in  Christianity,  in  fuller  amount  and  in 
clearer  form.  Christianity  differs  from  all  other 
religions,  not  because  it  is  a  purer  system  of  moral 

^  Enarr.  in  Psalm,  cxl.  6.  Clement  of  Alexandria  regarded  Greek 
philosophy  as  a  TrponaiSfia  or  preparatory  discipline  for  the  reception 
of  Christian  truth,  Strom,  vi.  chap.  8,  and  as  a  step  to  something  higher, 
VTTO^ddpav  ovaav  rrjs  Kara  Xpiarov  (f>i\o(ro(})ias,  Strom,  vi.  chap.  1/. 


58         NECESSITY  FOR  A  PROPER  COMPARISON,     lect.  i. 

truth,  but  because  it  is  the  manifestation  of  a 
Divine  Hfe,  and  because  in  that  Hfe  it  reveals  the 
2?oiver  which  alone  can  reconcile  the  knowing  with 
the  doing  of  duty.  It  professes  only  to  have  one 
original,  one  distinctive  element ;  but  how  much  is 
involved  in  that  profession?  for  this  original  is  Christ 
Himself,  and  all  its  doctrines  and  precepts  are  vital 
only  because  of  their  connection  with  Christ.  Whole 
libraries  of  moral  and  doctrinal  anthologies  would 
not  make  up  for  the  obliteration  of  His  likeness 
from  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  world  :  "It 
would  be  like  consoling  ourselves  for  the  loss  of 
the  sun  by  the  kindling  of  ten  thousand  artificial 
lamps."  -^  He  confronts  the  ages,  as  the  One  to 
whom  all  religions  point,  of  whom  all  true  prophets 
of  the  human  race  have  unconsciously  testified. 
They,  like  the  Founder  of  this  great  religion,  whose 
alleged  resemblances  will  be  found,  as  we  examine 
them,  to  be  rather  point-blank  contradictions  and 
contrasts  to  the  Christian  doctrines  and  story,  may 
have  indeed  been  burning  and  shining  lights,  and 
men  were  willing  for  a  season  to  rejoice  in  their 
light.  They  were  "not  that  Light,"  but  as  voices 
crying  in  the  night  for  its  arising  they  came  to 
"  bear  witness  of  it"  :  the  Light  not  of  Asia  only, 
nor  yet  only  of  Europe,  but  the  "  Light  which 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world." 

^  Trench,  Hulsean  Lectures  for  1846,  p.  153. 


LECTURE  11. 

THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF  BUDDHISM  AND 
CHRISTIANITY,  AND  THE  EVIDENTIAL  VALUE  OF 
THEIR    RESPECTIVE    SCRIPTURES. 

It  should  be  an  advantage  to  the  study  of 
Buddhism  that  even  in  its  origin  it  confronts  us 
as  the  rehgion  of  a  people  sufficiently  advanced 
in  civilisation  to  be  able  to  formulate  their  meta- 
physical conceptions  and  present  us  with  their  re- 
ligious beliefs  organised  in  a  system.  Like  Chris- 
tianity it  not  only  inherited  but  also  produced 
a  considerable  and  very  miscellaneous  literature, 
whose  contents  throw  valuable  light  upon  the  past 
from  which  it  emerged  and  upon  the  course  which 
it  followed,  and  like  Christianity  it  has  left  its 
stamp  on  most  of  the  institutions  of  the  peoples 
among  whom  it  was  successfully  propagated.  When 
all  these  sources  of  information  have  been  properly 
investigated,  we  may  hope  that  the  story  of  the 
rise  and   progress  of  Buddhism  in  the  East    will 

59 


60  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

be  revealed  with  something  at  least  of  the  clear- 
ness with  which  the  history  of  Christianity  is 
disclosed  by  the  literature  and  art  of  the  West. 

To  trace,  however,  the  dawn  and  spread  of 
j  Buddhism  with  anything  like  historical  accuracy 
for  the  first  six  or  seven  hundred  years  of  its 
course,  is  a  task  as  yet  beyond  the  literary  ability 
of  the  times.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  materials 
for  such  a  work  have  as  yet  been  collected,  and  he 
would  be  a  bold  man  who  would  claim  for  the  task 
of  sifting  what  has  already  been  furnished  more 
than  an  earnest  beo^innino^.  Not  even  Saint-Hilaire 
would  now  repeat  the  assertion  so  confidently 
made  thirty  years  ago,^  that  "  no  new  discoveries 
can  change  our  conclusions  regarding  it "  ;  for  dur- 
ing the  past  generation  the  effect  of  fuller  informa- 
tion has  been  not  only  to  modify,  but  in  several 
instances  to  revolutionise  the  theories  formed 
concerning  it.  Discoveries  are  multiplying  every 
year;  and,  though  the  knowledge  thus  acquired 
serves  often  more  to  reveal  difficulties  than  to  solve 
them,  we  may  be  thankful  that  the  examination 
of  them  is  engaging  the  attention  of  the  highest 
order  of  scholarship,  and  hopeful,  yea,  even  confident 
that  since  so  many  of  the  ablest  and  most  patient 
minds  are  turned  in  this  direction,  the  aggregate 
of  progress  will  speedily  be  immense. 

1  Introduction  to  Le  Bouddha  et  sa  Religion  ;  Paris,  1858. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  61 

All  that  we  know  of  Buddhism,  and  all  that 
we  are  likely  to  know  of  it,  is  to  be  gathered  from 
its  own  Scriptures ;  and  a  comparison  of  these 
with  the  Christian  Scriptures  reveals  at  the  very 
outset  a  difference  amounting  to  a  vast  contrast 
between  them.  The  original  Scriptures  of  Chris- 
tianity have  been  before  the  tribunal  of  the  world's 
keenest  and  most  hostile  criticism  for  1800  years ^5 
but  we  are  only  now  beginning  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  the  Scriptures  of  Buddhism,  which 
have  hardly  been  subjected  to  any  cross-question- 
ing worthy  of  the  name.  Those  who  have  ventured 
to  assail  have  only  published  their  inability  to 
understand  them,  and  those  most  competent  to 
criticise  may  be  pardoned  if  they  handle  tenderly 
the  fragments  which  they  are  collecting  and  trans- 
lating for  our  use.  The  services  which  they  are 
thus  rendering  to  religion  as  well  as  to  science  are 
very  great.  Previously  we  had  only  anthologies 
extracted  often  without  reference  to  date  or  author- 
ship or  connection  to  judge  from,  but  now  these 
learned  pundits  are  furnishing  us  with  books 
containing  not  only  the  wisdom  and  beauties  of 
Eastern  literature,  but  its  follies  and  blemishes  as 
well.  Omitting  only  what  is  obscene  and  offensive 
to  the  moral  sense,^  they  are  giving  us  specimens 
of  several   strata  of  Oriental   thought  and   belief, 

1  Miiller,  Introd.  to  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  i.  p.  xxi. 


62 


THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 


vertically  and  thoroughly  cut,  from  which  a  correct 
understanding  of  the  essential  features  of  this  very 
peculiar  religion  may  with  considerable  probability 
be  ascertained. 

Only  a  portion  of  the  Buddhist  Scriptures  are 
as  yet  available,  and  these  we  are  certainly  not  at 
liberty  to  place  side  by  side  as  of  equal  evidential 
value  with  the  contents  of  the  New  Testament. 
It  is  said  that  two  thousand  manuscripts  of  the 
New  Testament,  or  of  portions  of  it,  have  been 
discovered,  several  of  which  are  of  great  antiquity, 
and  notwithstanding  the  immense  number  of  vari- 
ous readings  on  points  of  detail,  the  text  of  the 
oldest  corresponds  substantially  with  that  of  the 
books  as  we  have  them  to-day.  We  are  informed, 
however,  on  the  best  authority,  that  "  all  Indian 
manuscripts  are  comparatively  modern,  that  no 
manuscript  written  one  thousand  years  ago  is  now 
existent  in  India,  and  that  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  find  one  written  five  hundred  years  ago;  for 
most  manuscripts  which  claim  to  be  of  that  date 
are  merely  copies  of  old  ones,  the  dates  of  which 
are  repeated  by  the  copyists."  ^  It  is  admitted, 
moreover,  that  the  literary  honesty  of  these  Indian 
translators  and  copyists  is  very  questionable,  that 
the  books  of  the  Buddhists  have  undergone  whole- 

1  A.  Burnell,  Lidian  Antiq.,  1880,  p.   223,  quoted  by  Prof.  Max 
Miiller  in  Introduction  to  vol.  x.  of  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  p.  xi. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  63 

sale  textual  alterations,  that  none  of  the  Sanskrit 
works  as  yet  known  to  us  are  unadulterated  speci- 
mens of  transmitted  doctrines,  that  the  oldest  and 
most  reliable  authorities  for  the  life  of  Buddha 
exaggerate  greatly  events  which  are  said  to  have 
happened,  and  ascribe  to  him  long  discourses  of 
which  the  ^viiters  themselves  were  the  composers.^ 
In  respect,  therefore,  of  literary  accuracy  and  faith- 
fulness of  purpose,  these  old  compilers  and  re- 
editors  of  the  Buddhist  books  are  far  below  the 
standard  which  criticism  has  inexorably  applied  to 
the  versionists  of  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

The  faithfulness  of  oar  English  versions  is 
vouched  for  by  the  names  of  the  translators,  and 
yet  they  admit  that  their  translations  are  only 
approximations.-  From  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  they  must  be  so.  The  East  is  very  far  dis- 
tant from  the  West ;  its  ways  are  not  our  ways ; 
its  thoughts  are  not  our  thoughts.  Some  one 
has  said  that  "the  Iliad  is  separated  from  the 
Rig  Veda  by  an  interval  of  several  civilisations  "  ; 
and  if  so,  how  vast  must  be  the  gulf  separating 
Vedic  and  even  Buddhist  metaphysicians  from  the 
British   philosopher  of  to-day  !      It   is   simply   im- 

1  Frankfurter,  Appendix  to  Wordsworth's  Bampton  Lectures  for 
1881  ;  The,  One  Religion,  p.  340  ;  Eitel  Lectures  on  Buddhism,  p.  44; 
Edkins,  Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  232. 

-  Prof.  Max  Miiller,  Introduction  to  vol.  i.  of  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East,  p.  xxvii. 


64  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

possible  for  the  most  impartial  translator  to  put 
himself  in  the  place  of  the  ancient  Indian  sage,  and 
to  prevent  his  own  preconceptions  from  insinuating 
themselves  among  the  data  with  which  he  has  to 
deal.  He  has  to  express,  as  we  have  been  re- 
minded, "  a  lower  order  of  ideas  in  a  higher  order 
of  terms,  and  use  words  suggesting  a  wealth  of 
analysis  and  association  quite  foreign  to  the 
thought  to  be  reproduced.  Translation  from  a 
lower  to  a  higher  language  is  thus  a  process  of 
elevation."  ^  In  reading  these  translations  and 
the  books  founded  upon  them,  we  have  constantly 
to  guard  against  giving  to  such  terms  as  "sin," 
"lust,"  "salvation,"  "law,"  "church,"  and  many 
others,  our  Christian  conceptions  of  them.  We 
are  often  perplexed  whether  the  phrases  employed, 
and  even  the  very  titles  of  the  treatises,  be  really 
the  equivalents  of  the  ancient  texts  and  titles,  or 
nineteenth  century  conceptions  of  what  they  may 
be  made  to  mean.  A  European  scholar  inheriting 
the  results  of  ages  of  Christian  culture  may  be 
more  likely  to  interpret  the  reach  of  an  old 
Buddhist  expression  than  the  monk  who  first 
used  it ;  but  he  is  always  in  danger  of  confound- 
ing that  reach  with  his  own  firm  grasp  of  truth, 
and  of  expressing  his   conceptions  by  phraseology 

^  A.  E.  Gough,  Philosophy  of  the  Upanishads,  etc.,  p.  5  ;  Triibner's 
Oriental  Series. 


LECT.  ir.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  65 

which,  if  it  could  be  explained  to  the  ancient, 
would  be  rejected  by  him  as  inconsistent  with 
his  original  meaning. 

Another  strong  contrast  between  the  two  sets 
of  scriptures  emerges  when  we  attempt  to  fix  the 
dates  at  which  the  earliest  Buddhist  works  were 
produced.  The  New  Testament  is  admitted  by 
authorities  who  cannot  be  accused  of  prejudice  in 
favour  of  Christianity  and  even  by  antichristian 
critics,  to  contain  the  actual  writings  of  some  of 
the  original  disciples  of  Jesus,  The  very  latest  of 
the  books  which  compose  it  was  in  circulation 
within  a  century  after  His  death,  while  the 
great  bulk  of  them  were  accepted  before  half  a 
century  had  passed  as  the  testimonies  of  those 
who  were  eye-witnesses  of  the  rise  of  our  religion.^ 
M,  Renan  admits  that  the  three  Synoptical  Gospels 
are  the  "tender  remembrances  and  simple  narra-' 
tives  of  the  first  and  second  generations  of  Chris- 
tians, written  in  substantially  their  present  form 
by    the    men    whose    names    they    bear."  ^       The 

^  This  statement  is  hazarded,  notwithstanding  the  recent  reply  of 
the  author  of  Supernatural  Religion  to  Bishop  Lightfoot's  Essays.  It 
■will  be  generally  conceded  that  he  has  adopted  an  untenable  position, 
and  that,  though  his  rejoinder  to  the  learned  Bishop  may  be  a  vigorous 
assault,  it  is  weak  criticism.  Sanday's  work  on  The  GosjkIs  in  the 
Second  Century  is  on  the  whole  a  better  reply  than  the  Bishop's  to 
the  allegations  of  the  author  of  Supernatural  Religion,  whose  extreme 
scepticism  of  literary  evidence  is  quite  equalled  by  his  dogmatic  extra- 
vagance of  statement. 

^  Vie  de  Jesus,  Introd.  pp.  xv,  xvii,  4th  od.  ;  Paris,  1863, 

E 


66  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

epistle  of  St.  James  and  several  of  the  epistles 
of  St.  Paul  are  almost  now  unanimously  accepted 
as  the  products  of  the  first  generation.  Mons. 
E.  Burnouf  therefore  may  safely  aver  that  "  the 
history  of  Christian  doctrine  and  worship  bears 
the  crown  over  all  others  in  respect  that  its 
records  are  complete."^  What  of  these  records 
are  comprised  in  the  New  Testament,  though 
tried  by  the  severest  of  tests,  continues  to-day 
as  they  were  eighteen  centuries  ago  delivered  to 
the  Church.  Though  the  various  readings  in  the 
MSS.  are  said  to  be  counted  by  200,000,  hardly 
one  of  them  can  be  said  to  affect  a  fundamental 
doctrinal  or  historical  statement ;  and  so  outstand- 
ing and  distinct  is  their  canonical  character  that 
it  requires  no  external  authority,  but  only  com- 
parison with  them,  to  disclose  what  of  early  Chris- 
tian literature  is  to  be  regarded  as  apocryphal. 

The  evidence  on  which  Orientalists  have  to  rely 
in  fixing  the  date  of  the  Buddhist  scriptures  is 
confessedly  such  "  that  we  must  not  be  surprised 
if  those  who  are  accustomed  to  test  historical  and 
chronological  evidence  in  reference  to  Greece  and 
Rome  declined  to  be  convinced  by  it."  "  /  For  cen- 
turies after  the  death  of  Buddha  his  followers 
assure  us   that  they  had  no  written  books  consti- 

'  Science  de  Religions,  pp.  12,  20. 

-  Professor  Max  Miiller,  Introd.  to  Dhamniapadn,  Sacrid  Bools  of 
the  East,  vol.  x.  p.  x. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  67 

tuting   their    rules   of  faith   and    manners.       The 
earliest  written   collection   of  which  in   their  own 
records    we    have    any    historical   trace    is   that    of 
Ceylon,  and   all   that   can  be   said  of  it  is    "  that 
there  is  nothing  improbable  "  that  part  of  it  may 
have    been    reduced    to    writing   about    the    first 
century  B.C.,  but  the  whole  was  only  fixed  about 
420  A.D.     The  Nepaulese  collection  is  said  to  date 
only   from  the    first   Christian    century ;    but   it  is 
not    alleged    that    the    whole    of  the    works    now 
in  it  were  even  then  in  existence.     According  to 
their  own  tradition,  they  had  no  written  biography 
of  Buddha  till  about  the  first  century  of  our  era, 
and  no  one   who  has  examined   that   narrative   or 
read  the  opinions  expressed  by  Orientalists  as  to 
the  date  when  it  was  produced — opinions  so  diver- 
gent   as    to    indicate    a    difi:erence   of  several    cen- 
turies— would     ever    dream    of    employing    it    as 
evidence  of  what  is  alleged  in  it  to  have  happened. 
It  is    simply  impossible,    therefore,    to   regard   the 
Buddhist's    Pitakas    as    if    they    were    of    similar 
authoritative  value  with   the  New  Testament,  for, 
in  fact,  in  respect  of  canonical  worth  they  do  not 
deserve    to    be    ranked    with    much    of  our   later 
patristic  literature. 

A  very  high  antiquity,  however,  is  claimed  by 
Buddhists  for  these  collections.  According  to  the 
Dipavanso,  their  earliest  available  chronicle,  dating 


68  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

only  from  the  fifth  century  a.d.,  the  doctrines  orally 
communicated  by  Buddha  to  his  disciples  were  by 
them  immediately  after  his  death  revised  and  classi- 
fied under  the  three  divisions  of  Vinaya,  Abhidharma, 
and  Sutta,  in  which  they  have  always  since  then 
been  j^reserved.  This  collection  having  passed 
through  the  crucible  of  a  council  held  at  Vaisali  a 
hundred  years  later,  was  fixed  as  canonical  at 
another  held  in  the  reign  of  Asoka  about  242  B.C. 
It  is  urged  that  a  canon,  to  be  authoritative,  does 
not  require  to  be  written,  and  that  Indians  claim 
for  one  orally  transmitted  higher  authority  than  for 
one  transcribed.  The  art  of  writing  was  probably 
unknown  in  India  in  Buddha's  time,  and  so,  thrown 
back  upon  their  resources,  memory  was  by  the 
Indians  cultivated  to  an  extent  which  enabled  them 
to  dispense  with  methods  deemed  by  nearly  all 
other  peoples  to  be  essential  to  accuracy.  Eminent 
Orientalists  therefore,  while  regarding  the  account 
of  the  first  council  as  apocryphal,  are  yet  inclined 
to  admit — from  the  identity  of  the  threefold  division 
in  all  the  schools  that  have  been  tested,  from  the 
similarity  of  the  titles  of  the  contents  of  all  the 
various  collections,  and  especially  from  the  quality  of 
the  writings  themselves — that  the  tradition  recorded 
in  the  Dipavanso  is  well  founded,  and  that  consider- 
able portions  of  the  Vinaya  and  Sutta  literature  may 
date  from  a  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Buddha. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  69 

In  assuming*  so  much,  however,  these  scholars 
by  no  means  beheve  that  they  have  found  in  these 
texts  the  actual  teaching  of  Buddha  in  an  unadul- 
terated condition.  While  not  thinking  it  possible 
to  impugn  the  substantial  accuracy  of  the  Vinaya 
texts,  though  given  in  Pali  translations  of  the  lost 
dialect  in  which  they  were  originally  preached,  they 
tell  us  that  the  oldest  of  the  Sutta  texts  are  "  not 
his  teachings  nor  the  teachings  of  his  immediate 
disciples,  who  could  not  have  spoken  of  him  in  the 
manner  in  which  he  is  there  described.  They  are 
only  founded  on  his  teachings,  and  record  existing- 
beliefs  as  to  the  doctrines  which  he  actually  taught."  ^ 
For  "  the  fundamental  and  original  doctrines  they 
may  be  accepted  as  fairly  trustworthy  authorities," 
but  for  the  facts  of  his  life  they  are  even  at  the 
best  very  questionable  guides.  Nearer  to  the 
origin  of  Buddhism  and  of  the  person  of  its  founder 
we  are  not  likely  to  get  than  in  the  book  entitled 
by  its  translator  the  Sutta  of  the  Great  Decease  ; 
but  he  confesses  that  even  in  it  we  are  standing  on 
anything  but  solid  ground,  and  that  we  are  only 
able  to  catch  a  distant  and  most  uncertain  glimpse 
of  the  figure  of  the  great  Teacher  as  he  comes 
out  at  rare  intervals  from  the  mist  of  legends 
which,  designed  to  adorn  and  magnify,  have  in  reality 
diminished  and  obscured  his  real  personality. 

^  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xiii.  p.  37  ;  Introd.,  vol.  xi.  p.  xx. 


X«./>Juu 


70  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lbct.  ii. 

For  our  knowledge  of  Buddhism,  therefore,   we 
have  for  centuries  only  oral  traditions  to  rely  upon. 
Of  these  traditions  only  a  portion  may  be  traced 
approximately  to  the  times  of  Buddha,  and  of  the 
fragments   which   can   possibly  be  traced  not    one 
contains  a  narrative  nor  any  historical  reference  to 
passing   events.      On   the  contrary,  our  knowledge 
of  the   origin   of  Christianity  is   derived   not   from 
fragments    of    oral    tradition,    but   from    a    set    of 
canonical  writings,  many  of  them  traceable  close  to 
the    generation  that   witnessed  Christ's  death,   in 
which  the  story  of  His  ministry  is  set  in  historical 
relation    to   the    age   in  which   He  appeared,   and 
His  peculiar  doctrines  are  so  fixed  that  any  addition 
to  them  is  at  once  recognised  as  spurious.      Be- 
tween the  extremes  of  criticism  as  to  the  period 
covered  by  the  life  of  Christ  there  is  a  difference 
of  only  half  a  dozen  years  ;  but  there  is  a  difference 
in   Buddhist   traditions   of  more   than   a   thousand 
years  as  to  the   date  of  Buddha's  birth,  and  even 
European  scholars,  after  carefully  sifting  traditions 
and  writings,  have  only  been  able  approximately  to 
fix  dates  for  his  death  ranging    over   a  period  of 
175  years. ^ 

For  historical  accuracy,  therefore,  the  traditions 
are  as  worthless  as  they  are  for  any  photographic 
presentation  of  the  various  persons  who  figure   in 

^  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  27. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  71 

them.  In  truth  we  have  in  them  neither  chrono- 
logy nor  biography.  Events  and  actors  are  equally 
indistinct ;  we  have  only  a  background  without 
any  })erspective,  and  pasteboard  puppets  pro- 
jected against  it  which  might  be  designated  by 
any  name  whatev^er.  Even  in  respect  of  trans- 
mission of  doctrine,  oral  tradition  was  found  very 
early  to  have  failed.  The  reason  given  in  their 
chronicles  for  resorting  to  writing  is  confession 
sufficient  that  they  considered  that  method  of 
preserving  the  deposit  of  the  faith  a  safer  one.^ 
80  divergent  had  the  renderings  and  so  corrupt 
had  the  texts  become — "  for  even  the  monks  of  the 
great  council  were  blamed  for  turning  the  religion 
upside  down,  for  distorting  the  sense  and  teaching 
of  the  live  Nikayas,  for  casting  aside  that  Sutta 
and  Vinaya,  and  making  imitations  of  them  chang- 
ing this  to  that" — that  the  profoundly  wise  priests, 
foreseeing  the  perdition  of  the  people  (from  the 
perversion  of  the  doctrines),  and  in  order  that  the 
religion  might  endure  for  ages,  wrote  the  same  in 
books.""'  Before  this  time  the  many  schisms  whicli 
had  arisen  were  powerful  illustrations  of  the  evils 
which  the  "  profoundly  wise  "  transcribers  deplored, 

'  Mahavansa,  by  Tumour ;  Dipavansa,  xx.  20,  quoted  by  Professor 
Max  Miiller  in  Sacred  Boohs  of  the  East,  vols.   x.  p.  xxiv,  and  xiii. 

p.  XXXV. 

^  Buddhist  Birth  Stories,  vol.  i.  p.  Ivii  ;  Triibner's  Oriental  Series. 
'•'  Weber,  Indian  Literature,  p.  294  ;  ibid. 


72  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

and  of  that  falling  away  from  the  original  creed 
which  this  religion  had  already  suffered  for  lack  of 
a  secured  basis  of  faith. ^ 

For  the  want  of  an  authoritative  standard  told 
.zf^rj-  severely  against  the  early  history  of  Buddhism. 
Its  rapid  and  widespread  extension  was  due,  not 
so  much  to  the  natural  development  of  its  own 
principles  as  to  its  assimilation  of  the  external 
and  foreign  influences  with  which  it  came  in  con- 


1  We  may  safely  assert  that  in  the  mass  of  Buddhist  literature 
already  available  nothing  has  been  found,  nor  is  anything  at  all  likely 
,,  to  be  found,  corresponding  in  character  and  evidential  value  to  the 
'  Christian  Scriptures.  What  would  the  New  Testament  have  been,  asks 
Professor  Miiller,  "  if  the  spurious  Gospels,  the  pseudo-apostolic  and  post- 
apostolic  productions,  the  debates  of  the  Councils,  the  commentaries  of 
the  Fathers,  and  the  lives  of  the  saints,  had  all  been  bound  and  mixed 
up  with  it"?  {Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  i.,  Introd.,  pp.  xv,  xvi.) 
And  yet  this  is  a  parallel  to  the  confusion  represented  by  the  so-called 
Buddhist  Bible.  In  truth,  it  is  not  a  Bible,  but  a  library,  containing 
not  only  the  earliest  treatises,  but  the  commentaries  upon  them  made 
in  later  ages,  and  extracts  and  repetitions  from  itself  so  extensive  and 
numerous  that  were  they  omitted  this  portentous  collection — four  times 
as  voluminous  as  our  Christian  Bible — would  be  found  to  be  much 
shorter  than  it.  When  the  original  Bible  of  Buddhism  has  been  disin- 
terred from  this  pile  it  will  be  found  to  resemble  almost  in  nothing  our 
New  Testament,  but  it  may  present  many  analogies  to  the  Talmud  and 
Targums,  and  perhaps  some  very  interesting  resemblances  to  isolated 
portions  of  the  Old  Testament.  As  far  as  it  has  been  translated  to  us. 
the  Tripitaka  contain  neither  prophecy  nor  history  ;  but  one  division  of 
it  presents  suggestive  coincidences  with  portions  of  the  apocryphal  Scrip- 
tures ;  and  scholars  may  find  a  comparison  of  some  of  the  texts  of  Job, 
Proverbs,  and  Ecclesiastes  with  those  of  the  Dhammapada  and  some  of 
the  Suttas  an  agreeable  and  not  unprofitable  study,  without  in  the 
least  being  tempted  to  transfer  their  allegiance  from  the  Hebrew  to  the 
Indian  sages. 


LECT.  11.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  73 

tact.  Its  advance  was  the  result  more  of  compro- 
mise than  of  conquest.^  It  welcomed  or  tolerated, 
at  least  it  could  not  or  did  not  defend  itself  against 
the  introduction  of  many  parasitical  germs  which 
were  destined  to  arrest  its  growth  and  pass  into  its 
life.  As  the  ivy  covers  and  adorns  the  oak  only 
to  suck  away  with  its  million  mouths  its  strength, 
so  the  popular  beliefs  which  Buddhism  incorpor- 
ated from  without,  as  well  as  the  defections  from 
the  original  teaching  which  took  place  within  it, 
produced  very  soon  upon  it  alterations  so  extensive 
that  its  founder  would  have  disclaimed  or  would 
have  been  really  unable  to  recognise  it  as  his 
own. 

No  temptation  happened  to  Buddhism,  however, 
but  such  as  is  common  to  all  the  higher  religions. 
As  far  as  observation  and  experience  go,  the  lower 
types  of  religion  continue  unchanged ;  but  those 
that  confront  us  upon  a  higher  level  are  in  a 
perpetual  flux,  in  which  change  does  not  always 
indicate  progress.  Instead  of  tracing  their  path 
by  the  superstitions  which  they  have  outgrown, 
their  course  may  be  indicated  by  those  which  they 
have  incorporated.  Man,  in  his  exodus  of  faith,  is 
always  tempted  to  go  back  to  the  condition  from 
which   he  has    emerged,   or   to   fall   away   to   the 

^  Eitel,  Lectures  on  Buddhism,  p.  6;  Hunter,  "Historical  Aspects 
of  Indian  Geography,"  Scot.  Geog.  Mag.,  Dec.  1888. 


74  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

religions  by  which  he  is  surrounded.  Mosaism  and 
Christianity  had  to  pass  through  this  trial,  and 
certainly  they  did  not  pass  through  it  unscathed. 
They  suffered  from  the  corruption  of  popular  super- 
stitions and  of  Pagan  rites,  all  of  which,  as  in  the 
case  of  Buddhism,  were  defended  by  an  appeal 
to  tradition.  Just  as  every  Buddhist  innovator 
was  ready  with  some  forgotten  saying  or  Sutta 
alleged  to  have  been  delivered  by  the  "  Blessed 
One,"  sometimes  miraculously  preserved  through 
the  ages  till  the  necessity  for  the  revelation  arose, 
so  the  Popes  and  the  Fathers  of  Christendom  were 
never  at  a  loss  for  authorities  when,  professing 
to  develop  and  define,  they  in  reality  were  adding 
to  the  faith  and  the  worship  and  the  claims  of 
the  Church. 

But  Christianity  from  the  very  earliest  pos- 
sessed what  Buddhism  for  a  long  period  lacked. 
In  its  canonical  writings  it  conserved  not  only  a 
check  upon  this  apostas}^,  but  a  security  for  refor- 
mation. Mechanical  though  it  seems,  there  was 
a  providence  in  the  early  committal  to  writing 
of  such  books  as  compose  our  Bibles.  In  the  fact 
that  their  successive  disclosures  of  truth  were 
thus  registered  there  is  more  significance  than  at 
first  appears.  It  is  admitted  by  all  that  man's 
progress  depends  in  no  small  degree  on  his  ability 
to    secure    and   hand   down    the   treasures   of  his 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  75 

wisdom  and  experience.  The  art  of  waiting  is  thus 
recognised  to  be  one  of  the  most  moving  powers 
in  the  world.  The  nations  that  have  depended 
upon  it  for  the  transmission  of  knowledge  inherited 
or  acquired,  have  certainly  made  more  progress  in 
religion  and  civilisation  than  those  that  have 
neglected  or  despised  it.  It  is  significant  that  the 
writers  of  the  Bible  have  all  recognised  this  con- 
dition of  human  progress,  and  that  many  of  them 
have  represented  themselves  as  instructed  by  the 
Divine  authority,  from  whom  they  profess  to  have 
received  their  communications,  to  make  them  per- 
manent in  popular  language  and  in  plain  written 
form.^ 

In  the  history  of  the  Hebrews  there  is  not  a 
single  recorded  instance  of  religious  reformation  in 
which  the  law  and  the  testin^ony,  or  the  scrolls 
of  the  prophets,  did  not  play  an  important  part. 
In  like  manner  the  New  Testament,  which  em- 
bodies the  ideals  and  perpetuates  the  standard 
which  is  to  regulate  its  course,  not  only  saved  Chris- 
tianity from  the  perils  which  threatened  its  earliest 
spread,  but  has  often  rescued  it  from  the  degrada- 
tion into  which  it  has  fallen.  Canonical  books 
may  only  give,  as  it  has  been  said,  "the  reflected 
image  of  the  real  doctrines  of  the  founder  of  a 
religion,   an   image    always   blurred   and   distorted 

'  Rogers,  Superhuman  Origiv  of  the  BiJdc,  Lecture  v. 


76  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

by  the  medium  througli  which  it  has  to  pass"  ;^ 
but  in  the  case  of  the  New  Testament  the  Church 
has  never  developed,  or  thought  it  possible  to 
develop,  a  purer  reflection.  Advance  as  it  may, 
the  Church  never  can  outo-row  the  ideals  of  its 
youth,  and  change  what  it  pleases,  it  never  can 
improve  them.  Whenever  the  Church  assumed 
supremacy  over  its  law,  and  whenever  tradition 
superseded  its  testimony,  it  yielded  to  the  disin- 
tegrating influences  of  heathenism.  It  was  rapidly 
lapsing  into  polytheism  when  Mohammed  rose  with 
a  spurious  and  mutilated  version  of  the  Scriptures 
to  recall  it  to  the  witness  of  true  Scriptures  to  the 
unity  and  sovereignty  of  God.  Later  on,  when 
sinking  through  formalism  into  superstition  and 
sorcery  almost  as  degrading  as  any  Indian,  Luther, 
by  the  re-discovery  of  the  Greek  Testament, 
brought  about  a  reformation  which  not  only  saved 
Europe,  but  has  created  a  new  Western  and 
Southern  world.  In  every  revival  and  every  ad- 
vance which  has  taken  place  since  then  there  may 
be  traced,  directly  or  indirectly,  the  regenerative 
influences  of  the  Christian  originals.  On  its 
human  side  the  Christian  Church  will  always  be 
in  danger  of  losing  its  pure  conceptions  and  noble 
aims  in  grosser  forms  of  belief  and  in  lower  ambi- 

1  Professor   Max   Muller,   Introduciion   to  the  Science  of  lieli(jiou, 
p.  103. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  77 

tions ;  but  high  over  all  its  degradation  towers  in 
its  early  Scriptures  the  majesty  and  spirituality  of 
its  Divine  authority,  and  we  have  only  to  look  up 
to  be  first  convicted,  then  attracted  and  redeemed. 
The  purest  sections  of  the  Christian  Church,  the 
surest  and  the  first  to  outgrow  all  unworthy  ex- 
pressions of  Christianity,  are  those  which  adhere 
most  closely  to  the  original  rule  of  faith  and  wor- 
ship. It  is  quite  possible  that  we  "may  be  only 
too  apt  to  make  a  fetich  of  our  sacred  books " ;  ^ 
but  somehow  the  Christian  communities  that  most 
revere  their  sacred  books  show  that  they  are  least 
likely  to  fall  into  this  danger.  The  more  we  obey 
the  Scriptures,  the  less  likely  are  we  to  idolise 
them.  The  New  Testament,  so  far  from  attaching 
any  mystical  or  talismanic  value  to  its  contents, 
tells  us  that  the  letter  killeth,  and  the  spirit  alone 
giveth  life.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  Buddhist 
Tripitaka.  Its  authors  claim  meritorious  efficacy 
not  only  for  the  repetition  of  its  sentences,  but  for 
the  very  sound  of  its  words,  "  as  if  they  were 
capable  of  elevating  every  one  who  hears  them  to 
heavenly  abodes  in  future  existence."  Sir  Moniei- 
Williams  has  illustrated  this  by  a  legend  lono- 
current,  not  in  northern  Buddhist  countries,  but 
in  Ceylon,  where  a  purer  Buddhism  prevails. 
According   to   it,   two   monks  were    lieard    by  five 

^  Professor  Miiller,  Gitford  Lectures,  Natural  Beligion,  \\  564. 


78  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

liiindred  bats  recitino-  in  a  cave  the  law  of  Buddha, 
and  they  by  merely  hearing  gained  such  merit 
that  in  death  they  were  re-born  as  men,  and  ulti- 
mately through  successive  re-births  were  raised 
to  the  fellowship  of  the  gods.^  Of  course  this  is 
simply  a  legend,  a  thing  of  hay  or  straw  that  has 
got  mixed  with  the  purer  primitive  faith  ;  but  it 
indicates  that  the  course  of  the  current  flows  in 
quite  an  opposite  direction  from  the  faith  which 
allows  itself  to  be  dominated  and  guided  by  the 
canon  of  Holy  Scriptures. 

The  quality  of  the  contents  of  the  two  sets  of 
writings  is  not  under  discussion,  but  we  cannot  help 
remarking  one  characteristic  of  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures which  is  not  likely  to  emerge  in  our  longest 
acquaintance  with  the  Buddhist  books.  No  one 
ever  expects  that  the  genuineness  of  the  contents 
of  the  Tripitaka  will  ever  be  discussed  with  any- 
thing like  the  intensity  and  acerbity  with  which 
we  have  discussed  the  genuineness  of  the  books  of 
the  Bible.  The  long  and  fierce  contendings  that 
have  been  waged  over  each  portion  of  the  Gospels 
will  never  take  place  over  any  of  the  Suttas.  We 
have  been  working  for  five  centuries  to  secure  a 
proper  English  translation  of  the  Holy  Bible,  and 
we  are    not  satisfied    with  it  yet :    does  any  one 

^  Record  of  Missionary  Conference  in  London,  1888,  vol.  i.  p.  39  ; 
also  his  Biiddhism,  p.  558. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  79 

expect  a  similar  expenditure  of  labour  to  secure  a 
proper  version  of  the  Tripitaka  ?  It  is  possible  that 
scholarship  will  by  and  by  exhaust  this  particular 
field  of  Oriental  research,  and  "having  catalogued 
its  discoveries  will  put  them  aside  and  proceed  to 
more  interesting  studies  "  ;  but  though  men  have 
quarrelled  about  and  questioned  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures for  eighteen  centuries  they  are  not  likely  to 
come  to  a  term  of  their  hostility  or  curiosity.  The 
ceaseless  endeavour  to  disprove,  refute,  shows  that 
we  cannot  get  rid  of  them.  There  must  be  some- 
thing either  in  the  history  of  their  production  or 
the  quality  of  their  contents,  or  the  range  of  their 
influence,  which  separates  them  from  all  sacred 
books  of  the  type  of  the  Buddhist  Tripitaka. 
Certainly  we  cannot  conceive  it  possible  that  any 
of  these  so-called  Bibles  of  other  relictions  will 
ever  among  any  civilised  people  supplant  the 
Christian  Bible.  "  One  chapter  of  Isaiah,"  says 
Quinet,^  "  has  more  in  it  than  a  whole  Republic  of 
Plato."  One  Psalm  of  David  will  outweigh  all  the 
religious  lore  of  the  Vedas.  One  sentence  of  Moses, 
"  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord :  I  the  Lord  am 
holy,"  is  worth  all  the  speculations  of  the  devout 
and  learned  autliors  of  the  Upanishads.  Not  that 
the  Bepublic,  the  Vedas,  the  Upanishads  are  to  be 
despised.      On   the    contrary,    the    more   they   are 

*  Le  Genie  des  Religions. 


80  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

studied  the  more  likely  is  the  Bible  to  be  revered, 
for  the  truth  that  is  in  them  is  only  prophetic  of 
truth  which  could  not  then  be  revealed  and  received. 
We  may  outlive  and  outgrow  the  teaching  of  these 
wise  ancients,  but  we  have  not  yet  transcended  the 
originals  of  Christianity,  and  it  is  not  at  all  likely 
that  we  ever  shall.  There  is  an  end  to  the  per- 
fection of  all  other  systems,  but  here  is  "a  com- 
mandment exceeding  broad,"  "  whose  line  has  gone 
through  all  the  earth,  and  its  word  to  the  end 
of  the  world." 

From  this  sliafht  notice  of  the  literature  which 
Buddhism  has  produced  let  us  proceed  to  glance  at 
the  literature  which  it  inherited,  with  the  view  of 
catching  a  glimpse  of  the  conditions  out  of  which 
it  arose.  As  with  man's  language,  so  is  it  with  his 
other  distinctive  birthright  :  we  can  only  under- 
stand a  religion  when  we  have  ascertained  its 
antecedents.  Christianity  emerged  from  a  previous 
religion  of  which  it  professed  to  be  the  complement. 
Our  Lord  appeared  among  a  people  whose  spiritual 
history  extended  over  several  thousand  years. 
They  had  a  sacred  canon,  professing  to  register  the 
successive  Divine  revelations  made  to  their  ancestors, 
which  was  fixed  as  we  have  it  now  at  least  two, 
and  perhaps  more,  centuries  before  He  came.  In- 
stead of  breaking  with  the  past  He  acknowledged 
and  appropriated   it ;    instead   of  abrogating   their 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  81 

law,  He  fulfilled  it ;  instead  of  disownino-  their 
prophets  He  claimed  them  as  His  witnesses.  In 
prosecuting  His  mission  He  brought  upon  Himself 
the  fierce  antagonism  of  the  existing  Church,  whose 
leaders  in  less  than  three  years  succeeded  in  having 
Him  crucified  ;  but  His  constant  appeal  was  to  their 
ever-venerated  Scriptures.  His  apostles  again 
record  and  expound  the  incidents  of  His  ministry 
and  His  death  as  realising  the  pre-intimations  of 
their  ancient  rites,  and  as  fulfilling  all  their  pro- 
phecies ;  and  all  along-  faith  in  the  Divine  orio-in 
of  Christianity  is  never  supposed  to  be  weakened 
but  to  be  greatly  confirmed  by  an  appeal  to  the 
religion  which  it  annulled  and  supplanted. 

Now  Buddhism  grew  out  of  Brahmanism,  but 
however  divergent  their  relations  eventually  became, 
it  was  originally  accepted  as  a  natural  consequence 
of  it.  Unlike  Christianity  and  Judaism,  there  was 
for  long  no  trace  of  serious  antagonism  between  the 
Brahmans  and  many  generations  of  the  successors 
of  Buddha.  Brahmans  formed  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  his  followers,  and  in  reo-ard  to  his  teaching, 
his  doctrines,  where  not  identical,  were  not  likely  to 
offend  them.  St.  Paul  scandalised  the  Pharisees 
by  preaching  that  outward  Jewish  connection 
marked  by  the  seal  of  circumcision  profited 
nothing,  but  long  before  Buddha's  time  Brahman 
teachers   had    declared,    as   he    did,   to   that   most 

F 


82  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

exclusive  of  the  Indian  elect,  that  the  true  Brahman 
was  not  a  person  born  within  the  sacred  caste,  but 
only  the  thoughtful  and  self- controlled  man  :  ^  that 
a  bad  mind  and  wicked  deeds  are  what  defile  a 
man,  and  that  no  outward  observances  can  purify 
him.^  Buddha  has  been  designated  as  the  best  and 
wisest  and  greatest  of  Hindus ;  "a  reformer  of 
Hinduism  who  ignored  its  superstitions  and  follies, 
and  sought  to  elevate  and  refine  its  dogmas."  '  It 
is  now  considered  very  questionable  whether  the 
difference  between  the  two  systems  ever  grew  into 
hostility  involving  persecution  of  the  new  religion 
by  the  old.  The  two  streams  of  Hindu  belief  seem 
for  long  in  their  course  in  India  to  have  flowed 
peaceably  side  by  side,  and  if  Buddhism  eventually 
disappeared  from  India  as  a  separate  and  distinct 
system,  it  was  not  altogether  because  it  was  crushed 
by  persecution,  but  because  it  returned  to  enrich 
and  modify  the  religion  from  which  it  originally 
parted."* 

Buddhism  was  thus  an  offspring  of  Brahmanism, 
but  Brahmanism  was  itself  the  product  of  a  religion 
older  still.      Behind    Buddhism   lies   a  great   and 

^  Sutta  Nipata,  translated  by  Fausboll  in  vol.  x.  of  Sacral  Books  of 
the  East,  Part  ii.  pp.  23,  76,  109,  113. 

-  Ibid.  vol.  X.,  ibid.  Part  ii.  p.  40.  We  are  also  reminded  that  a 
man  is  not  a  Bikkhu  because  he  puts  on  yellow  robes,  unless  he  has 
cleansed  himself  from  evil  (Dhammapada,  i.  9,  10). 

3  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhism,  pp.  5,  145. 

*  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism,  pp.  162,  163. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  83 

undefined  past,  a  past  with  no  history  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  and  absohitely  without 
chronology ;  but  out  of  this  vast  and  nebulotT^Sera 
there  has  been  extracted  a  rich  traditional  literature, 
and  Oriental  scholars  working  on  principles  similar 
to  those  by  whic  hgeologic  periods  are  determined,^ 
are  endeavouring  by  an  examination  of  the  various 
civilisations  reflected  in  that  literature  to  establish 
the  leading  stages  in  the  growth  of  prehistoric 
Indian  thought.  The  sacred  books  of  India  disclose 
sutiiciently  in  outline  the  social  and  religious  pro- 
gress of  the  23eople  from  a  period  of  great  antiquity. 
No  one  can  tell  when  the  oldest  frag^ments  of  them 
were  originally  composed,  but  some  of  them  are 
said  to  have  been  in  circulation  among  the  Aryans 
when  one  immigrant  contingent  of  them  had  arrived 
at  the  confluence  of  Jumna  with  the  Ganges,"  and  if 
so,  they  image  for  us  the  life  and  beliefs  of  a  people 
who  must  have  been  contemporaries  with  Moses 
some  fifteen  centuries  at  latest  before  the  coming  of 
Christ. 

It  is  now  asserted  that  this  Aryan  immigration 
had  been  preceded  from  the  same  quarter  by  an 
earlier  one,  in  a  past  so  very  remote  that  the 
Indians  had  lost  completely  the  memory  of  it,  and 
that  by  the  tmie   this  second  wave   had   reached 

1  Emile  Burnouf,  Science  dc  Religious,  p.  24. 

2  M.  Vivien  de  St.  Martin,  Memoires  sur  Us  contries  occidentales. 


84  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

the  north-west  Gangetic  tracts,  the  first  had 
pushed  its  way  as  far  east  as  the  delta,  where 
first  vanquishing  it  finally  amalgamated  with  the 
aboriginal  tribes.  It  is  supposed  that  from  out 
of  this  earliest  section  arose  the  natural  ancestors 
of  Buddha,  while  in  the  second  and  intellectually 
superior  section  we  must  look  for  the  religious 
teachers  from  whom  his  spiritual  lineage  is  to  be 
traced/  For  with  them  were  introduced  the 
Vedas,  revealing  the  earliest  forms  of  civilisation 
and  religion  in  that  great  section  of  the  human 
family  to  which  we  ourselves  belong.  We  see 
pictured  in  the  Kig-Veda  a  people  who,  in 
complexion,  manner,  and  rites,  were  at  first  as 
distinct  from  the  native  Indian  races  as  were  the 
Israelites  from  those  of  Canaan.  Patriarchal  in 
their  institutions,  pastoral  or  agricultural  in  their 
pursuits,  they  confront  us  as  a  primitive  but 
certainly  not  a  barbarous  folk.  Nurtured  by  the 
invigorating  climate  and  magnificent  scenery  of  an 
ancestral  home  "  on  the  very  roof  of  the  world,'' 
they  had  reached  a  social  condition  in  which,  in  a 
language  fitly  called  "polished,"  or  "carefully 
made "  (Sanskrita),  they  were  as  fitly  called 
"Aryan"  or  "noble."  They  practised  the  arts 
of  Jabal  and  Jubal,  venerated  their  sages  and 
poets,   and    called   their  wives    and  daughters   by 

1  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  10. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  85 

names  of  beauty  and  grace  like  that  of  Naamah. 
Their  rehgion,  though  polytheistic,  was  not  inspired 
by  dread  of  evil  spirits  or  awe  of  ancestral  shades, 
but  by  wonder  of  the  world  around  them  and 
their  own  awakening  instincts.  Man  in  these 
ancient  fragments,  as  in  the  first  pages  of  our 
Bible,  is  evidently  a  creature  transcending  the 
savage,  and  made  in  a  diviner  image  than  the 
type  from  which  it  is  maintained  he  must  have 
sprung.  Instead  of  consorting  with  or  worship- 
ping the  animals,  he  exercises  dominion  over 
them ;  he  questions  himself  and  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  concerning  their  origin  and  author,  and 
with  some  divine  authentic  instinct  which  he  has 
never  lost,  he  seems  to  be  growing  into  the 
feeling  that  not  only  the  trinity  of  supernatural 
powers  which  he  worshipped,  but  his  very  self,  are 
the  children  of  some  primordial  and  eternal  Dyaus, 
the  father  of  all. 

While  the  earliest  light  that  falls  upon  our 
ancestors  reveals  them  as  a  religious  people,  whose 
worship,  simple  and  rudimentary  as  it  was,  indi- 
cated a  sense  of  inferiority,  and  also,  as  one  who 
ought  to  know  informs  us,  "some  sense  of  flaw 
in  the  relationshijD,  some  concept  of  sin  and 
guilt,"  ^  to  the  deities  worshipped,  it  is  to  be 
noted    that    gods    and   men   were   felt   to    be    too 

^  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  i.  p.  xxii. 


86  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

much  akin  to  allow  of  spiritual  aspiration,  or  of 
high  moral  signilicauce  in  man's  religious  acts. 
The  ethical  or  rather  spiritual  elements  so  vital 
to  the  Biblical  conceptions  of  religion  may  not 
be  quite  foreign  to  the  earliest  Veda,  but  they  are 
scantily,  if  at  all,  represented  in  it.  No  prayer 
can  be  said  to  have  ever  been  directed  to  obtain 
forgiveness,  or  growth  in  goodness,  in  the  Bible 
sense.  The  sinner  was  for  the  most  j)art  only  a 
defaulter  in  respect  of  offerings,  and  his  guilt 
was  that  of  a  person  who  refused  to  render 
homage.  That  the  gods  might  be  able  to  watch 
over  and  enrich  mankind,  they  had  to  be  fed  and 
sustained.  The  worshipper  was  thus  in  a  certain 
degree  necessary  to  the  worshipped.  The  sense 
of  submissive  gratitude  to  the  Deity  which  meets 
us  in  the  earliest  fragments  of  the  Bible  is  not 
expressed,  for  religion  was  conceived  of  as  a  kind 
of  exchange  in  which  men  purchased  a  right  to 
divine  help  by  service  rendered,  and  "each  man 
satisfied  his  higher  instinct  according  to  his  own 
conception  of  the  character  of  the  being  on  whose 
favour  his  welfare  was  thought  to  depend."  ^ 

Centuries    later,    in   another   strata   of    sacred 
literature,  composed  in  prose,  dogmatic  and  liturgic 

^  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  ii.  p.  338  ;  Weber,  Indian  Litera- 
ture, p.  38  ;  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Beligious  Thought  and  Life  in  India, 
p.  18. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  87 

in  character,  and  designated  Bralimanas/  we  be- 
hold the  same  branch  of  the  Aryan  family  in  a 
furtlijer  stage  of  their  history.  Their  patriarchal 
age  has  vanished,  and  their  heroic  seems  passing 
into  the  aristocratic  and  hierarchic.  Caste  has 
appeared  as  the  invariable  attendant  upon  con- 
quest, when  the  victor  is  separated  from  the 
vanquished  by  language,  complexion,  and  religion. 
It  is  not  so  much  caste,  however,  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word,  as  class,  sternly  prohibiting 
marriage  not  only  with  the  aboriginal  tribes,  but 
between  persons  of  unequal  rank,  and  anticipating 
the  organisation  of  European  society  in  the  middle 
ages.  In  the  nobles,  who  were  subordinate  only 
to  the  Church,  the  burghers  or  merchants  sociall}' 
distinct  from  and  inferior  to  the  nobles,  and  in 
the  villeins  or  serfs  of  the  conquered  territories, 
we  have  an  exact  parallel  to  the  old  Indian  sys- 
tem, in  which  Sudra,  Yaisya,  Kshatrya,  all  formed 
steps  in  a  social  pyramid,  on  the  top  of  which  the 
Brahman  was  throned.^ 

Thus  early  in  the  history  of  the  Indian  people 
emerged  that  sacerdotal  institution  which  was  to 
exercise  so  powerful  and  eventually  so  sinister  an 
influence  upon  their  religious  progress.     In  Vedic 

^  See  Satapatha-Brahmana,  translated  by  Professor  Eggeling  in  vols. 
xii.  and  xxvi.  of  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.  Max  Miiller  places  the  age 
of  these  books  within  the  ninth  and  seventh  centuries  B.C. 

2  E.  Quinet,  Le  Genie  des  Religions,  p.  185  ;  Paris,  1857. 


88  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

times  the  father  of  the  family  and  the  rajah  of  the 
clan  were  the  celebrants  of  the  religious  rites,  but 
as  life  became  more  complicated  ceremonies  became 
more  laborious,  and   men  who    had  preserved  the 
knowledge    of  the   old   hymns,    and   the    religious 
formularies  which  had  died   out  from  the  common 
people,     gradually   took    the    rajah's    place.       As 
thought  widened,  men  refused  to  be  satisfied  with 
guardian  deities  that  could  be   fed  with  rice  and 
butter.      The   sense  of  human  law  reflected  itself 
in  the  conception  of  divine  rulers  governing  men, 
and  penalties   inflicted   by    man   for   wrong-doing 
suggested  expiation  for  the  infringed  laws  of  deity. 
This  idea  of  sacrifice,  of  which  there  is  said  to  be  no 
trace  in   the  flesh  feasts  of  earlier  times,  becomes 
prominent  in  the   offerings  of  the   period.      "  The 
shedding  of  blood,  the  burning   of  a  limb   of  the 
victim  in   the   fire,  by  some   at   least   was  believed 
to  atone  for  transgression,  and  it  is  probable  that 
at  one  time  the  religious  instinct  expressed  itself 
in  human  sacrifice.^    In  any  case,  the  development  of 
the  idea  of  the  great  efficacy  of  sacrifice  as  a  means 
of  compelling  the  gods  to  do  the  will  of  the  wor- 
shipper— yea,  of  elevating  the  worshipper  to  their 
privileges  and  rank, — must  soon  have  had  the  effect 
of  making  a  priesthood,  at  first  only  helpful,  to  be 

1  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Religious  Thought  and  Life  in  India,  p.  24, 
referring  to  the  Aitareya-Brahmana,  vii.  13. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  89 

necessary  as  the  sole  agents  between  man  and 
deity.  By  preserving  the  memory  of  what  had 
faded  from  the  vulgar,  by  transmitting  to  their 
families  a  lore  which  became  the  more  sacred  the 
more  it  was  forgotten,  the  professional  liturgists  or 
sacrificers,  at  first  satirised  by  the  poets  as  was  the 
Romish  friar  by  the  minstrel  in  the  middle  ages, 
imperceptibly  grew  into  an  order  whose  privileges 
were  more  exclusive  and  whose  pretensions  were 
higher  than  were  ever  asserted  in  Israel  by  the 
descendants  of  Aaron.  Among  the  Hebrews  the 
priesthood  was  never  allowed  to  gain  complete 
ascendency.  Its  representatives  were  subordinated 
to  the  king,  who  was  the  fountain  of  all  law,  and 
they  were  kept  in  check  by  the  prophets  as  the 
ministers  of  Divine  revelation ;  but  the  Brahmans 
came  to  be  regarded  as  not  only  the  guardians  of 
religion,  but  the  teachers  of  all  knowledge  and  the 
source  of  all  authority.  They  owned  no  superior, 
were  subject  to  no  law  in  the  state  :  each  one  was 
a  pope  in  himself,  more  independent  of  the  crown 
and  the  commonwealth  than  a  Christian  pope 
ever  pretended  to  be,  and  had  a  faith  in  his  personal 
infallibility  which  no  Christian  pope  affected  to 
have.  In  India  there  resulted  from  the  ascend- 
ency all  the  evils  that  were  manifested  in  Judaism 
and  in  Latin  Christianity ;  and  in  India  far  worse 
results  were  produced.     For,  left  to  themselves  as 


90  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

superior  beings  apart  from  the  actual  world,  who 
never  could  err,  they  gave  their  minds  that  licence 
which  too  often  in  the  history  of  thought  has  been 
confounded  with  liberty,  and,  as  always  happens 
when  self-restraint  is  disregarded,  the  result  in  this 
instance  was  the  production,  not  of  a  system  of 
philosophy,  but  a  crude  conglomerate  of  incon- 
gruous phantasies  more  resembling  a  chaos  than  a 
cosmos.^ 

Let  us  not  suppose  that  the  Brahmans  were 
originally,  or  even  eventually,  the  vain  and  greedy 
and  self-seeking  bigots  which  the  name  unfortu- 
nately suggests  to  a  European.  They  gained  the 
ascendency  because  they  cultivated  the  power  to 
rise ;  they  represent  what  many  are  inclined  to 
revere  as  the  ideal  aristocracy,  that  of  Intellect. 
They  were  not  ignorant  priests,  but  learned  philo- 
sophers, from  whom  sprung  again  and  again  the 
reformers  who  headed  the  revolt  from  an  overdane 
ritual,  and  from  a  faith  which  expressed  itself 
wholly  in  metaphysical  speculations.  By  them 
were  excogitated  the  Upanishads  and  the  laws  of 
Manu,  two  of  the  most  wonderful  literary  produc- 
tions of  mankind.  From  there  too  came  the  great 
epic  poems  of  the  Bamayana  and  the  Mahabharata, 
poems  in  some  respects  equal  to  the  Homeric,  and 

^  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.       .   15  ;    T.   W.   Rhys  Davids,  Hibbert 
Lectures,  p.  25. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  91 

m  cleverness  of  purpose,  which  is  said  to  be  that  of 
arresting  the  progress  of  Buddhism,  equalling  any- 
thing which  the  Society  of  Jesus  ever  produced  to 
counteract  the  Eeformation.  In  its  complexity  and 
adaptability  and  many-sidedness  Brahmanism  is 
unrivalled  by  any  human  system,  and  the  men  who 
first  gave  it  expression  and  directed  its  earliest 
movements  must  rank  among  the  most  original  and 
daring  of  thinkers. 

But  they  were  Indians  living  in  the  period 
beginning  about  the  tenth  century  B.C.,  in  a  land 
as  completely  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world  as 
they  were  severed  from  the  practical  life  of  their 
countrymen.  They  had  the  same  earnest  and  inquisi- 
tive mind  which  their  westward-moving  kinsmen  had 
inherited  with  them  from  their  trans- Himalayan 
ancestors,  but  in  them  it  had  to  work  out  its 
advances  in  more  adverse  conditions.  The  tribes 
that  went  westward  marched  along  the  uplands,  in 
zones  of  climate  and  through  scenery  and  conditions 
stimulating  effort,  both  mental  and  physical.  Con- 
sequently they  went  on  improving  their  beliefs,  till 
they  apprehended  the  truth  which  lies  at  the  base 
of  all  true  systems  of  faith,  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  and  developed  a  philosophy  which  represents 
man's  most  successful  attempt  to  grasp  that  divine 
unity  after  which  man  in  his  polytheism  is  ever 
feeling.     It  was   otherwise  with  the   branch  that 


92  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

went  southwards.  They  had  to  live  under  physical 
conditions  not  conducive  to  energy,  under  burning 
skies  which  repressed,  and  on  soils  which  rendered 
industry  unnecessary.  As  they  gained  ascendency 
over  the  aborigines  the  vices  of  the  vanquished 
race  told  fatally  upon  them.  Their  sensual  wor- 
ship, customs  like  polygamy  and  sutteeism,  ascetic 
practices  and  sorcerous  rites,  took  possession  of 
them  ;  and,  most  marked  of  all,  a  belief  very  widely 
spread  among  the  lower  tribes  of  mankind  so 
terribly  bewitched  them  that  to  this  day  the  Indian 
mind  has  never  been  able  to  break  away  from  its 
fascination. 

This  belief  in  transmigration,  with  the  pessimism 
which  is  its  inevitable  concomitant,  was  wholly 
absent  from  their  ancient  Vedic  faith.  At  intervals 
from  the  times  of  Pythagoras  it  has  infected  the 
religion  and  philosophy  of  the  Western  Aryans,  but 
never  to  any  extent  or  with  any  serious  result. 
Its  true  habitat  and  breeding-place,  like  that  of  the 
cholera,  is  among  the  degraded  and  broken-down 
populations  of  the  East.  It  was  communicated  from 
the  native  Indian  races  to  the  Hindus,  who  unfor- 
tunately were  prepared  to  receive  it  through  the 
depressing  and  degenerating  influences  of  tropical 
life  on  a  northern-born  family.  Anyway,  while  th6ir 
more  fortunate  brethren  were  eagerly  groping  after, 
in  their  westward  progress,  the  truth  of  immortality, 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  93 

and  thirsting  for  more  life  and  fuller,  they  in 
their  fat  Gangetic  plains,  wearied  of  life  as  some- 
thing not  worth  having,  yet  dreading  death  because 
it  was  appointed  unto  man  not  once  but  many  times 
to  die,  were  seeking  some  way  of  deliverance  from 
this  inherited  curse.  And  the  Brahmans  professed 
to  point  to  it.  Their  earliest  popular  conception  of 
deliverance  was  simply  that  of  re-birth  in  a  happier 
world,  perchance  secured  by  sacrificial  rites  and  re- 
ligious acts,  but  such  a  conception,  could  not  long 
satisfy,  and  eventually  it  gave  way  in  the  higher 
class  of  minds  to  nobler  views.  In  India,  as  else- 
where, men  soon  became  conscious  of  the  more 
solid  security  of  merit  procured  by  a  life  of  justice 
and  mercy.  Man's  future  was  in  his  own  and  not 
in  the  hands  of  a  priest :  its  happiness  or  misery 
would  be  no  accident,  but  the  sure  result  of  good 
or  evil  done  here  and  now.  Therefore  the  wise 
man  endeavoured  laboriously  and  continuously  to 
collect  merit  by  good  deeds,  "  as  the  white  ant 
builds  her  house,  for  with  these  as  his  guide  he 
could  hope  to  traverse  a  gloom  hard  to  be  crossed." 
But  by  and  by  even  this  belief  ceased  to  satisfy 
them,  for  ho^v  could  man  hope  to  liberate  himself 
from  the  bondage  of  endless  change  as  long  as, 
seeking  only  a  happier  existence,  he  was  content 
to  be  a  citizen  of  the  changeable?  Let  him  seek 
reunion  with  Brahma,  of  which  he  is  an  emanation. 


94  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

So  here  again,  while  the  Westerns  were  finding  the 
path  which  would  lead  them  from  polytheism  to 
theism,  and  were  growing  into  nobler  conceptions 
of  what  the  individual  self  should  be,  the  specula- 
tive ascetics  of  the  East,  in  a  life  of  meditation  far 
apart,  were  trying  to  subside  rather  than  rise  into 
Brahma  the  Absolute  as  a  river  reunites  with  the 
ocean.  In  their  earlier  Brahmanas  their  fathers 
knew  nothing  of  Brahma  as  deity,  and  at  no  time 
did  Brahma  mean  to  the  Indian  what  deity  meant 
to  the  Western  Aryan.  Polytheism  in  India  never 
became  theism  in  the  old  Greek  sense,  nor  even 
Pantheism  in  our  nineteenth-century  sense.  The 
mysterious  all -pervading  Presence  was  indeed  early 
detected  by  the  Indians  as  the  "  Breath "  of  all 
things,  but  the  name  employed  by  them  to  distin- 
guish it  signified  only  the  universal  self  In  no 
sense  was  it  the  conscious  author,  but  only  the 
irrepressible  source  of  things  because  reflected  upon 
by  illusion.  Brahma  Atman  was  neither  the  in- 
finitely intelligent  nor  the  perfectly  blessed,  in  our 
sense  of  the  word.  It  was  simply  thought  without 
cognition,  beatitude  without  consciousness.  "  The 
Hindu  never  thinks  of  asserting  that  Brahma  knows 
or  even  has  consciousness,  but  always  that  Brahma 
is  knowledge."  "It  is  simply  impersonal  being, 
absolute  unity  contrasted  with  disruption,  from 
which  existence,  as  an  emanation  wholly  and  only 


LECT.  11.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  95 

evil,  because  originating  in  a  mistake,  must  move 
through  endless  cycles  of  change,  until  the  way  of 
escape  be  discovered  and  followed  by  which  the 
erratic  spark  may  be  absorbed  in  the  central  fire."  ^ 

Such  a  speculation  was  manifestly  an  advance 
upon  Vedic  materialism,  which  sought  to  bring 
down  the  gods  to  the  side  of  man  as  useful  guar- 
dians, and  upon  early  Brahmanism  which  sought  by 
sacrifice  to  force  them  to  do  man's  will,  and  by  and 
by  to  elevate  man  to  their  level.  In  endeavouring, 
however,  to  abstract  its  disciples  from  the  super- 
stitions of  the  priests,  it  tampered  with  the  founda- 
tions of  religion.  It  never  attempted  to  propitiate 
the  gods — for,  even  if  superior  to  man,  they  were  as 
much  involved  in  the  labyrinth  of  transmigration 
as  he  was  himself, — but  it  professed  in  a  universe  of 
illusion  to  have  discovered  the  only  real.  It  dared 
to  name  the  Absolute ;  so,  withdrawing  from  the 
world,  it  practised  austerities  for  the  sake  of  illu- 
mination, gave  itself  up  to  meditation  to  reduce  the 
personal  self  to  an  abstraction,  and  endeavoured  thus 
to  escape  from  the  necessity  of  existence  in  time 
and  space  into  "  passionless,  characterless  being." 

All  this  is  expounded  in  the  Upanishads,  the 
special  scriptures  of  philosophical  Brahmanism.^ 
Though    translated  by  Professor  Max  Miiller,  and 

^  Gough,  Philosophy  of  the  Upanishads,  pp.  41,  42. 
-  Sacred  Books  of  tJie  East,  vols.  i.  and  xv.     No  one  has  dated  any  of 
the  Upanishads  earlier  than  600  B.C.,  and  some  of  them  are  very  late. 


96  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

lucidly  interpreted  by  Professor  Gough,  readers  of 
ordinary  philosophical  culture  find  them  very  hard 
to  understand,  and  in  spite  of  the  high  commen- 
dation of  them  by  Rammohun  Roy  and  Schopen- 
hauer, they  will  be  inclined  to  question  whether 
these  "beginnings  of  thought,"  "  conceptions  hardly 
formed,"  though  essential  to  a  proper  knowledge  of 
Indian  philosophy,  "  should  be  ranked  among  the 
outstanding  productions  of  the  human  mind."^ 
Throughout  their  long  and  most  tedious  verbiage, 
however,  one  dominant  idea  is  ever  discoverable — 
that  the  chief  end  of  the  wise  man  is  to  know,  not 
the  forms  of  things,  but  the  great  self  of  all  things, 
and  seek  his  deliverance  not  by  practice  of  religion 
but  by  pursuit  of  Gnosis.^  E-eligion  would  indeed 
secure  rewards,  but  they  would  only  be  transient ; 
religion  might  regulate  and  modify  the  course  of 
migration,  but  only  Gnosis  could  break  its  adaman- 
tine chain.  "  The  vision  of  Atman  is  the  only  de- 
liverance, for  by  it  all  ties  are  loosened"  ;  "  the  vision 
of  the  self  is  the  light  of  the  world,  to  which  only 
the  purest  minds  attain."  To  reach  it  not  only  the 
bonds  of  desire  must  be  broken,  but  of  ignorance 
too.  "  For  Atman  is  highly  exalted  above  all  rever- 
ence and  effort,  above  holiness  and  unholiness."  "  It, 
the  uncreated,  is   beyond   all   good  and  evil,"  and 

^  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  i.  p.  Ixvi. 

2  Svetasvatara-Upanishad,  iii.  7,  iv.  14,  16,  v.  13,  vi.  7,  9,  Sacred 
Boohs  of  the  East,  vol.  xv. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  97 

upon  rewards  and  punishments,  upon  both  good 
and  evil,  the  sage  must  turn  his  back,  for  he  alone 
who  knows  the  Universal  is  free,  from  Karman  and 
from  Kama  (action  and  desire)  which  hold  captive 
the  self  in  the  net  of  the  impermanent/ 

This  is  said  to  be  the  last  outcome  of  Brah- 
manic  belief,  and  "  indeed  the  highest  point 
reached  by  Indian  philosophy."  '"  Manifestly,  it  can 
never  be  designated  a  gospel.  It  was  a  deliverance 
impossible  for  the  many,  and  possible  only  for  the 
few  ;  a  promise  not  to  the  suffering  millions,  but 
to  the  mystic  and  the  sage,  and  to  them  it  came 
not  with  the  hope  of  a  nobler  character  to  be 
attained,  and  of  a  purer,  higher  life  to  be  reached, 
but  only  with  that  of  a  dreamless  repose — "the 
sleep  eternal  in  an  eternal  night  " — when  the  soul 
ceases  to  be  soul,  merged  "  like  the  weariest  river" 
in  a  shoreless  and  waveless  sea.  And  this  was 
the  system  in  which  the  wisest  and  saintliest  in 
Buddha's  days  were  nurtured.  He  was  no  Brahman 
by  caste,  but  as  pure  Kshatrya  he  would  be  in- 
structed in  his  youth  by  Brahmans,  and  in  early 
manhood  he  for  long  consorted  with  them.  He  had 
mental  capacity,  and  spiritual  energy,  more  than 
adequate  to  the  task  of  comprehending  as  fully  as 
they   did   their  very   abstruse   theosophies.     From 


1  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  pp.  47,  48  ;  Gongh,  Phil.  Ujmn.pi).  Gl,  6 

2  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  28. 


98  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

their  speculation  he  derived  much  of  his  termino- 
logy, like  Karma  and  Nirvana,  and  even  Buddha, 
words  which,  till  recently,  it  was  considered  he  had 
to  coin.  Many  doctrines  which  were  once  regarded 
as  peculiarly  his  own  were  taught  in  their  jungle 
schools  by  learned  Brahmans  centuries  before  he 
was  born.  Without  the  Brahmans  he  could  not 
have  been  produced,  and  yet  his  system  will  be 
found  to  be  original  and  distinct.  They  furnished 
the  phraseology  in  which  he  expressed  himself,  the 
methods  by  which  he  wrought,  the  institutions  hke 
that  of  the  wandering  Bikkhu,  by  which  his  system 
was  spread ;  but  in  essentials  we  will  find  that  his 
teaching  was  not  only  different  from  but  antagon- 
istic to  theirs,  and  that,  had  the  principles  which  he 
enunciated  been  truly  accepted  and  consistently 
carried  out,  this  noblest  of  the  Reformers  of  Hindu- 
ism would  have  reformed  it  out  of  existence. 

During  this  pre-Buddhistic  era,  much  longer, 
perhaps,  than  is  generally  supposed,  another  process 
of  development  was  going  on  among  one  section  of 
the  Semitic  stock,  in  a  small  handbreadth  of  a  land 
on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean.  The 
several  stages  of  that  development  have  also  been 
unconsciously  recorded  in  a  literature  so  peculiar  in 
its  motive,  and  method,  and  character,  as  to  separate 
it  from  the  national  literatures  of  all  the  world.  It 
is  not  that  it  claims  to  be  inspired,  for  the  same 


LECT.  11.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  99 

claim  is  advanced  by  the  Indian,  and  indeed  by  or 
for  every  collection  of  religious  writings    extant ; 
but  while  in  the  literature  of  India  we  see  repre- 
sented  the  struggles  of  man  to  reach  the  Deity, 
that  of  Palestine  professes    to    represent   the   en- 
deavour of  Deity  to  reach  and  to  communicate  with 
men.     Intensely  patriotic  as  a  people,  the  sacred 
literature   of  the  Hebrews  is  essentially   religious. 
Their  historians  are  not  permitted  to  record,  and 
the  poets  are  not  allowed  to  sing  their  own  national 
achievements,  but  only  the  mighty  works  and  the 
praises  of  Jehovah  their  God.     The  shame  of  their 
many   defeats,   and    of  their   final    destruction,    is 
ascribed  always  to  their  own  sin,  but  any  national 
success  or  prosperity  is  due  to  the  Divine  favour. 
Alike  through  all  their  victories  and  disasters,  an 
Almighty  Hand  is  acknowledged  to  be  shaping  their 
destiny,  and  to  be  working  out  a  purpose  which, 
often  entirely  hidden,  and  at  best  only  very  imper- 
fectly understood  by  them,  is  seen  toward  the  close 
of  their  sad  and  eventful  history,  to  comprehend  the 
larger  destinies  of  mankind  in  a  salvation   of  God 
which  "  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  "  were  to  see. 

The  relative  antiquity  of  the  Hebrew  and  Indian 
scriptures  is  not  a  matter  which  we  are  called  upon 
to  discuss.  It  is  possible  that  some  hymns  in  the 
Eig-Veda  may  be  older  than  anything  which  we 
possess  in  the  Bible,  but   it  is  almost   absolutely 


100  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

certain  that  most  of  the  books  of  the  Hebrew  Bible 
were  in  circulation  as  scriptures,  and  that  the  whole 
of  it  was  in  the  shape  in  which  we  have  it  now, 
before  any  ancient  Indian  sacred  book  was  reduced 
to  writing.  The  Pentateuch,  in  the  form  in  which 
we  have  it  now,  is  probably  not  the  most  ancient 
of  the  Hebrew  writings.  It  appears  to  be  a  very 
composite  production,  containing  works  of  different 
authors,  written  originally  at  different  places  and 
at  different  times.  The  most  destructive  criticism, 
however,  admits  that  it  embodies  very  ancient  tra- 
ditions— many  of  them  not  peculiar  to  the  Hebrews, 
. — which  were  open  to  a  succession  of  very  talented 
narrators.  These  traditions  may  indicate  their 
derivation  from  a  once  common  ancestral  home,  or 
acquirement  by  later  contact  with  foreign  nations, 
but  they  are  in  nowise  incorporations  ;  for  in  the 
Hebrew  books  they  are  not  only  presented  in  forms 
far  more  refined,  but  they  are  employed  to  suggest 
or  to  unfold  a  sjDiritual  teaching  quite  beyond  the 
capacity  of  the  peoples  among  whom  it  is  alleged 
they  originated.  No  one  denies  that  we  have  in 
the  Pentateuch  writings  as  old  as  the  time  of 
Moses,  and  probably  fragments  of  writings  much 
older  still.  Ewald  ^  ascribes  an  important  portion 
of  it  to  the  times  of  the  later  judges,  another  still 
more  important  section  to  a   priest   of  Solomon's 

^  History  of  Israel,  vol.  i.  pj).  41,  47. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  KU 

reign,  and  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  to  the  time 
of  Hezekiah.  Even  if  we  are  compelled  to  accept 
later  dates  than  these,  it  follows  that  they  are  older 
than  any  Upanishad,  or  even  any  of  the  Brahmanas. 
There  was  a  Law,  a  Book  of  the  Covenant,  a  Book 
of  Origins,  in  currency  probably  before  the  authors 
of  any  of  the  Brahmanas  was  born  ;  and  even  if  we 
are  to  regard  the  contents  of  these  works  as  only 
traditional,  we  may  surely  assume  that  the  Hebrew 
traditions  are  as  credible  as  the  Indian.  It  is 
quite  true  "  that  religion  exists  long  before  it  is 
expressed  in  a  canon,  and  that  law  runs  and  rules 
long  before  it  is  written  in  a  code,"  ^  but  in  regard 
to  accuracy  neither  suffers  from  being  so  definitely 
registered.  Hitherto  the  maxim  affecting  such 
matters  has  been,  and  for  a  long  time  henceforth 
we  may  be  certain  it  will  be,  not  litera  locitta, 
but  litera  scri])ta  manet. 

Again,  we  are  not  called  upon  to  maintain  in  this 
lecture  the  chronological  exactness  or  the  historical 
faithfulness  of  the  sacred  annals  of  Israel ;  all  that 
is  asserted  is  that  in  them  we  have  as  faithful  a 
mirror  of  the  ages  which  they  profess  to  reflect  as 
we  have  in  the  Indian.  The  characters  in  the 
scenes  which  they  produce  are  neither  puppets  nor 
shadows,  but  very  living  and  substantial  realities. 
The  personages  at   least  are  men  whose    idiosyn- 

"'  GifFord  Lectures,  Natural  Religion,  p.  563. 


102  THE  HISTORICAL  AXTECEDENTS  OF         lbgt.  ii. 

crasies  are  sharply  but  naturally  defined,  and  whose 
speech,  and  manners,  and  conduct,  and  beliefs,  accord 
wonderfully  well  with  the  places  and  the  periods 
in  which  they  meet  us.  We  have  to  examine  the 
Hebrew  annals  however,  not  to  verify  the  details 
of  ancient  transactions  which  they  record,  but  simply 
to  ascertain  the  beliefs  which  they  contain  and 
illustrate.  The  truth  or  the  error  of  these  beliefs 
we  need  not  discuss,  for  the  beliefs  themselves  are 
facts  of  great  importance,  and  so  are  the  conse- 
quences that  flowed  from  them  ;  and  when  we  com- 
pare these  beliefs  with  those  which  we  have  been 
considering,  we  will  find  a  development  parallel 
indeed,  but  of  an  entirely  different  class  of  ideas 
or  religious  thoughts. 

In  the  Rig- Veda  we  have  reflected  the  immigra- 
tion of  a  higher  race  into  what  has  been  called  the 
Holy  Land  of  India.  The  Rig- Veda  dates  from 
about  the  times  of  the  Exodus  or  the  invasion 
of  the  Holy  Land  of  Palestine.  The  Hebrew  tra- 
ditions, like  the  Indian,  tell  of  an  earlier  immi- 
gration of  their  fathers  into  the  same  Palestine 
some  five  centuries  previous.  When  we  examine 
the  narratives  in  which  this  earlier  immigration  is 
recorded,  we  find  the  patriarchs  moving  along  among 
similar  conditions,  but  representing  a  much  higher 
level  of  religious  thought  than  the  Aryans  when 
they    reached    the    Ganges.       Though    everywhere 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  10.3 

living  among  nature -worshippers,  and  though 
showing  the  taint  of  that  worship  in  their  own  con- 
duct, their  rehgion  is  neither  that  of  physiolatry 
nor  idolatry.^  Abraham  was  not  a  polytheist ; 
he  came  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees — whether  that 
be  a  designation  of  a  geographical  region  or  a 
description  of  a  religious  state — not  as  one  who 
trembled  before  tlie  forces  of  Nature,  afraid  to 
inquire  what  they  meant  or  whence  they  came  ;  not 
as  one  who  had  discovered  behind  them  the  Infinite 
Self,  out  of  which,  because  of  ignorance  or  illusion, 
he  and  they  had  emanated,  but  as  a  man  who 
believed  in  a  Personal  Deity  who  had  created  and 
continued  to  control  them,  and  who,  though  El- 
Elion  and  Shaddai,  yet  watched  over  and  communi- 
cated with  Abraham  as  his  best  of  friends.  We 
need  not  ascribe  to  the  patriarch  an  intelligence 
which  he  did  not  possess.  God  may  have  been  in 
his  thought  too  much  the  almighty  Protector  of 
himself  and  of  his  descendants — for  in  that  age  the 
family  of  the  chief  would  be  all-important,  and  the 
idea  even  of  the  nation  had  not  yet  germinated, — 

'  It  is  significant  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  Bible  Nature-worship 
seems  stamped  as  accursed  in  its  symbol,  the  serpent,  and  that  the  whole 
Bible  from  beginning  to  end  is  a  Divine  protest  against  that  worship  in 
all  its  forms.  Mankind  in  all  ages  is  tempted  to  become  as  the  gods, 
and  in  a  low  condition  he  has  almost  everywhere  succumbed  to  the 
temptation.  He  feasts  his  gods,  compels  them  to  serve  him,  is  really 
higher  than  they,  and  thus  he  degrades  himself  or  falls  from  the  ideal  of 
one  made  in  the  image  and  after  the  likeness  of  God. 


104  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

but   that    he    apprehended    God    under    a    strictly 
moral   aspect   is  vouched  for   by  his    life,   as   the 
founder  of  a  new  epoch  to  which  his  latest  descend- 
ant looked  back  with  thankfulness.^     We  may  not 
be  able  to  prove  that  Abraham's  conception  of  Deity 
was   monotheistic   in  our  conception   of  the   word. 
It  lacked  the  sublimity  of  Isaiah's  conception  and 
the    definiteness    of    that    of   Moses.      There  was 
naturally  a  great  deal  of  darkness  clinging  about 
it,  but  his  ideas  of  duty  and  religion  and  worship 
were   far   higher    than   entered  the   thoughts   of  a 
Vedic  or  Brahmanic  sage.     The  rite  of  Blood  Cove- 
nant, universal  in  the  Semitic  tribes,  he  felt  divinely 
impelled  to  offer  Godward  ;  and  the  same  impulse  is 
said  to  have  led  him  to  ofter  in  proof  of  his  allegiance 
to  his  unseen  and  ahnighty  Friend  the  sacrifice  of  his 
only  son.    But  there  was  unmistakably  imparted  by 
Abraham  to  the  ancient  rite  of  circumcision  a  far 
higher  and  more  spiritual  idea,  and  it  is  noteworthy 
that  while   the  spiritual  part  of  his  awful  sacrifice 
was  accepted,  the  slaying  of  the  son  was  rejected, 
with  the  effect  of  stamping,  in  the  very  morning 
of  Hebrew    history,    the    Divine   abhorrence    upon 
that  form  of  propitiation  to  which  the  unrestrained 
instinct  of  man  has  everywhere  been  prone.     His 
worship,  his  sacrifice,  his  whole  service,  instead  of 
being  regarded  as  a  means  of  making  Deity  service- 

Ewald,  History  of  Israel,  vol.  i.  pp.  320-322. 


1    TiN 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  105 

able  to  man,  or  of  raising  man  to  the  comfortable 
condition  of  Deity,  meant  the  surrender  of  the 
heart  and  of  the  whole  life  to  His  will,  not  as  only 
mightier,  but  juster  and  more  merciful  than  he  was 
himself,  and  therefore  perfectly  worthy  of  trust 
and  love.  And  so  it  is  plain  that  whether  the  patri- 
archs represent  a  race  fallen  because  of  sin,  from 
purer  knowledge  and  more  intimate  comnumion 
with  God,  or  one  providentially  educated  from  the 
very  lowest  animalism,  they  indicate  a  religious 
stage  to  which  the  greatest  things  became  possible. 
They  are  stammering  at  least  the  glorious  Name, 
comprised  in  three  letters,  whose  significance  mil- 
lennial ages  of  study  can  never  exhaust.  They 
beUeve  in  God,  who,  behind  and  beyond  Nature, 
and  greater  than  it,  is  revealing  Himself  as  one 
infinitely  worthy  of  their  allegiance  and  adoration, 
and  their  faith  becomes  righteousness. 

When  we  reach  the  Mosaic  period  we  find  that 
though  clouds  and  darkness  are  round  the  throne 
of  the  Eternal,  the  light  that  streams  from  it  into 
the  minds  of  men  reveals,  just  more  clearly,  the 
same  one  living  and  true  God.  According  to  the 
Book  of  Origins,  a  period  of  four  hundred  and  eighty 
years  separated  the  patriarchal  from  the  Mosaic  age. 
and  during  that  period  the  Hebrew  tribes  had 
first  been  sheltered,  and  then  for  long  enslaved,  by 
the    most   civilised   of  all    peoples  in   the   ancient 


106  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

world.  Astonished  by  the  grandeur  of  Egypt, 
they  at  last  succumbed  to  its  religion ;  and  while 
oppression  in  the  pent-up  Egyptian  cities  deterior- 
ated fearfully  their  physical  condition,  slavery  and 
idolatry  wrought  with  terrible  effect  upon  their 
character.  They  came  out  of  Egypt  a  cowardly 
horde,  leprous  in  body,  childish  and  brutish  in 
their  disposition.  Their  children  however  entered 
Palestine,  more  than  a  generation  after,  a  powerful 
and  consolidated  and  victorious  force,  whose  fear 
was  upon  all  the  surrounding  tribes ;  and  their 
annals  ascribe  all  this  to  revival  and  reformation 
due  to  Divine  revelation  and  training  under  the 
jjlastic  genius  of  one  of  Egypt's  wisest  men,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  prophets  of  the  human  race. 

The  oldest  Hebrew  historian  states  that  Moses 
wrote  two  tables  of  the  Covenant,  and  one  entire, 
though  small.  Book  of  Laws  besides  ;  and  though 
it  were  proved  to  universal  satisfaction  that  he 
never  wrote  anything  else  than  the  Ten  Words, 
and  the  preface  ^  :  "  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our 
God  is  one,"  it  will  be  admitted  that  no  one  in 
all  the  old  world  has  ever  contributed  more  than 
he  did  to  man's  stock  of  the  highest  of  all  know- 
ledge. The  truth  communicated  by  the  patriarchs 
in  the  word  Creator  was  of  supreme  moment  and 
promise   for   the   human   race,  for   by   it   man  was 

^  Some  ascribe  it  to  the  Deuterononiist,  ch.  vi.  4. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  107 

saved  from  the  sin  and  i'oUy  of  confounding  the 
Deity  with  His  works.  The  idea  of  a  Creator  occurs 
indeed  in  the  Yedas,^  but  not  as  an  idea  that 
ever  got  hold  of  the  popular  mind,  or  ever  ripened 
into  the  conception  of  Creator  which  we  have  in 
the  Bible.  The  Brahman  expounders  of  Vedic 
thought  made  deity  the  sum  of  all  that  is,  a  being 
that  is  ever  becoming,  a  universe  that  is  never 
completed.  The  Hebrew,  on  the  contrary,  con- 
ceived of  the  universe  as  God's  work — not  God. 
It  .was  but  a  part  of  His  ways,  and  as  nothing 
before  Him.  In  the  Indian  creed  emanation  con- 
tinues indefinitely,  and  their  sacred  books  record 
a  never-ending  genesis.  In  the  Hebrew  Bible  two 
pages  suffice  to  relate  the  genesis  of  the  world  and 
man.  Between  the  deities  of  the  Vedas  and  the 
Jehovah  of  Moses  there  is  no  natural  progression, 
and  we  never  in  any  series,  however  prolonged, 
can  reach  from  the  one  to  the  other.  The  Indian 
deities  are  simply  one   with   Nature,  and  like   its 

^  Professor  Miiller  finds  the  first  traces  of  a  Maker  or  Creator  in  the 
Vedic  deity  Tvashtar,  the  carpenter — the  clever  workman,  even  smith, 
forging  bolts  for  Indra  therein,  Rig-Ved.  iii.  55.  19.  "Tvashtar,  the 
enlivener,  endowed  with  many  forms,  has  nourished  the  creatures  and 
produced  them  in  many  ways  ;  all  these  worlds  are  his."  Of  another 
god,  latterly  called  Pragapati,  he  quotes  Rig-Ved.  x.  81.  2,  as  one  who, 
"  creating  the  earth,  disclosed  the  sky  by  his  power."  Very  significantly, 
however,  he  reminds  us  that  the  same  poet  loses  the  idea,  and  speaks 
of  the  secret  of  creation  as  undiscoverable. — Miiller's  Natural  Religion, 
p.  245.  Also  Introd.  to  Upanishads,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xv. 
p.  xxiv. 


108  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

forces  they  are  multitudinous,   capricious,  evanes- 
cent ;   but   the  Deity   of  Moses  is   One,  Supreme, 
Invisible,  not   to   be  likened  to  anything  we   can 
see    or   hear — eternal   as    One  who    alone   is,   and 
causes  to  be  :  "I  Am  that  I  Am  ! "     The  effect  of 
such  a  belief  was  to  raise  all  men  who  learned  of 
Moses  above  the  woi^ship  and  tyranny  of  Nature, 
before   which   so   many    of  the   tribes  of  mankind 
have  prostrated  themselves.     It  made  them  regard 
the  animal  creation  especially  as  existing  not  for 
their  adoration  but  for  their  use  ;  and  Nature  itself 
and  all  its  forces  as  powers  to  be  studied,  subdued, 
and  governed.     The  germs  of  man's  faith  in  his  own 
imperishableness,  implanted   from   the  first,  began 
to   sprout   the   moment    he   found  himself  capable 
of  knowing  and  serving  this  Eternal  and  Invisible 
One  as  the  Author  and  Controller  of  his  being. 

Comparisons  are  often  instituted  between  the 
Mosaic  ethical  code  and  that  of  other  rehgions, 
with  the  view  of  showing  that  there  is  nothing 
peculiar  in  it,  and  that  instead  of  being  fuller  it 
appears  to  be  even  defective  when  placed  side  by 
side  with  some  of  them.  The  peculiarity  of  the 
Mosaic  code  is  in  its  first  table,  which  nearly  all 
the  others  lack.  The  Mosaic  is  an  interpretation 
of  the  law  written  in  men's  hearts  by  the  light  of 
religion  :  it  is  the  manifestation  of  religious  truth 
as  the  real  foundation  of  ethics.     Morality  has  so 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  109 

long  been  associated  with  religion  in  our  thought 
that  we  speak  at  times  as  if  it  had  been  always 
so  ;  but  among  no  ancient  people,  save  among  the 
Hebrews,  did  any  worshipper  expect  morality  from 
their  deities.  On  the  contrary,  they  conceived  of 
them  as  having  all  their  own  appetites  and  passions 
and  vices,  so  that  as  civilisation  advanced  men 
were  often  far  nobler  and  purer  than  the  gods 
which  they  worshipped.  When  we  remember  that 
physiolatry,  from  its  lowest  to  its  highest  form, 
tolerates  and  even  consecrates  the  vilest  impurities 
by  its  worship,  we  can  realise  what  a  new  and 
creative  power  was  communicated  when  the  con- 
viction had  laid  hold  of  man  that  Deity  is  one  who 
is  Himself  all  that  man  ought  to  be,  one  who  can 
only  be  propitiated  by  righteousness  and  ajDpeased 
by  truth.  Human  progress  became  not  only  pos- 
sible then,  but  it  was  secured.  So  pure  an  idea  of 
God  meant  a  loftier  idea  of  man.  It  involved  the 
poorest  and  the  humblest  of  men  in  vast  respon- 
sibilities, and  therefore  it  implied  for  them  rights 
and  dignities  equal  to  those  of  the  highest  of  men  ; 
for  the  supreme  all-holy  Lord  God  was  no  respecter 
of  persons,  and  the  beggar  on  the  dunghill  was  in 
His  eyes  as  precious  as  the  prince  upon  the  throne.^ 
From  the  period  when  Vedic  speculation  first 
began  its  course  to  that  in  which  it  produced  its 

^  Fairbairn,  Religion  in  Histonj  and  in  the  Life  of  To-day,  pp.  39-51. 


110  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

earliest  Upanishad,  these  moral  and  spiritual  truths 
were  not  kept  secret  among  the  philosophic  few, 
but  were  prophesied  in  the  gates  and  streets   of 
every  Hebrew  city.     No  one  can  say  that  they  were 
thankfully    received   and   loyally   obeyed    by   the 
people   of  Israel ;    on   the    contrary,    their    whole 
history  represents  the  struggle  of  a  stubborn  and 
rebellious  race  against  a  revelation    too  pure  and 
spmtual  to  be  acceptable  to  them.     Their  religion 
was   always   higher   than    themselves,    but    while 
towering  above  them,  it  perpetually  hovered  round 
them,   contradicting  their  most  cherished  inclina- 
tions,  and  condemning  their   most    deeply  rooted 
habits.      The  invisible   God,  of  whom  no  likeness 
was  to  be  tolerated,  who  was  not  to  be  worshipped 
even  in  the  greatest  of  His  works,  was  too  far  re- 
moved from  their  sympathies.      It  took   centuries 
of  severe  handling  to  uproot  their  strong  tendency 
to  Nature -worship  ;  yea,  the  Divine  detestation  of 
it  had  to  be  branded   in  the  national  conscience 
by  their   final   overthrow.      Eventually,    however, 
the  truth  got  rooted  in   the  mind  of  a  "remnant" 
of  them  that  God  is  not  to   be  worshipped  under 
any  symbol,  and  cannot  be  enshrined  m  temples 
made    with   hands  ;    that   the    heaven    of  heavens 
cannot  contain  Him ;  that  in  gifts  and  offerings  He 
takes   no   pleasure,   but  that  He  dwells  with  the 
meek  and  lowly,  and  finds  a  pleasing  sacrifice  in 


LECT.  11.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  ill 

the  contrite  spirit  and  broken  heart.  The  divinity 
of  the  revelation  seems  attested  by  the  fact  that 
it  continued  all  throughout  their  history  above 
them,  rebuking  and  condemning,  but  never  suffer- 
ing them  altogether  to  fall  away  from  it.  And 
this  is  still  its  relation  to  ourselves  :  it  is  a  creed 
contradicting  our  life,  a  Divine  law  in  direct 
opposition  to  all  that  claims  to  be  popular ;  for 
where  even  yet  is  the  Christian  who  can  be  said 
fully  to  realise  all  that  is  summed  up  in  the  truth, 
"  God  is  not  to  be  worshipped  by  man  as  though 
He  needed  anything  ;  "  "  God  is  a  spirit,  and  they 
that  worship  Him  must  worshif)  Him  in  spirit 
and  in  truth  "  ? 

The  universality  as  well  as  the  purity  and 
spirituality  of  this  fundamental  article  of  the 
Hebrew  faith  separates  it  from  and  elevates  it 
above  the  Indian  beliefs.  Nature-worship  has 
always  been  local  and  ethnic  in  its  range  ;  the 
gods  of  the  hills  are  not  the  gods  of  the  valleys, 
and  the  deities  of  Assyria  command  no  reverence 
in  Egypt.  To  the  Hebrew  was  first  communicated 
the  catholic  faith  that  the  one  Lord  over  all  is 
rich  in  mercy  unto  all.  The  treasure  was  received, 
it  is  true,  in  an  earthen  vessel,  by  a  people  who 
could  only  apprehend  as  children  what  we  are 
expected   to  hold  in  the   comprehensions  of  men.^ 

^  It  was  only  by  their  very  highest  and  greatest  souls  that  the  God- 


112  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF        lect.  ii. 

In  patriarchal  times  by  the  people  generally  the 
One  Lord  was  conceived  of  too  much  as  just  the  pro- 
tector of  the  family.  In  Mosaic  times  the  great  and 
terrible  God  who  avenged  Himself  on  Egypt  was 
thought  of  too  much  as  the  champion  of  the  tribes. 
Under  David  and  the  kinoes  He  was  too  nuich  the 
sovereign  of  the  nation  and  of  the  Holy  Land  ; 
and  so  it  was  down  to  the  times  of  the  Captivity. 
All  throughout  this  period,  however,  there  were 
perpetual  protests  against  this  attempt  to  ethnicise 
a  faith  essentially  catholic.  They  were  reminded 
that  the  Holy  One  was  Lord  over  all  the  earth  ; 
that  though  they  were  a  peculiar  people,  they  were 
not  His  only  people.  The  prophets  of  other  nations 
were  brought  to  testify  to  them  ;  their  own  prophets 
were  sent  to  warn  the  heathen  that  they  should  not 
die.  All  through  their  history  they  were  admonished 
that  their  gift  was  too  large  for  their  little  nation  to 
contain  ;  that  it  was  theirs  only  in  proportion  as 
it  was  imparted  or  shared,  and  that  as  a  nation  they 
could  only  exist  if  all  nations  were  blessed  in  them. 
Alas  however  for  them,  all  this  seemed  in  vain 

head  was  conceived  in  anything  of  its  spiritual  glory.  To  Abraham  God 
was  the  Creator,  distinct  from  and  greater  than  the  earth  and  heavens 
which  He  had  made  ;  to  Moses  He  was  a  righteous  Lawgiver,  training 
upon  eagle-wings  a  peculiar  people  ;  to  David  He  was  a  tender  and  wise 
Shepherd  of  a  foolish  and  helpless  flock  ;  to  Isaiah  and  the  later  prophets 
a  Father  dealing  with  rebellious  people,  whom  He  pities,  knowing 
whereof  they  were  made.  These  conceptions,  however,  cannot  be  said 
to  have  been  those  of  the  mass  of  the  people. 


LucT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  113 

ia  its  effect  upon  the  nation  at  large  ;  the  treasure 
was  forgotten  in  their  estimate  of  the  vessel ;  their 
own  destiny  loomed  largest  in  their  conceptions  of 
Providence.  It  was  not  the  holy  Lord  God  who  was 
to  have  universal  dominion,  but  they  His  favourites, 
and  therefore  their  king  would  reign  over  all  lands 
and  keep  his  feet  on  the  neck  of  their  foes.  Out 
of  this  fatal  error,  and  out  of  the  childish  super- 
stition akin  to  it,  that  material  prosj)erity  was  the 
sole  or  chief  reward  of  devotion,  came  all  their 
unbelief  and  apostasy,  and  so  when  the  succession 
of  prophets  had  in  vain  testified  to  them  that  the 
Lord  alone  was  to  be  exalted — that  before  Him,  not 
before  them,  must  all  peoples  bow, — the  threaten- 
ings  long  uttered  were  fulfilled  :  the  nation  was 
shattered,  its  palladium,  the  temple,  was  destroyed, 
and  they  were  driven  beyond  the  Euphrates. 

Then  however  ensued  a  course  of  events  which 
must  be  regarded  as  among  the  greatest  surprises 
of  history ;  for  just  when  they  and  their  religion 
might  have  been  expected  to  vanish  as  completely 
as  the  ten  tribes  previously  deported  had  vanished, 
they  are  found  to  be  preserved ;  and  the  worship  of 
Jehovah,  instead  of  being  extinguished  by  the  domi- 
nant worship  of  Babylon,  is  seen  to  emerge  in  the 
course  of  two  generations  more  vigorous  and  con- 
siderably purer  than  ever  it  had  been  before.  It  was 
during  the  Exile  that  the  real  nature  of  the  religion 

H 


114  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

of  Israel,  as  one  adapted  and  destined  to  enlighten 
and  sanctify  far  more  than  a  single  people,  began 
to  be  truly  discerned/  The  Jewish  people  had  a 
great  deal  to  learn  from  Babylon  and  Persia,  and 
they  returned  to  their  own  land  with  clearer  con- 
ceptions of  immortality,  the  resurrection,  the  spiritual 
world  and  judgment  to  come,  than  any  of  their 
forefathers  had  gained.  Scholars,  however,  who 
enlarge  upon  their  indebtedness  to  their  conquerors, 
seem  to  forget  how  much  they  had  to  communicate 
to  them.  In  the  psalms  of  the  pre-Exilian  period, 
and  in  the  doctrines  of  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
they  carried  with  them  a  treasure  richer  than  the 
whole  wisdom  of  the  East.  So  though  they  learned 
much  from  Babylon,  they  also  learned  in  it  to 
appreciate  the  gifts  which  they  had  previously 
despised.  Sorrow  and  j)enitence  helped  to  clear 
their  spiritual  vision,  and  prepared  them  for  the 
prophecies  of  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  Isaiah.  They 
learned  that  though  banished  from  the  Holy  Land 
they  were  not  thereby  cast  out — as  their  fathers 
imagined — from  the  presence  of  Jehovah ;  that, 
though  the  temple  had  been  destroyed  and  sacrifice 
had  been  susj^endecl,  God  could  still  be  worshiiDped 
with  sincerity  and  truth.  The  teachings  of  their 
prophets   brought    home   with   conviction   to   them 

^  Kuenen,  National    Religions  and    Universal  Bcligion,   Hibbert 
Lectures,  1882,  p.  187. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  115 

the  oracles  of  their  earlier  seers,  that  obedience  was 
better  than  sacrifice,  and  contrition  than  sin-offer- 
ing,— "  that  he  that  doeth  repentance,  it  is  imputed 
to  him  as  if  he  went  to  Jerusalem^  built  a  temple  and 
altar,  and  wrought  all  the  sacrifices  of  the  law."  ^ 

With  the  destruction  of  the  temple  there  arose 
the  synagogue,  which,  with  its  reading  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  its  chanting  of  the  Psalms,  its 
offering  of  prayer,  and  the  giving  heed  to  the  voices 
of  the  elders,  represented  a  far  higher  and  more 
spiritual  service  than  temple  courts  reeking  with 
sacrifices  and  steaming  with  incense.  It  is  true 
that  they  were  still  fascinated  by  the  material 
splendours  of  the  former  days ;  for  after  their 
return  they  restored  Jerusalem,  rebuilt  the  temple, 
and  re-appointed  its  services.  A  revival  led  to 
a  reformation,  which,  following  the  old  lines  as 
closely  as  possible,  assumed  the  form  of  a  retro- 
gression rather  than  advance.  The  new  energies 
of  the  nation  were  repressed  by  a  Levitical  do- 
mination as  rigid  and  intolerant  as  Brahmanism 
ever  was  in  India.  It  was  not  the  spirit  of  the 
Living  God  but  the  hand  of  the  long  dead  Moses 
that  was  to  rule  their  conscience  and  mould  their 
history.  The  consequence  was  just  what  might 
have  been  anticipated.  Human  nature  revolted 
from  subjugation  to  a  system  which   had  served 

^  Edersheim,  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Messiah,  vol.  i.  p.  275. 


116  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

its  day.  Religion,  where  it  was  earnest,  stiffened 
into  formalism,  and  formalism  in  many  cases  con- 
gealed into  hypocrisy,  and,  as  inevitably  happens, 
intellect  raised  its  protest  against  this  irreligious 
religion  in  many  anti-religious  and  even  atheistic 
forms.  Meanwhile  synagogues  rose  all  over  the 
land,  promoting  doctrine  rather  than  ritual,  stimu- 
lating rather  than  repressing  discussion,  and  thus 
conserving  and  propagating  the  truths  that  pre- 
pared the  ways  of  the  Lord.  Only  a  handful 
however,  had  returned ;  the  majority  of  the  exiles 
prospered  and  multiplied,  and,  unlike  the  ten 
tribes,  were  not  absorbed  among  the  Gentiles. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  for  one  Jew 
living  in  Palestine  there  would  be  a  hundred 
living  beyond  it,  not  only  in  Babylonia,  but  in 
Greece,  and  Egypt,  and  Italy,  and  all  over  the  Em- 
pire. There  were  many  Jews  in  Spain,  in  Britain, 
and  in  the  dark  territories  beyond  the  Danube  ;  and 
though  they  adapted  themselves  to  foreign  ways, 
and  became  all  things  to  all  men,  in  regard  to 
their  religion  and  their  intimate  connection  with 
Jerusalem  they  still  continued  to  be  Jews.^ 
As  their  nationality  declined  their  faith  arose. 
By  and  by,  not  content  with  the  heathen  tolera- 
tion for  their  religion  as  only  one  of  the  many 
in    the   world,    they   began    to   spread   it   abroad. 

^  Jos.  Contra  Ai).  ii.  30.  32;  Antiq.  xviii.  1.  1;  Jewish  Wars,  ii.  8. 


LECT.  u.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  117 

Judaism,  with  the  temple  and  the  Levitical  law, 
would  in  Palestine  eventually  have  petrified,  but 
the  Diaspora,  with  the  Synagogue  and  the  Septua- 
gint,  enabled  Israel  to  play  their  proper  parts  as 
the  religious  teachers  of  mankind.  Proselytism 
gradually  became  very  vigorous  and  successful ; 
devout  men  and  women  everywhere,  unable  to 
find  peace  of  conscience  in  the  intoxicating  and 
demoralising  rites  of  Pagan  temples,  turned  from 
them  to  take  hold  of  the  skirts  of  the  man  who 
was  a  Jew.  In  a  manner  and  to  an  extent  which 
even  the  youthful  Isaiah  never  could  have  dreamed, 
Jerusalem  began  to  attract  out  of  every  nation 
under  heaven  the  kind  of  people  who  were  found 
in  its  streets  at  Pentecost, — Parthians  and  Medes. 
and  dwellers  in  Pontus  and  Arabia,  and  the  eunuch 
of  far  distant  Ethiopia.^ 

As  we  have  noticed  the  highest  outcome  of 
Vedic  thought  in  pursuit  of  Atman,  let  us  also 
notice  the  highest  development  of  Hebrew  belief 
in  their  hope  of  Messiah,  whose  germs  are  trace- 
able in  their  faith  from  the  first.  For  example, 
one  of  the  earliest  and  most  lasting  effects  of  their 
conception  of  Deity  was  the  conviction  of  their 
own  unworthiness  and  inability  to  live  in  the 
presence  of  the  holy  God.     Though  they  w^ere  to 

^  Uhlhorn,  Conflict  of  Christianity,  chaps,  i.  ii.  ;  Jos.  Antiq.  xiii. 
9,  1,  and  11.  3,  and  Contra  Ap.  ii.  10.  39  ;  Kuenen,  Religion  of  Israel, 
in.  273  seq.  ;   Kenan,  Les  ApOtres,  pp.  253,  260. 


118  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

be   a   kingdom    of  priests  for  other  nations,   they 
dared  not  enter  into  the  relationship  which  priest 
implied.       They   required   a  mediator  like   Moses, 
who  could  speak  to  the  Holy  One  for  them,  and 
receive  for   them  His  message.     Their  whole  wor- 
ship was  based  on  this  feeling,  and  the  purer  and 
higher   rose    theh^   conceptions   of  God,    the   more 
intense    became    their    self-abasement.       Between 
Him  and  the  noblest  of  His  creatures  there  was 
an  impassable  gulf       Though  He  was  far,  far  off 
from  them,  He  was  far  too  near — so  near  that  they 
could  not  go  anywhither  from   His  presence,  and 
yet  in  their  dread  there  was  a  yearning  to  come 
near  to  Him  and  to  see  Him  face  to  face.      The 
Brahman  aspired  to  lose  himself  in  the  Absolute, 
in  the  pure  light  of  characterless  knowledge ;  the 
Hebrew,    mastered    by    the    personality    of    God, 
longed   to    see    Him    as  He  is.     And   never  more 
earnest  was  this  longing  in  the  Hebrew  to  behold 
the  beauty  of  the  Lord,  and  to  be  satisfied  with 
His  likeness,  than  in  the  times  of  his  deepest  self- 
humiliation  and  keenest  contrition.     "  I  pray  Thee, 
pardon  the   iniquity  of  Thy  people;"    "I  beseech 
Thee,  show  us  Thy  glory;"  "  and  these  two  pangs 
so    counter    and   so    keen,"    shame    and    reverence 
akin  to   dread,   aspiring  love,   were  to    prove    not 
only  the   purification   of  their  own  faith,  but  the 
birth- throe  of  a  better  hope  for  the  ^Yorid. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  119 

For  their  dread  and  shame  sprang  from  their 
consciousness  of  their  own  evil,  and  their  aspiration 
from  an  instinct  which  whispered  that  evil,  though 
deeply  ingrained  in,  was  not  essential  to  the  being 
of  man.  Their  sense  of  sin  was  very  poignant, 
more  so  than  in  the  case  of  any  other  people.  The 
Hindus  had  a  conception  of  merit,  but  a  very  pooi" 
and  weak  conception  of  sin.  They  were  more  im- 
pressed by  life's  suffering  than  by  the  taint  of  w^iich 
it  was  only  the  consequence.  But  the  Hebrews 
felt  the  shame  and  the  curse  of  that  taint  as  no 
people  ever  felt  it.  They  had  quite  a  vocabulary 
to  express  the  many  shades  and  degrees  of  the 
feeling  of  it ;  yet  in  their  speculations  they  were 
led  to  believe  that  this  taint  w^as  not  inherent  in 
their  nature  nor  ineradicable  from  it.  There  was  a 
time  when  sin  was  not ;  there  might  be  a  time  when 
it  would  not  be.  The  dominion  of  evil  was  an  inter- 
lude, and  though  terribly  prolonged  in  human  ex- 
perience, it  might  have  an  end.  That  was  the  central 
ideal  of  the  Fall  which  they  pictured  on  the  first 
page  of  their  Bible,  and  conserved  in  their  seventh- 
day  Sabbath.^     In  the  fact  of  man's  creation  they 

^  The  truth  on  which  the  Sabbath  is  founded  is  the  majestic  truth  of 
a  completed  creation,  and  one  conform  to  the  hitest  discoveries  of 
science.  Durinu'  the  whole  course  of  human  observation  no  new  creative 
effort  has  been  displayed  in  the  production  of  a  new  type.  The  animal 
and  vegetable  worlds  stand  to-day  as  man  first  beheld  them.  The 
creative  spirit  has  passed  into  the  soul  of  man,  in  whose  world  is  the 
progress  which  nature  has  long  ceased  to  manifest,  and  under  whose 


120  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

felt  that  his  redemption  was  involved,  and  so  the 
Hebrew  dread  of  and  longing  for  God  were  recon- 
ciled by  a  hope  that  though  to  man  belongeth 
shame,  to  God  belongeth  mercy  as  the  God  of 
salvation.  There  was  another  and  a  better  cove- 
nant than  that  which  had  been  concluded  with  their 
ancestors  at  Sinai,  or  with  the  first  father  of  their 
tribes  long;  before.  It  was  made  not  with  Moses  or 
Abraham  for  Israel,  but  for  all  nations  with  a  Divine 
Mediator,  who,  behind  all  that  was  of  man,  though 
yet  the  seed  of  the  woman,  would,  in  a  way  that 
neither  Moses  nor  any  of  the  prophets  could  under- 
stand, eventually  make  an  end  of  sin. 

The  history  and  the  literature  of  the  Hebrews 
would  be  a  perplexing  enigma  without  this  hope. 
Like  their  faith,  it  was  too  pure  and  spiritual  for 
them  to  receive,  and  to  the  very  latest  it  always 
appears  with  something  of  the  defilement  of  their 
religious  condition  clinging  to  it.  During  the 
Exile,  however,  this  hope  became  purer  and 
stronger,  and  the  imagery  in  which  they  embodied 
it  became  more  evangelical  and  spiritual  than  that 
employed  by  earlier  poets  and  prophets.  The 
section  of  the  Hebrews  that  returned  to  Palestine 
held  it  in  increased  strength,  but  with  the  old 
national  taint  upon  it.     Their  own  restoration  and 

handling  nature  itself  improves.  But  God,  though  resting  from  His 
works  of  creation,  is  not  in  Scripture  said  to  be  resting  from  His  works 
of  mercy :  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work." 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  121 

the  favour  of  Persia  kindled  anew  the  foolish 
dreams  of  their  ancestors,  and,  alas  !  when  Persia 
disappointed  them,  and  its  favour  was  supplanted 
by  oppression,  and  the  kingdom,  instead  of  rising 
Phoenix-like  out  of  its  ashes,  became  the  battlefield 
or  the  gage  of  foreign  nations,  there  broke  out 
in  Palestine  the  bitterest  plague  of  unbelief  and 
apostasy  that  had  ever  assailed  the  nation.  For 
idolatry,  for  overlaying  or  corrupting  the  worship 
of  Jehovah,  their  forefathers  had  often  been  severely 
chastised,  but  no  prophet  had  as  yet  complained  of 
a  temple  deserted  and  an  altar  defiled  by  unworthy 
offerings.  And  this  was  because  men  professed  to 
have  discovered  in  the  destruction  of  their  national 
hopes  that  after  all  religion  was  vain,  and  there  was 
no  profit  in  serving  God. 

Any  one  who  has  intelligently  read  Malachi,  or 
the  sayings  of  Agur  the  proverb-collector,^  or  the 
Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  will  see  to  what  a  depth  of 
scepticism,  if  not  indeed  of  atheism,  their  perverted 
Messianic  hopes  had  brought  the  Jews  of  Palestine. 
We  appreciate  the  criticism  which  regards  Coheleth, 
so  alien  to  the  healthy  and  joyous  spirit  of  the 
Hebrew  religion,  as  the  natural  outgrowth  of  this 
period.^  When  faith  in  Israel's  imperishable  kingdom 

1  "  The  words  of  Agur  the  son  of  Jakeh,"  Proverbs  xxxi.  1. 
^  Hiiber,    Der    Pessimisvius,    1876,    p.    8  ;    Holdheiiii,    Preface   to 
vol.  iii.  of  Fredigten,  quoted  by  Cheyne,  Job  and  Solomon,  pp.  250-253. 


122  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

seemed  to  be  completely  wrecked,  wlien  ministers 
of  religion  led  the  revolt  from  it,  and  unrighteous 
rulers  and  corrupt  society  made  life  in  Palestine,  as 
in  Rome  in  Nero's  day,  not  worth  the  living,  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  that  this  one  which  has  sur- 
vived, but  that  "  many  books  "  ^  should  have  been 
written  to  echo  the  cry,  "  All  is  vanity."     We  may 
listen  to  it  as  a  note  of  despair  from  a  pessimist  in 
whose  people  religion  had  died,  because  disappointed 
political  ambition  had  shown  them  that  "  no  earthly 
good  "  came  of  serving  God  ;  or  we  may  read  it  as 
the  protest  of  some    healthy-minded  Jew  against 
that  orthodox  asceticism  which  after  the  Captivit}' 
invaded  religion,  and  led  to  the  rise  of  Pharisaism 
and  Essenism.     In  any  case,  it  seems  to  mark  the 
proper    close    in    Palestine    of  an    age  of  national 
perverted    faith    and   hope.     The  Essenes  like  the 
Indian  ascetics  had  hope  neither   for  the  nation's 
recovery  nor  for  the   establishment   anywhere  of  a 
kingdom  of  God.     The  Pharisees,  on  the  contrary, 
had  hope,  but  it  was  the  old  political  hope,  and  in 
them,    though    Egyptian    and    Syrian    and    Greek 
and  Poman  had  trodden  the  nation  under  foot,  and 
though  the  Maccabees  had  sufiered  and  poured  out 
their  blood  in  vain,  it  seemed  to  grow  stronger  and 
stronger.     Peady  to  believe   any  impostor,  and  to 
rise  at  the  faintest  call,  their  fanaticism  more  than 

1  Eccles.  xii.  12. 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  123 

once  betrayed  the  people  into  ineffectual  and  most 
sanguinary  revolts ;  but  it  had  one  result  that  was 
not  wholly  evil,  for  they  drew  after  them  the  multi- 
tudes to  the  desert,  when  the  thunder  of  the 
Baptist's  cry  reached  Jerusalem,  "  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  at  hand."  ^ 

So  was  it  in  Palestine  ;  but  among  the  Diaspora 
all  over  the  Empire  the  hope  of  Messiah  assumed 
a  purer  and  more  catholic  form.  Everywhere  it 
was  strong,  but  the  broader  horizons  by  which 
they  were  surrounded  saved  them  from  the  delu- 
sions which  intoxicated  the  Palestinian  Jew.  In 
classical  literature  there  are  tokens  that  it  had 
filtered  into  Gentile  minds.  It  w^as  undoubtedly 
vague  and  shadowy  even  at  its  brightest,  but  m 
the  Sibyl  and  PoUio  its  fulfilment  signified  some- 
thing more  important  than  a  successful  revolution 
in  Palestine.  It  meant  mighty  changes  impending 
that  would  bring  good  to  all  the  world,  the  augury 
of  a  star  that  would  so.on  glimmer  in  the  eastern 
horizon,  and  grow  and  brighten  till  it  would  be 
seen  to  be  not  a  light  for  Asia  only,  but  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness  with  healing  in  His  beams  for  every 
nation  under  heaven. 

We    have    thus    been    following   two    lines   of 

^  Edersheim,  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Messiah,  vol.  i.  p.  276  ; 
Keim,  Jesus  of  Nazara,  vol.  i.  pp.  316-325  ;  Kuenen,  Eeligion  of  Israel, 
vol.  iii.  p.  177. 


124  THE  HISTORICAL  ANTECEDENTS  OF         lect.  ii. 

religious  movement,  perfectly  independent  of  each 
other,  far  apart  geographically,  still  further  apart  in 
the  beliefs  which  inspired  them.  We  have  seen 
how  the  melody  of  joy  and  health  which  the  Indians 
brought  with  them  from  our  common  primeval  home 
ended  in  a  sigh  of  despair.  Individual  existence, 
at  first  so  full  of  wonder  and  delight,  lost  soon 
its  freshness  and  glory,  and  came  to  be  felt  to  be 
such  a  burden  that  emancipation  from  it  by  absorp- 
tion into  the  Absolute  was  hailed  as  a  boon.  The 
human  mind,  leaving  its  childhood  behind  it,  and 
advancing  to  question  itself  and  the  universe,  after 
a  season  of  movement  and  sense  of  freedom  and 
power,  somehow  lost  or  missed  the  way.  Oppressed 
in  the  toils  of  the  jungle,  and  wandering  ever 
further  from  practical  life  as  it  proceeded,  it  lay 
down  vanquished,  longing  only  to  be  at  rest  and  in 
quiet  as  infants  that  never  saw  the  light. 

The  other  line  of  development  marks  not  the 
course  of  a  speculation,  but  the  growth  of  a  faith 
laying  hold  of  mankind  with  creative  and  trans- 
forming power.  This  faith,  never  dissociated  from, 
but  seeking  to  dominate  and  reform  actual  life, 
condemned  inertion,  and  fostered  hope  for  a  race 
working  out  its  salvation,  because  convinced  that 
God  is  working  in  them  both  to  will  and  to  do. 
We  see  a  light  streaming  from  above  into  the 
darkness  of  man,  paining  and  blinding  at  first  the 


LECT.  II.  BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY.  125 

organs  which  it  seeks  to  purify.  We  see  a  struggle 
on  the  part  of  the  creatures  to  bring  the  Most  High 
doAvn  to  their  level,  and  make  Him  their  servant, 
and  a  striving  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  train  them  as 
children.  We  see  a  mighty  Hand  laid  ever  on  a 
peculiar  people,  at  times  so  softly  that  they  hardly 
felt  it,  at  times  with  conscious  guiding  and  sustain- 
ing power ;  at  times  chastising  them  sorely  by  the 
sword  of  the  enemy  and  the  heart-hunger  of  exile, 
but  never  giving  them  over  unto  death.  Not  for 
forty  years,  but  for  twice  forty  generations  we  see 
Him  leading  and  humbling  and  proving  them,  till  in 
the  souls  of  the  apt  est — though  only  "  a  remnant " 
of  them — He  had  rooted  ideals  of  human  destiny 
which  never  can  perish.  Then,  that  all  might  be 
ready  in  the  fulness  of  time,  He  scattered  them 
among  the  nations,  and  lo !  when  required  they 
are  everywhere,  crying  in  the  crowded  capitals  of 
the  East  and  of  the  West,  in  the  darkness  of  the 
North  and  the  brightness  of  the  South,  "  Prepare 
ye  in  the  desert  an  highway  for  the  Lord." 


LECTURE    III. 

THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :    THE  CHRIST  OF 
THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

The  condition  of  Palestine  and  the  progress  of 
events  in  it  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era; 
are  set  in  the  clear  light  of  history,  and  defined  by 
an  accurate  chronology.  To  the  superficial  observer 
it  appeared  to  be  a  prosperous  land,  for  it  was 
fertile  and  carefully  tilled,  populous,  and,  in  the 
northern  regions  especially,  teeming  with  the  fruits 
of  industry.  It  had  reached  the  commercial  stage 
of  civilisation,  and  everywhere,  in  well  built  cities 
adorned  with  palatial  buildings,  many  of' them  the 
abodes  of  merchants  who  rivalled  the  Italian  nobles 
and  Herodian  princes  in  the  costliness  of  their 
manner  of  living,  it  yielded  indications  of  the 
luxury  which  successful  commerce  brings  in  its 
,train.  But  as  always  happens  when  wealth 
abounds  in  a  land,  there  was  a  corresponding 
amount  of  poverty.  While  the  rich  were  lavishing 
fortunes    upon  selfish  and    gigantic    follies,  an  in- 

120 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        127 

creasing  multitude,  born  and  bred  in  squalor,  were 
struggling  for  very  existence.  In  the  days  of  the 
Son  of  Man  their  numbers  were  vastly  increased 
by  political  troubles  which  disturbed  trade  and 
depressed  agriculture.  So  to  an  eye  that  looked 
beneath  the  surilice  this  seemingly  prosperous 
Palestine  was  diseased  and  in  a  dangerous  condition, 
for  pauperism  and  discontent  were  rapidly  maturing 
the  seeds  of  anarchy,  and  preparing  for  the  succes- 
sive revolutions  in  which  so  many  perished  before 
the  Roman  eagles  swept  down  upon  the  carcass 
of  a  State  politically  dead,  because  morally  and 
socially  corrupt. 

Under  the  Herodian  dominion,  secured  as  it  had 
been  by  the  destruction  of  an  illustrious  royal  house 
and  the  sacrifice  of  their  bravest  patriots,  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  people  revolted  from  the  throne  to 
cluster  for  a  time  around  the  temple ;  but  just  as 
the  dignity  of  the  office  of  the  high  priest  was 
rising  in  their  estimation,  successive  nominations 
to  it  by  the  king  and  procurator  of  men  odious  to 
the  scood  turned  the  tide  in  a  different  direction. 
The  hierarchy  was  represented  by  the  Sadducees,  a 
party  small  in  number  and  far  from  popular. 
Though  wearing  names  of  ancient  and  honoured  _ 
families,  they  were  obviously  careless  alike  of  the 
sanctuary  and  of  the  interests  of  the  nation.  Strict 
observers  of  the  law  of  their  Davidic  ancestor,  they 


128  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

rejected  the  prevalent  interpretations  of  it,  and  all 
the  new-fangled  doctrines  concerning  angels  and 
spirits,  and  the  resurrection  of  the  just,  which  had 
been  formulated  since  the  Exile.  Especially  opposed 
to  the  belief  that  the  keeping  of  the  law  would 
procure  for  a  man  recompence  in  a  future  state, 
they  held  that  the  law  must  be  kept  to  the  letter 
just  because  it  was  God's  will,  even  though  the 
soul  died  with  the  body.  Their  wealth  and  position 
as  the  aristocracy  brought  them  into  connection 
with  the  representatives  of  the  great  foreign  powers 
of  the  times,  whose  manners  and  fashions  they 
copied ;  but  the  nearer  they  drew  to  the  Koman 
and  Asmonean  nobility  the  further  they  drew 
apart  from  the  people  whom  they  never  pretended 
to  love,  and  who,  equally  alienated,  regarded  them 
with  similar  dislike. 

Withdrawn  from  the  temple,  the  affections  of 
people  were  freely  given  to  the  synagogue  leaders  as 
the  representatives  and  fosterers  of  the  national  ideals 
and  hopes.  In  these  days  every  small  town  had  its 
synagogue,  while  in  Jerusalem  alone  there  were  said 
to  be  four  hundred  and  eighty.  These  were  not  only 
places  of  worship,  but  schools  in  which  the  Law  was 
made  the  common  possession  of  all  without  distinc- 
tion, and  also  arenas  for  exciting  discussion,  in  which 
was  nursed  that  love  of  dialectics  to  which  so  many 
striking  analogies  exist  both  in  India  and  Greece. 


LECT.  III.     THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        129 

They  were  dominated  by  the  Scribes,  the  sole 
copiers  for  the  ever  increasing  synagogues  of  the 
ancient  Scriptures,  and  the  true  interpreters  of  the 
law.  Pedantic  and  self-important  though  they 
generally  were,  they  were  revered  so  by  the  people 
for  their  piety  and  gifts  that  from  them  were 
chiefly  selected  the  members  of  the  court  of  the 
Sanhedrim,  which  represented  all  that  was  left  to 
the  nation  of  executive  power.  Their  Cabbala, 
revealing  the  secret  doctrines  to  be  found  in 
names,  of  which  we  have  specimens  in  the 
writings  of  St.  Paul,^  and  the  mystic  significance 
of  numbers,  of  which  we  have  traces  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse, may  be  only  interesting  now  as  curiosities, 
but  we  must  never  forget  that  they  rendered 
undying  service  to  the  world  in  preserving  from 
corruption,  by  many  arts  carefully  studied  and 
applied,  the  texts  of  Holy  Scripture.^ 

The  Pharisees,  the  Nazarites  of  the  nation  as  their 
name  implies,  the  democratic  antagonists  of  the  aris- 
tocratic Sadducees,  the  staunch  opponents  of  the 
Gentile,  the  believers  in  the  coming  kingdom  of  the 
just,  were  deservedly  the  most  popular  of  all  the 
religious  sects  in  Palestme.  More  liberal  than  the 
Sadducees  in  their  interpretation  of  the  law  in  its 

1  E.g.    Sinai  =  Hagar  (Gal.   iv.   24-31)  ;  also  Claudius  =  6   Kare'xav 
(2  Thess.  ii.  6,  7) ;  Hausrath,  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus,  vol.  i.  p.  77. 
-  Derenbourg,  Eisf.  de  la  Palestine  d'aprcs  les  Talmnds,  pp.  159,  202. 


130  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

bearing  upon  the  people,  tliej  never  thought  of  exact- 
ing for  faults  or  transgressions  the  ancient  penalties  ; 
but  they  were  far  more  severe  in  their  personal 
observance  of  it.^  To  the  mass  of  them  it  was  a 
ladder  by  which  they  might  climb  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  ;  and  out  of  it,  to  make  sure  of  this  end, 
they  evolved  a  most  comprehensive  system  of  bye- 
laws,  as  sacred  to  them  as  the  original  precepts  by 
which  every  action  and  word  and  relation  of  life 
was  regulated.  Pharisaism  was  just  Brahmanism, 
and  though  more  ethically  applied  it  was  in  its 
spirit  and  aim  as  selfish.  Bent  only  upon  accumu- 
lating merit,  in  character  it  became  eventually  as 
morally  impure.  Forgetting  in  their  attention  to 
petty  details  the  weightier  obligations  of  life,  dis- 
regarding their  neighbours  that  they  might  provide 
for  their  own  recompence,  the  Pharisees  became  as 
a  class  so  corrupt  as  to  draw  upon  them  the  most 
scathing  of  all  the  denunciations  of  our  Lord. 

More  Pharisaic  than  the  Pharisees,  said  to  be 
an  offshoot  or  secession  from  them,  the  Essenes  in 
theii"  desert  communities  sought  by  the  worship 
of  Jehovah  in  the  spirit  of  the  prophets,  and  yet 
apparently  by  prayers  to  the  sun,  and  by  an  ascetic 
and  celibate  life,  to  deliver  the  immortal  soul  from 
material  impurity,  to  educate  it  to  enjoy  the 
beatific  vision,  and  to  prophesy  the  secret  things 

1  Wellhausen,   The  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  pp.  8,  26-43  ;  Greifs- 
wald,  1874. 


LECT.  III.     THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        131 

of  the  future.  In  these  communities  of  pious 
people,  the  very  flower  of  Judaism,^  the  only  ray 
of  light  in  the  deepening  darkness,  some  may  be 
pardoned  in  professing  to  find  the  dawn  of  Christi- 
anity— not  in  its  external  arrangements,  but  its 
inward  dispositions  and  beliefs.  In  its  avowal  that 
morality  was  superior  to  legal  observance,  in  its 
endeavour  to  prepare  the  mind  by  calm  to  receive 
the  Divine  instruction,  in  its  sabbatic  sanctification 
of  all  days  of  the  week,  in  its  estimate  of  all  work 
as  religious,  and  of  every  meal  as  sacramental,  it 
pre-intimated  the  teaching  of  the  coming  gospel ; 
but  while  its  arrangements  may  have  suggested  the 
monastic  institutions  of  Christendom,  we  can  never 
regard  it  as  the  matrix  of  Christianity.  Its  life 
was  just  the  last  flickering  ray  of  Judaism,  a  bright 
gleam  irradiating  the  features  of  a  moribund  age, 
but  not  that  of  a  new  birth  with  promise  of  a 
mighty  future.  It  was  not  the  rush  of  a  new  force 
into  the  battle  of  the  redemption  of  humanity,  but 
the  sauve  qui  pent  of  a  rout  which  it  believed  to 
be  universal.  As  pessimist  as  Brahmanism  in  its 
views  of  life,  though  more  Buddhist  than  Brahman 
in  its  methods,  its  aim  was  the  same — that  of 
rescuing  the  individual  from  a  world  nigh  unto 
perdition  and  really  not  worth  the  saving," 

In  the  virtuous  Pharisee  and  the  pious  Essene 

1  Jos.  Antiq.  xiii,  5.  9,  xv.  10.  4,  5  ;  Bell.  Jud.  ii.  8.  2,  14, 
^  Keim,  Jesus  of  Nazara,  vol.  i.  p,  392. 


132  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

Judaism  found  its  best  representatives  ;  ^    but   at 
most  there  were  only  six  thousand  Pharisees  ^  and 
four  thousand  Essenes  ^  in  all  the  nation,  and,  alas  ! 
the   majority   of  the  Pharisees  were  not   sincere ; 
and    the    Essenes,   though    really   in    earnest,  had 
abandoned   the    nation   to   its   fate.       Among   the 
religious   classes   piety   and   morality  had   become 
so   dissociated  that  a  man  who  in  the   matter  of 
belief    or    of   worship    would    strain    at    a    gnat, 
might  in  practice  without   condemnation    swallow 
a   camel.        The   result   of  this   fatal   divorce   be- 
tween creed  and  conduct  was  seen  in  a  social  cor- 
ruption which   augured   everywhere  the  gathering 
of  the   storm-clouds  of  retribution.      At  that  time 
Greece  was   dead,   and  what  was   best  in  its  spirit 
had  passed  into  Alexandria.     There,  blending  with 
the  more  robust  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  religion,  it 
was  forming  that  Hellenism  which,  though  it  never 
could  account  for  the  origin,  was  yet  powerfully  to 
influence  the  unfolding  of  our  religion.    In  Hellenism 
we  have  the  natural  resultant  of  the  conflux  of 
Eastern  and  Western  thought,  which,  according  to 
some,  will  explain  the  birth  of  Christianity.     In  it 
certainly  the  Aryan  and  the  Semite  were  seen  con- 
tributing their  very  best  thoughts,  and  the  product 

1  Delitzsch,  Jesus  and  Hillel,  pp.  31  seq.  ;  Pirke  Aboth,  Cambridge, 
1877,  passim.  '  ^  Jos.  Antiq.  xvii.  4. 

3  Philo,  Quod  omnis  Probus  Liber,  p.  12. 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        133 

was — Philo  ;  but  Philo-JudiBus  is  neither  St.  Paul 
nor  St.  John,  and  the  Christ  of  the  GosjDels  is  further 
beyond  him  than  the  heavens  are  above  the  earth. 

In   Alexandria  Greece  might  be  said    to  live, 
but  Pome  was  hopelessly  dying.     Drunk  with  the 
cup  of  the  sorceries  of  all  nations,  embruted  wdth 
every   lust,   it    was   staggering   to   a   doom  which 
neither   law,   even   the   best    conceived   and   most 
thoroughly  administered,  nor  philosophy,  even  the 
wisest    and    most    consistently   illustrated,    could 
avert.     The  civilisation  of  the  Western  w^orld  was 
marvellous  :  it  was  a  world  not  only  of  poets  and 
artists,    of  brave    soldiers   and    subtle   statesmen, 
but  of  sound  moralists  too  ;  but  civilisation,  power- 
less to  save,  could  only  cover  with  broidered  robes 
the  leprous  body,  or  adorn  with  golden  trappings 
its    bier,    and    morality    could    not    restore    what 
was  sick  unto  death.     When  Rome  and  Palestine 
were   alike    corrupt,    there   was    no    hope    for   the 
world  in  man  ;   yet  when   all  help   in  man  faileth, 
there  never  lacketh  help  in  God,  and  so,  just  when 
the  night  was  blackest,  and  despair  had  seized  on 
all  save  a  few  aged   peoj)le  in  the  courts  of  Zion, 
and  a  few  thoughtful  Magi  in  the  distant  East,  lo  ! 
over  a  Babe  in  the  cattle-crib  of  a  leewan  in  Beth- 
lehem was  descried  the  shining  of  the  Star  of  Hope. 

When  we  turn  from  Palestine  to  the  holy  land 
of  Magadha,  the  cradle  of  Buddhism   in  the  sixth 


134  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

century  B.C.,  we  find  no  light  of  history  streaming 
upon  it.  All  is  dim  and  shadowy,  with  no  chrono- 
logy to  define  events,  and  no  incidents  to  dis- 
tinguish personalities.  It  is  like  a  land  of  dreams 
to  our  modern  conception,  but  it  is  not  a  chaos. 
We  can  trace  to  a  certain  extent  movements  in  it, 
and  as  we  follow  them  there  emerges  in  outline 
sufficiently  clear  a  real  civilisation,  which,  though 
lacking  the  stir  and  endeavour,  the  commerce  and 
the  art  of  the  West,  and  really  inferior  to  it,  is 
yet  most  interesting  in  its  pathetic  resemblances, 
and  all  the  more  instructive  that  its  beliefs  and 
institutions  were  formed  out  of  antecedents  and 
predispositions  very  different  from  any  of  which 
the  Western  world  had  experience. 

It  is  evident  from  the  very  cursory  survey 
already  made  that  religious  belief  in  India  and  in 
the  West  must  have  passed  through  phases  sig- 
nificantly similar.  In  both  it  proceeded  from  faith 
in  a  revealed  system  of  truth — in  India  in  the  in- 
spired Vedas,  in  Palestine  in  the  inspired  oracles. 
Human  speculation  in  both  cases  was  begotten, 
and  for  long  it  was  educated  in  faith  in  revelation, 
then  beginning  to  rationalise ;  in  both  cases  it 
unintentionally  undermined  what  at  first  it  only 
endeavoured  to  explain.  Turning  from  ancient 
scroUs  to  the  study  of  the  book  of  human  nature, 
whose  pages,   though    often   tattered   and  defiled. 


LKCT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        135 

are  always  fascinating,  it  was  staggered  by  the 
contradiction  between  man's  ideals  of  goodness  and 
justice  and  the  realities  of  human  history.  Out  of 
this  collision  arose  the  Promethean  demand  that 
the  divine  powers  that  govern  life  "  should  either 
explain  or  abdicate."  In  Palestine  this  wrestle  with 
the  inequahties  of  providence  originated  early,  and 
continued  all  along ;  but  it  was  confined  within 
limits  by  faith  in  the  personality  of  Deity  as  one 
so  infinitely  greater  than  man  that  only  a  part  of 
His  ways  could  be  understood.  Indian  specula- 
tion never  reached  the  approaches  to  this  idea  of 
God  :  it  wandered  into  a  Pantheism  of  a  grosser 
type  than  ever  the  West  was  acquainted  with,  and 
once  it  reached  that  stage  it  could  not  stop.  Just 
as  in  Greece  pantheism  ripened  into  the  material- 
ism of  the  Epicurean  and  the  atheism  of  the  Stoic, 
so  in  India,  even  before  the  days  of  Gotama,  may 
have  begun  that  open  revolt  against  Deity,  in  the 
perilous  attempt  of  reason  to  explain  by  itself  the 
universe,  with  which  his  name  has  since  then  been 
most  closely  associated. 

The  religious  world  in  India  in  the  times  pre- 
ceding his  birth,  like  the  religious  world  of  Pales- 
tine, had  a  hierarchy  represented  by  the  Brahmans, 
the  indispensable  functionaries  in  all  sacrificial 
services.  Corresponding  to  the  Scribes  were  the 
Teviggi,  the  reciters  and  expounders  of  the  sacred 


136  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

and  still  unwritten  books.  The  Rabbin  had  their 
analogies  in  reforming  Brahmans,  who  alone  or  in 
communities  that  had  gathered  round  them  pro- 
fessed to  teach  the  higher  discipline  which  could 
secure  deliverance.  If  a  multitude  of  sects  be  an 
indication  of  intellectual  movement,  there  was  as 
much  stir  in  Brahmanism  as  in  Judaism,  In  the 
Pali  books  there  are  mentioned  as  contemporaries  of 
Buddha  six  noted  teachers  of  great  schools,  the 
most  formidable  of  whom,  or  at  least  the  most 
hated  of  his  soul,  was  the  head  of  an  ascetic  sect 
which,  like  the  Essenes,  had  renounced  the  world 
to  make  good  their  own  salvation.  This  Niggantha 
sect,  still  represented  in  India  by  close  upon  half  a 
million  of  adherents  in  the  district  of  Rajputana, 
claims  not  only  to  have  preceded  the  founder  of 
Buddhism  by  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  but  to 
have  anticipated  the  essentials  of  his  system.^  Its 
philosophical  and  ethical  doctrines  are  almost  in 
accord  with  his,  while  its  cosmogony  and  ritual 
incline  more  towards  those  of  Hinduism.  Its  ad- 
herents apply  to  their  founder  the  titles  "  Victor  " 
or  Jina,  and  "  Enlightened  One "  or  Buddha, 
which  many  imagine  were  ascribed  solely  to  Go- 
tama ;  but  whether  Buddhism  sprang  from  it  or 
gave  birth  to  Jainism  is  a  question  still  undecided. 

^  Buhler,  Ind.  Ant.  vol.  vii.  p.  143  ;  Jacobi,  "  Mahavira  and  his 
Predecessors,"  Ind.  Ant.  vol.  viii.  pp.  311-314  ;  Kern,  History  of  Bud- 
dhism in  India,  vol.  i.  p.  143  ;  Colebrooke's  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  380. 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        137 

The  only  solid  fact  as  yet  ascertained  is  that  from 
the  earliest  traceable  period  their  mutual  relations 
are  marked  by  that  pronounced  intolerance  ^  which 
prevails  when  kinsfolk  quarrel. 

Collision  and  antaaronism  between  sects  in  India 
was  neither  so  sharp  nor  so  fierce  as  in  Palestine, 
and  Buddha  ministered  in  conditions  much  more 
favourable  to  the  propagation  of  his  system  than  did 
Jesus  Christ.  The  Sadducean  opponents  of  Christ 
i^epresented  a  powerful  hierarchy,  the  Pharisees  a 
popular  democracy,  and  the  Scribes  an  influential 
Sanhedrim,  with  power  of  inflicting  a  sentence  of 
death.  The  Essenes  never  mingle  in  the  scenes 
of  the  Gospel,  and  it  is  questionable  if  they  are 
ever  referred  to  in  them.  Over  all  and  dominating 
all  was  a  most  jealous  and  vigilant  Koman  despot- 
ism, ever  ready  to  turn  even  a  religious  quarrel  to 
its  own  account,  so  that  it  was  the  most  natural 
of  things  that  an  opposition  thus  represented  should 
nip,  as  it  were,  Christianity  in  the  very  bud  by 
crucifying  its  Founder.  In  Magadha,  however,  it 
was  otherwise.  The  broad  distinction  was  between 
Brahmans  and  Sramans,^  the  latter  a  general  title 

^  See  "  Jtiinisiu,"  by  Dr.  Shoolbred — Report  of  tlie  Missionary  Con- 
ference, 1888,  vol.  i.  p.  41  ;  Wilson's  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  427  seq. 

-  "  Sramana,"  in  Brahman  speech,  was  a  man  who  performed  hard 
penances,  from  sravi,  to  work  hard.  There  is  another  Sanscrit  root, 
sam,  to  quiet,  and  from  it  afterwards  the  popular  etymology  derived 
the  word.  See  Professor  Max  Miiller's  translation  of  the  Dhammapada 
in  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  p.  G5  note. 


138  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  iii. 

covering  many  secessions  from  Brahmanism,  and 
the  popular  favour  was  equally  bestowed  on  both. 
The  Brahmans,  though  dominant,  had  not  the 
power,  and  to  their  credit  do  not  seem  to  have  had 
the  will,  to  persecute.  It  was  not  from  them,  but 
from  the  scholastic  and  conceited  Teviggi  and 
from  the  ascetic  sects  that  Buddha  encountered 
most  formidable  opposition ;  and  yet  even  in  these 
cases  opposition  was  not  rigid.  It  was  a  war  not 
of  blows,  but  of  words,  in  which  an  appeal  to  the 
secular  arm  or  to  force  was  out  of  the  question.  A 
new  sect,  therefore,  especially  one  that  had  donned 
the  yellow  robes  and  alms-bowl  of  the  mendicant, 
protesting  against  the  debasing  belief  in  the  efficacy 
of  Brahmanic  rites,  or  the  virtue  gained  by  extrava- 
gant Yogi  austerities,  would  obtain  from  the  people 
at  large  more  favour  than  resistance  or  disdain. 

The  intellectual  movement  in  India  appears 
thus  to  have  been  extensive  and  many-sided.  In 
the  multitude  of  sects  there  is  a  guarantee  for 
freedom,^  and  competition  in  the  proclamation  of 
truth  is  better  than  monojDoly  ;  but  in  religion,  as 
in  trade,  the  comj^etition  of  over-multiplying  sects 
tends  to  increase  adulteration.  So  in  early  Buddhist 
literature,  while  there  is  incontestable  evidence  of 

^  There  seems  to  have  been  four  great  divisions  of  Srainanas,  with 
as  many  as  sixty-three  philosophical  systems  rej^resented  by  them.  The 
Brahmanas  were  also  similarly  divided.  See  Sutta  Nipata,  Sacred  Books 
of  the  East,  vol.  xi.  Part  ii.  pp.  15,  16,  88,  93. 


LECT.  III.     THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        139 

the  existence  of  honest  instructors,  there  is  also  un- 
questionable evidence  of  the  abundance  of  quacks, 
who  trifled  with  truth   simply  to  make  a  gain  of 
it,  and    of  shallow   but   clever   professionals,    who 
dealt  with  gravest  themes  in  the  spirit  of  the  mere 
debater.^     So  there,  as  in  Palestine  in  the  days  of 
Coheleth,  through  over-discussion  the  old  faith  was 
rapidly  evaporating.     In  the  Brahmans,  religion  had 
degenerated  into   formalism ;  in    the  Teviggi,  into 
traditionalism.     In  the  philosophic  Sramans  it  was 
in  many  instances  passing  into  blank  atheism ;  and 
among  the  ascetics,  into  despair.     While  this  was 
the  condition  of  the  learned  and  of  the  few,  the 
masses   everywhere,   like  the    Amme    Ha-drets   in 
Palestine,  were  wandering — no  man  caring  for  them 
— further  and  further  into  the  idolatries  and  sensual- 
ities   of  Hinduism.     Morality   was   perishing,    the 
writing  on  the  heart  was  getting  more  indistinct, 
and    conscience    becoming   more    confused.      Then, 
just  as  five  centuries  later,  when  faith  was  almost 
gone,  Christ  came  to  restore  it  by  communicating 
new  life,  so  when  divine  law  was  in  danger  of  fading 
from  the  consciousness  of  men,  there  arose  one  to 
assert  its  eternal  supremacy ;  preaching  the   creed 
of  Coheleth  without  his  fear  of  God,  and  enforcing 
the    keeping   of    the    commandments,    not    as    ex- 
pressed in  Vedas  or  interpreted  in  Brahmanas,  but 

^  Oldenberg,  BmhUia,  etc.,  p.  71. 


140  THE  BUDDHA.  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

as  written  in   every  fibre  of  the  body  and  every 
faculty  of  the  being,  as  the  only  way  to  safety. 

Who  was  he  ?    Like  the  Author  of  Christianity, 
he  has  had  to  contend,  as  it  were,  for  the  recognition 
of  his  personal  existence.     Even  to-day  it  is  main- 
tained that  neither  Christ  nor  Buddha  ever  existed, 
that  they  were  merely  incarnations  of  popular  con- 
ceptions, and  that  all  the  legends  concerning  them 
can  be  reduced  to  a  combination  of  anterior  mytho- 
logical elements.       These   mythical   theories,   how- 
ever, in  regard  to  the  origin  of  Christianity,  may 
be  considered  among  the   curiosities  of  criticism  ;  ^ 
and  in  regard  to  the  origin   of  Buddhism,  though 
more  justified  by  the  confessed  uncertainty  as  to 
dates,   they   have   been    satisflictorily    dispelled   as 
another  instance  of  refining  overdone,''     Brahman- 
ism  and  the  successive  phases  of  Hinduism  can  be 
traced  to  no  individual  founder,  but  in  investigating 
the  orio-in  of  Buddhism  we  breathe  a  very  different 
atmosphere.     There  is  a  human  and  moral  character 
about   it   which  the    other    Indian    religions    lack  : 
something  real  as  in  Mosaism,  and  palpable  as  in 
Islam. ^     We  may  rest  assured  that  Buddhism  had 
for  its  founder  a  real  person,  and  though  our  best 

1  See  Year-Book   of  Protestant  Theology  for   1883  for  an  account 
of  the  views  of  Professor  Lonian  of  Amsterdam. 

2  M.  Senart,  Legend   of  Buddha,   Paris,  1875  ;   Kern,  History   of 
Btiddhism  in  India  ;  Schoebel,  Buddh.  Adcs  de  la  Sor.  Philol.  ;  Paris, 

1874,  vol.  iv.  pp.  160  seq. 

3  Annual  Report  of  the  Asiatic  Society  ;  Paris,  July  1875, 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        141 

authorities  Lave  had  to  search  for  their  facts 
through  a  vast  amount  of  fabulous  materials,  v^e  may 
accept  the  dates  which  they  have  approximately 
fixed  for  his  birth  and  death,  and  the  outlines 
which  they  have  sketched  of  his  life  and  ministry. 

Gotama,  a  name  still  found  among  the  Rajput 
chiefs  of  Nagara,  was  born  in  the  north-eastern 
region  of  India,  about  a  hundred  miles  from 
Benares,  about  the  year  B.C.  557.  His  father,  a 
Sakya,  a  name  unknown  in  any  native  Indian 
family,  and  said  to  indicate  descent  from  a  race 
of  northern  nomad  immigrants,  was  rajah  of  Ka- 
pila,  and  his  mother  was  a  daughter  of  the  family 
of  Koli.^  His  principalities,  of  very  limited  extent, 
seem  to  have  been  eventually  swallowed  up  by  the 
greater  Indian  monarchies,  for  wlien  Fa-Hian  visited 
the  country  Kapila  had  become  a  vast  solitude, 
and  there  for  ages  its  very  name  has  perished  from 
the  living  speech  of  men.  Even  though  his  royal 
pedigree  be  an  embellishment  of  the  later  legends, 
there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  his  father  was 
noble  and  rich  according  to  the  standard  of  the 
tune,  and  sufficiently  independent  of  Brahman  do- 
mination to  train  his  son  in  his  own  way.  It  seems 
not  to  have  been  in  their  studies,  but  in  the  exer- 
cises befitting  a  warrior  prince,  that  Gotama  was 

^  Cunningliam,  Ayicient  Geog.  of  India,  vol.  i.  p.  147  ;  Oldenberg, 
Buddha,  etc.,  p.  95  ;  Beal,  Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  67. 


142  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAB  :  lect.  hi. 

educated,  though  a  disposition  thoughtful  and 
melancholy,  and  strongly  sympathetic,  appears  to 
have  disinclined  him  from  such  a  mode  of  life. 
Even  as  a  youth  the  darker  sides  of  existence 
threw  a  shadow  over  him ;  the  sufferings  of  man- 
kind were  among  his  earliest  impressions,  and  he 
brooded  over  them  till  his  mind,  poisoned  by  the 
contemplation  of  them,  threw  its  gloom  over  every- 
thing around  him,  and  made  the  very  air  hang 
heavy  with  the  weight  of  woe. 

To  one  driven  as  he  was  to  the  conclusion  that 
V      existence   was   a   burden   rather   than   a   blessing, 
death,  according   to   the   belief  in  which  he   had 
been   nurtured,   could   afford  no   relief;   but   hope 
seemed  to    dawn   for   him    as   he    thought  of  the 
happy    yellow-robed    sages   who,    freed    from    his 
horror,    were    tranquil    and    dignified,    abstracted 
alike  from  pleasure  and  pain.     So  after  a  period  of 
irresolution  and  struggle,  in  the  very  prime  of  his 
manhood,  he  stole  away  from  his  wife  and  his  new- 
born child,    and    cast   in  his   lot   with    the  forest 
recluses.     Having  lived  some  time  with  them,  and 
having   found   that   their   ascetic   discipline    failed 
to  satisfy  his  aspirations,  he  left  them,  and  joined 
two    philosophic    Brahmans,    who    taught    him  the 
science  of  meditation  in  its  lower  and  higher  de- 
grees.    Though  he  had  profited  so  much  by  their 
instruction  and  discipline  that  he  rose  in  six  years 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        I4:j 

from  being  a  disciple  to  a  teacher,  lie  confessed 
that  he  had  not  found  by  their  methods  the  im- 
perishable and  permanent  quietude  which  he  coveted. 
So,  abandoning  all  his  disciples,  he  withdrew  into 
solitude,  and  plunged  into  fasting  so  rigorous  that 
he  nearly  destroyed  himself ;  then,  finding  that  the 
secret  of  deliverance  was  not  thus  to  be  obtained, 
he  returned,  amid  the  contempt  of  his  former  com- 
panions, to  a  more  genial  mode  of  life.  Then,  all 
alone  in  the  jungle,  its  manifold  discomforts,  the 
memories  of  home,  and  the  fruitlessness  of  all  his 
endeavours,  assailed  him  with  the  force  of  a  temp- 
tation to  desist  from  the  quest ;  but  rallying  all  his 
powers  for  one  supreme  effort,  he  eventually,  under 
a  banyan-tree  at  Bohimanda,  triumphed — awoke  as 
one  before  wdiom  all  illusion  had  vanished,  and  who 
by  no  divine  illumination,  but  by  his  own  personal 
energy,  had  attained  to  knowledge  of  the  causes  of 
all  things,  and  had  at  last  become  the  Buddha,  the 
Enlightened  One. 

We  need  have  no  difficulty  in  accepting  this 
outline  of  the  man's  spiritual  history  as  substan- 
tially correct ;  and  assuming  it  to  be  so,  we  see  at 
once  that  it  is  contrasted  in  every  point  with  the 
early  history  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  In  the  Indian 
narrative,  e.g.,  we  have  long  and  prolix  details  of 
the  youth  and  manhood  of  Gotama  ;  in  the  Chris- 
tian   Gospels    very   few    incidents,    one    pregnant 


144  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

saying,  two  or  tliree  words  of  description,  sum  up 
the    whole    record    of   Christ's    biography    till    He 
appeared  before  the  Baptist.     This  silence  is  surely 
suggestive,  for  it  could  not  have  been  the  result  of 
ignorance   or  forge tfulness,     "It  is  silence,  where, 
to  a  moral  certainty,"  as  is  indicated  alike  by  the 
apocryphal    Gospels    and    the    Buddhist    legends, 
"men   left  to  themselves  would   have  used  much 
speech."      In  the  Gospels  the  things  which  we  are 
naturally  curious   to   know  are  concealed  from   us, 
and  there  is  disclosed  only  the  spiritual  reality  in 
which  Christianity  consists.     Where  He  was,  how 
He  looked,  what  He  did  during  these  long  years  of 
waiting  and  preparation,  the  Evangehsts  have  not 
told   us ;  but   they  have  revealed  enough   to  show 
what  He  was.      Scenery  and  circumstances  are  as 
nothing,  because  the  life  that  was  revealing  itself 
in  them  was   everything  ;  and  of  the  unfolding  of 
that  life,  the  few  and  slight  but  most  suggestive 
touches  of  the  Gospels  enable  us  to  form  clearer  con- 
ceptions than  we  are  ever  likely  to  form  of  Gotama's 
from  the  abundant  incidents  of  the  Buddhist  story. 
Thus  while  the  son  of  the  Indian  rajah  did  not 
require  to  keep  from  himself  anything  that  his  heart 
desired,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  in  the  home  of  Galilee 
had  to  deny  Himself,  and  to  endure  in  the  com- 
monest   kind    of    labour    a    hardness    which    the 
Indian  youth,  in  the  inertion  of  his  class  and  race, 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       145 

regarded  as  part  of  the  curse  of  existence.  Still, 
Jesus  had  meat  to  eat  which  the  other  knew  not 
of;  He  had  bread  enough  and  to  spare,  while  the 
other  was  perishing  of  hunger.  Rich  in  poverty, 
while  Gotama  was  poor  in  his  abundance,  Jesus 
the  carpenter  appears  highly  exalted  in  what  the 
other  would  have  called  humiliation.  There, 
while  Gotama,  having  everything  which  he  could 
desire  at  his  call,  had  discovered  that  human  life 
was  worse  than  vanity,  Jesus,  self-surrendered  in 
faithful  service  of  others,  was  learning  how  full 
of  blessedness  and  how  rich  in  power  of  blessing 
the  life  of  any  man  might  be.  The  angels  of 
nature  and  providence,  by  the  lilies  of  the  field 
and  the  children  in  the  market-place,  instructed 
him  in  a  wisdom  which  no  Indian  sage  ever 
dreamed  of;  and  though  He  saw  the  wretched- 
ness of  this  evil  world  as  Gotama  never  saw  it, 
and  felt  for  the  misery  of  men  as  Gotama  never 
could  feel,  He  saw  what  even  Buddha  the  En- 
lightened never  could  descry,  the  face  of  a  Father 
in  Heaven  not  frowning  in  wrath  but  yearning  in 
pity  over  all.  So,  instead  of  repelling,  the  suffer- 
ing and  evil  of  the  world  drew  Jesus  closer  to  it,  till,, 
finding  His  grace,  not  as  Gotama  found  His  wisdom, 
in  desire  to  be  delivered  from  it,  but  in  the  depth 
of  His  longing  to  save  it.  He  gave  Himself  to  it 
and  for  it,  as  for  a  joy  that  was  set  before  Him. 

K 


146  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

Aofain,  the  enliofhtenment  of  Gotama  was  tlie 
result  of  a  painful  struggle,  first  between  inclina- 
tion and  duty,  and  then  with  great  perplexities  of 
duty,  but  in  Christ  it  was  painless  and  natural, 
like  the  growing  of  the  dawn  into  the  day.  His 
pure  and  at  first  joyous  life  unfolded  itself  like  a 
beautiful  morning  under  the  animating  impulse  of 
love  to  God  and  to  all  His  creatures.  As  He  grew 
in  consciousness  of  the  heaven  within,  He  became 
more  conscious  of  the  disorder  without,  and  more 
sensible  of  His  isolation  in  regard  to  it.  As  year 
by  year  the  sense  not  of  the  world's  misery  but  of 
its  guilt  increased  within  Him,  there  would  also 
increase  the  longing  that  it  should  be  taken  away. 
Very  early  the  conviction  took  possession  of  Him, 
that  He  was  not  here  to  win  His  own  way  to 
deliverance,  but  to  be  about  His  Father's  business. 
Gradually  the  Father's  business  was  revealed  to 
Him,  and  when  the  preaching  of  the  Baptist  had 
made  it  clear,  without  any  wrestle  like  Gotama's, 
Christ,  ever  close  to  His  Father,  and  ever  clear  in 
His  duty,  set  Himself  at  once  to  fulfil  it. 

It  is  often  alleged  that  the  temptation  in  the 
wilderness,  which  marked  the  close  of  our  Lord's 
long  period  of  silent  preparation,  is  an  exact 
parallel  to  the  fasting  and  temptation  which 
preceded  Gotama's  enlightenment  at  Bohimanda. 
There  is  doubtless  an  external  similarity  sufficient 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       147 

to  arrest  our  attention,  but  the  internal  contrasts 
disclose  experiences  of  quite  different  characters. 
In  the  light  of  their  respective  histories,  these 
occurrences,  though  often  referred  to  as  miracu- 
lous, were  in  reality  most  natural.  They  represent 
experiences  of  which  there  could  be  no  witnesses, 
and  which,  indescribable  in  plain  words,  could  only. 
be  suggested  by  a  kind  of  parable.  The  tempta- 
tions are  recorded  not  as  they  were  presented  to 
the  persons  tried,  but  in  the  character  which  they 
assumed  when  their  drift  was  discovered  and  their 
aim  was  detected.  Both  were  assailed  by  sugges- 
tions, raising  in  them  a  tumult  of  emotion,  which, 
if  unresisted  or  yielded  to,  would  in  Gotama's  case 
have  been  equivalent  to  abandonment  of  his  quest 
for  deliverance  for  the  sake  of  sensual  indulg-ence 
offered  by  Mara  and  his  daughters,  and  in  the  case 
of  Christ,  to  refusal  to  live  by  obedience,  to  tempt- 
ing the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  and  to  worshipping 
the  splendid  majesty  of  wrong.  The  temptations 
were  real,  assailing  the  will,  seeking  to  paralyse 
or  to  change  it ;  and  then-  force  in  each  case  would 
be  in  proportion  to  the  depth  and  purity  of  the 
natures  assailed.  Gotama,  though  unmistakably 
a  man  of  high  spiritual  aspiration,  was  attacked 
by  sensual  visions,^  which  could  not  possibly  have 

'  "Mara  est   le  cK-mon  de  I'amour,  du  peche  et  de  la  niort,"  says 
Burnoiif  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Stxidy  of  Indian  Buddism,  p.  76 ; 


148  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

been  a  temptation  to  a  nature  like  Christ's.  He 
had  "  to  repel  as  evil  what  to  other  men  would 
have  appeared  as  ideals  of  good,  and  had  to  turn 
away  from  what  the  noblest  of  men  would  have 
cherished  as  innocent  dreams  or  splendid  chances,"  ^ 
because  to  His  pure  eyes  they  were  Satanic  tempta- 
tions. He  suffered,  being  tempted,  but  His  trouble 
and  suffering  were  caused  neither  by  irresolution, 
nor  vanity,  nor  fear,  but  by  His  own  lowly  humility 
and  to  the  sense  of  the  exceeding  greatness  of  His 
mission. 

Gotama,  sorely  concerned  about  himself,  went 
apart  to  fast  and  meditate  and  wrestle  for  his  own 
deliverance,  but  Christ  went  apart  not  to  fast — 
fasting  was  an  unheeded  incident  in  and  not  the 
aim  of  His  retirement,  and  in  no  perplexity  about 
His  own  salvation,  for  that  was  assured  and  made 
the  basis  of  assault, — but  that  in  quiet  meditation 
He  might  see  more  clearly  the  way  by  which  the  sal- 
vation of  God  could  be  brought  to  mankind.  Christ 
was  forced  to  acknowledge  that  absolute  surrender  to 
His  Father's  will  in  His  mission  meant  absolute 
antagonism  to  the  world,  and  He  was  tried  by  sug- 
gestions as  to  the  mode  of  prosecuting  His  mission, 

see  also  Sutta  Nipata,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  Part  ii.  p.  159, 
for  the  popular  conception  of  Buddha's  temptation  ;  the  arrows  of  Mara 
are  "  flower-pointed,"  like  Kama's,  the  Hindu  god  of  love.     See  Dham- 
mapada,  Sacred  Boohs  of  the  Bast,  vol.  x.  Part  i.  p.  1 7. 
^  Geikie,  Life  of  Christ,  vol.  i.  p.  449. 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       149 

all  the  more  seductive  that  they  were  confessed  to 
be  natural.  Might  He  not,  as  the  Beloved  of 
Heaven,  to  carry  the  world  along  with  Him,  and  to 
save  multitudes  from  suffering,  swerve  just  a  little 
from  His  high  ideal,  and  accommodate  His  ways  to 
suit  their  prejudices  ?  These  temptations  in  the 
beginning  continued  His  temptations  to  the  very 
close  of  His  ministry.  Not  once,  but  all  His  life,  as 
He  hungered  for  the  sympathy  and  trust  of  those 
whom  He  sought  to  save,  was  He  tempted,  as  in 
Capernaum,  when  many  fell  away  from  Him,  to 
"  change  the  stones  into  bread."  Not  once  only  did 
He  stand  on  "  the  battlements  of  the  temple,"  nor 
once  only  was  He  offered  "  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  the  glory  of  them."  Again  and  again 
was  He  in  peril  when  He  stood  high  in  the  opinion 
of  the  crowds,  and  heard  them  in  their  Hosanna 
entreating  Him,  through  His  very  sympathy  with 
and  love  for  them,  to  gratify  their  wishes ;  yet  in 
every  case  the  temptation  was  rejected  without  the 
slightest  wavering  the  moment  it  was  understood. 
"  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan."  "  Thou  shalt  not 
tempt  the  Lord  thy  God."  "The  cup  which  my 
Father  hath  given  me,  shall  I  not  drink  it  1 " 

For  again,   Christ  conquered  because   from  the 
beginning  to  the  closing  agony  He  stood  firm  rooted 
in   obedience   and    in   submission  to  the  will  of  a  1 
Higher  than  self ;  but  the  Buddhist  writers  want  to 


150  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

impress  the  very  opposite  of  this  upon  us  in  regard 
to  Gotama's  victory.     He  is  said  to  have  conquered 
Mara  by  the  force  of  his  own  will,  and  won  his  way 
to  light  by  his  individual  energy  alone.     After  he 
became   Buddha   he    hesitated   whether   he    would 
preach  the  way  of  deliverance  to  men,  not  because, 
like  Moses  and  the   Hebrew  prophets,  he  had  no 
confidence  in  himself  and  required  the  assurance  of 
a  divine  strength  not  his  own.      He  had  perfect 
assurance  in  himself,  but  he  had  no  confidence  at 
first  in  the  ability  of  others  to  comprehend  and  to 
follow  him  in  a  way  so  difiicult  to  find  and  so  hard 
to  tread. ^     He  asked  no  deity  to  help  him,  for  he 
was  greater  and  wiser  than  all  the  gods.     In  the 
leirends   Brahma   is    said   in   intercession   to    have 
pressed  him  to   preach  the  way,  and  moved  even- 
tually by  no  intercession,  but  simply  by  his  own 
pity  for  men  lost  in  the  vortices  of  miserable  exist- 
ence, he  went  forth  in  no  strength  but  his  own  to 
preach  and  to  teach  in  a  ministry,  not  of  shame  and 
humiliation  and  death,  but  one  of  great  exaltation 
and  honour. 

This  conception  colours  the  narrative  of  his 
whole  career.  In  the  later  scriptures  he  is  desig- 
nated the  Tathagata  (He  who  has  gone  or  arrived 
at  Nirvana),  the  very  reverse  and  point-blank  con- 
tradiction of  Christ  the  Messiah,  He  who  was  sent. 

^  Mahavagga,  i.  5.  2  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xvii. 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       ir^i 

There  was  no  higher  to  send  him,  no  wiser  to 
teach.  He  came  in  his  own  name  ;  but  Jesus,  as 
one  sent  by  Him  into  the  world,  went  forth  in 
the  name  of  His  Father.  Thouo^h  He  made  demands 
upon  the  faith  of  the  world  compared  with  which 
the  pretensions  of  Gotama  are  trivial — for  at  the 
highest  he  only  claimed  to  be  Buddha  the  Enlight- 
ened, while  Christ  spake  of  Himself  as  the  "  Light 
of  the  world," — yet  in  Christ's  claim  there  was  ever 
a  sense  of  dependence  expressed  or  implied,  as  of 
one  who  of  His  own  self  could  do  nothing,  and  who 
only  taught  what  His  Father  had  showed  Him. 
Both  spake  with  authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes ; 
both  superseded  the  traditional  domination  of  what 
was  said  by  men  of  old  times  with  the  emphatic 
"  I  say  unto  you"  ;  but  there  is  a  vast  difference  in 
the  quality  of  this  authority  in  the  two  cases.  The 
authority  of  Buddha  sprang  from  his  acknowledged 
intellectual  superiority,  but  the  authority  of  Jesus 
sprang  from  spiritual  insight.  The  deliverances  of 
Buddha  were  given  after  the  manner  of  a  Socratic 
dialogue,  and  he  won  his  converts  and  vanquished 
opponents  by  his  dialectic  skill.  ^     But  in  all   the 

^  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  substance  of  their  respective 
teachings.  Their  aims  seemed  to  be  similar,  for  both  proclaimed  freedom 
to  be  gained  by  the  Truth,  or  saving  knowledge,  but  their  conceptions  of 
the  knowledge  that  saves  are  as  widely  contrasted  as  are  their  ideas  of 
salvation.  If  we  put  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  side  by  side  with  Bud- 
dha's first  sermon  (translated  in  vol.  xi.  p.  146  of  Sacred  Books  of  the  East) 
we  find  contradiction  in  almost  every  sentence.     "  Blessed  are  the  poor 


152  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  iii. 

encounters  of  Christ  with  His  enemies  there  was  no 
forcing  of  their  reason  to  gain  His  end.  His  repHes 
and  counter  questions  were  brief  and  direct  and 
incisive ;  they  were  like  the  fiat  of  a  king  or  the 
sentence  of  an  unchallengeable  judge,  from  which 
reason  and  conscience  alike  confessed  that  there 
could  be  no  appeal. 

Certainly  in  the  two  ministries  was  fulfilled  a 
saying  of  Christ,  "  I  am  come  in  my  Father's  name, 
and  ye  receive  me  not ;  if  another  shall  come  in  his 
own  name,  him  will  ye  receive,"  for  after  a  very 
short  period  of  imperfect  success  the  public  career 
of  Gotama  became  a  continuous  victorious  progress. 
Disciples,  drawn  mostly  from  the  highest  classes — 
the  Brahmans,  the  nobles,  and  the  wealthy  merchants 
— flocked  round  him  wherever  he  appeared.  He 
journeyed  followed  by  admiring  crowds,  he  had 
only  to  show  himself  to  impress,  and  he  had  only  to 
preach  to  convince.  The  most  stubborn  resistance 
became  fluid  under  his  spell,  and   those  who  ap- 

in  siDirit "  is  an  utterance  not  only  foreign  to  but  in  direct  antithesis  to  the 
preaching  of  Buddha.  He  has  no  sympathy  with  the  "  poor  in  spirit," 
if  we  take  the  phrase  in  the  light  of  the  old  Hebrew  concept  of  it.  His 
benediction  is  reserved  for  the  self-conscious  and  self-reliant,  who  are 
bent  upon  self-culture  and  self-development.  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  etc.,  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  Buddha 
found  no  higher  to  adore,  and  no  other  than  self  to  consider.  The  mora 
precepts  in  his  law  are  based  on  no  appeal  to  conscience,  and  are  inspired 
by  no  sense  of  duty.  Others  were  regarded  as  the  occasion  for  winning 
merit,  and  kindness  done  to  them  was  not  done  for  their  sake,  but  with 
the  view  of  securing  the  safety  of  the  doer. 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       153 

proached  to  confute  were  sure  to  succumb  to  his 
sweet  reasonableness.  He  was  supported  by  power- 
ful rajahs,  and  those  who  did  not  show  him  proper 
reverence  were  punished  according  to  their  edicts. 
He  was  lodged  in  parks  and  gardens  and  palaces, 
several  of  which  were  gifted  to  him  for  the  use  of 
his  Order.  Accessible  always  to  people  of  all  castes, 
and  of  every  condition,  and  of  both  sexes,  he 
received  the  attention  of  the  courtesan,  and  shared 
her  feast  and  accepted  her  oftering,^  but  he  always 
maintained  the  nobility  and  purity  of  an  irreproach- 
able character,  and  wherever  he  was  found  it  was 
as  the  prophet  of  righteousness,  temperance,  and 
judgment  to  come.  Kejoicing  through  his  long  and 
honourable  ministry,  sometimes  loath  to  die,  as  fore- 
seeing the  troubles  which  would  befall  his  Order 
after  his  decease,  he  at  last,  when  over  fourscore 
years,  in  a  sickness  alleged  to  have  been  induced 
by  partaking  too  freely  of  some  rich  food,  with  the 
quiet  dignity  and  composure  of  a  saint,  fell  asleep, 
and  was  buried  with  the  funeral  obsequies  which 

^  Dr.  Olclenberg  {Buddha,  etc.,  p.  148)  very  properly  remarks  that 
Ambapali  the  courtesan  was  no  Mary  Magdalene,  and  that  she  was  not 
regarded  by  Buddha  as  the  woman  that  was  a  sinner  was  regarded  by 
Christ.  Buddha  had  not  Christ's  horror  of  sin,  and  therefore  felt  none 
of  His  boundless  pity  for  the  frailty  of  its  victims  ;  of  hatred  of  sin  in 
the  Christian  sense  Buddhism  knows  nothing.  Its  highest  virtue  is 
imperturbability,  a  serenity  that  is  apathetic  in  regard  to  the  most  out- 
rageous wrong  or  the  most  heinous  wickedness.  Cariya  Pitaka,  iii.  15  ; 
also  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  Part  ii.  p.  151. 


154  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :         lect.  hi. 

Indians    then    bestowed    on    the    bodies    of  their 
greatest  kings/ 

It  would  be  impossible,  in  every  resj)ect,  to  find 
a  more  absolute  contrast  to  all  this  ^than  the  story 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  If  He  was  popular,  it  was 
only  for  a  little,  and  then  only  with  the  masses. 
The  aristocracy  and  the  religious  classes  stood  aloof, 
and  soon  entered  into  a  conspiracy  to  get  rid  of 
Him,  He  had  a  few  disciples  among  them,  like 
Joseph  of  Arimathsea,  and  Nicodemus,  and  the 
family  a,t  Bethany,  but  the  words  of  the  prophet 
accurately  sum  up  the  narratives  of  the  Gospel, 
that  He  was  "  despised  and  rejected  of  men."  To 
follow  Him  meant  joining  in  no  triumphal  proces- 
sion, but  in  a  struggle  against  storm  and  tide  which 
was  sure  to  end  in  death.  Suspected  from  the 
first,  and  speedily  denounced.  He  was  watched  and 
tracked  and  driven  from  place  to  place,  till  at  last 
the  toils  of  the  hunters  closed  successfully  around 
Him,  and  at  the  age  of  thirty-three  He  was  crucified 
as  a  malefactor  between  two  robbers  on  Calvary. 

But  the  grand  and  crowning  distinction  between 
the  import  and  efiJect  of  the  two  ministries  emerged 
at  the  close.  After  Gotama  died  and  his  body  was 
burned,  and  his  relics  had  been  reverently  gathered, 

^  Bishop  Bigandet,  Life  of  Gaudama,  p.  287  ;  Professor  H.  Wilson, 
Essays,  vol.  ii.  p.  243  ;  Wheeler,  History  of  India,  vol.  iii.  p.  139  ; 
Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  148  ;  Mahaparanibhana  Sutta,  in  Sacred 
Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi.  pp.  71,  72. 


LECT.  in.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       155 

and  distributed,  and  enshrined  in  costly  dagobas 
erected  in  the  various  scenes  of  his  labours,  there 
was  an  end  of  him.  He  had  gone  out  into  the 
void,  according  to  his  own  theory  of  the  hereafter, 
and,  no  longer  capable  of  being  of  use  to  his 
disciples,  he  exhorted  them  to  be  "  their  own  refuge, 
their  own  law,  and  to  work  dihgently  out  their 
salvation."  ^  But  when  Jesus  had  been  crucified 
there  was  manifestly  not  an  end,  but  rather  a  new 
beginning  of  His  personal  influence,  a  rising  in 
fuller  power,  a  coming  again  with  greater  authority. 
From  the  very  morning  of  His  ministry  He  took 
His  death  into  His  plan,  as  the  consummation  of 
one  stage  of  His  mission,  without  which  His  plan 
would  have  been  a  failure.  All  His  teaching  centred 
in  His  death,  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  necessity  in 
Divine  providence.  Instead  of  complaining  of  it, 
He  pointed  to  it  as  the  seal  of  His  Messiahship, 
"  the  cause  for  which  He  was  born,  the  end  for 
which  He  came  into  the  w^orld,"  "  the  hour"  of  His 
glorification.  The  very  setting  of  crime  and  passion 
which  His  enemies  sought  to  give  to  the  manner 
of  it  only  made  it  in  His  estimation  more  divine. 

1  Mahaparanibhana  Sutta,  vi.  10,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi. 
p.  114.  Dr.  Edkins,  in  Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  57,  gives  a  version  of  an 
appearance  of  Buddha  after  cremation  to  his  mother,  Maya,  who  came 
down  from  heaven  to  see  his  coffin.  Professor  Childers  finds  no  trace 
in  any  Pali  earliest  literature  of  any  belief  in  Buddha's  existence  after 
death  (Dictionary  of  Pali  Language,  jx  472,  note  1). 


156  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAB :  lect.  hi. 

Instead  of  evading  it  He  went  straight  to  meet  it, 
when  the  time  had  come,  as  one  who  had  a  purpose 
to  fulfil  by  it.  That  purpose  He  announced  to  be 
the  development  of  His  personal  resources,  the 
liberation  of  the  creative  energies  of  His  being. 
As  uncrucified  He  might  be  weak,  as  crucified  He 
would  be  so  mighty  as  to  "  draw  all  men  unto 
Him."  The  event  amply  fulfilled  the  prediction, 
for  shortly  after  the  crucifixion  Christ  again  con- 
fronted the  world  in  another  form  and  in  far 
greater  power.  The  followers  of  Buddha  went 
forth  testifying  to  his  law,  and  they  prefaced  their 
preaching  by  the  invariable  formula,   "Thus  have 

I  heard,    when    the   Blessed   One  lived  in  ." 

Their  mission  was  simply  to  recall  and  declare  and 
expound  the  system  of  a  master  who  had  been 
absolutely  lost  to  them,  but  the  apostles  of  Christ 
from  the  very  first  testified  not  of  a  doctrine,  but 
of  Christ  Himself,  as  one  who  having  died  still 
lived,  was  reigning  in  mightier  power,  and  would 
be  with  them  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the 
seon. 

For  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  Buddha  and 
Christ  stand  in  very  contrasted  relations  to  the 
systems  of  belief  which  they  each  founded.  Soon 
after  Buddha's  death,  if  not  before  it,  the  formula 
of  admission  into  his  order  began  with  the  phrase, 
"  I   take  refuge  in    Buddha,"  which   consequently 


LECT.  in.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       157 

has  been  described  by  some  as  the  "first  article  in 
the  Buddhist  creed."  We  must  not  for  a  moment 
however  suppose  that  this  expression  is  of  equal 
or  even  of  similar  significance  to  our  confession, 
"  I  believe  in  Christ."  Gotama  in  the  whole  course 
of  his  preaching  never  asked  his  hearers  for  faith 
in  himself  as  essential  to  their  emancipation.  All 
that  he  demanded  was  obedience  to  the  law,  dis- 
position to  enter,  and  determination  to  follow  the 
paths  which  he  had  discovered.  He  could  not 
give  them  Nirvana,  nor  even  bring  them  to  it ;  he 
could  only  tell  them  the  way  to  it,  which  he  had 
found,  and  as  he  had  succeeded  so  might  they 
by  their  own  individual  energy.^  We  are  thus  not 
free  to  explain  Buddhism  from  and  by  the  person 
of  its  founder  ;  it  is  perfectly  explicable  apart  from 
him,  as  if  he  had  never  lived ;  but  aj3art  from 
Christ,  and  without  the  light  thrown  upon  it  by  His 
person,  Christianity  would  be  an  enigma.  Christ 
from  the  first  demanded  faith  in  Himself  as  essential 
to  salvation.-     Belief  in  what  He  taught  was  always 

^  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  pp.  322,  323  ;  Kuenen,  Hibbert  Lectures, 
p.  264. 

2  In  the  Bhagavadgitii  loving  devotion  for  Krishna  is  demanded  a.s 
the  only  means  of  salvation  ;  but  Krishna-worship  began  very  consider- 
ably later  than  the  origin  of  Christianity.  Professor  Muller  admits 
(Gifford  Lectures,  p.  99)  that  Christian  influences  were  possible  then, 
but  says  that  there  is  no  necessity  for  admitting  them.  He  cites  the 
passage  from  Bhagavad.  ix.  29  {Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  viii.  p.  34), 
"  They  who  worship  me  with  devotion  or  love,  they  are  in  me,  and  I  in 


158  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :         lect.  iii. 

subordinated  to  trust  in  Himself.  Consequently  the 
apostles  never  said,  '  Observe  the  precepts  ;  follow 
the  paths,  and  you  will  find  the  way  of  escape,' 
but  always  "  Believe  in  (or  on)  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  They  pointed  to  Him 
as  the  sole  object  of  faith  and  worship,  as  the  only 
rule  and  example  and  inspiration.  Their  creed,  their 
theology,  their  ethical  code,  were  not  elaborated  in 
systems  ;  they  were  all  comprehended  in  a  Person 
who  required  neither  apologists  nor  defenders,  but 
only  witnesses  who  would  manifest  and  declare  Him. 
This  must  be  borne  in  mind  when  we  consider 
the  miraculous  elements  which  are  common  to  the 
presentation,  given  in  both  religions,  of  their  re- 
spective Authors.  The  story  of  Buddha,  as  we  have 
hitherto  followed  it,  tells  of  a  great  renunciation, 
but  of  one  that  can  hardly  be  called  unparalleled  in 
the  history  of  rehgion.  He  was  probably  neither 
the  first  nor  the  last  noble  Indian  youth  who 
"  for  the  sake  of  that  supreme  goal  of  the  higher 
life  went  out  from  all  and  every  household  gain 
and  comfort,  to  become  a  houseless  wanderer."  ^ 
But  the  story  as  we  have  it  in  the  Buddhist  books 
is   very  different.^     Had  any  one  asked  a  yellow- 

them,"  as  an  interesting  parallel  to  John  vi.  7  and  xvii.  23,  but  we  must 
remember  that  St.  John's  words  were  circulating  all  over  the  world 
for  generations  before  these  were  penned. 

1  Mahavagga,  v.  1.  18. 

2  The  Lalita  Vistara,  of  which  there  are  many  versions,  is  the  chief 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       159 

robed  missionary,  about  the  time  when  the  last 
Gospel  was  being  written,  what  he  meant  by  the 
Buddha,  he  would  have  begun  by  telling  of  one 
who,  thousands  of  ages  back,  in  the  shining  world 
of  the  gods,  out  of  pity  for  the  miseries  of  men, 
resolved  to  become  a  Buddha  that  he  might  teach 
them  the  way  of  deliverance,  and  who  through 
many  transformations — in  which  he  was  baptized 
into  all  experiences,  even  those  of  rat  and  a  clod  of 
earth — at  last  reached  the  point  when,  coming  down 
from  heaven,  and  entering,  in  the  form  of  a  white 
elephant,  the  side  of  the  wedded  wife  ^  of  a  great 
king,"  was  born  as  Buddha.  He  would  tell  of  a 
mysterious  baptism,  when  two  full  streams  of  per- 
fumed water  fell  from  heaven  upon  him,  while  all  the 
gods  in  all  the  worlds  raised  in  responsive  harmony 
the  heavenly  song;  of  a  holy  sage  who  descended  from 
heaven  to  greet  him  with  predictions  of  his  glorious 
career ;  ^  of  many  prodigies  displayed  by  him  in  his 

authority  for  the  legends.  In  the  Buddhist  Birth- Stories,  translated  by 
T.  W.  Ehys  Davids,  in  Bigandet's  Life  of  Gaiidama,  and  Spence  Hardy's 
Manual  {Legends  of  the  Buddhists),  in  the  Romantic  Legend  of  Sakya 
Buddha,  translated  by  Professor  S.  Beal,  will  be  found  a  large  and  inter- 
esting miscellany  of  the  prodigies  connected  with  the  coming  of  Buddha. 

1  A  wife,  not  a  virgin  ;  Romantic  Legend,  pp.  32,  36,  37,  41. 

2  Lalita  Vistara,  p.  63,  Calcutta  edition  ;  Buddhist  Birth-Stories 
pp.  62,  68. 

3  Nalaka  Sutta,  Sutta  Nipiita,  xi.  1.  20,  21 ;  Sacred  Boolcs  of  the  East, 
vol.  X.  Asita,  the  aged  ascetic,  is  said  to  have  ascended  to  heaven  after 
his  daily  repast,  and  upon  finding  the  gods  in  joyful  couunotion  he  at 
length  returned  to  see  the  new-born  wonder  {Birth-Stories,  p.  69). 


160  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

illustrious  youth  ;  of  his  mighty  struggle  with  and 
victory  over  Mara,  Lord  of  all  Desires,  and  of  his 
going  forth  as  a  great  king,  at  the  urgent  request 
of  the  great  god  Brahma,  to  preach  Nirvana  and 
deliver  the  world. 

Then  he  would  tell  how  when  he  set  "  a-rolling 
the  wheel  "  of  the  "  kingdom  of  righteousness,"  ^  he 
did  so  with  such  effect  that  not  only  multitudes  of 
men,  but  eighty  thousand  gods  and  angels,  "  hear- 
ing, each  in  their  own  tongue,  though  the  language 
was  that  of  Magadha,"  ^  were  by  one  sermon  imbued 
with  saving  knowledge  and  converted ;  how  during 
his  long  and  holy  ministry,  by  discourses  and 
parables  and  miracles,  he  brought  countless  millions 
of  men  and  women,  and  gods  and  sprites  and  fairies, 
to  find  the  right  way ;  how  the  great  devas  came 
to  worship  or  to  ask  counsel  from  him  ; "  how,  in- 
violable and  invincible,  there  could  not  be  found, 
either  in  this  world  or  in  the  world  of  the  devas, 
Maras,  Brahmans,  "  any  who  could  either  scatter 
his  thoughts  or  cleave  his  heart "  ;  *  how  he  was 
transfigured,^  and  at  last,  when  the  time  was  come. 


1  Title  given  by  the  translator  of  the  Dhamma-Kakka-ppavatana 
Sutta,  in  vol.  xi.  of  Sacred  Books  of  the  East. 

2  Spence  Hardy,  Manual  of  Buddhism,  p.  187,  quoting  the  Puja- 
waliya,  said  to  be  later  than  the  thirteenth  century  a.d. 

3  Sutta  Nipata,  Sacred  Books  of  the  Bast,  vol.  x.  Part  ii.  p.  17. 
*  Ibid.  vol.  X.  Part  ii.  pp.  31,  45. 

s  Mahaparanibhana  Sutta,  iv.  49,  50,  ibid.  vol.  xi.  p.  81. 


LECT.  111.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       161 

accompaDied  by  a  disciple  very  dear  to  him,  how 
he  lay  down  like  a  king  between  two  trees.  Then 
when  winds  were  hushed,  and  streamlets  silenced, 
and  flowers  from  heaven  shed  their  blossoms  over 
him  like  rain-drops,  and  a  great  earthquake 
rumbled,  and  the  sun  and  moon  hid  their  faces, 
and  the  great  Brahma  lamented,  rising  throuo-h 
light  to  light  he  achieved  the  full  Nirvana.^ 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  Christians  who   have 
only  read  or  heard  of  the  statements  current  as  to 
the  remarkable  coincidences  between  the    miracu- 
lous incidents  i-ecorded  in  the  Buddhist  legends  and 
the    Christian   Gospels    should  be    perplexed,    and 
that   not   a  few  of  those  who  are  ant i- Christian  in 
their   attitude  should  have   almost  jumped  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  biographers  of  the  two  lives  must 
have  known  of  each   other's  works  and  borrowed 
each  other's  traditions.    Examination  of  the  alleged 
coincidences,  however,  reveals  that  there  is  no  occa- 
sion for  the  perplexity  in  the  one  case,  and  no  ground 
for  the  jubilation  in  the  other.     By  no  honest  pro- 
cess of  manipulation  can  we  turn  the  supposed  simi- 
larities into  even  probable  identities.     The  incidents 
illustrate  very  widely  contrasted  lives,  and  enforce 
dogmas  utterly  contradictory  to  each  other.     If  any 
one  is    desirous    of   ascertaining   the    coincidences 

^  Bigandet,  op.  cit.  p.  323  ;  Spence  Hardy,  Manual,  p.  347  ;  Maha- 

paiinibhana  Sutta,  vi.  U-IG. 


162  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

which  are  stated  to  exist,  he  will  find  them  clearly 
set  forth  and  classified  by  Professor  Seydel  in  his 
so-called  Buddhist  Harmony  ;  ^  and  if  he  require 
any  more  than  his  own  common  sense  to  guide  him 
to  an  opinion  concerning  them,  he  had  better  con 
suit  the  Appendix  to  Professor  Kuenen's  Hibbert 
Lectures  on  National  Religions  and  Universal 
Religions,  Dr.  Kellogg's  Light  of  Asia,  and  Light 
of  the  World,  and  Dr.  J.  Estlin  Carpenter's  article 
in  the  Nineteerith  Century,  December  1880,  "  On  the 
Obli2"ations  of  the  New  Testament  to  Buddhism." 
These  authorities  will  confirm  the  judgment  which 
any  unbiassed  and  intelligent  juryman  would  form, 
from  considering  the  evidence  adduced  in  support 
of  the  theory  of  borrowing,  and  from  a  simple  com- 
parison of  the  alleged  parallels  themselves,  that 
Buddhism  had  not  the  smallest  direct  influence  on 
the  origin  of  Christianity.  So  fundamentally  unlike 
are  the  alleged  "  similarities  "  that  the  hypothesis  of 
the  derivation  of  the  contents  of  the  Gospels  from 
Buddhist  sources  is  as  ridiculous  as  would  be  the 
supposition  that  the  Venus  of  Milo  was  copied  from 
the  rude  idol  or  hideous  fetich  of  an  aboriginal  tribe. ^ 

^  Dm  Evangelium  von  Jesu  in  seinen  Verhdltnissen  zur  Buddha- 
Sage  und  Buddha- Lehre  ;  Leipzig,  1882. 

2  Let  any  one  compare  the  prediction  of  the  so-called  Indian  Simeon, 
the  Nalaka  Sutta,  in  vol.  x.  p.  125  of  Sacred  Booh  of  the  East,  with 
Luke  ii.  25  ;  the  account  of  the  Temptation  by  Mara,  in  the  Romantic 
Legend,  pp.  204,  224,  or  in  Hardy's  Manual  of  Buddhism,  p.  183,  with 
Matt.  iv.  1  ;  the  so-called  Transfiguration  in  Mahaparinibhana,  iv.  49, 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       163 

When  the  missionaries  of  the  two  rehgions  first 
came  into  actual  contact  has  not  yet  been  ascer- 
tained, and  the  influence  of  the  Christian  ideals  of 
self-oblivion  upon  the  most  essentially  selfish  system 
of  salvation  ever  promulgated  to  the  world  has  yet 
to  be  traced.  The  conception  of  self-renunciation 
which  is  set  forth  in  the  legends  may  have  origin- 
ated in  the  memory  of  the  kindness  and  gentleness 
and  goodness  of  one  whose  life  was  far  nobler  than 
his  creed,  and  it  may  have  assumed  greater  strength 
and  clearness  when  the  teaching  of  the  Gospels 
came  to  be  reflected  upon  it.  It  may  or  it  may  not, 
but  of  this  we  may  be  positively  certain,  that  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  and  the  composers 
of  the  earliest  Buddhist  traditions  knew  j)ositively 
nothing  of  each  other's  productions.  This  is  a 
conclusion  accepted  by  the  very  best  authorities  on 
the  subject,  and  it  is  maintained  with  the  greatest 

vol.  xi.  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  p.  81,  with  Matt.  xvii.  1-8  ;  the  feast 
of  the  Courtesan  Ambopali,  in  Mahaparinibhana  Sutta,  ii.  16.  25,  Sacred 
Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi.  p.  30,  with  Christ's  treatment  of  the  Magda- 
lene in  Luke  vii.  36,  and  he  will  see  at  once  how  improbable  and  even 
absurd  is  the  theory  that  the  Evangelists  borrowed  from  the  Buddhist 
compilers.  That  we  are  dealing  with  quite  an  inferior  order  of  facts  is 
apparent  when  we  compare  one  of  the  most  touching  coincidences,  Bud- 
dha's last  discourse  to  the  Beloved  Ananda  in  Maliaparinibhana  Sutta, 
V.  34.  35,  "Let  not  yourself  be  troubled,"  with  John  xiv.  1-6.  In  some 
of  the  miracles  accompanying  the  birth  and  temptations  of  Buddha,  there 
are  not  only  gross  absurdities  but  positive  indecencies,  which  by  the  sim- 
plicity and  modesty  and  reticence  of  the  Gospel  narratives  are  powerfully 
condemned.  See  Lalita  Vistara,  chaps,  vi.  and  vii.,  and  Buddhist  Birth- 
Stories,  vol.  i.  pp.  58,  68. 


164  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  iii. 

firmness  by  those  of  them  who  discount  the  miracu 
Ions  occurrences  found  in  the  scriptures  of  both 
religions  as  only  the  fond  fancies  which  their 
affectionate  disciples  gradually  wove  around  the 
memories  of  their  respective  teachers.  They  hold 
that  working  independently  of  each  other,  but  under 
similar  influences  and  in  similar  conditions,  it  was 
simply  natural  that  they  should  have  come  to 
adorn  with  wonders  somewhat  alike  in  character 
the  story  of  two  lives  so  pure  and  beneficial. 

The  learned  author  of  the  Hibbert  Lectures  for 
1881  has  made  some  very  interesting  and  important 
suggestions  as  to  the  rise  of  the  Buddhist  legends, 
and  as  he  seems  to  imply  a  similar  growth  of  the 
"  Christian  legend,"  it  may  be  advisable  to  consider 
both  accounts  in  their  relation  to  the  literary 
sources  which  profess  to  authenticate  them.  Let 
us  assume,  therefore,  that  the  Lalita  Yistara  was 
actually  in  circulation  about  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era,^  and  let  us  take  for  granted  that  one 

^  This  is  a  very  great  assumption  indeed.  Foucaux,  its  translator, 
assigns  it  to  the  first  century  B.C.,  but  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids  assigns  it 
to  some  Nepaulese  poet  "who  lived  between  six  hundred  and  a  thousand 
years  after  Buddha's  death"  (Hibbert  Lectures,  pp.  197,  204).  A 
Chinese  version  is  said  to  have  been  in  existence  about  70  a.d. 
Rajendralal  Mitra,  its  English  translator,  admits  this  in  his  Intro- 
duction, p.  48,  but  whether  that  was  a  version,  or  another  book  alto- 
gether, or  how  far  it  corresponded  with  the  Lalita  Vistara,  no  scholar 
has  been  confident  to  say.  Dr.  Beal  also  mentions  a  life  of  Buddha  by 
Asvaghosha  as  probably  in  circulation  about  the  middle  of  the  Christian 
era  {Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  73). 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       165 

of  the  oldest  Suttas/  professing  to  relate  a  portion 
of  Buddha's  ministry,  was  extant  in  the  form  in 
which  we  have  it,  some  three  centuries  earlier, 
or  a  century  after  Buddha's  death.  A  comparison 
of  these  two  productions  reveals  at  once  the  fact 
that  in  the  earliest  there  is  no  reference  to  the 
divinity,  pre-existence,  or  supernatural  birth  of 
Buddha,  and  making  allowance  for  the  usual  ex- 
aggeration of  language,  that  there  are  very  few 
miraculous  incidents  recorded  in  it.  It  has  been 
asserted  that  Buddha  never  professed  to  work  a 
miracle.  Certainly  the  fragments  of  his  original 
teachino-  which  survive  indicate  that  he  would  be 
the  first  to  repudiate  all  such  as  have  been  ascribed 
to  him.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  a  literary  fact 
that  in  the  supposed  earliest  books  only  a  few 
mu'acles  are  recorded.  We  may  infer  therefore 
that  by  the  time  they  were  composed  his  orthodox 
disciples  had  not  formed  those  conceptions  of  his 
person  and  mission  which  their  pious  descendants 
later  on  learned  to  believe  and  to  proclaim.- 

1  Mahaparinibhana  Sutta,  translated  by  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Sacred 
Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi. 

2  The  blessed  Buddha  rebuked  Pindola  Bharadvaga  (for  having  won 
a  bowl  of  sandalwood  by  performing  a  miracle),  saying,  "  This  is  im- 
proper, not  according  to  rule,  unsuitable,  unworthy  of  a  Samana, 
unbecoming,  and  ought  not  to  be  done.  How  can  you  for  the  sake  of  a 
miserable  wooden  pot  display  before  the  laity  the  superhuman  quality 
of  your  miraculous  power  of  Iddhi  ?  .  .  .  This  will  not  conduce  either  to 
the  conversion  of  the  unconverted  or  to  the  increase  of  the  converted  " 


166  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

The  Gospels  are  not  the  earhest  Christian 
writings,  and  not  several,  but  many,  "narratives 
concerning  those  matters  which  had  been  fulfilled 
or  established  among "  Christians,  even  as  they 
"  delivered  them  who  were  eye-witnesses  and 
ministers  of  the  word,"  ^  were  probably  in  circula- 
tion before  the  Gospels  were  written.  Some  of 
the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  also,  in  all  probability, 
preceded  those  collections  of  "  the  words  and 
deeds  of  the  Lord " ;  but  the  substtmce  of  the 
three  first  Gospels  was  very  early  produced,  and  we 
may  be  morally  certain  that  they  contain  the  beliefs 
which  the  very  first  generation  of  Christians  enter- 
tained concerning  Him.  The  truth  of  these  beliefs 
is  not  now  under  discussion,  but  only  the  fact  of 
them,  and  the  kind  of  peoj^le  who  were  influenced 
by  them.  It  is  averred  "  that  the  outward  condi- 
tions in  which  Buddhism  and  Christianity  arose 
were  similar,  and  so  were  the  mental  qualities  of 
the  disciples  of  both  religions  " ;  ^  but  the  conditions 
were  most  dissimilar  in  this  respect,  that  Buddhism 
originated  in  the  dimness  of  an  unhistoric  age,  and 
Christianity  in   an  age   and   land  so  irradiated  by 

(Kullavagga,  v.  8.  2).  The  danger  of  performing  a  miracle  by  power  of 
Iddhi,  for  self-glorification,  is  exemplified  in  the  story  of  Devadatta  in 
Kullavagga,  vii.  1.  2,  3.  In  the  Mahavagga,  Kullavagga,  Sutta  Nipata, 
and  similar  books,  however,  miracles  are  ascribed  to  Buddha,  and  con- 
versions attributed  to  their  performance. 

1  Luke  i.  1. 

2  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  128. 


LECT.  m.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       167 

the  light  of  history  that  we  know  more  clearly 
what  was  happening  then  and  there  than  we  do  of 
what  occurred  in  Europe  a  thousand  years  after. 
The  mental  qualities  of  the  disciples  of  both  reli- 
gions again  seem  to  have  been  most  unlike.  About 
Ananda  and  his  companions  we  know  really  nothing 
but  the  names,  for  they  meet  us  in  the  Buddhist 
records  as  mere  lay  figures,  completely  resembling- 
one  another,  and  with  no  individuality  to  distin- 
guish them.^  We  may  assume,  however,  that  they 
belonged  to  one  or  other  of  the  many  sects  of  Brah- 
mans  or  Sramans,  and  if  so,  that  they  were  dreamy 
and  contemplative  men,  withdrawn  from  practical 
life,  and  finding  in  the  life  of  meditation  a  sphere 
more  congenial  to  them  than  the  actual  world  of 
which  they  were  parts.  They  appear  to  have  been 
directly  and  thoroughly  unlike  to  the  very  marked 
personalities  represented  by  the  Evangelists  and 
the  other  apostles  of  Christ,  who  w^ere  all  drawn 
from  practical  life  to  be  His  followers.  They  were 
the  very  reverse  of  speculative  ;  they  had  little 
imagination  and  almost  no  poetry  in  them ;  they 
were  very  dull  of  comprehension  in  regard  to  truths 
higher  than  the  few  which  they  inherited,  and  very 
incredulous  about  any  unwonted  occurrence  said  to 
have  taken  place  outside  the  little  circle  of  their 
own  observation.     In  their  conscientious,  matter-of- 

1  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  190. 


168  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

fact  way  of  looking  at  things  they  were  the  very 
last  men  to  dream  dreams  or  weave  legends  around 
the  memory  of  one  whom  they  revered  ;  and  we 
have  their  own  confession,  not  of  their  slowness  of 
apprehension  merely,  but  of  their  unbelief  at  first 
in  regard  to  all  supernatural  manifestations. 

Now  while  the  supernatural  only  rarely  meets  us 
in  the  most  ancient  Buddhist  productions,  where 
we  would  naturally  have  expected  it  to  have  pre- 
dominated, it  meets  us  in  the  very  earliest  writings 
of  Christianity,  where  we  would  not  have  expected 
it  at  all.  Christ  to  His  first  disciples  and  apostles 
was  a  miraculous  beiuQ-.  The  claim  formulated  in 
St.  John's  Gospel,  which  is  probably  the  latest 
book  in  the  New  Testament,  is  that  advanced  for 
Christ  by  St.  Paul  in  his  earliest  extant  letter  to 
the  churches.  The  Christ  of  St.  John  is  not  a  new 
Person,  but  the  same  Divine  Being  of  whom  St. 
Paul  says,  "  He  being  in  the  form  of  God  "  was 
"  found  on  earth  in  fashion  as  a  man."  He  may 
have  been  all  wrong  as  to  the  ground  of  his  belief ; 
he  may  have  been  an  ej)ileptic,  a  visionary,  a  man 
subject  to  trances,  whose  intense  spiritual  affinities 
disqualified  him  from  judging  calmly  of  matters  of 
history  ;  but  there  is  no  mistake  as  to  his  own  belief 
and  that  of  the  other  evangelists  and  writers  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  teaching  of  St.  Paul  and  St. 
John  concerning:  Christ  is  set  forth  in  St.  Matthew 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       169 

with  a  clearness  which  no  hmguage  can  improve 
upon/  St.  Mark  dwells  primarily  upon  the  human- 
ity of  Jesus,  a  most  important  fact,  presenting  a 
historic  basis  without  which  Christian  truth  would 
have  been  little  more  than  a  mystic  speculation  ; 
but  even  in  St.  Mark  that  humanity  is  not 
described  as  unfolding  under  conditions  which  are 
merely  normal.^  The  life  to  which  he  testifies  is 
not  just  that  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  but  of  the  Christ 
of  God,  who  speaks  with  more  than  human  authority. 
The  development  which  is  traceable  in  the  theology 
of  the  Epistles  is  the  expansion  of  the  significance 
of  the  events  recorded  in  the  Gospels,  The  latest 
writings  may  more  fully  interpret  the  teaching  of 
the  earlier  ones,  but  in  them  we  find  no  other 
Gospels,  but  only  anathemas  pronounced  on  those 
who  pretend  to  have  them.  In  them  a  larger 
domain  is  seen  expanding  beneath  our  gaze,  but  it 
is  visible  only  in  the  light  of  the  central  figure  that 
meets  us  in  the  first.  Plainly,  therefore,  while  the 
earliest  Buddhist  witnesses  account  for  their  master 
and  his  teaching  in  the  ordinary  ways,  and  while 
their  successors  much  later  on  in  their  attempts 
to  embellish  his  portrait  have  produced  quite  a 
difi"erent  person  from  the  man  of  whom  they  first 
testified,  the  very  earliest  Christian  writers  could 

1  Matthew  xi.  27  ;  xxviii.  16-20. 

2  Mark  i.  7-11  ;  ii.  10-28  ;  viii.  38  ;  xii.  3r)-37. 


170  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :         lect.  hi. 

not  account  for  Christ  in  any  other  way  than  by 
regarding  Him  as  a  supernatural  being,  who  did  not 
come  into  the  world  and  did  not  leave  it  in  the 
way  of  all  other  men.  It  is  possible  that  they  may 
all  have  been  deluded,  but  if  so,  they  vouched  for 
their  sincerity  by  their  martyrdoms.  The  delusion, 
moreover,  was  at  least  universally  and  most 
consistently  maintained,  and  it  is  the  first  instance 
in  the  history  of  mankind  where  a  delusion  has  pro- 
duced intellectual  activity  and  expansion  so  wonder- 
ful as  to  have  changed  the  current  of  histoiy,  and 
originated  the  great  throbbing  ever-enlarging  world 
of  Cliristendom  which  confronts  us  now. 

Another  significant  contrast  between  the  two 
sets  of  writing's  is  found  in  the  fact  that  while  we 
can  dissociate  the  miraculous  elements  from  the 
Buddhist  Pitakas  without  detriment  to  tlieir  other 
contents,  we  find  it  impossible  to  apply  the  same 
process  with  the  like  results  to  the  New  Testament. 
No  one  questions  that  primitive  Buddhism  is 
improved  by  being  freed  from  the  portents  which 
subsequently  gathered  around  it,  for  primitive 
Buddhism  is  an  intellectual  and  moral  system,  a 
theory  of  the  universe  more  likely  to  be  obscured 
than  elucidated  by  an  appeal  to  the  supernatural. 
Christianity,  however,  while  appealing  both  to 
intellect  and  conscience,  does  so  as  the  revelation  of 
a  life  which,  as  a  new  thing,   might  break  through 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       171 

all  men's  conceptions  of  what  was  ordinary  or 
necessary.  The  first  appearance  of  life  on  this 
planet  as  an  unwonted  phenomenon  would  be 
accompanied  by  manifestations  miraculous  to  all  who 
only  judged  by  experience  of  what  had  already 
been.  So  would  be  the  first  appearance  of  man  to 
those  who  judged  of  things  by  what  was  possible  to 
the  actual  animal  world.  That  the  manifestation 
of  One  who  had  come  that  men  might  have  life,  and 
have  it  more  abundantly,  should  be  accompanied 
with  phenomena  new  and  strange  to  mankind 
might  have  been  expected.  Christ,  as  revealing  an 
ideal  of  excellence  to  which  things  as  they  are  in 
nature,  and  men  as  they  now  are  in  society,  do  not 
conform,  w411  in  truth  contradict  the  present  working 
of  both.  This  at  least  is  the  impression  inevitably 
produced  by  the  reading  of  the  New  Testment.  Its 
teaching  is  throughout  founded  upon,  and  it  would  be 
quite  unintelligible  without  reference  to,  the  super- 
natural. To  dissociate  the  miraculous  portions  from 
the  rest  of  its  contents  would  be  not  only  to  muti- 
late but  to  destroy  it.'  Not  the  theological  and 
metaphysical  elements  only,  but  even  "  the  ethical, 
are  so  interwoven  into  one  fibre  with  the  super- 
natural in  the  New  Testament  that  it  is  impossible 
to  detach  them  w^ithout  destroying  the  whole  fabric."" 

^  Pressense,  Vie  de  Jesus,  p.  373. 
^  Cox,  Commentary  on  Job,  p.  19. 


172  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

Verily  a  Gospel  without  the  miracles  and  all 
that  accounts  for  them  would  be  a  very  strange 
book. 

Another  very   distinctive  feature  in   the   New 
Testament  accounts  is  displayed  in  the  character  of 
the  wonders  there  recorded.     Indeed,  this  distin- 
guishing element  is  found  in  all  the  miraculous  narra- 
tives of  the  Bible.     If  it  be  true  that  the  ancient 
writers  or  redactors  of  Scripture  have  employed  the 
legends  of  other  nations  to  illustrate  their  works, 
it  must  be  conceded  that  they  have  immensely  im- 
proved, and  made  a  much  better  use  of  them.      The 
story  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  of  the  primeval 
paradise,  and  of  the  deluge,  may  be  only  myths  com- 
mon to  several  nations,  but  somehow,  while  all  other 
writers  just   lose  themselves   in  these  myths,  the 
Hebrews   alone  have  laid  hold  of  them  to  enforce 
the    sublimest    views    ever    formulated    in    human 
speech  concerning  the  origin  of  the  world  and  of 
man.      The   narratives    of  the  Old    Testament    are 
evidently  not  constructed  to  startle  the  reader  with 
portents,  but  to  disclose  the  providential  dealings 
of  a  holy  and  merciful  God  with  man  to  enlighten 
and  save  him.     The  Gospels  in  like  manner  are  not 
written   to   record  miraculous   occurrences,  nor  are 
miracles    introduced     to    glorify    Christ:   they   are 
simply   referred  to    as    incidents    in    His   ministry. 
When  we  compare  the  prodigies  ascribed  to  Buddha 


LKOT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.        173 

during  the  many  changes  of  his  pre-existence,  or 
during  his  ministry,  with  the  miracles  of  the 
Gospels,  they  are  like  the  rough  casts  in  clay  or 
wood  made  by  a  rude  or  childish  people  contrasted 
with  the  perfect  productions  of  nature  in  the  world 
of  animals  or  of  men.  They  may  endure  comparison 
with  the  portents  found  in  the  Apocryphal  books,  or 
in  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  but  placed  side  by  side 
with  the  Gospel  miracles  they  serve  only  to  illustrate 
the  difference  between  what  is  artificial  and  grot- 
esque, and  what  is  original  and  natural.  There  is 
a  marked  sobriety  in  the  Gospel  accounts  totally 
lacking-  in  the  Buddhist  les^ends.  The  latter  serve 
no  other  end  but  to  exalt  and  magnify  Buddha,^ 
but  the  Gospel  miracles  are  all  founded  in  some 
great  human  necessity  which  they  are  intended  to 
supply.  The  Buddhist  marvels  are  simply  produced 
to  startle  us,  the  Christian  are  recorded  as  signs  to 
instruct  us.  What  a  gulf  separates  the  conception 
of  Buddha  leaping  high  in  air  amid  the  sounding  of 
the  bells  of  the  heavens  and  the  plaudits  of  all  the 
gods,  just  to  prove  that  he  was  Buddha,  from  the 
account  of  Christ's  refusal  to  work  a  miracle  to  win 
the  adherence  of  the  crowd,  or  give  the  sign  from 
heaven    to    vanquish    Sadducean    unbelief !       The 

^  See  Mahavagga,  i.  pp.  15-20,  for  specimens  of  the  "three  thousand 
five  hundred  "  wonders  of  Buddha.  "  The  marvellous  in  the  Gospels  is 
but  sober  good  sense  compared  with  what  we  find  in  .  .  .  the  Hindu 
European  mythologies"  (Renan,  Etudes  d'histoirc  Eclig.  pp.  177,  203). 


174  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :         lect.  hi. 

Gospel  miracles  are  few  after  all,  but  they  all  flow 

from  and  are  in  harmony  with  the  original  idea  of 

Christ   as    Messiah   which   is    assumed   in   all   the 

Gospels.     The  mighty  works  done  by  Him  are  all 

such  as  might  be  expected  to  be  done  in  a  world 

like  this  by  the  Son  of  a  heavenly  Father.     The  cure 

of  all  manner  of  disease,  the  exorcism  of  all  the  evil 

spirits  that  have  afflicted  humanity,  the  victory  over 

death,  the  control  of  all  the  forces  of  nature,  were 

all  in  the  scope  of  one  who  came  hither  to  establish 

the  kingdom  of   God.      Christ's   miracles  were  all 

signs  of  man's  present  and  prophecies  of  his  future 

relations  to  all  the  evils  that  afflict  him.     They  all 

remind  us  of  the  Divine   original  ideal   that   man, 

perfectly  obedient  to  God,  must  exercise  dominion 

over  His  creatures  in  this  world.     Man's  present 

antagonism  to  nature,  and  the  disorder  seen  in  his 

own  social  relations,  are  alike  due  to  his  refusal  to 

mero-e  his   will  in  God's,  and  the  miracles  of  our 

Saviour    are    all    prophecies    that    when    through 

obedience  to  or  faith  in  God  he  shall  be  restored 

to   holiness,    he   will  find  his   social  and  external 

relations  improved,  and  will  regain  over  nature  that 

spiritual  authority  which  even  already  the  winds 

and  the  waves  in  part  recognise  and  obey.^ 

Ao-ain,  the  New   Testament   writers   claim   for 
Christ  what  the  early  disciples  of  Buddha  never 

1  Godet,  Lectures  in  Defence  of  the  Christian  Faith,  pp.  118-161. 


LECT.  III.       THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       175 

dreamed  of  claiming  for  theii'  master,  and  they 
insist  upon  their  claim,  though  it  is  associated  with 
the  meanest  and  apparently  most  contradictory  of 
elements.  It  is  not  the  o-lorification  but  the  humi- 
liation  of  Christ  which  constitutes  the  marvel  in  the 
Gospels.  It  was  very  natural  that  the  Evangelists  / 
should  imagine  that  the  angels  should  sing  over  the 
birth  of  a  Saviour,  but  it  was  not  natural  that  they 
should  conceive  of  them  singing  over  a  babe  in  a 
manger.  It  was  not  wonderful,  again,  for  Jews  to 
believe  that  the  coming  of  their  Messiah  was 
divinely  announced,  but  it  is  very  wonderful  that 
they  should  believe  that  this  annunciation  was. 
made  to  unknown  shepherds.  It  was  certainly 
not  in  that  way  their  Messiah  was  expected  to 
come.  Had  He  come  in  the  way  they  expected, 
the  miracles  might  naturally  have  been  accounted 
for  Avhich  they  associated  with  His  coming ;  but,  as 
matter  of  fact,  it  requires  the  miracle  to  account 
for  their  belief  in  Him.  And  so  it  is  all  through 
in  the  Gospels.  That  the  Messiah  should  be  dis- 
covered to  be  the  Son  of  God  need  not  surprise  us, 
but  that  the  Son  of  God  should  be  recognised  by 
Jews  in  the  form  of  a  servant,  enduring  patiently 
the  contradiction  of  sinners,  submitting  to  trial,  to 
torture,  to  death  on  the  cross,  is  one  of  the  greatest 
marvels  in  the  whole  history  of  religion.  This 
combination  of  glory  and  shame  was  a  difficulty  in 


176  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

the  way  of  faith,  not  a  help  or  support  of  it.     The 
claim,  we  must   remember,   was   not    advanced  for 
Christ   by   the  Evangelists  after  He  died  ;   it  was 
formulated  by  Himself,  and  by  Him  it  was  asserted 
more    conspicuously,    and    with    greater    frequency 
and  emphasis  toward  the  close  of  His  earthly  life. 
It   was   the   only   charge   on   which    He   was    con- 
demned ;  all  other  accusations  brought  against  Him 
broke  down ;  but  this  one  He  admitted — that  He 
called  Himself  the  Son  of  God.     Questioned  upon 
it,  He  would  not  retract.     "  Thou  sayest,"  was  all 
His  reply,  and  for  the  saying  He  was  ordered  to 
the  cross.     Yet  upon  the  cross   His  assertion   was 
strengthened.     Had  He  been  a  pretender,  He  would 
never  have  so  comported  Himself  before  Pilate  and 
Herod ;  had  He  been  self-deluded,  He  never  would 
have  said  to  His  fellow- sufiPerer  on  Calvary  :  "  To- 
day   shalt    thou    be   with    me   in   paradise."     The 
torture  of  crucifixion  was  sufficient  to    expel   the 
hallucinations  of  the  maddest  brain,  but  the  Evan- 
gelists show  that  while  faith  in    His    Messiahship 
was,  during  His  crucifixion,  fading  even  from  His 
disciples,  in  Himself  it  was  stronger  than  ever,  and 
at  the  very  last  it  was  communicated  to  a  dying 
robber,  who  trusted  that  He  had  power  to  absolve 
him,  and  to  open  to  him  the  gates  of  a  better  life. 
Now,   all  this  surely   never   could  naturally  have 
occurred  to  Jewish  men  to  conceive,  and  if  their 


LECT.  111.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       177 

records  be  only  fictions,  the  devout  creations  of 
over  fond  imaginations,  then  their  legends  are 
miracles  themselves. 

Some  one  has  said  that  it  is  possible  to  find  in 
the  Buddhist  books  a  parallel  to  every  incident  in 
the  Gospels ;  if  so,  these  parallels  will  be  found  to 
be  very  far  apart ;  but  to  the  incident  of  the  Cruci- 
fixion there  can  be  no  parallel.  That  one  historical 
event  separates  not  only  the  two  systems  of  thought 
and  belief,  but  marks  off  Christianity  from  all  other 
religions  in  the  world.  Till  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus 
was  accomplished,  the  idea  of  associating  with  Deity 
humiliation,  and  of  conceiving  of  God  as  dying  the 
death  of  a  slave  upon  the  cross,  would  have  been 
egarded  as  the  grossest  impiety.  The  fundamental 
idea  of  the  Incarnation  was  not  wholly  foreign  to 
the  mind  either  of  India  or  of  Greece  ;  to  the  Jew 
it  was  not  a  natural  thought,  but  one  so  anti- 
Semitic  that  Jew  and  Moslem  alike  have  rejected 
Christianity  because  of  it ;  ^  but  the  incarnation  of 
Deity  represented  in  the  Gospels,  the  humiliation  of 
the  Godhead  implied  in  the  Crucifixion,  is  an  idea 
which  never  could  have  originated  in  the  mind  of 
either  Gentile  or  Jew.  It  is  one  of  the  things  of 
God  which  the  natural  man  cannot  conceive,  a 
mystery  hid  from  all  ages  until  it  was  revealed,  and 

^  Dr.  Dods,  Mohammed,  Buddha,  and  Christ,  p.  201  ;  Dr.  Fairbairn, 
Studies  in  Religion  as  a  Philosophy,  p.  36. 

M 


1 


178  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  hi. 

apparently,   unless    we   admit   the   reality   of   the 
revelation,  we  never  can  account  for  the  faith. 

The  miraculous  personality  of  Christ  is  thus 
the  outstanding  and  distinctive  feature  of  the 
Christian  writings.  As  the  mists  clear  away  in 
the  East,  Buddha  emerges  more  and  more  in  the 
stature  of  a  good  and  great  man,  but  Christ  rises 
upon  us  as  one  who  cannot  be  accounted  for  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  any  man,  nor  even  that  of 
an  angel.  It  is  not  as  a  teacher,  a  guide  out  of 
the  difficulties  of  life,  that  He  meets  us,  but  as  a 
Revealer  and  Saviour.  It  is  thus  He  has  been 
accepted  by  His  disciples,  and  upon  their  faith  He 
has  reared  His  Church.  It  is  thus  He  conceived  of 
Himself,  and  His  conception  is  not  more  astound- 
ing than  are  the  simplicity  and  lowliness  and 
meekness  of  His  character.  He  is  Himself  thus 
the  miracle  of  miracles,  wholly  inexplicable  on 
any  human  theory  devised  to  account  for  Him ; 
and  till  that  one  miracle  is  solved,  all  questions 
as  to  the  miracles  which  are  ascribed  to  Him  can 
afford  to  wait  for  their  solution. 

We  have  no  desire  to  exaggerate  the  value  of 
the  miraculous  elements  in  Christianity,  but  it 
does  not  appear  to  be  true  wisdom  that  would 
depreciate  them  or  ignore  them  altogether.  Miracles 
by  many  have  been  wrongly  considered,  and  they 
have  been   often   expounded   by   the  advocates  of 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       179 

Christianity  in  such  a  way  as  to  create  instead  of 
removino:  difficulties  connected  with  the  faith.  On 
the  other  hand,  many  who  reject  or  refuse  to  con- 
sider them  seem  afflicted  by  a  kind  of  mental 
semeiophobia  which  in  its  own  way  may  be  as 
dangerous  an  affliction  as  hydrophobia  is.  The 
proper  way  is  to  consider  them  in  relation  to  the 
nature  and  purpose  of  the  Revelation  with  which 
they  are  associated.  The  miracle  may  sometimes 
be  found  only  in  the  form  of  the  narrative,  as  a 
hieroglyph  whose  purpose  we  are  too  lazy  to  search 
for,  whose  meaning  we  are  too  stupid  to  elucidate. 
The  theory  that  miracles  are  only  figurative  expres- 
sions of  spiritual  truth  is  not  true,  as  it  is  generally 
expounded ;  but  it  has  a  truth  in  it  which  must 
never  be  overlooked.  Every  miracle  is  a  parable, 
and  every  parable  is  a  miracle.  It  is  the  spiritual 
reality  revealed  by  both  which  gives  them  value, 
and  not  the  wonder  in  them  by  which  we  are  at 
first  arrested.  Yet  without  the  wonder  to  arrest 
us  we  migfht  never  have  received  the  revelation. 
"  What  did  the  apostle  mean,"  asks  Robert 
Elsmere,^  "by  death  to  sin  and  self?  what  the 
precise  idea  attached  by  him  to  being  risen  with 
Christ  ?  Are  this  death  and  resurrection  neces- 
sarily dependent  upon  certain  alleged  historical 
events,  or  are  they  not  primarily,  and  w^ere  there 

^  P.  58,  one-vol.  edition. 


180  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS  :  lect.  iii. 

not,  even  in  Paul's  mind,  two  aspects  of  a  spiritual 
process  perpetually  re-enacted  in  the  soul  of  man, 
and  constituting  the  veritable  revelation  of  God  ? 
Which  is  the  stable  and  lasting  witness  of  the 
Father  ?  the  spiritual  history  of  the  individual  and 
of  the  world,  or  the  envelope  of  miracle  to  which 
hitherto  mankind  has  attached  such  importance  ? " 
The  envelope  certainly  would  be  as  worthless  with- 
out the  message  which  it  carries  as  a  husk  from 
which  the  kernel  has  dropped.  Would  St.  Paul, 
however,  ever  have  conceived  the  spiritual  truths 
referred  to,  if  they  had  not  been  suggested  by  his- 
torical facts  ?  Could  he  ever  have  conceived  of  a 
death  to  sin  had  the  world  never  witnessed  the 
death  of  the  Holy  Clirist  upon  the  cross  ?  Could 
he  ever  have  dreamed  of  rising  again  in  the  power 
of  a  new  life  if  the  tomb  in  the  garden  nigh  Gol- 
gotha had  never  been  found  empty  of  its  crucified 
occupant  ?  Is  he  not  just  suggesting  the  signi- 
ficance of  very  exceptional  historical  events  ?  He 
may  be  wrong  in  his  interpretation,  but  there  can 
be  no  mistake  that  the  interpretation  is  founded 
upon  the  history,  that  it  was  the  event  which 
originated  his  theory,  and  not  his  theory  that  pro- 
duced the  story  of  the  event.  Christian  theology, 
instead  of  giving  this  miraculous  character  to  the 
tragic  story  of  the  life  and  death  of  Christ,  has 
been  called  into  existence  by  man's  endeavours  to 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       181 

account  for  it  as  a  fact  not  only  marvellous,  but 
simply  unique  in  the  experience  of  mankind. 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  miraculous  elements  in 
the  Christian  religion  will  be  found  to  be  "  the 
produce  of  its  primitive  theology,  which  will  fade 
out  of  the  conception  of  men  as  theology  advances 
and  becomes  purified."  The  demonstration  of  this 
must  not  be  assumed  to  be  complete  because  the 
miraculous  is  also  found  in  other  religions.  We 
must  be  able  to  account  for  it  in  all  of  them. 
It  is,  indeed,  the  natural  tendency  of  humanity 
to  magnify  and  eventually  to  deify  its  heroes, 
to  embellish  their  careers  with  similar  marvels,  to 
apply  to  them  figurative  language  very  liable  to 
be  misunderstood,  which  in  later  generations 
hardens  into  erroneous  beliefs.  That  Christians 
as  well  as  Buddhists  have  done  so  is  sufl[iciently 
attested  by  the  apocryphal  Gospels,  but  we  must 
not  conclude  that  because  there  are  so  many  ficti- 
tious and  counterfeit  wonders  in  currency  there 
can  be  no  real  miracles.  We  must  examine  each 
religion  on  its  merits,  and  its  miraculous  elements 
in  the  light  of  their  purpose  and  of  tlieir  actual 
genesis ;  and  if  we  do  so  in  the  case  of  Christi- 
anity, we  will  probably  discover  the  one  super- 
natural reality  from  which  the  shadows  in  all  other 
religions  are  reflected,  and  to  which  they  all  point. ^ 

1  Trench,  Hulsean  Lectures,  p.  150. 


182  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :         lect.  hi. 

Dr.  Pthys  Davids,  in  the  Hibbert  Lectures,  in- 
forms   us   that  the   early  Buddhist   conception  of 
Gotama  was  dominated   and  transformed   by  two 
ideals,  neither  of  which  had  any  necessary  connec- 
tion with  the  man  himself     One  of  them,  due  to 
political   experience,   made   him  finally  assume   in 
the  popular  imagination  the  office  of  a  Universal 
King ;  while  the  other,  due  to  philosophic  specula- 
tion,  invested  him  with  the  attribute  of  Perfect 
Wisdom.     The  implied  parallel  between  this  concep- 
tion, coloured  as  it  grew  by  the  sun  myths  which 
it   incorporated,    and  the   Christian    conception   of 
Jesus,  suggested  by  the  titles  King  of  Glory  and 
Divine  Word,  is   obvious  to  everybody.     Yet  ex- 
amination of  the  supposed  similarities  only  reveals 
essential  contrasts  between  the  two  sets  of  beliefs. 
The  political   experiences   in  India  which  are   re- 
ferred to   occurred  about  two  centuries  after  the 
death  of  Buddha.     The  victories  of  Chandragupta, 
resulting  in  the  consolidation  of  a  kingdom  such  as 
Indians  had  never  before  witnessed,  combined  with 
his  patronage   of  the  Buddhist  monks,  may  have 
suggested  the  idea  of  the  universal  monarch.    •'  His 
achievements  recalled  the  nearly  forgotten  poetry 
of  the  Vedic  legends,  while  the  new  and  popular 
ethics  of  Buddha  invested  him  with  a  righteousness 
which    made    him    a   worthy    Lord   of    the    Four 
Quarters  (of  the  Globe)."     So  in  one  of  the  Suttas, 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       183 

said  to  be  early,  and  which  may  have  been  assum- 
ing shape  at  this  time,  words  like  these  are  pvit  in 
the  mouth  of  Buddha  : — "  I  am  a  king,  0  Sela,  an 
incomparable,  religious  king ;  with  justice  I  roll  the 
wheel,  the  wheel  that  is  irresistible." '  With  this 
conception  of  Cakka-vatti,  a  glorious  king,  was 
connected,  avers  Dr.  Rhys  Davids,  that  of  an  age 
in  which  plenty  and  peace  were  to  abound  as  the 
fruits  of  righteousness.-  The  idea  of  a  golden  age 
is  common  to  most  religions,  and  as  the  Western 
Aryans  always  preserved  it,  we  may  conclude  that 
the  branch  which  reached  India  carried  it  thither 
with  them.  Soon,  however,  as  the  belief  in  trans- 
migration took  possession  of  them,  they  seem  to 
have  lost  it.  Their  book  of  the  generations  of  man 
did  not  mount  higher  than  the  Fall ;  existence  was 
essentially  evil  in  their  thought,  and  belief  in  a 
golden  age  on  earth,  either  in  the  past  or  in  the 
future,  was  quite  inconsistent  with  the  creed  which 
Buddhists  inherited  or  created.  The  other  branch 
of  the  Aryan  stock  so  cherished  it  that  it  adorns 
their  most  beautiful  mythologies;  but  even  with 
them  the  golden  age  was  always  placed  in  the  past, 
and  the  world,  fallen  from  good,  was  supposed  to  be 
degenerating  from  bad  to  worse.  And  so  it  is  that 
the  fondest  glances  of  even  the  happy  Greek  are 

1  Sutta  Nipata,  translated  by  Fausboll  in  vol.  x.  p.  102  ;  parallel 
siicrrrested  to  John  xviii.  37.  '  Hibbert  Lectures,  pp.  144-147. 


184  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :         lect.  hi. 

not  forward  but  backward  cast,  and  that  sadness 
mingles  with  his  most  mirthful  music. 

It  is  possible  at  least  that  changes  so  favour- 
able to  the  fortunes  of  the  new  religion,  and  the 
social  reforms  which  followed  its  extension,  may 
have  awakened  in  the  pious  the  memories  of  old 
Vedic  faith;  and  that  the  victories  of  Chandragupta 
may  have  suggested  to  the  authors  of  the  Suttas 
the  idea  of  the  invincible  Buddha  advancing 
through  the  ages,  as  the  chariot-wheel  of  the  sun 
disperses  the  clouds  in  the  heavens.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  neither  Buddha  nor  his  earliest  dis- 
ciples ever  dreamed  of  applying  the  title  of  Cakka- 
vatti  to  or  of  associating  the  promise  of  a  better 
time  with  himself.  To  old  Vedic  faith  as  support- 
ing his  teaching  or  predicting  his  mission  he  never 
appealed ;  he  ignored  all  previous  teaching :  and 
indeed  in  ancient  Indian  teaching,  uninspired  by 
either  promise  or  hope,  there  is  nothing  prophetic. 
In  the  case  of  Christianity  it  is  quite  the  contrary. 
The  conception  of  the  Messiah  as  the  righteous 
and  glorious  King,  under  whose  reign  all  the  world 
would  be  blessed,  was  not  suggested  by  political 
experience  two  centuries  after  the  dawn  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  was  formulated  and  predicted  many 
centuries  before  the  coming  of  Christ.  The 
Hebrew,  like  the  Aryan,  never  lost  the  memory 
of  a  happy  past,  but,  unlike  the  Aryan,  he  placed 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       185 

his  paradise  not  only  in  the  past  but  in  the  future. 
With   far   richer   materials   at  his  command   than 
the  Aryan  seems  to  have  possessed  for  painting  a 
vanished  golden  age,  the  Hebrew  poets  made  very 
sparing  use  of  them.      A  few  paragraphs  exhaust 
all   they  have   to    say   as  to    the   traditions    of  a 
paradise  that  had  been  lost,  but  their  whole  Bible 
is  full  of  the  hope  of  the  good  time  which  is  coming 
to  all  the  world.     This  hope,  centred  as  it  was  in 
their  Messiah,  Christianity  from  the  very  first  took 
up   and  promised  to  fulfil.     The  ministry  of  Jesus 
was  scarcely  begun  before  it  was  associated  with 
Him.       Among  the  first  questions  asked  concern- 
ing Him  was,  "  Is  not  this  Messias  ?  "     Among  the 
earliest  declarations  made  was,  "We  have  found 
the  Messias."     Very  soon  in   His  career  He  con- 
fessed, "  I  that  speak   unto  thee  am  He  ! "     The 
Gospels  and  Epistles  would  be  unintelligible  with- 
out this  perpetual   reference   to  Messianic  predic- 
tion ;  it  is   the  golden  thread  which  runs  through 
all  the    Old    Testament    and    unites    it   with    the 
New.     In  its  Messianic  hope,  Old  Testament  pro- 
phecy reached  its  highest  and  purest  development, 
and  the  New  Testament  claims  that  in  Christ  it 
is   finding  its    fulfilment.      It   may   be   alleged    of 
course  that  the  prophecy  tmd  the  claim  are  alike 
delusions,  but  the  prophecy  at  least  was  a  fact,  and 
its  application  to  Christ  was  no  legendary  growth 


18(3  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :         lect.  hi. 

of  a  later  generation,  but  the  original  and  essential 
testimony  of  the  earliest  Christian  teachers. 

The  other  conception  of  Perfect  Wisdom  repre- 
sented by  Buddha  the  Awakened  or  Enlightened 
One    is    also    confessedly    an    aftergrowth.       The 
earliest   traces   which    we   have    of  Gotama    after 
his   death  disclose  him  as  a  man  who  gained  his 
knowledge  by  severe  struggle,  and  who  therefore, 
in  the  estimation   of  his  followers,  was  a  "  Jina " 
or  conqueror.     As  time  went  on,  and  his  memory 
rose   in   the    estimation    of  later   generations,    the 
ftiithful,  guided  by  their  belief  in  transmigration, 
projected  this  struggle  for  Buddhahood  further  and 
further  into  former  stages  of  existence,  till  at  last 
the  idea  was   conceived   that  he  was   only  one  of 
a  long  series  of  Buddhas,  of  whom  he  was  not  to 
be  the  last.      The  development  of  this  interesting 
speculation,    with    its    distinctions    into   Buddhas 
who  only  save  themselves— Paccekabuddhas — and 
the  Sammasambuddhas,  who  appear  at  very  rare 
intervals,   able   and  Avilling  to   save  to  the  utter- 
most, need  not  here   be   traced.       It  is   sufficient 
to  note  how  unlike  and  contradictory  is  this  belief 
to    that    which    dominates    in    our    religion.        In 
Christ  we  have  the  only  Messiah,  and  He,  having 
once  come,  we  do  not  look  for  another.     The  hope 
of  the   Christian  is  fixed    upon  His   coming  again 
in  glory  ;  but  it  is  the  coming  again  of  the  same 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       187 

Jesus.  The  unity  of  Deity  colours  and  pervades 
all  our  thoughts  of  Divine  communications  with 
mankind ;  "  there  is  one  God,  and  one  Mediator 
between  God  and  man."  Consequently  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Divine  Word  formulated  in  connec- 
tion with  Christ  in  St.  John's  Gospel  represents  a 
very  different  set  of  ideas  from  the  conception  of 
Buddha  as  the  Perfect  Wisdom,  to  whom  all  worlds 
and  all  times  were  open.  That  concejDtion  of 
Buddha  was  probably  an  incorporation  into  the 
Buddhist  creed  from  foreign  sources,  but  the  idea 
of  Christ  as  the  Son,  "  unto  whom  all  things  have 
been  delivered  by  the  Father,"  so  that  "no  one 
knoweth  the  Son  save  -  the  Father,  neither  doth 
any  know  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to 
whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  Him,"  was 
a  common  one  among  the  very  earliest  Christians 
of  whom  we  have  any  trace.  St.  Matthew,  St. 
Mark,  St.  Paul,  St.  Luke  all  preach  Christ,  "  unto 
Avhom  has  been  committed  all  knowledge  and 
judgment,"  "  who  is  before  all  things,  and  in  whom 
all  things  consist,"  "  the  image  of  the  invisible 
God,  in  whom  it  pleased  the  Father  that  all 
fulness  should  dwell."  ^ 

And  so  it  is  not  in  the  latest  Gospel  but  in  the 

^  Dorner,  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  Introd.  pp.  56-60,  64- 
70;  Liddon,  Bampton  Lectures,  1866,  pp.  364-380;  Lange,  Life  of 
Christ,  vol.  i.  pp.  121-124. 


^ 


188  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

earliest  Scriptures  that  we  have  the  first  indica- 
tions of  this  doctrine  as  Christ  the  Word,  though 
in  the  latest,  as  we  might  expect,  it  is  more  clearly 
formulated  and  more  fully  expounded.  Written 
after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  the  destruction  of  the 
ancient  Church,  and  the  recognition  of  the  Gentiles 
as  fellow-heirs,  by  one  who  was  quite  conscious  of 
the  new  intellectual  position  which  Christianity 
occupied  in  relation  to  the  speculations  of  Syria 
and  Egypt,  and  of  the  dangers  which  thereby 
accrued  to  the  faith,  its.  author  took  up  a  term 
very  current  at  the  time  in  theosophic  and  meta- 
physical writings,  and  specially  those  of  Philo,  to 
set  forth  the  truth  of  the  Life  whose  manifestation 
he  had  witnessed.  That  St.  John  did  not  borrow 
the  term  from  Philo  is  evident  from  the  very  dif- 
ferent use  which  he  has  made  of  it,  and  the  very 
different  purpose  which  he  had  in  view.  By  it 
Philo  expressed  the  conception  of  Divine  intelH- 
gence  in  the  abstract,  while  St.  John  employed  it 
to  suggest  the  concrete  idea  of  God's  personal 
action.  Both  found  it  in  the  Septuagint  and  the 
Hebrew  traditional  lore ;  ^  but  while  Philo  gave 
it  a  Greek,  St.  John  adhered  to  its  Hebrew  signi- 
ficance. The  first  chapter  of  St.  John  compared 
with  a  i^age  of  Philo  -  will  reveal  at  once  the  difter- 

^  E.g.  the  Targuins. 

-  E.(j.  Be,  Opijic.  Mund.  i.  4  ;  De  Mimdi  incor       16,  17. 


LECT.  in.       THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.      189 

ence  between  them,  and  convince  us  that  the 
teaching  of  Philo  concerning  the  Logos  leads  fur- 
ther and  further  away  from  the  idea  of  the  incar- 
nation which  is  the  foundation-truth  of  the  teaching 
of  St.  John.  His  doctrine  would  be  quite  unin- 
telligible as  an  application  or  continuation  of  the 
doctrine  of  Philo,  but  it  is  intelligible  and  con- 
sistent as  the  final  co-ordination  of  truths  con- 
cerning the  Divine  Being  disclosed  in  the  Old 
Testament  viewed  by  a  man  whose  antecedents 
and  modes  of  thought  were  very  different  from 
those  of  the  Alexandrian  sage/ 

The    ideas  suggested    by   the    "Angel   of  the 
Presence"  in  the  historic  and  prophetic  books,  by 
the  "Word  of  the  Lord"  in  the  Psalms,  and  by 
"  Wisdom  "  in  the  Books  of  Wisdom,  indicate  the 
rays  which  converge  in  St.  John's  doctrine  of  the 
Christ.     As   one  who  tarried   long    after    the    first 
o-eneration  of  Christians  had  gone  to  their  rest,  as 
one   who   had   not    only   pondered   longer,   and  in 
deeper  silence,  the    Life   he  had   seen   manifested, 
but  who  had  found  its  interpretation  in  such  pro- 
vidences as  the  spreading  of  the  Churches  and  the 
destruction  of  the  State,  he  was  abler  to  meet  the 
necessities  of  a  wider  age,  by  setting  the  truth  in 
rounder  form  and  clearer  light ;  but  while  he  ex- 

1  Sears,  Fourth  Gospel,  pp.  220  seq.  ;  Westcott,  Introduction  to  St. 
John,  pp.  xvi,  xvii  ;  Dorner,  op.  cit.  vol.  i.  pp.  327-332. 


190  THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  PITAKAS :  lect.  hi. 

panels  and  expounds  the  teaching  of  the  first  genera- 
tion, he  adds  and  introduces  not  a  single  element. 
His  testimony  is  identical  with  that  proclaimed  at 
the  Resurrection,  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  the 
Christ,  and  that  Christ  is  the  only  begotten  Son  of 
God. 

It  is  not  as  one  who  has  acquired  truth  by  long 
struggle,  not  as  one  who  has  fought  or  forced  His 
way  to  light,  that  Christ  presents  Himself  in  the 
Gospels,  but  as  one  who  can  say  :  "I  am  the  way, 
the  truth,  the  life,"  "  the  light  of  the  world."  Yet 
along  with  this  stupendous  demand  upon  the  faith 
of  humanity  there  is  a  humility  and  simplicity 
undiscoverable  in  the  Buddha  of  the  Pitakas.  Self- 
consciousness,  self-reliance,  self-culture — these  are 
the  phrases  most  suggestive  of  the  system  and  of  the 
life  of  the  great  Indian  sage,  while  not  self-abase- 
ment, but  self-oblivion,  characterises  the  teaching 
and  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Identity  with  the 
Highest,  manifested  by  absolute  surrender  to  Him, 
is  the  essence  of  the  Revelation  of  Christ.  Always 
is  the  Father  confessed  to  be  the  source  of  all  grace 
and  truth,  and  if  the  Son  asks  to  be  glorified,  it  is 
that  the  Father  may  be  glorified  in  Him.  We  are 
certainly  not  contemplating  similarities  when  we 
look  at  the  Buddha  of  the  Suttas  and  the  Christ 
of  the  Gospels,  but  contrasts  more  widely  separated 
than  the  soul    is    from  the  body.      In  Buddha  we 


LECT.  III.      THE  CHRIST  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.       191 

have  a  historical  personage,  who  can  be  thoroughly 
accounted  for  as  the  product  and  outgrowth  of  his 
past,  and  of  his  environment ;  in  Christ  we  have  one 
whom  no  philosophy  of  history  has  ever  explained. 
Alone  and  unapproachable,  He  meets  us  as  one 
who  is  really  human,  because  He  has  become  man, 
one  who  has  arisen  among  men  to  save  them,  but 
because  He  has  come  through  and  to  them.  He 
is  not  just  one  of  the  many,  a  son  of  men,  the  pro- 
duct of  a  divinely- trained  humanity,  but  the  Son 
of  Man,  who  as  Son  of  God,  incarnated  in  the 
nature  of  all  men,  has  become  the  Head  and  Crea- 
tor of  a  new  humanity.  Correct,  improve,  embel- 
lish as  we  may,  the  portrait  left  us  of  the  gentle 
teacher  of  Magadha,  we  never  can  lift  him  up  to 
that  level  which  would  justify  his  being  wor- 
shipped or  being  addressed,  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
has  been  by  the  consensus  of  all  the  Christian  ages, 
"  Thou  art  the  King  of  Glory,  O  Christ.  Thou  art 
the  everlasting  Son  of  the  Father." 


LECTURE    IV. 


THE   DHARMA    OF    BUDDHA  '}    THE    GOSPEL    OF 
JESUS    CHRIST. 


What  was  the  discovery  that  rewarded  Gotama's 
long  travail  and  conflict  under  the  Bo-tree  at 
Bohimanda,  and  gained  for  him  the  title  of  Buddha, 
the  Awakened  or  Enlightened  One  ?  and  what  was 
the  message  of  "glad  tidings"  which  since  then  has 
made  so  many  millions  of  the  human  race  regard 
him  as  their  Deliverer  ?  We  shall  never  obtain  the 
answer  to  these  questions  if  we  follow  the  legends 
and  the  later  scriptures,  although  they  profess  to 
give  all  the  steps  of  the  process  by  which  he 
wrought  out  his  deliverance.     These  all  date  from 

'  Dharvia,  an  ancient  Brahman  term,  meaning  law  or  order  ;  what 
holds  things  as  they  are,  or  ought  to  be.  In  later  Sanskrit  it  also 
means  duty  and  virtue,  i.e.  law  performed. — Gilford  Lectures,  Natural 
Religion,  pp.  94,  95.  Buddha  is  also  an  ancient  Brahman  term  applied 
to  one  who  has  attained  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  Self. — Satapatha- 
brahmana,  xiv.  7.  2. 17.  In  Buddhism  Dharma  means  Buddha's  doctrines, 
"bodhi,"  i.e.  knowledge  self-acquired,  as  distinguished  from  "Veda," 
i.e.  revelation  obtainable  only  through  the  Brahmans. — Sir  Monier 
Williams'  Buddhism,  p.  97. 


LKCT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  193 


a  time  when  the  seeds  which  he  had  sown  among 
the  thorns  of  uncleansed  superstitions,  had  grown  up 
into  as  gigantic  and  tangled  a  jungle  of  speculation 
as  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Had  he  confronted  his 
day  and  generation  proclaiming  as  the  result  of 
his  laborious  and  painful  inquiries  the  complicated 
metaphysical  system  formulated  in  these  books,  he 
would  have  made  few  converts.  He  might  have 
become  the  head  of  another  sect,  the  founder  of 
another  school,  but  he  never  would  have  established 
a  religion  so  extensive  as  that  which  for  so  many 
centuries,  and  among  so  many  peoples,  has  been 
known  by  his  name. 

Following  the  Southern  scriptures,  and  guided 
by  the  eminent  Oriental  scholars  who  have  made 
them  available  by  translations,  we  may  be  able  to 
trace,  in  the  wild  growth  of  fancy  which  has  grown 
up  around  them,  the  leading  lines  of  the  original 
teaching.  The  real  doctrine  of  Buddha  did  not 
profess  to  be  a  philosophy  inquiring  into  the 
ultimate  ground  of  things.  He  is  represented  as 
having  despised  philosophisings,  and  as  having  in- 
veighed against  profitless  questionings  as  earnestly 
as  did  St.  Paul  against  vain  babblings  and  opposi- 
tions of  science  falsely  so  called.^     His  object  was 

'  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  pp.  205-208  ;  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhism, 
p.  87  ;  Spence  Hardy,  Manual  of  Buddhism,  p.  375.  His  relation  to  the 
philosophical  systems  of  his  day  is  illustrated  in  several  Suttas ;  see 

N 


194  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  lect.  iv. 

avowedly  practical,  and  he  kept  silent  when  asked 
concernino-  themes  whose  discussion  did  not  tend 

C5 

to  "  ilhimination  and  quiet."     Notwithstanding  this, 
there  must  have  been  from  the  first,  even  in  the 
earliest  forms  of  his  teaching,  ideas  and  thoughts 
beyond  the   comprehension  of  the    simple.     For  a 
while  he   hesitated,  as  we  have  seen,  to  proclaim 
liis  discovery,  because  "  the  way  "  was  too  hidden 
for  men  to  know,  and  too  hard,  even  when  known, 
for  them  to  follow.     Like  the  Jewish   Scribe,  he 
conceived  that  to  the  wise   alone,  and  not  to  the 
ignorant,  belonged  the  law,  and  to  the  wise  alone 
was   reserved   the  hope   of  final   deliverance.     To 
children,    and     to     the     uninstructed     struggling 
classes,  the  preaching  was  not  made  fully  known, 
as    really    beyond   them.     Unlike    Christ,    whose 
preaching   was    for   all   without    exception,   whose 
gospel,  though  full  of  mystery,  confers  illumination 
even  on  babes,  the  law  of  Buddha  was  in  its  en- 
tirety for  the  sages  only,  and  instead  of  conferring 
knowledge  on  those  w^ho  obeyed  it,  it  made  know- 
ledge a  condition  of  obtaining  deliverance.     Never- 
theless,   though    the    deductions   were  within    the 
grasp  only  of  the  few,  his  popularity  proves  that 
his  fundamental  and  principal  dogmas  must  have 
l^een  such  as  all  could  understand,  and  they  seem 

Sutta  Nipata,  in  vol.  x.  Part  ii.  of  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  pp.  148-152. 
Evidently  he  regarded  them  with  aversion,  and  even  contempt. 


LECT.  ]v.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  195 

to  liave  been  published,  as  Saint- Hilaire  observes, 
in  a  language  so  "  simple  and  vernacular "  as  to 
induce  even  the  children  and  the  ignorant  to  enter 
the  paths  that  lead  to  deliverance.^ 

He  entered  upon  his  travail,  in  order  to  find  a 
way  of  escape  from  the  endless  cycles  of  unsatisfy- 
ing change,  and  he  believed  that  he  had  discovered 
it.  Leavening  every  part  of  his  system  is  his  im- 
pression of  the  universality  of  suffering ;  and  suf- 
fering, its  origin,  its  extinction,  and  the  path  or 
method  that  leads  to  its  extinction,  are  the  so- called 
"four  noble  truths"  which  constitute  in  Buddhism 
the  "  Law  of  the  Wheel."  In  Buddhism  the  wheel 
is  the  dommant  symbol,  corresponding  to  the  cross  in 
Christianity,  and  he  who  would  preach  or  roll  onward 
the  wheel  must  present  to  the  affectionate  con- 
sideration of  the  hearers  these  "four  sacred  verities" 
— -the  verity  of  suffering,  the  verity  that  concupi- 
scence is  the  cause  of  suffering,  the  verity  that' 
concupiscence  can  be  quenched  in  Nirvana,  and  the 
verity  that  the  way  that  leads  to  Nirvana  is  the 
sublime  eightfold  path  of  Buddha's  law.     From  his 

^  Le  Bouddha,  etc.,  p.  79.  The  legends  indicate  that  his  use  of  the 
vernacular  was  matter  of  principle.  Two'Brahnians,  "  excelling  in  speech, 
excelling  in  pronunciation,"  complained  that  the  monks  corrupted  the 
word  of  the  Buddhas  by  repeating  it  in  their  own  dialect,  and  asked 
permission  to  put  it  into  classical  or  polished  verse.  "  How  can  you,  0 
foolish  ones,  speak  thus  ?  .  .  .  You  are  not,  0  monks,  to  put  the  words 
of  the  Buddhas  into  polished  (Sanskrit)  verse.  Whosoever  does  so  shall 
be  guilty  of  a  dukkata." — Kullavagga,  v.  33.  1  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East,  vol.  XX. 


/if^' 


/i.- 


196  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

first  public  discourse  at  Benares — corresponding  to 
our  Lord's  Sermon  on  the  Mount — on  to  his  last 
words  on  the  night  on  which  he  died,  this,  with 
manifold  amplifications,  but  ever  as  the  one  pathetic 
refrain,  is  the  substance  of  his  teaching,  "  through 
not  understanding  and  grasping  which,  O  monks, 
we  have  had  to  run  and  wander  so  long  in  weary 
paths,  both  you  and  I."  ^ 

The  primitive  creed  of  Buddhism  was  different 
from,  though  not  wholly  antagonistic  to,  the 
popular  creed  or  theory  of  life  of  Brahmanism. 
Weighed  by  Brahmanism,  existence  was  found 
wanting,  as  only  illusion,  a  specious  something 
which  truly  was  a  mere  nothing,  and  identity  of 
the  personal  with  the  universal  self  was  the  only 
reality.  By  Buddhism  existence  was  condemned, 
not  as  an  illusion,  but  as  wholly  and  solely  sufier- 
ing.^  "  What  think  ye,  0  disciples :  whether  is 
more,  the  water  that  is  in  the  four  great  oceans,  or 
the  tears  which  have  flown  from  you,  and  have  been 
shed  by  you,  while  ye  strayed  and  wandered  in  this 
long  pilgrimage,  and  sorrowed  and  wept,  because 
that  which  ye  abhorred  was  your  portion,  and  that 
which  ye  loved  was  not  your  portion  ?  "''     It  was  not 

V 

1  Mahaparanibhana  Sutta,  ii.  1.  2  ;  Sacred  Boohs  of  the  East,  vol.  xi.  ; 
Mahavagga,  i.  6.  18,  27;  ibid.  vol.  xiii. 

2  Not  as  the  Nothing,  as  Wuttke  tries  to  show  in  Geschichte  des 
Heidenthums,  ii.  §  166.     Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  212. 

3  Sainyutta-ka-Nikaya,  quoted  by  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  217. 


XECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  197 

"  vanity  of  vanities  !  "  but  "  misery  of  miseries  !  all 
is  misery  !  "  Life  was  misery,  because  governed  by 
the  immeasurable  and  wretched  past ;  death  was 
misery,  because  opening  up  an  equally  immeasur- 
able and  wretched  future.  As  long  as  man  exists 
he  must  be  miserable,  unable  to  "  cease  his  wander- 
ings," and  "  still  from  one  sorrow  to  another 
thrown."  The  only  deliverance  conceivable  from 
this  interminable  evil  would  be  to  break  the  bands 
of  existence  altogether.  "  Surely  'twere  better  not 
to  be."  And  how  "  not  to  be"  seems  to  have  been 
the  problem  which  Buddha  professed  to  solve. 

May  we  not  conclude  with  Saint- Hilaire  that 
this,  "his  first  dogma,  was  his  first  fatal  error"?  ^ 
With  all  his  intellectual  ability  he  never  sought  to 
emancipate  himself  from  the  superstition  and  night- 
mare of  transmigration.  ThouQfh  he  had  cast  ofi"  all 
faith  m  the  government  of  a  divine  power,  he  never 
questioned  the  belief  with  which  the  lower  aboriginal 
races  had  infected  the  thought  of  his  ancestors,  that 
life  was  governed  by  this  law.  It  is  averred  that 
he  found  it  necessary  to  solve  the  conflict  between 
his  ideas  of  justice  and  the  actual  order  of  things, 
which  has  exercised  the  human  mind  always  and 
everywhere.  A  modern  Buddliist,  fortunate  in 
having  Mr.  Alabaster  to  introduce  him  to  the  notice 
of   an   English-reading   public,    so   propounds   this 

'   Bouddha  d  sa  Religion,  p.  iii,  Introduction. 


198  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

belief,  and,  purged  from  some  of  its  errors,  tries  to 
vindicate  it.     "  For  the  law  of  perfect  justice,"  he 
says,  "demands  that  human  conditions  should  be 
equalised,  and  that  good  and  bad  luck  should  be 
balanced  sometime  and  somewhere.     If  a  good  man 
be  poor  and  wretched  now,  he  must  be  reaping  the 
fruits  of  what  he  had  sown  in  a  previous  stage  of 
existence."^     Yet  surely  this  is  a  very  superficial 
"theory  for  an  Oriental  professing  Western  culture  to 
formulate.     It   is  judging  of  life  as   children  and 
savages  judge  of  it,  by  the  evidence  of  the  senses, 
and   according   to    a   very  inferior  and   inaccurate 
standard  of  good  and  evil.     Poverty  and  suffering, 
though  confessedly  painful,  may  not  be  regarded  by 
a  good  man  as  wholly  evil  in  this  world.     Circum- 
stances which  the  savage  and  the  child  would  covet 
as  reahsing  their  dreams  of  paradise  may  be  the  re- 
verse of  desirable  to  the  mature  and  thoughtful  man. 
The  believers   in  transmigration  make  no  distinc- 
tion between  what  is  evil  and  what  is  simply  pain- 
ful.    Evil  is  not  that  which  pains,  but  that  which 
defiles  and  degrades  and  destroys,  and  good  is  not 
just  that  which  pleases,  but  that  which  elevates  and 
ennobles  and  purifies.     The  law  of  absolute  justice 
does  not  require,  as  the  modern  Buddhist  demands, 
that  human  conditions  should  be  equalised,  and  that 

1  "  The  Modei;n  Buddhist,"  published  in  the  volume  called  The  Wheel 
of  the  Laxo :  Buddhism  illustrated  from  Siamese  Sources,  by  H. 
Alabaster ;  London,  1876. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  199 

all  men  should  be  treated  alike  ;  for  no  two  human 
bemgs  all  the  world  over  are  absolutely  alike  ;  but 
it  demands  that  each  should  receive  the  treatment 
most  conducive  to  his  healthy  growth  as  a  moral 
being,  and  what  appears  to  sense  as  the  harder  lot 
may  commend  itself  to  reason  as  the  better  portion 
of  the  man  to  whom  it  has  been  assigned,  because 
most  suited  to  his  need. 

The  dogma  of  transmigration  is  said  to  occupy 
in  the  Buddhist  system  a  position  analogous  to  that 
of  the  Fall  in  our  Christian  theology  ;  but  in  reality 
the  two   are   diametrically  opposed,  both   in   their 
essential   ideas   and  the  consequences   which   flow 
from  them.     They  are  analogous  only  in  respect  that 
they  each  profess  to  account  for  the  conflict  between 
man's   ideal  of  himself  and   his   actual    condition. 
The  existence  of  evil  is  admitted  by  both,  but  the 
Buddhist   believes  that    evil   belongs  to  the  very 
essence  of  man,  and  therefore  he  can  find  no  prospect 
of  relief  from  it,  here  or  hereafter.     For  as  long  as 
the  stream  of  existence  continues  it  will  always  fall 
below  its  source,  and  evil,  according  to  the  inexor- 
able rule  of  nature,  will  propagate  only  evil.     The 
Hebrew,  however,  did  not  conceive  of  it  as  essential 
to  or  as  always  in  the  nature  of  man.      His  an- 
cestral   beliefs    carry    him   beyond   the    Fall ;    his 
pedigree  starts  with  the  most  sublime  of  all  theories 
of  human  origin  that  has  ever  been  formulated  in 


200  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

liuman  speech  :  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image  and 
after  our  likeness,  and  let  him  have  dominion  over  " 
the  creature.  Dominion  over  nature  man  has 
not,  for  he  is  too  much  under  its  dominion,  and  to 
this  subjection  much  of  his  suffering  is  directly 
traceable.  The  Hebrew  professed  to  have  the 
origin  of  this  condition  revealed  to  him  in  a  breach 
between  man  and  his  Maker,  consequent  upon  man's 
self-assertion  and  selfish  withdrawal  of  his  life  from 
the  source  of  life,  which  must  involve  suffering  and 
death.  So  through  all  the  weary  generations  there 
is  the  same  invariable  sequence  of  sin  entering  the 
world,  and  death  by  sin.  And  yet  at  his  very 
worst  the  Hebrew  believed  that  it  was  once  far 
better  with  the  human  race,  and  on  this  belief  he 
dared  to  rear  the  structure  of  his  magnificent  hope, 
that  mankind  shall  be  restored  to  the  original  close 
relationship  with  God,  and  therefore  to  a  grander 
dominion  over  nature,  and  to  a  happier  and  even 
more  prosperous  life  than  that  of  which  his  ances- 
tors had  dreamed  as  their  primeval  state. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Fall,  belief  in  it  is  indeed  "  a  condition  of  hope,"  ^ 
and  the  belief  and  the  hope  both  spring  from  their 
faith  in  God  as  Creator  and  Governor  of  the  race, 
which  characterised  the  Hebrew  prophets.  Where- 
ever  that  faith  is  lively,  it  not  only  sustains  man 

^  Dr.  Westcott,   Social   Aspects   of  Christianity,  p.   12  ;   Aristotle, 
IJthic.  i.  1  ;  iv.  3. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  -201 

amid  the  sufferings  of  life,  but  it  nerves  him  to 
struggle  with  physical  and  moral  evil  to  vanquish 
it.  The  purer  the  faith  the  more  resolute  is  the 
struggle ;  the  holier  the  Deity  becomes  to  the 
thought  of  man  the  stronger  becomes  his  conviction 
that  life  is  a  blessing,  and  that  all  its  struggles  may 
conduce  to  peace.  There  is  an  instinct  which  seems 
to  suggest  that  there  are  worse  things  than  troubles, 
and  that  tliey  may  be  blessings  of  no  mean  quality 
after  all.  Christianity  has  made  the  startling- 
revelation  that  suffering  is  not  peculiar  to  man,  as 
the  consequence  of  his  perversity  in  traversing  the 
Divine  order ;  for  not  only  is  Christ  j)resented  to  us 
as  the  greatest  sufferer,  but  in  Him  God  the  highest 
and  the  holiest  is  disclosed  as  involved  in  it,  and 
as  taking  upon  Himself  the  resi^onsibilities  and  the 
sufferings  which  our  sin  and  need  entail.  But  if  in 
Christ  there  is  revealed  the  greatest  sufferer,  it  is  as 
one  whose  suffering  is  not  in  vain.  By  suffering  He 
conquers  that  which  has  produced  it ;  by  enduring 
suffering  He  ends  it ;  and  He  reigns  and  finds 
His  blessedness  in  making  us  partakers  of  His 
victory  over  it.  So  again  Christianity,  unlike  othei- 
religions  which  promise  salvation  from  suffering, 
offers  salvation  through  suffei'ing.  It  alone  asserts 
the  utility  of  suffering ;  others  regard  it  as  evil, 
Christianity  as  evil  overruled  for  good.  Others 
reckon  it  as  a  mere  loss  or  waste,  Christianity  as 


202  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

something  that  may  be  turned  to  profit  as  the  con- 
dition and  preparation  for  joy.  Joy  in  the  Christian 
conception  is  not  the  reward  of  suffering,  nor  com- 
pensation for  suffering,  but  the  fruit  and  issue  of 
suffering  which  leads  to  it,  as  travail  leads  to  birth. 
So  instead  of  evading  or  ignoring  it,  Christ  would 
have  us  recognise  and  acquiesce  in  it,  and  even  be 
thankful  for  it,  as  necessary  not  for  our  personal 
profit,  but  for  the  gain  of  mankind.  By  His  suffer- 
ings we  are  healed,  and  through  our  sufferings  we 
fill  up  what  remains  of  His  for  the  redemption  of 
the  world.  Only  through  "  the  long  travail  of  ages 
yet  to  be  "  will  there  be  born  in  the  evolution  of 
God's  redemptive  purpose  that  better  race  from 
which  all  suffering  shall  have  passed  away,  because 
disobedience  will  have  had  an  end.  Fellowship  in 
Christ's  sufferings  has  thus  transfigured  the  afflic- 
tions of  all  who  believe  in  Him.  Unlike  the  Indian, 
tortured  by  endless  change,  without  any  evolution 
from  low  to  higher,  from  evil  or  imperfect  to  what 
is  good  and  perfect,  the  Christian  can  endure  suffer- 
ing not  only  patiently  but  also  cheerfully,  knowing 
that  he  is  suffering  not  just  for  his  own  sake,  but 
that  in  ways  mysterious  he  is  lightening  the  load 
of  many,  and  helping  to  bring  to  an  end  the  long 
anguish  of  the  whole  creation. 

But  of  this  consolation  which  comes  from  faith 
in  God  the  Creator,  and  therefore  the  Redeemer  of 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESU8  CHRIST.  203 

man  from  destruction,  Buddha  had  deprived  himself. 
Unlike  the  Brahman  who  sought  escape  from  the 
evils  of  transmigration  by  a  process  of  subsidence 
into  the  universal  Self,  he  professed  to  find  no 
trace  of  this  Absolute  Self  The  Brahman  pos- 
tulated the  Infinite  and  reasoned  from  it,  but 
Buddha  started  from  quite  the  opposite  pole.  He 
professed  to  deal  with  life  as  he  found  it,  and  so 
reasoning  from  man  outward,  he  asserted  that  the 
necessity  for  transmigration  was  involved,  not  in 
the  illusion  of  Brahma,  but  in  man's  own  character. 
Instead  of  being  a  natural  or  divine  necessity,  it 
was  a  moral  necessity  created  by  man,  which 
having  its  cause  in  his  own  action  could  also  by 
him  be  destroyed. 

And  so  Pantheistic  speculation,  in  this  instance 
at  least,  ripened  into  its  proper  fruit.  The  passage 
from  conceiving  Deity  as  characterless  passionless 
self,  to  discarding  Deity  altogether  from  human 
thought,  is  a  sure  and  generally  a  very  rapid  one. 
When  we  come  to  think  of  Deity  as  of  being  dif- 
fused and  dispersed,  we  will  soon  omit  the  thought 
altogether  in  the  recognition  only  of  physical  force. 
Brahmanic  speculation  had  resolved  the  deities  of 
the  ancient  books  into  abstractions,  and  Buddha 
recognised  no  such  abstractions  in  the  government 
of  human  life.  His  creed  was  fundamentally 
atheistic,    as    directly    contradicting    belief    in    a 


204  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  lect.  iv. 

supreme  ruler  of  the  universe.^  Not  that  he 
denied  the  existence  of  the  gods  beUeved  in  by 
liis  countrymen.  On  the  contrary,  he  allowed 
them  to  continue  in  the  popular  thought  and 
speech,  and  even  encouraged  disciples  who  had 
not  yet  reached  the  highest  knowledge  to  try  to 
acquire  merit  by  virtue,  so  as  to  secure  after  death 
a  re-birth  into  their  society.  Similarly  he  ad- 
mitted the  existence  of  devils  or  demons,  and  their 
influence  for  evil  upon  man.  All  through  his  career 
he  was  beset  by  Mara,  the  sensual  king  of  all  who 
submit  to  him ;  but  Buddha  was  superior  not  only 
to  Mara,  but  to  all  the  gods  in  the  popular  pan- 
theon, for  they,  alike  with  the  lowest  and  the 
weakest  of  things,  were  subject  to  the  law  of  trans- 
migration. Man  might  rise  to  a  higher  heaven 
than  what  they  occupied  ;  they  might  fall  to  the 
lowest  hell.  "  Their  worlds  must  perish  like  that 
of  man,  and  if  ever  they  attained  to  final  salvation, 
it  could  only  be  by  the  same  way  in  which  a  worm 
might  liope  to  reach  it." "  Throwing  his  "  plummet 
down  the  broad  deep  universe,"  he  cried,  "  Gods 
many,"  but  no  god  able  to  save.  All  alike  with 
men  were  bound  in  fetters,  because  ignorant  of  the 

1  "The  Modern  Buddhist,"  Alabaster,  Wheel  of  the  Law,  p.  73; 
Spence  Hardy,  Eastern  Monachism,  pp.  5,  339  ;  Gogerly's  translation 
of  the  Brahniajala  Sutta  in  Digha  'Nikkya,  Journal  of  Ceylon  Asiatic 
Society,  1846. 

*  Preface  to  Miiller's  Dhamniapada,  p.  xxx,  old  ed. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  205 

truth  he  knew.  Naturally,  therefore,  they  are 
represented  in  the  legends  as  profiting  by  his 
preaching  and  as  seeking  unto  him  for  instruction, 
while  those  of  them  who  refused,  or  could  not  walk 
in  his  ways,  came  to  be  regarded  with  pity.^ 

In    like    manner   his    creed   was   as   essentially 
materialistic.      Man  was  no  spiritual  being,  but  a 
bundle    of   Sankharas — a    term,   it    is    said,    very 
difficult   to    translate,    but    implying   that    person 
meant  a  mass  of  "forms"  or  material  quahties  so 
changing  as  to  be  never  the  same  for  two  consecu- 
tive moments.     Belief  in  a  soul  he  regarded  as  a 
heresy,  which  he  distinctly  classed  with  sensuality 
and  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  sacrificial  rites."      To 
the  heart  as  the  sixth  sense  he  ascribed  the  power 
of  conceiving  ideas  without  form,  as  the  eye  had 
the    power    of   perceiving    objects ;   but    this    dis- 
appeared in    dissolution  as  completely  as  did   the 
others,  and  what  was  re-born  was  not  the  soul  but 
the  quality,  the  merit  or  demerit  acquired.     This 
startling  assertion  of  Bishop  Bigandet's  ^  has  been 
confirmed  and  amplified  by  others,  specially  by  Rhys 
Davids,  and  so  the  question  at  once  suggests  itself, 

I  Note  at  pp.  31,  32  of  Dhaminapada  iu  vol.  x.  of  Sacred  Books 
of  the  East.     Frankfurter,  App.  Bam2}.  Led.  1881,  p.  349. 

^  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhisw,  p.  95  ;  Spence  Hardy,  Manual  oj 
Buddhism,  p.  388  ;  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  quoting  Bhikkuni  Samyutta, 
p.  258  ;  Colebrooke's  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  417,  Cowell's  edition;  Sabbasavu 
Sutta,  10,  11,  12  :  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi. 

■"'  Life  of  Gaudama,  first  ed.,  p.  321  note  ;  Rangoon,  IBGG. 


206  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

now  that  the  governing  ideas  of  Deity  and  the  sepa- 
rate existence  of  the  soul  were  expelled  from  the 
human  mind, — What  was  there  left  to  give  vitality 
and  coherence  to  his  system  as  a  religion  ?  A  kind 
of  religion  is  conceivable  when  something  eternal 
and  self-dependent  is  recognised,  if  not  without 
and  above  a  man,  at  least  within  him  ;  but  here 
is  a  religion  vast  and  comprehensive  springing  from 
the  determination  to  annihilate  all  religion,  assert- 
ing not  simply  that  man  is  independent  of  all 
superior  beings,  but  that  as  the  sum-total  of 
groups  of  sensations,  abstract  ideas,  tendencies, 
and  potentialities,  nothing  of  his  personality  can 
survive  dissolution,  and  how  are  we  to  account 
for  it  ? ' 

The  answer  is  to  be  sought  for  in  the  working 
of  that  great  moral  instinct  which  is  at  the  root 
of  the  belief  in  transmigration.  Though  there  was 
no  person,  no  soul  to  emigrate  from  the  body, 
though  the  man  perished,  there  was  something 
which  he  called  the  Karma — a  word  coined  by 
old  Brahman  sages  long  before  him,  though  used 
by  them  in  a  different  sense — that  survived."  The 
aggregate  of  the  good  and  evil  in  the  life  that  had 
come  to  an  end  formed  the  seed  of  another  exist- 

1  Max  Miiller,  introd.  to  Buddagosha's  Parables,  p.  xxx,  ed.  1870. 

-  The  first  traces  of  this  belief  are  found,  it  is  said,  in  the  Upanishads, 
Brihadaranyaka,  iii.  2.  1,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xv.  p.  126  ; 
Dhammapada,  v.  1.  127,  ibid.  vol.  x.  Part  i.  3.  35. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  207 

ence,  so  that  each  new  individual  and  generation 
became  the  exact  and  inevitable  results   of  those 
that   had    preceded  them.       It    was    evidently   a 
theory  of  continuity  as  unscientific  as  it  was  un- 
philosophic.       It  could  not  be  called  an  evolution 
in   any   sense    of  the  word,   seeing   it    meant  the 
appearance  in  a  new  individual  of  the  mental  and 
physical    acts   of  another  who    had   ceased  to   be. 
The   assertion,   again,   that   though    there    was   no 
"  continuing  consciousness,"   no  transience   of  soul 
in   any  sense  from    one  person   to  the   other,   the 
two  persons  are  one,  has  been  very  properly  stig- 
matised as  a   "psychological   absurdity."^      From 
the  first,  though  one  of  their  stablest  dogmas,  this 
one  was  a  difficulty  to  the  Buddhists  themselves. 
Their  learned  men  never,  professed  to  justify  it  to 
reason,  but  accepted  it  as  a  mystery,  in  open  con- 
tradiction to  their  principle    that  everything  was 
to  be  rejected  which  could  not  be  comprehended 
or  explained.      The  common   people  again   simply 
ignored    it,    and    adhered    to    the    belief   of  their 
fathers  in  continuity  of  life  and  personal  identity 
for  man  in  the  future.     The   sages  might   refine, 
but  the  moral  sense  of  the  masses  could  not  escape 
from  the  conviction  that  the  evil  which  they  had 
done  must  follow  them,  and  the  good  which  they 

'  Rhys  Davids,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  94  ;  also  his  Manual  of  Bud- 
dhism, pp.  100,  106. 


208  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  leot.  iv. 

would  do  could  not  be  interred  with  their  bones. 
Even  the  speculation  of  the  sages  was  a,  telling- 
confirmation  of  the  truth  that  man  cannot  get  rid 
of  himself.  He  may  make  a  mock  at  God,  may 
demand,  If  a  man  die  can  he  live  again  ?  or  how 
differs  the  life  of  a  man  from  the  life  of  a  beast  ? 
but  he  cannot  refine  away  his  moral  sense  and  the 
instinct  of  retribution  which  is  inwoven  in  his 
inmost  being.  Buddha  acknowledged  no  moral 
government  of  Deity,  discarded  the  old  belief 
that  the  same  soul  must  receive  the  reward  of  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body ;  he  denied  even  to  the 
soul  a  separate  existence  from  the  perishable  body ; 
but  he  was  haunted  by  the  ghost  of  personal 
identity.  He  felt  absolutely  certain  that  there 
was  a  real  connection  of  cause  and  eftect  between 
past  and  present  and  future,  and  that  each  act  of 
the  soul  must  work  out  its  full  effect  to  the  bitter 
end,^  So  it  was  only  by  profession  that  God  was 
mocked ;  men  were  witnesses  to  themselves  of  a 
Sovereign  Power  forcing  Himself  upon  them,  even 
when  they  tried  to  forsake  Him,  compelhng  them 

'  "  All  that  we  are  is  the  result  of  what  we  have  thought ;  it  is  founded 
on  our  thoughts,  it  is  made  up  of  our  thoughts.  If  a  man  speaks  or  acts 
with  an  evil  thought  (or  polluted  mind),  suffering  follows  him  as  the 
Avheel  follows  the  foot  of  the  ox  that  draws  the  wain"  (Dhammapada,  1). 
"  Not  in  the  sky,  not  in  the  midst  of  the  sea,  not  if  we  enter  the  cleft  of 
the  mountains,  is  there  known  a  spot  in  the  whole  world  where  a  man 
might  be  freed  from  an  evil  deed  "  (Dhammapada,  127  ;  Sacred  Boohs 
of  the  East,  vol.  x.). 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  209 

to  receive  His  thoughts  when  they  would  not  think 
for  themselves.  So  in  primitive  Buddhism  we  have 
the  strange  paradox  that  out  of  Atheism  there 
arose  a  rehgion,  with  a  demand  upon  conscience 
ahnost  Christian,  and  asserting  as  Christianity  does 
the  eternal  necessity  of  righteousness  and  truth. ^ 

The  analogy  which  has  been  suggested  between 
the  Buddhist  dogma  of  Karma  and  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  heredity  is  a  very  interesting  one.  It  is 
strange  that  the  law  of  heredity,  so  clearly  indicated 
in  the  Bible,  should  be  proclaimed  in  our  age  as  a 
modern  discovery.  Infidelity  formerly  denounced 
the  Bible  for  teaching  that  sin  and  its  penalty  were 
transmitted  from  generation  to  generation,  forgetting 
that  but  for  transgression  the  law  of  heredity  could 
only  and  always  entail  good.  Laws  are  to  be 
judged  by  their  intention,  and  this  one,  designed  to 
secure  and  transmit  the  increment  of  good  in  each 
generation,  is  manifestly  perverted  by  conditions 
for  which  it  is  not  responsible.  The  law,  however, 
which  asserts  itself  in  humanity  by  entailing  on  the 
generations  the  blessing  of  good  as  well  as  the  curse 
of  evil,  is  now  being  proclaimed  and  interpreted,  not 
by  divines,  but  by  men  of  science  and  philosophy. 
The  twin  truth  of  the  unity  of  humanity,  elemental 
in   the    Hebrew   and    Christian    religions,    though 

*  "  L'atheisme  devenu  religion  et  reconvert  du  manteau  des  vertus 
chr^tiennes." — Wassilief,  Buddhism,  introd.  by  E.  Laboulaye,  p.  viii. 

O 


210  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

formerly  strangely  forgotten  or  denounced  by  in- 
fidelity, is  also  adopted  as  a  professed  discovery  of 
our  century.  We  are  all  agreed  that  humanity  is 
one,  that  each  life  is  part  of  a  larger  life,  and  so 
the  injury  of  the  part  is  the  injury  of  the  whole. 
Sin  could  not  enter  humanity  without  dragging  it 
down,  and  holiness  could  not  enter  and  conquer  with- 
out lifting  it  up.  If  one  could  appear  in  humanity 
without  sin,  not  a  link  in  the  diseased  chain,  but 
perfectly  free  from  all  taint  of  disease,  is  the 
supposition  incredible  that  he  would  have  the  effect 
upon  humanity  of  a  new  creation  ?  His  coming 
would  imply  the  reversal  of  the  drift  toward  evil  and 
the  weakening  of  the  inherited  and  accumulated 
tendency  to  depravity.  It  would  be  a  bringing 
under  Divine  influence  of  this  mysterious  principle 
of  heredity,  with  results  for  good  which  no  human 
intellect  can  measure,  and  establish  a  once  greatly 
derided  assertion,  that  as  in  one  Adam,  that  is,  one 
kind  of  humanity,  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all 
be  made  alive. 

Buddha  had  a  clear  apprehension  of  the  truth 
of  heredity,  but  he  had  not  the  faintest  conception 
of  the  unity  of  humanity.  His  theory  of  life  was 
essentially  atomic.  Humanity  was  not  to  him  one 
whole,  but  a  congeries  of  individuals,  each  one  an 
end  to  himself,  and  living  just  to  himself  The 
injury    done   to   self  by   wrong-doing  was  always 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  211 

present  to  a  Buddhist's  thought,  but  the  suffering 
thus  caused  to  others  was  never  taken  into  account. 
He  had  no  idea  of  the  whole  suffering  in  the  one,  and 
consequently  no  sense  of  duty  to  mankind.  Though 
believing  in  the  propagative  power  of  good  and  evil, 
he  did  not  work  for  the  good  of  coming  generations, 
but  solely  for  the  rescue  of  the  individual  from  the 
whirlpool  of  suffering  existence.  It  has  been 
charitably  suggested  that  his  aim  finds  its  analogue 
in  the  offset  to  personal  extinction  so  winningly 
presented  by  "  George  Eliot "  and  Mr.  John  Morley, 
whereby  though  dead  and  gone  for  ever  in  our- 
selves, we  may  "  live  again  in  minds  made  better  by 
our  presence,"  and  "  in  pulses  stirred  to  generosity."  ^ 
Buddhism  had  no  such  hope ;  the  age,  the  system 
itself,  were  alike  incapable  of  conceiving  it.  The 
time  for  that  kind  of  Positivism  had  not  come.  The 
human  mind  had  to  undergo  long  centuries  of 
Christian  culture  before  it  was  possible  for  the 
nineteenth-century  agnostic  poetess  and  philosopher 
thus  to  expound  their  creed,  for  modern  Positivism 
has  been  powerfully  though  indirectly  influenced  by 
the  faith  which  it  contradicts,  and,  like  many  of  the 
assailants  of  Christianity,  it  owes  to  it  the  most  of 
its  strength  and  the  best  of  its  weapons. 

Christianity,   starting   from   the    conception    of 
man  as  no  outgrowth  of  nature,  but  a  new  creation 

^  Professor  Dods,  Mohammed,  Buddha,  and  Christ,  p.  171. 


212  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  lect.  iv. 

in  it,  a  being  within  and  distinct  from  his  body 
as  the  driver  is  from  the  chariot,^  has  a  theory  of 
human  destiny  contrasted  utterly  with  that  of 
Buddhism.  Man's  teeth  have  been  set  on  edge 
because  his  fathers  have  eaten  a  sour  grape,  but  the 
brand  of  pain  upon  past  transgressions  helps  him  to 
conquer  the  taint  transmitted  in  the  blood.  Though 
he  finds  heavy  temptation  in  inherited  tendencies, 
he  finds  in  every  temptation  a  way  of  escape  in  a 
call  to  yield  to  other  tendencies  which  are  ever 
drawing  his  soul  to  goodness.  Sharing  a  confessedly 
sinful  humanity,  he  may  be  partaker  of  a  sinless 
one,  and  thus,  if  evil  reigns  over  him  unto  death, 
the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  can  free 
him  from  it. 

(Buddhism  had  no  such  hope  and  goal  for  man ; 
indeed,  we  may  well  wonder  that  a  pessimism  more 
thorough  than  that  of  Brahmanism  did  not  deprive 
it  of  all  hope  and  sink  it  into  fatalism.  Left  alone 
to  fight  his  way  through  the  universe,  struggling 
in  a  maelstrom  of  forces  with  no  help  for  him  in 
man,  no  hope  of  sympathy  in  God,  a  Buddhist 
would  surely  despair. ,  On  the  contrary,  unlike  the 
Moslem  cowering  under  the  thought  of  relentless 
will,    he    accepted    the   situation    with    Christian 

^  Nagasena's  figure  used  in  controverting  the  idea  of  the  separate 
existence  of  the  soul. — Milindapanha,  p.  25,  quoted  by  Oldenberg, 
Buddha,  p.  254 ;  Hardy,  Manned,  p.  425  ;  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhism, 
p.  96. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  213 

determination  to  improve  it.^     He  could  hope  for 
deliverance,  for  suffering  had  an  origin,  and  if  the 
cause  could  be  removed  then  suffering  v^ould  end. 
The  coils  of  misery  could  be  unwound,  the  curse 
of  humanity  could  be  abolished,  if  only  man  could 
procure  for  himself  emancipation  from  the  necessity 
of  Karma.     Now  this  the  true  Buddhist  believed 
he  could  gain  by  the  extinction  of  all  desire.     Plato 
adopting  the  Pythagorean  doctrine  of  transmigra- 
tion, taught  that  the  future  organism  of  the  soul 
would   depend   upon   the    cravings   which   it   had 
fostered  here."    Somewhat  similarly  Christians  be- 
lieve that  the  future  of  the  man  will  depend  upon 
his  most  dominant  present  habits,  and  that,  disem- 
bodied, the  spirit  will  gravitate  unerringly  to  the 
society  which  it  has  made  of  its  kind.    'Buddhism, 
believing  in  no  soul,  maintained  that  in  the  dying 
creature  a  particular  thirst  or  cleaving  to  existence 
caused  the   birth  of  another  creature  ;    and  so  he 
who  would  escape  from  the  chain  of  existence  must 
endeavour,  by  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  eightfold 
way,  and  the  four  paths  or  degrees  of  perfection  to 
which  it  led,  to  attain  a  state  in  which  all  craving 
for  continuity  had  ceased.)    Karma  then  would  have 
no  terror  to  him  ;  he  would  have  reached  a  point 
whence   he    could  look    onwards    without  anxiety, 
because  he  would  be  treading  a  path  from  which  he 

1  Oldenberg,  op.  cit,  221.       '^  Phacdo,  Jowett's  Introd.,  i.  407,  ed.  1875. 


214  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

never  would  stray.  He  might  still  be  a  man,  liable 
to  suffering  and  subject  to  death,  but  one  purified 
and  emancipated  from  all  inheritance  of  evil,  and 
fully  assured  of  Nirvana. 

And  what  was  Nirvana,  the  final  refuge  of  the 
emancipated  Buddhist  ?  Ever  since  the  religion 
was  known  in  Europe  great  diversity  of  opinion  has 
prevailed  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  word.  It  was 
employed  by  the  Brahmans  many  centuries  before 
Buddha's  day,  and  used  by  them  and  by  himself  and 
liis  disciples  in  so  great  a  variety  of  senses  that  even 
the  learned  Bajendralala  Mitra,  in  enumerating 
the  sects  into  which  orthodox  Buddhists  are  divided 
in  regard  to  it,  confessed  some  years  ago  that  he 
had  given  U23  in  despair  the  attempt  to  ascertain  its 
meaning.^  The  researches  and  discoveries  of  later 
years  have  enabled  the  translators  of  the  texts  to 
write  with  less  hesitation  as  to  its  significance,  and 
we  are  entitled  to  accept  as  solid  the  results  of  their 
patient  investigations.  To  begin  with,  they  tell  us 
that  it  means  the  peace  which  ensues  when  all 
passion  has  been  subdued,  and  all  selfish  craving 
has  been  extinguished.  Though  jDi'^ctically  no 
Buddhist  hopes  to  attain  to  it  here,  but  only  to 
enter  the  paths  leading  to  it,  it  may  be  reached,  not 
in  anticipation  only,  but  in  fruition."     Buddha  may 

^  Preface  to  English  translation  of  the  Lalita  Vistara  ;  Calcutta. 
2  Sutta  Nipata  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  pp.  33,  80. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  215 

be  said  to  have  been  in  Nirvana  forty  years,  for  he 
entered  it,  not  in  the  moment  of  dying,  but  when 
he  attained  perfection.  This  first  conception  of  it, 
therefore,  seems  a  marvellous  anticipation  of  the 
faith  of  the  Christian,  who  finds  his  heaven  and 
enters  into  his  rest  when  he  is  delivered  from  the 
(^poi/rjixa  Trjs  crdpKo<;,  from  all  selfish  clutching  at 
the  means  of  existence.  In  both  religions,  taken 
at  their  highest,  the  goal  of  aspiration  was  not 
extinction  of  sorrow,  but  extinction  of  self-love  :  in 
Buddhism  the  quenching  of  trishna,  or  updddna, 
"  thirst,"  in  Christianity  the  quenching  of  iTnOvfiia, 
"lust,"  " inordinate  desire."  In  both  rehgions  the 
goal  meant  finality,  a  state  in  which  there  was  an 
end  of  death ;  and  in  both,  moreover,  it  meant  a 
change  which  no  language  could  define,  and  to 
which  no  known  standard  could  apply.  The 
Christian  believer  tells  us  that  he  is  passing  from 
the  visible  to  the  invisible,  from  the  temporal  to  the 
eternal,  and  in  like  manner  the  Buddhist  Arahat 
would  only  be  able  to  allude  to  the  great  change  by 
negations,  and  as  the  very  opposite  of  all  we  know 
or  at  present  conceive.  The  Christian  believes  in 
the  perseverance  of  the  saints,  and  the  Buddhist 
who  has  really  entered  the  path  must  sooner  or 
later  reach  his  prize. 

But  there  the  analogies  end,  while  the  contrasts 
between  the  two  beliefs  are  as  irreconcilable  as  are 


216  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

their  postulates.  The  postulates  of  Christianity 
are  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  and  that  his  present 
evil  condition  is  not  his  normal  one.  Sin  has  gone 
extensively  and  deeply  into  his  being,  for  it  is  no 
mere  superficial  excrescence,  a  fault  which  can  be 
corrected,  a  smirch  that  can  be  washed  away,  but 
a  leprosy  in  the  blood,  which  is  the  life.  Cleansing 
is  required  and  provided,  but  it  is  the  cleansing  out 
of  the  whole  corrupt  nature  by  the  transfusion  into 
the  soul  of  a  Divine  life  so  pure,  and  so  strong  be- 
cause of  purity,  that  it  could  not  be  holden  of 
death.  Life  is  the  essential  idea  of  Christian  salva- 
tion ;  it  is  the  Divine  gift  bestowed  by  Christ,  who 
came  that  we  might  have  life,  and  have  it  more 
abundantly.  So  while  in  the  body  we  groan,  being 
burdened  by  a  suffering  flesh,  it  is  not  that  we  may 
be  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon  ;  not  that  the  gift 
of  life  may  be  recalled,  but  that  it  may  be  secured 
in  its  completeness.-.  It  is  "  more  life  and  fuller 
that  we  want. "  Sanctification  in  the  Christian 
conception  means  a  j^rocess  of  healing,  and  salvation 
means  perfect  health — the  condition  of  a  creature 
freed  from  all  inordinate  desire,  or  desire  for  any- 
thing forbidden,  which  is  the  root  of  all  sin,  and 
rejoicing  in  the  untainted  bliss  of  being.  Deathless, 
sinless  life,  the  life  of  eternal  incorruption,  "the 
perfect  life  of  love,  the  rest  of  immortality,"  that  is 
the  Christian  Nirvana. 


CK^' 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  217 

teuddhism,  on  the  contrary,  postulating  the 
material  nature  of  all  existence  controlled  by  the 
universal  law  of  transmigration,  had  no  such  con- 
ception of  final  blessedness.  Nirvana  in  its  thought  .j,  *^^^5 
meant,  indeed,  extinction  in  the  first  instance  of  all 
fleshly  and  selfish  dispositionsy  but  the  thirst,  the 
"cleaving"  {tanhd)  which  was  to  be  quenched,  was  not 
lust  in  the  Christian  sense,  but  the  natural  innocent 
love  of  life,  and  Nirvana  involved  the  extinction  of 
that  love,  and  of  life  as  the  going  out  of  a  flame 
which  had  nothing  else  to  feed  upon.  Deliverance 
from  this  instinctive  thirst  for  life  is  a  specific  germ 
of  which  annihilation  is  the  outcome.  That  Buddha 
so  expounded  it  was  long  questioned,  and  by  many 
denied,  but  Dr.  Oldenberg  has  sufiiciently  made 
clear  his  attitude  toward  this  dogma.  He  seems  to 
have  contented  himself  with  its  first  significance, 
to  have  evaded  the  necessity  of  deciding  the  many 
discussions  which  were  waged  concerning  the 
second  as  profitless,  and  not  tending  to  quietude 
and  wisdom,  and  to  have  exhorted  his  disciples  to 
strive  rather  to  enter  the  paths.^  By  the  time, 
however,  the  canonical  books  were  produced,  his 
disciples  had  not  shrunk  from  pushing  his  funda- 
mental principles  to  their  only  logical  conclusion. 
The  most  ancient  expositions  of  his  doctrine  disclose 
one  long  theory  of  Nihilism  as  its  only  legitimate 

1  Buddha,  etc.,  pp.  274-284  ;  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhism,  pp.  111-123. 


218  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

inference.  If  misery  was  inseparable  from  exist- 
ence, it  followed  that  non-existence  was  a  blessing, 
and  consequently  man's  chief  end  was  to  aspire  and 
strive  to  reach  that  state  in  which  the  "  very  seed 
of  existence  has  withered,  the  lamp  of  life  has  burnt 
out  for  ever,  and  man  can  no  more  be  born  again."  ^ 
While  this  was  the  doctrine  of  the  philosophers, 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  Buddhists  in  every 
age  and  country  have  put  a  very  different  meaning 
upon  the  word.  Just  as  human  nature  has  proved 
too  strong  in  them  to  accept  their  atheistic  creed, 
so  in  popular  estimation  from  the  first,  Nirvana  has 
meant  not  annihilation  of  existence,  but  extinction 
of  suffering.  They  did  not  comprehend  its  meta- 
physical significance,  but  they  longed,  as  all  men 
do,  for  release  from  sorrow,  and  a  happier  life  when 
this  is  over,  and  they  took  refuge  in  Buddha,  be- 
cause his  law  promised  to  convey  them  over  the 
troubles  of  life  into  a  blessed  hereafter.  There 
might  be  higher  things  for  the  wise  to  gain,  but  the 
simple  were  contented  with  this  inferior  portion,  and 
indeed  they  chose  the  better  part.  For  surely  the 
conception  of  deliverance  from  sufiering,  involving 
extinction  of  the  being  that  suffers,  was  as  childish 
as  that  of  getting  rid  of  a  toothache  by  cutting  off 
the  head.^    Kightly  were  they  led  by  the  infallible 

^  Childers,  Pali  Dictionary,  Art.  Nirvana. 

2  Dr.  Kellogg,  in  his  Light  of  Asia  and  Light  of  the  World,  pp.  223, 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  219 

instincts  of  our  moral  beino-  to  believe  that  the  end 
of  righteousness  must  be  rest,  but  they  wandered 
fearfully  in  conceiving  of  rest  as  nothingness,  for 
the  "  end  of  righteousness  is  peace,  and  the  fruit  of 
peace,  quietness  and  assurance  for  ever.  "  ^ 

The  great  question  with  Buddha  and  his  im- 
mediate disciples  was  not  how  Nirvana,  the  goal 
of  human  aspiration,  was  to  be  defined,  but  how 
it  was  to  be  attained.  It  was  for  him  sufficiently 
expressed  as  the  final  extinction  of  all  the  roots 
of  sorrow,  and  he  taught  that  this  consummation 
could  only  be  reached  by  knowledge.  Ignorance 
was  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  suffering  existence, 
but,  as  in  Christianity,  men  could  know  the  truth, 
and  the  truth  would  set  them  free.  According  to 
both  religions,  this  knowledge  could  neither  be 
transmitted  by  tradition  nor  learned  by  a  simple 
intellectual  process.  It  implied  a  moral  and 
spiritual  training,  and  was  the  fruit  of  obedience  ; 
but  there  again  the  analogy  ends,  for  the  Buddhist's 
idea  of  knowledge  is  as  widely  contrasted  with  the 
Christian  idea  as  is  its  idea  of  the  Truth  to  be 
known.     In  Christianity  knowledge  means  Divine 

252,  protests  very  forcibly  against  the  use  by  translators  of  the  word 
"  immortality  "  as  the  equivalent  of  Nirvana.  It  meant,  as  he  reminds 
us,  "  the  end  of  death  indeed,  but  not  because  life  had  triumphed,  but 
because,  life  having  ceased,  death  had  nothing  to  feed  on."  Immor- 
tality, endless  bliss,  and  kindred  phrases,  applied  to  it,  are  only  justifi- 
able by  the  popular  but  really  un-Buddhistic  use  of  the  word  Nirvana. 
1  Isaiah  xxxii.  II  ;  James  iii.  18. 


220  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

illumination  or  revelation,  tlie  result  of  trustful 
surrender  to  Christ,  the  revealer  of  the  Father,  and 
Himself  the  Truth.  In  Buddhism  it  meant  a  know- 
ledge gained  by  man  himself,  through  a  process  of 
moral  culture  and  self-control.^  In  Christianity  it 
was  a  grace  that  came  through  obedience  to  a  better 
Will ;  in  Buddhism  it  meant  simply  obedience  to 
a  Law.  That  law,  moreover,  had  no  commanding 
power  to  enforce  it,  and  involved  no  moral  obligation 
in  the  Christian  sense  to  obey  it.  It  was  not  a  law 
like  the  law  of  Moses  or  the  law  of  Christ,  for  it 
implied  no  Lawgiver  to  make  it  binding.  It  was 
simply  a  rule,  a  method,  discovered  by  man,  and 
followed  because  he  found  it  expedient  to  follow  it. 
Adopting  this  method,  observing  this  rule,  per- 
severing in  this  course,  a  man  would  attain  to 
knowledge  of  the  truth  of  things,  but  this  supposed 
truth  is  the  very  contradiction  of  the  truth  as  it 
is  in  Jesus,  the  truth  by  which  we  are  sanctified, 
and  made  wise  unto  salvation." 

This  should  be  borne  in  mind  when  in  transla- 
tions of  Buddhist  books  we  find  such  words  as 
"  holiness,"  "  saints,"  "  paths  or  degrees  of  sanctifica- 
tion,"  "  righteousness,"  and  such  like.     The  original 

1  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism,  pp.  97,  223. 

^  "  Not  to  know  suffering,  not  to  know  the  cause  of  suff'ering,  not  to 
know  the  path  that  leads  to  the  cessation  of  suffering — this  is  called 
Ignorance."  Consequently  knowledge  of  these  things  is  saving  know- 
ledge.— Mahavagga,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xiii.  p.  75,  note  2. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  221 

words  represent  conceptions  different  from  and 
antagonistic  to  those  suggested  by  these  words  to 
us.  But  keeping  this  in  view,  we  may  well  admire 
and  be  thankful  for  the  high  purpose  and  clear 
moral  insight  which  enabled  Buddha  to  discover 
and  set  forth  his  way  to  Nirvana.  The  strength 
and  glory  of  Buddhism,  the  secret  of  its  original 
attractiveness,  and  of  its  long  continuance,  is  its 
ethical  system.  Its  metaphysical  creed  may  repre- 
sent a  very  puerile  philosophy,  its  discipline  of 
artificial  restraint  may  have  been  the  reverse  of 
emancipation,  but  its  moral  code,  in  its  simple  and 
direct  and  powerful  appeal  to  the  conscience,  is  a 
far  nearer  approach  to  the  Gospel  than  that  of 
Gentile  Stoics  or  of  Jewish  Scribes.  Avoiding  sen- 
suality on  the  one  hand  as  degrading,  and  asceti- 
cism on  the  other  as  unprofitable,  it  mapped  out  a 
via  media  that  led  far  above  that  projected  by  any 
ancient  school.  It  entered  into  every  domain  of 
life,  of  thought  and  word  and  deed  ;^  laid  its  con- 
trol, as  Christianity  does,  on  feeling  and  motive,  and 
proclaimed  that  the  way  to  perfect  peace  was  a 
way  which  no  unrighteous  man  could  enter  and  no 
unclean  man  could  tread. 

^  This  threefold  division  or  "  doorway  "  (Hardy,  Manual,  p.  491),  once 
considered  by  Weber  to  be  peculiar  to  Buddhism,  has  been  proved  to  be 
common  to  Brahmans,  Persians,  Jews,  and  Greeks,  as  well  as  Christians. 
See  interesting  note  at  pp.  28,  29,  of  vol.  x.  of  Sacred  Books  of  the  East, 
Part  i. 


222  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  lect.  iv. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  catch,  behind  all  its 
superstitions  and  idolatries,  and  crude  and  childish 
speculations,  this  glimpse  of  an  ideal  like  unto  that 
of  the  Son  of  Man,  calling  and  leading  men  to 
righteousness,  purity,  and  kindness,  as  their  only 
refuge.  To  the  old  Vedic  religion,  and  to  all 
the  class  of  religions  of  which  it  is  the  type, 
morality,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  stranger.  It  was 
the  philosopher,  and  not  the  priest,  who  in  old 
times  argued  of  righteousness,  temperance,  and 
judgment  to  come.  The  Hebrew,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  the  first  and  only  ancient  religion  that 
demanded  holiness  of  life  as  indispensable  to 
the  worship  of  God,  and  Christianity,  as  was 
natural,  recognised  this  old  law  which  men  had 
from  the  beginning.  But  Buddhism  was  the  first 
system  in  which  morality  was  substituted  for  re- 
ligion. It  had  neither  priests,  nor  temples,  nor 
prayers,  but  taught  men  to  depend  for  safety  solely 
upon  a  life  of  virtue  and  wisdom  and  goodness. 
Though  it  implied  a  change  of  heart  amounting  to 
conversion,  this  was  due  to  the  operation  of  no 
regenerating  spirit,  but  to  perseverance  in  courses 
within  the  reach  of  any  one.  Anticipating,  there- 
fore, theories  of  life  broached  now-a-days  as  if  they 
were  new  discoveries,  its  endeavour  to  dissociate  the 
human  from  the  supernatural,  and  to  substitute  the 
ethical  for  the  religious,  deserves  very  earnest  study. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  223 

It  meant  man's  earnest  resolve  to  work  out  his 
salvation  with  fear  and  trembling,  for  there  is  no 
God  within  him  working  both  to  will  and  to  do  of 
His  good  pleasure.  It  was  an  attempt  to  conceive 
of  a  morally  governed  universe  without  a  Governor. 
Professedly  atheistic  compared  with  the  religion  out 
of  which  it  arose,  it  has  been  properly  described  to 
be  "  more  theistic  at  its  core  than  Brahmanism  has 
ever  been."^  It  did  not  trouble  itself  about  the 
orio'in  of  man  as  an  emanation  from  the  universal 
self,  but  it  asserted  the  dignity  of  his  nature  as 
resting  on  really  a  sounder  basis.  It  refused  to 
believe  with  the  Hebrew  that  the  Creator  had 
written  the  law  on  the  tables  of  the  heart,  but  it 
found  the  law  there  written  somehow,  and  read  it 
almost  as  correctly.  Like  the  Christian  apostle,  its 
founder  asserted  that  each  man  was  a  law  unto  him- 
self, the  iudofe  of  his  own  action,  and  the  arbiter  of 
his  fate.  And  thus  it  came  to  pass  that,  without 
any  conscious  purpose  of  doing  so,  he  inaugurated  a 
moral  revolution  which  lasted  for  ages.  It  swept 
away  an  enormous  mass  of  superstitions  from  the 
Indian  mind  for  centuries,  abolished  many  abuses, 
and  modified  more  which  it  failed  to  overcome.  It 
has  tended  to  civilise  many  barbarous  races  ;  and  if 
among  them  Buddhism  has  been  able  to  bear  the 
encumbrance   of  their  hideous   idolatries  which   it 

^  Dr.  Fairbairn,  Studies  in  Religion  and  Philosophy,  p.  161. 


224  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  lect.  iv. 

assumed,  it  is  because  of  the  strong  ethical  founda- 
tion upon  which  it  rests.  It  is  the  ethical  element 
in  religion  that  is  universal  and  enduring,  and  there 
is  a  completeness  and  force  and  persuasiveness  of 
ethical  teaching  in  Buddhism  which  all  non- 
Christian  religions  lack ;  there  is  a  comprehensive- 
ness of  duty  and  gentleness  which  pre-intimate 
clearly  that  universal  Christian  rule  which  makes 
it  imperative  that  we  should  not  only  duly  consider 
all  brethren  who  are  human,  but  should  say  to  the 
worm,  as  within  the  scope  of  our  benevolence, 
"  Thou  art  my  mother  and  sister." 

Let  us  now  examine  more  closely  this  way  to  Nir- 
vana as  expounded  in  the  Suttas  of  Buddha,  and  in 
relation  to  Christ's  way  of  salvation.  The  Christian 
is  very  simple,  but  as  it  proceeds  from  a  much  deeper 
conception  of  human  need,  its  method  of  meeting  it 
is  very  different.  It  was  not  the  suffering  and  mis- 
direction of  men  that  most  deeply  impressed  and 
most  powerfully  affected  our  Lord.  He  came  to  a 
race  made  in  the  image  of  God,  that  had  confessedly 
fallen  from  or  had  failed  to  realise  its  ideal.  It  was 
lost,  as  sheep  are  lost,  by  inherent  tendency  to 
wander  ;  as  coins  are  lost,  by  the  neglect  of  others  ; 
as  prodigals  are  lost,  by  sensuality  ;  and  as  Pharisees 
are  lost,  by  self-righteousness.  It  was  diseased  and 
perishing,  struggling  not  in  the  coils  of  changeful 
suffering,  but  in  the  clutch  of  an  evil  power  which 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHEIST.  225 

had  taken  possession  of  it.  Sorely  needing,  though 
not  seeking  redemption,  unable  to  help  itself,  He 
had  come  in  the  name  of  His  Father,  who  willed  not 
that  any  should  perish,  to  seek  and  save  it.  His 
formula  of  salvation  was  plain  enough  for  even 
babes  to  apprehend,  for  all  He  asked  Avas  that  men 
should  turn  to  and  believe  in  Him.  They  could 
not  raise  themselves,  but  they  could  look  toward 
Him,  and  find  deliverance  in  the  look,  for  by  trust 
in  Him  as  the  supreme  object  of  love  and  worship, 
they  would  be  lifted  u})  out  of  their  evil  state.  The 
deepest  tides  of  man's  being  are  those  which  are 
swayed  by  his  faith  in  and  love  of  persons,  and  it 
was  upon  faith,  the  commonest  of  all  powers  in  our 
nature,  that  Christ  relied  for  the  deliverance  of 
mankind  from  the  dominion  of  evil.  He  offered 
Himself  to  man  and  for  man,  was  lifted  up  for  them 
on  the  cross  in  the  beauty  of  suffering  holiness  ;  and 
as  love  always  attracts  love,  and  as  goodness 
becomes  a  creative  power  in  those  who  appreciate 
it,  so  all  who  believed  Him,  trusted  Him,  clung 
to  Him  as  the  weak  cling  to  the  strong,  were 
uplifted,  and  changed,  and  transfigured.  Love  not 
only  has  a  dominating  l)ut  an  assimilating  power. 
We  become  like  those  whom  we  fervently  admire 
and  implicitly  obey.  Obedience  in  such  a  case  is 
not  an  obligation,  but  an  inspiration  ;  so  though  in 
Christianity  we  speak  of  the  Law  of  Christ,  it  is 

P 


226  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  lect.  iv. 

not  as  an  external  code  to  which  we  must  conform, 
but  as  a  power  communicated  to  and  operative  in  us. 
It  is  a  law  of  the  spirit  of  life,  a  grace  and  blessed- 
ness of  disposition,  which,  springing  from  gratitude, 
will  manifest  itself  in  holiness  far  exceeding  the 
righteousness  of  a  law,  because  vivified  by  a  charity 
and  mercy  as  boundless  as  that  which  it  adores. 

So  when  our  Lord  inaugurated  His  kingdom.  He 
may  be  said  to  have  proclaimed  in  the  Beatitudes 
His  Law,  for  He  then  declared  the  dispositions  of 
those  who  would  receive  Him,  and  who  as  sons  of 
men  trusting  and  following  Him,  would  be  saved 
and  sanctified  and  glorified  by  the  Son  of  God. 
Now,  though  from  his  first  sermon  to  the  last 
Buddha  is  represented  as  "  instructing  his  disciples, 
inciting  them,  rousing  them,  and  gladdening  them  " 
by  discoursing  of  blessedness,  it  was  not  of  blessed- 
ness in  the  gospel  sense.  It  was  the  blessedness  of 
the  Old  Covenant,  not  of  the  New — the  blessedness, 
not  of  them  who  love  much  because  they  have  been 
forgiven  much,  but  of  them  who  keep  the  law,  and 
tread  "  the  path  which  opens  the  eyes,  bestows  under- 
standing, leads  to  peace  of  mind  and  full  enHghten- 
ment" — the  blessedness  all  who,  w^alking  in  the  Noble 
Eightfold  Way,  must  eventually  reach  Nirvana.^ 

It  is  almost   impossible  to  explain  all  that  is 

^  Dhamma.  Sutta,  2-4  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi.  pp.  146, 
147  ;  Mahavagga,  i.  6.  17-20  ;  ibid.  vol.  xiii.  jjp.  94,  95. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  227 

meant  by  the  Noble  Eightfold  Way,  for  translators 
differ  very  greatly  as  to  the  real  meaning  of  the 
terms  employed,  and  even  when  they  agree,  they 
warn  us  that  the  words,  though  similar  to  our  own, 
do  not  suggest  the  same  realities.  The  word  "  right- 
eousness" and  even  "morality"  never  can  have  on  the 
lips  of  a  true  Buddhist  the  same  signification  which 
they  have  on  ours  ;  for  righteousness,  apart  from 
the  fear  and  love  of  God,  is  an  impossible  concep- 
tion to  us,  and  so  would  unrighteousness,  unless  as  a 
sin  or  an  offence  as^ainst  Him.  Buddhism  has  no 
word  for  'sin'  in  our  sense,  and  therefore  no  words  for 
'  holiness '  or  '  saint.'  "  Sin  is  simply  pain,  demerit, 
and  a  saint  is  one  freed  from  what  causes  pain."  "  A 
righteous  act  is  one  accumulating  merit,  an  un- 
righteous act  one  producing  suffering^  ^  The  Eight- 
fold Way,  interpreted  by  the  legends,  presents  us 
with  the  Buddhist  conception  of  the  perfect  man, 
and  were  we  to  take  its  constituents  as  equivalents 
to  the  Christian  qualities  suggested  by  the  words, 
we  should  find  outlined  a  character  which  here  or 
anywhere  must  be  its  own  beatitude,  but  whose 
blessedness  is  as  completely  beyond  the  reach  of 
sinful  man  as  flying  is  beyond  the  power  of  a  bird 
whose  pinions  are  broken. 

But  Eight  Views  or  Belief,  Kight  Resolve,  Right 
Speech,  Right  Work,  Right  Livelihood,  Right  Exer- 

1  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism,  p.  124. 


/ 


228  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

cise,  Eight  Mindfulness,  and  Right  TvanquiUity, 
must  be  taken,  not  as  we  accept,  but  as  Buddhists 
understand,  the  phrases.  By  right  behef  they  nn- 
questionably  meant  belief  in  Buddha  and  the  Four 
Verities  ;  right  resolve  included  abandonment  of  all 
domestic  and  social  duties  ;  right  speech  was  the 
recitation  or  publication  of  the  dharma;  right 
work  was  specially  that  of  a  monk ;  right  liveli- 
hood that  of  living  on  alms ;  right  exercise  tended 
to  the  suppression  of  all  individuality ;  right  mind- 
fulness was  habitual  contemplation  upon  the  im- 
purity and  impermanence  of  human  nature;  and 
right  tranquillity  was  ecstasy.^  To  have  substituted 
even  this  in  the  Hindu  mind  for  a  righteous- 
ness only  ceremonial  and  superstitious  was  indeed 
reformation ;  but  as  an  idea  of  Perfection  it  is 
manifestly  not  only  different  from,  but  greatly 
inferior  to,  the  Christian  ideal.  Perfection  in  the 
case  of  Buddhism  meant  extinction  of  feehng 
and  consciousness ;  in  Christianity  it  meant  har- 
monious and  full  development  of  being  and  char- 
acter. In  Christianity  perfection  meant  conformity 
to  an  Exemplar  outside  and  above  it,  the  likeness  of 
a  child  to  a  Father  in  heaven ;  but  Buddhism  could 
conceive  of  no  exemplar,  and  the  man  who  would 
be  perfect  must  strive  in  entire  self-dependence  to 

^  Frankfurter,  App.  to  Wordsworth's  Bampton  Lectures  on  The  One 
Religion,  p.  348.;  Stitta  Nipata,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  p.  &.>. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  229 

be  so.  In  Buddhism  the  standard  is  piu-ely  human  ; 
in  Christianity,  while  the  measure  required  is  rela- 
tive, the  standard  is  divine.  So  in  Buddhism  the 
Arhat  is  content,  and  we  never  hear  from  him  the 
confession,  "  I  count  not  myself  to  have  attamed  I  " 
but  in  Christianity  the  more  saintly  the  life,  the 
greater  the  discontent  with  it.  The  higher  we  rise 
the  more  urgent  is  the  desire  to  press  on.  Christi- 
anity therefore  opens  up  the  avenue  to  perpetual 
improvement,  and  inspiring  us  with  a  motive  to  pro- 
gress which  can  never  lose  its  power,  it  provides 
for  the  soul  the  only  rest  that  will  satisfy  it.  "  In 
life,"  says  Pascal,  "  we  are  ever  believing,  we  seek 
repose,  but  what  we  really  crave  is  agitation."  "  It 
is  the  contest  that  pleases  us,  and  not  the  victory ; 
the  pursuit  and  not  the  possession."^  Absolute 
truth  and  goodness  is  the  perfection  of  divine 
blessedness ;  the  never-ceasing  pursuit  of  it  is 
human  blessedness.  The  goal  we  can  never  reach, 
but  the  watchword,  "Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee!" 
seems  to  solve  for  us  the  problem  of  human  destiny, 
for  by  directing  us  to  the  life  of  perpetual  achieve- 
ment, it  assures  us  of  a  never-ending  blessedness. 

The  Buddhist  goal  of  perfection  and  the  law  or 
way  that  led  to  it,  was  by  Buddha  himself  or  his 
earliest  disciples  considered  to  be  beyond  the  power 
of  many   to  attain  to.      His  followers    w^ere  soon 

'  Pensees,  vol.  ii.  p.  34  ;  vol.  i.  p.  205  ;  ed.  Faugere. 


230  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

ranged  into  classes  according  to  their  ability  to 
tread  the  paths  which  led  to  liberty.  His  law, 
therefore,  unlike  the  Ten  Commandments  of  the 
Bible,  which  are  binding  on  all  without  distinction, 
was  not  a  law  for  all  men.  Each  one  was  at  liberty 
to  take  on  him  as  many  or  as  few  obligations  as  he 
pleased,  according  to  his  resolve  to  continue  in  the 
world,  or  to  abandon  it,  and  having  abandoned  it 
according  to  his  resolve  to  seek  after  Arhatship 
and  aspire  to  Nirvana.^  Upon  those  who,  conforming 
outwardly,  yet  remained  in  their  secular  callings, 
was  enjoined  abstinence  from  the  five  gross  sins, 
of  killing,  theft,  adultery,  falsehood,  taking  intoxi- 
cating drinks — already,  with  the  exception  of  the 
last,  made  binding  on  them  by  the  Hindu  religion. 
By  refraining  from  these,  and  by  serving  and 
maintaining  the  monks,  even  the  laity  could  win 
for  themselves  a  happy  re-birth  into  some  world 
hereafter.  Those  wiser  ones,  again, ^  who,  con- 
vinced of  the  evil  and  danger  of  secular  life,  had 
abandoned  their  homes,  and  entered  the  Order 
that  by  meditation  and  abstraction  they  might 
further  work  out  their  deliverance,  bound  them- 
selves, in  addition  to  observance  of  these  five  com- 
mands, to  eat  only  at  stated  times,  to  use  neither 
perfume  nor  ornament,  to  sleep   only  on  mats  on 

^  Spence  Hardy,  Manual  of  Buddhism,  p.  506. 
^  Sutta  Nipata,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  pp.  33,  46,  67 
Dhammapada,  284. 


LBCT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  231 

the  ground,  to  abstain  from  dancing,  music,  and 
worldly  shows,  to  own  and  accept  neither  silver  nor 
gold,  and  to  be  perfectly  chaste.  For  those  wisest 
of  all,  who  had  not  only  abandoned  the  world 
in  order  to  lead  the  better  life  of  the  religious,  but 
who  had  strenuously  resolved,  in  following  the 
religious  life,  to  attain  to  Arhatship  and  Nirvana, 
there  remained  the  much  more  severe  observance  of 
what  was  called  the  "  Seven  Jewels  of  the  Law,"  ^ 
the  last  and  most  important  use  to  which  the  Noble 
Eightfold  Way  could  be  put.  For  by  earnestly 
struggling,  meditating,  mastering  their  precepts, 
the  "Ten  Fetters"  of  Delusion,  Doubt,  Depend- 
ence on  Ceremonial  Kites,  Sensuality,  Hatred,  Love 
of  life  on  Earth,  Craving  for  life  in  Heaven,  Pride, 
Self- Righteousness,  and  Ignorance,  would  one  by 
one  be  broken,  and  long  self-abnegation  involved 
in  the  process  would  work  out  its  full  reward. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  in  all  these  classes  or 
stages  the  practice  of  virtue  and  the  cultivation  of 
purity  were  considered  fundamental.  In  the  preach- 
ing ascribed  to  Buddha  great  stress  is  laid  on  Enlight- 
enment, and  on  Meditation,  which  leads  to  it ;  but 
at  the  base  of  all  this  system,  as  the  first  indis- 
pensable factor  in  securing  perfection,  was  Upright- 
ness. In  the  Suttas  this  formula  constantly  recurs  : 
''  Great  is  the  advantage,  great  the  fruit  of  earnest 

^  Sacred  Books  of  the  JEast,  vol.  xi.  pp.  60,  61. 


232  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

contemplation  when  set  round  with  upright  con- 
duct. Great  is  the  fruit,  great  the  advantage  of 
intelhgence  when  set  round  with  earnest  contem- 
plation. The  mind  set  round  with  intelligence  is 
free  from  the  greatest  evils,  that  is  to  say,  from 
sensuality,  from  individuality,  from  delusion,  and 
from  ignorance."  Again,  "  Righteousness,  earnest 
thought,  wisdom  and  freedom  sublime  :  these  are 
the  truths  realised  by  Gotama  far-renowned."  ^  The 
uprightness,  or  righteousness  required,  presents,  as 
the  Moral  Law  of  Scripture  does,  a  much  broader 
range  of  influence  than  the  words  would  indicate. 
In  prohibiting  lying,  Buddha  enjoined  avoidance  of 
all  offensive  language,  and  of  every  word  that  could 
sever  men.  He  also  instructed  his  disciples  not  only 
to  avoid  showing  enmity  to  those  who  hated  them, 
but  to  overcome  evil  with  good.  Purity  again  in 
his  regard  meant  purity  not  of  word  and  deed  alone, 
but  of  thought  and  feeling.  In  some  respects  his 
precepts  go  beyond  the  Moral  Law.  The  command 
not  to  kill  included  respect  not  for  human  beings 
only,  but  for  every  creature  that  had  life.  He  not 
only  condemned  drunkenness,  but  demanded  total 
abstinence  as  essential.  The  precept  "  Do  not  com- 
mit adultery  "  was  understood  in  our  sense  of  it  only 
by  the  laity  ;  for  the  religious,  marriage  was  not  an 
honourable  estate,  but  one  polluted  and  polluting. 

^  Mahaparanibhana  Sutta,  cap.  iv.  4  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  233 

Unlike  the  Moral  Law,  which  recognises  everything 
that  is  natural  and  sanctifies  it,  the  rule  of  Buddha 
in  these  respects  was  unnatural  in  its  restrictions. 
Tt  pronounced  common  and  unclean  what  God  Him- 
self has  cleansed  ;  and,  as  always  happens  when  men 
add  to  the  commandments  of  God  in  one  direction, 
they  are  sure  to  take  away  from  them  in  another. 
So  Buddha's  rule,  though  excellent  in  that  it  lays 
its  control  not  on  conduct  only,  but  on  thought  and 
feeling,  is  essentially  negativ^e  and  defective.  It 
does  not  cover  man's  whole  nature,  nor  provide  for 
his  every  possible  relation.  Ignoring  God,  it  is 
therefore  interpreted  by  no  positive  and  active 
principle  of  goodness.  It  is  inspired  by  no  sense 
of  duty,  for  it  recognises  in  the  universe  no  superior 
to  whom  anything  is  due,  and,  unconscious  of  any 
benefit,  it  owns  no  gratitude.  Consequently  un- 
righteousness, as  an  offence  to  or  an  outrage  upon  a 
better  or  kinder  being  than  self,  is  not  in  all  its 
range  of  view.  Unrighteousness  is  only  a  calamity 
to  be  avoided  or  an  imprudence  not  to  be  repeated. 
Struggling  to  get  out  of  the  meshes  of  an  evil  net, 
the  Buddhist  might  bewail  his  mistake,  his  folly,  or 
his  feeble  or  ill-directed  effort,  but  he  was  totally 
unconscious  of  rebellion  or  inerratitude.  ^ 

Moreover,  in  a  universe  where  Moi-meme  is  the 
only  god,  and  a  man's  own  Nirvana  his  only  goal, 

^  Saint-Hilaire,  Le  Bouddha,  etc.,  pp.  149,  153,  161. 


234  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA :  lect.  iv. 

the  primary  motive  of  action  can  rise  no  higher 
than  fear  or  self-interest.  Apparently  strong,  it  is 
really  essentially  weak  in  regard  to  the  maintenance 
of  proper  relations  to  others  demanded  by  the 
second  table  of  the  Moral  Law.  The  suffering  caused 
to  others  through  his  failure  to  fulfil  the  law,  or  by 
conscious  transgression  of  it,  makes  no  impression 
on  the  Buddhist,  except  in  as  far  as  it  interferes 
with  his  pursuit  of  perfection.  Others  are  regarded 
only  as  occasions  of  acquiring  merit.  Instead  of 
serving  them  as  Christ  enjoins  us  to  do,  the 
Buddhist  serves  himself  of  them.  It  is  a  religion 
of  every  man  for  himself.  It  has  been  likened  to 
Positivism,  but  it  falls  far  short  of  it,  as  lacking 
the  altruism  which  Positivism  has  borrowed  from 
Christianity.^  Positivism  refuses  to  do  anything 
for  the  glory  of  God,  but  it  lays  great  stress  upon 
the  duty  of  living  for  humanity.  It  makes  the 
great  mistake  of  supposing  that  the  claims  of  God 
must  be  distinct  from  or  antagonistic  to  the  interests 
of  humanity.  It  does  not  recognise  that  they  are 
identical — that  the  more  the  life  is  reserved  for 
God,  the  more  of  it  is  communicated  to  our  fellow - 
men,  and  that  he  must  love  the  Lord  our  God  with 
all  our  hearts,  before  we  can  love  our  neighbour  as 
ourselves.  The  Positivist  scheme  of  morals,  how- 
ever, is  vastly  superior  to  that  of  Buddhism,  for  in 

1  Wordsworth,  Bampton  Lectures  on  The  One  Keligion,  p.  91. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  235 

it  the  goal  is  Nirvana,  without  any  reference  to 
the  good  of  any  other,  and  the  decided  advantage  of 
any  action  consists  wholly  and  solely  in  the  conse- 
quences to  the  actor  himself. 

Dr.  Oldenberg  has  pointed  out  to  us  that  the 
much-vaunted  charity  of  Buddhism,  illustrated  in 
the  legends  by  the  self-immolation  of  Buddha  to 
satisfy  the  hunger  of  a  wild  beast,  though  it  "sways 
toward  does  not  even  touch  the  law  of  Christian 
charity."  ^  Buddha's  Bule,  though  benevolent  to  the 
extent  that  it  would  harm  no  one,  and  beneficent 
in  respect  of  doing  good,  knew  nothing  of  Chris- 
tianity's enthusiastic  passionate  desire  to  help  and 
work  for  others."  It  was  the  interest  of  the  true 
Buddhist  to  forgive  liis  enemies  and  not  to  hate 
them,^  but  he  never  considered  himself  bound  to 
love  them.  It  was  good  policy  for  one  pressing  on 
to  Arhatship  to  do  good  works,  and  he  would  go 
far  out  of  his  way  to  do  them ;  but  he  never  went 
about  doing  good  as  one  who  found  his  reward  in 
the  opportunity  and  power  to  do  it.  He  was 
among  men  not  as  one  who  ministers  and  gives  his 
life  to  ransom  others.  His  very  self-abnegation 
had  egoism  at  its  core.     Between  the  Christian  sur- 

'  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  289. 

^  Meta  Sutta,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  p.  25. 

^  See  the  story  given  in  Mahavagga,  x.  2.  3-20  ;  also  the  story  of 
Kunala,  Asoka's  son — this  latter  said  by  Burnonf,  in  his  Introduction, 
to  be  of  modern  origin.     Quoted  by  Oldenberg,  p.  290. 


236  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

render  of  self  to  God  for  the  sake  of  others,  and 
the  Buddhist  surrender  to  others  for  the  sake  of 
self,  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  The  first  springs 
from  a  sense  of  indebtedness,  a  consciousness  of 
mercy  unmerited,  but  freely  bestowed ;  but  the 
other,  having  no  sense  of  forgiveness  received,  has 
no  real  mercy  to  show.  The  mercy  of  God  is  the 
spring  of  all  true  human  compassion,  for  he  who 
truly  receives  it  finds  it  impossible  to  withhold  it. 
It  is,  alas  1  bestowed  upon  many  who  are  too  full  of 
themselves  to  take  it  in,  and  in  all  such  cases  it  is 
lost,  but  in  every  heart  that  is  conscious  of  it,  it 
becomes  a  disposition  to  show  kindness  that  cannot 
be  counted  by  acts,  and  that  never  will  ask,  "  How 
oft  shall  my  brother  offend  me  and  I  forgive  him  ?  " 
Buddhism  was  friendly  in  its  benevolence,  but  it 
never  was  actively  charitable,  in  taking  upon  it  the 
infirmities  and  bearing  the  sicknesses  of  others.  It 
has  no  passionate  desire  to  gather  the  wrecked  and 
blighted  of  humanity  and  to  bind  up  their  bleeding 
wounds  and  sores.  On  the  contrary,  in  its  pursuit 
of  Nirvana  it  passed  by  all  such  in  the  path  of 
life,  precisely  as  the  priest  and  Levite  passed  the 
wounded  man  on  their  way  to  Jericho.  It  not 
only  was  selfish,  but  even  cruel  in  this  pursuit, 
for  a  woman  in  difficulty  or  in  distress  was  not  to 
be  helped  by  a  passing  monk.  The  poor  and  the 
diseased  and  the  lost  were  not  to  be   considered, 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  237 

for  they  were  simply  suffering  the  due  reward  of 
their  deeds  ;  but  the  yellow-robed  monks,  healthy 
and  shining- faced,  were  to  be  the  recipients  of  the 
bounty  of  the  charitable  and  the  proper  objects  of 
their  attention.  One  of  its  beatitudes  runs  thus  : 
"  Not  to  serve  the  foolish,  but  to  serve  the  wise  ; 
to  honour  those  worthy  of  honour.  This  is  the 
greatest  blessing."'  Almsgiving  was  indeed  en- 
couraged ;  but  alms  were  only  to  be  bestowed  upon 
the  worthy— on  the  monk  and  Arhat — not  on  the 
outcast  and  the  leper,  whose  miserable  condition 
indicated  their  unworthiness.  If  the  animal  crea- 
tion profited  by  their  charity,  which  they  refused 
to  their  suffering  fellow-men,  it  was  from  a  selfish 
motive  :  for  the  parent,  or  wife,  or  child,  whom  by 
Buddha's  rule  they  were  obliged  to  help,  might  be 
lookuig  at  them,  for  all  they  knew,  out  of  the  eyes 
of  the  beast,  and  not  to  fulfil  the  precept  would 
bring  to  themselves  both  harm  and  loss."  Tested 
even  socially,  therefore,  the  Rule  of  Buddha  is 
defective,  and  this  because  it  is  not  founded  on 
religion.  The  cause  of  God  is  eternally  the  caust 
of  man.  In  the  Fatherhood  of  God  is  essentially- 
involved  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man.  Christ 
is    before    us   as   the    representative  of  humanity, 

'  So  Dr.  Rhys  Davids,  BiuhUiism,  p.  12().  FausboU  translates, 
"  Not  cultivating  the  society  of,"  etc.  (Sutta  Nipata,  Sacred  Books  of 
the  Ead,  vol.  x.  pp.  43,  44.) 

-  Dr.  Edkins,  Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  204. 


238  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

because  He  is  the  representative  of  Deity.  Refusal 
to  acknowledge  His  supremacy  will  disturb  all 
human  relationships  and  throw  them  into  disorder. 
We  learn  to  do  to  others  as  Christ  hath  done 
to  us :  the  sense  of  our  indebtedness  will  be  the 
measure  of  our  charity.  For  this  end  He  has 
chosen  the  poorest  and  the  most  wretched  as  His 
memorials,  and  He  has  said,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have 
done  it  unto  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye 
have  done  it  unto  Me." 

To  do  justice  to  Buddha's  way,  however,  we 
must  remember  that  the  path  of  uprightness  (sila) 
was  only  the  first  part  of  it.  Without  external 
rectitude,  inward  integrity  would  be  impossible ; 
but  external  rectitude,  without  self-concentration, 
would  be  a  foundation  without  a  structure.  "  A 
man  must  endeavour  to  keej)  constant  watch  over 
liis  thoughts,  for  our  whole  existence  dejoends  upon 
our  thinking."^  was  one  of  the  noble  maxims  of 
Buddhism.  It  is  to  its  credit  as  a  religion  that 
it  recognised  that  only  a  small  part  of  our  real  life 
can  be  expressed  in  words  and  deeds,  that  the  true 
sphere  of  morality  and  human  temptation  was 
within,  and  that  it  instructed  men  to  keep  the 
heart  with  all  diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues 
of  life.  Buddha  seems  to  have  felt,  and  to  have  in 
part  at  least  expressed,   the  contrast  and  conflict 

^  Dhamniapada,  157-8-9,  379-80  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  i. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  239 

between  the  seen  and  the  unseen  in  our  life.  He 
recognised,  it  is  true,  no  soul,  and  the  warfare  be- 
tween the  flesh  and  the  spirit  was  not  found  in  his 
philosophy,  but  he  had  to  account  for  the  antagon- 
ism which  every  one  feels  between  our  animality  and 
our  humanity,  between  what  is  pressing  or  drag- 
ging us  down,  and  what  in  us  struggles  to  be  free. 
The  mental  and  moral  qualities  were  of  far  more 
value  than  the  physical ;  the  invisible  was  of  more 
consequence,  because  more  real,  than  the  visible. 
The  "mindful  and  thoughtful  man"  was  the  man 
who  "  looked  within  and  not  without,"  and  so 
Buddha's  insistence  upon  the  "noble  earnestness 
of  meditation"  as  indispensable  to  deliverance  is 
a  grand  testimony  to  the  truth,  which  no  philo- 
sophy of  materialism  can  falsify,  that  we  are  far 
more  concerned  with  what  we  think  and  feel  and 
imagme  than  with  what  we  touch  and  we  taste, 
and  that  our  thoughts  and  feelings  go  far  more 
into  the  weaving  of  our  character  than  do  our  words 
and  works. 

It  is  alleged  that  in  Pali  literature  the  word 
for  meditation  (samadhi),  by  which  alone  inner 
purity  can  be  attained,  bears  to  the  word  for  "  up- 
rightness "  the  same  relation  as  that  which  faith  in 
the  New  Testament  bears  to  works.^     By  upright- 

1  T.    W.   Rhys  Davids,  in   the   Introduction  to  his   translation  of 
the  Keto  Khila  Sutta  (Barrenness  and  Bondage),  Sacred  Books  of  the 


240  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

ness,  delusion  is  cleared  away,  and  by  pondering 
constantly  the  five  principal  kinds  of  meditations — 
Love,  Pity,  Joy,  the  Impurity  of  the  Body,  and 
the  state  of  Serene  Indifference  to  what  men  think 
bad  or  good — the  man  was  supposed  to  be  re- 
deemed from  all  attachment.^  It  is  very  pathetic 
to  note  this  approach  toward  and  yet  rebound  from 
the  Christian  conception  of  the  function  of  faith  : 
for  faith  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the  world, 
with  its  lust  of  the  flesh,  its  lust  of  the  eye,  and  its 
pride  of  life.  It  is  that  too  which,  because  it  looks 
to  the  unseen  and  eternal,  quenches  all  sordid  or 
inordinate  cleaving  to  life,  which  is  the  root  of  so 

East,  vol.  xi.  p.  222,  says  that  in  reading  it  he  was  irresistibly  reminded 
of  2  Peter  i.  5-9.  The  barrenness  referred  to  in  the  Sutta  is  lack  of  suc- 
cessful effort  to  be  free  from  "  the  Ten  Fetters  "  which  bind  man  to  exist- 
ence, chief  of  which  is  hankering  after  immortality  in  any  form,  or 
without  form.  How  contrasted  is  this  to  St.  Peter's  thought !  "  Give  dili- 
gence to  provide  in  your  faith  earnestness,"  that  it  may  be  an  overcoming 
faitli  ;  but  as  faith  without  knowledge  is  .superstition,  and  earnest- 
ness misdirected  will  do  harm,  provide  in  earnestness  "knowledge"; 
and  as  knowledge  ungoverned  will  degenerate  into  conceit,  provide  in  it 
"  temperance  " ;  but  temperance  must  be  inspired  with  "  patience,"  bent 
on  God's  glory,  not  personal  gain  ;  "  godliness  "  thus  attained,  "  brotherly 
kindness"  will  manifest  itself,  and  then  "charity"  toward  every  creature 
— that  is  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  summum  bonum,  the 
knowledge  in  which  we  are  neither  to  be  barren  nor  unfruitful.  No  more 
forcible  illustration  of  the  utter  contradiction  between  the  two  religions 
could  be  found  than  this  verbal  analogy  of  "  barrenness  and  bondage." 

1  Compare  St.  Paul,  Phil.  iv.  8  :  "  Finally,  brethren,  whatsoever 
things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honourable,  whatsoever  things  are 
just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatso- 
ever things  are  gracious  ;  if  there  be  any  virtue,  if  there  be  any  praise, 
think  on  these  things." 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  241 

much  evil  and  the  cause  of  so  much  suffering.    The 
apostles,  instructed  of  Christ,  have  taught  us  that 
God's  precious  gift  of  life  is  ours  to  use  :  that  to 
keep  it,  to  will  to  save  and  to  find  it,  as  if  it  were  an 
■  end  and  not  a  means,  is  to  miss  and  to  lose  it ;  while 
to  use  it,  be  willing  to  lose  it  for  some  higher  good, 
is  to  keep  it  unto  life  eternal.     Now  Buddha  had  a 
glimpse  of  this  truth,  that  lust  of  existence  was  the 
root  of  bitterness  in  humanity.     He  condemned  as 
heresies  the  worldly  lust  which  says,  "  Let  us  eat 
and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die,"  and  the  lust  of 
other- worldliness  which  dreams  that  the  life  beyond 
will  yield  as  good,  or  better  pleasures  than  this 
one ;  ^  but  the  two  last  of  his  five  principal  medi- 
tations show  how  far  apart  and  far  short  of  the 
victory    of   faith  was    his    idea    of  the   victory   of 
samadhi.     The  apostles'  aim  was  to  get  rid  of  lust ; 
but  his  aim  was  to  get  rid  of  life.      The  apostles 
mortified  the  members  which  are  upon  the  earth, 
anger,  wrath,  malice,  evil  concupiscence,  and  covet- 
ousness,  just  that  the  higher  life,  the  life  hid  with 
Christ    in    God,    might   grow   and   brighten;    but 
Buddha,  in  "cleansing  himself  from  all  impurity, 
little    by    little,    moment    by    moment,    piece    by 
piece,""  sought  to  escape  from  the  last  shadow  of 

1  Dhamma-Kakka-ppavuttana  Sutta,  6,  note  ;   Sacred  Books  of  the. 
East,  vol.  xi.  p.  148. 

-  Dhammapada,  239  ;  ibid.  vol.  x.  p.  1. 

Q 


242  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

personal  existence  into  the  blessedness  of  absolute 
unconsciousness,  if  not  of  utter  extinction. 

For  this  seems    clearly  revealed  in  the  last  or 
highest  stage   to  which   the  paths   of  uprightness 
and   meditation    were    supposed   to   conduct,    that 
of  enlightenment  [fcmna)  or  spiritual  abstraction, 
alleged  to  be  equivalent  to  prayer  in  other  religions. 
The  highest  Christian  conception  of  prayer  is  that 
of  communion  with    God  ;    the   highest   Buddhist 
conception  of  panna  is  of  a  state  of  clairvoyance 
or    ecstatic    insio^ht    in    which     "men    hear    with 
clear  and   heavenly   ear,  surpassing  that  of  men," 
and  "  comprehend  by  their  own  hearts  the  hearts  of 
other  men,"  and  "  recall  their  own  various  states  in 
former  existences,"  and  "see  with  pure  and  heavenly 
vision  the  procession  of  other  beings  as  they  pass 
from  life  to  life."  ^     Buddha  evidently  was  believed 
by  his  disciples  to  have  possessed  this  power,  and 
probably  his  own  long  fasting  and  severe  austerities, 
practised  hi  the  beginning  of  his  career,  acting  upon 
a  highly  nervous   system.,  made   him  a  believer  in 
the  reality   of  this  perfect  insight  and  ecstasy  of 
contemplation,  and  that  it  might  be  acquired  by  all 
who  were   sufficiently   persevering   in    pursuit    of 
Arhatship.-      It  must  be   observed,  however,   that 

1  Akankheya  Sutta  ;  Sacred  BooJcs  of  the  East,  vol.  xi.  p.  210. 

2  If  the  legends  are  to  be  followed,  he  believed  in  the  miraculous 
power  which  resulted  from  it  (see  Mahaparanibhana  Sutta,  i.  33, 
and    iii.    22  ;    also    Mahavagga,    i.    20.    24),    but    he    condemned  the 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHIRST.  243 

he  does  not  appear  to  have  regarded  this  as  an 
experience  to  be  enjoyed  by  the  Arhat  in  per- 
petuity ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  the  condition 
preceding  final  and  eternal  deliverance,  and  so  it 
may  be  taken  as  the  Buddhist  conception  of 
Euthanasia. 

The  Christian  in  the  highest  and  supreme 
moment  of  life  aspires,  if  conscious,  after  the  beatific 
vision.  It  is  no  Brahmanic  absorption  into  the 
absolute  that  he  desh"es,  but  likeness  to  and  com- 
munion with  God.  The  consciousness  of  personality 
was  never  more  intense,  the  conviction  was  never 
stronger  that  he  has  been  divinely  created  and 
trained  as  a  separate  character.  By  long  and  prayer- 
ful use  of  the  means  of  grace  he  has  sought  to  bring, 
and  to  keep  himself  under  the  control  of  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  and  he  hopes  that  the  next  change  will 
completely  free  him  from  every  trace  of  "  sensuality, 
delusion,  and  ignorance,"  and  purge  away  from  the 
soul  the  last  taint  of  selfishness.  By  long  and 
sore  experiences  he  has  learned  that  selfishness  is 
the  evil  root  whence  spring  all  the  suffering  and 
sorrow  that  poison  life.  He  can  therefore  under- 
stand and  sympathise  with  the  Buddhist  anathema 
upon    "  individuality,"    if   by    that    is    meant    the 

exercise  of  that  power  for  self-glorification  or  for  paltry  gain  (Kulla- 
vagga,  V.  8.  2  ;  also  vii.  1,  2,  3  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vols.  xi. 
xii.  xiii.). 


244  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

endeavour  to  abstract  our  life  from  the  solidarity 
of  humanity,  to  use  it  for  our  own  ends,  and  to 
grudge  what  of  it  God  uses  for  the  rest  of  His 
family.  This  is  the  Christian  conception  of  the 
cause  of  death  and  all  its  woe,  and  from  this  a 
Christian  saint  ever  prays  and  struggles  to  be 
free  ;  but  it  is  not  from  "  individuality  "  in  this 
sense  that  the  Buddhist  Arhat  seeks  deliverance. 
He  is  bent  upon  the  very  thing  from  which  the 
Christian  is  anxious  to  escape.  He  wants  to  isolate 
and  withdraw  his  portion  of  life  from  the  sum  of 
humanity,  to  abstract  himself  from  the  mass,  to  save 
his  own  soul ;  and  now  that  he  nears  the  goal,  his 
whole  energies  are  directed,  not  to  purify  and 
strengthen  and  ennoble  the  personal  self  for  better 
service,  by  minding  what  is  pure  and  lovely,  and 
by  striving  unceasingly  after  what  is  right  and 
true,  but  by  crushing  out  every  feeling  into 
apathy,  every  thought  into  vacuity,  so  as  to  get 
rid  of  personality,  identity,  and  the  very  faintest 
germ  of  life.^ 

And  this  is  the  goal  of  a  race  that  has  extended 
not  only  over  the  whole  range  of  the  present,  but 
over  that  of  many  existences ;  this  is  the  victory 
which  crowns  a  fight  that  has  continued  through- 
out untold  ages.  Truly  there  is  something  very 
pathetic  in  the  conception  of  a  struggle  after  saint- 

^  See  Gough,  Philosophy  of  the  Uimnishads,  pp.  267,  268. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  245 

hood  so  prolonged,  by  one  who,  now  a  god,  now  an 
animal,  now  a  man,  has  never  lost  sight  of  his 
mark,  and  has  ever  pressed  onwards  to  it/  Pro- 
bably we  may  have  something  to  learn  from  it, 
by  way  of  correcting  the  idea  that  true  moral  and 
spiritual  excellence,  perfection,  saintliness,  is  the 
growth  of  a  single  life ;  but  when  the  goal  is 
understood  in  its  bare  reality,  as  implying  not 
destruction  of  selfishness,  but  extinction  of  being, 
surely  the  reproachful  question  is  justified,  "  To 
what  purpose  is  this  waste  1 "  After  millennia  of 
transformation  the  nebula  has  formed  into  a  star, 
and  just  at  the  point  when  it  can  illumine  an 
immensity,  it  disappears  for  ever  from  the  firma- 
ment. Unreckonable  energy  and  thought  have 
been  expended  upon  the  production  of  a  man, 
and  just  when  he  has  reached  the  highest  point 
of  perfection,  and  is  most  serviceable  to  the 
universe,  he  becomes  of  less  value  than  a  vapour 
that  vanishes  away.     Truly 

"  the  crown  of  our  life  as  it  closes 
Is  darkness  ;  the  fruit  thereof  dust," 

and  man  walketh  in  a  vain  show,  he  disquieteth 
himself  in  vain,  if  Buddha's  way  be  the  only  path 
of  deliverance  from  evil,  and  Nirvana  his  only  goal. 
And  so  while  we  ought  to  be  profoundly  thank- 
ful for  the  intellectual  culture  and  moral  earnest- 

^  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  p.  314. 


246  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

ness  that  made  Buddha,  in  spite  of  himself,  the 
reformer  of  Eastern  Asia,  it  is  manifest  that  even 
his  best  doctrines  represent  very  partial  and  one- 
sided truths,  "  dwelt  upon  with  morbid  intensity, 
to  the  exclusion  of  every  fact  which  might  have 
modified  them."  ^  His  fundamental  error  was 
his  wild  attempt  to  explain  the  life  of  man  in- 
dependently of  Divine  control,  and  to  guide  man 
safely  through  the  perils  and  temptations  of 
existence  by  an  ethical  system  founded  on  no 
appeal  to  an  eternal  principle  of  goodness  with- 
out, but  solely  to  self-interest.  The  result,  which 
has  been  to  identify  the  nature  of  man  with 
that  of  the  animals,"  surely  shows  conclusively 
that  religion  and  morality  can  never  be  dissociated 
without  damage  to  both.  A  religion  without 
morality  must  degrade.  A  system  of  morality 
apart  from  religion  will  never  upraise.  Religion 
is  for  man  simply  indispensable.  Deity  is  a 
necessity  to  him,  and  deity  he  must  have,  though 
he  finds  his  god  in  a  tree  or  makes  it  out  of  a 
stone.  Man  lives  by  faith,  faith  in  his  higher 
self,  faith  in  a  higher  than  himself,  who  alone  can 
explain  the  conflict  between  his  actual  condition 
and  the  ideals  which  he  conceives.  The  modern 
Buddhist  assumes  that  "religion   is  the  science  of 

1  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism,  p.  35. 
^  Saint-Hilaire,  Le  Bouddha,  etc.,  p.  162. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  247 

man,  not  the  revelation  of  God,  and  he  considers 
that  comi3rehensions  of  deity  are  of  far  less  conse- 
quence than  just  ideas  of  a  man's  own  self,"  ^  but 
how  can  a  man  have  a  just  idea  of  himself  apart 
from  some  idea  of  God  ?  According  to  his  idea  of 
God  will  be  his  estimate  of  himself  Buddhism,  by 
ignoring  God  and  preaching  morality,  has  certainly 
failed  to  make  its  adherents  moral,  and  it  has 
imparted  to  what  is  noble  in  their  morality  the 
melancholy  of  despair.^ 

Ignoring  God,  it  could  only  form,  or  could  not 
emancipate  itself  from,  a  false  conception  of  man, 
as  part  of  a  material  system  of  things  ;  but  man, 
though  considerably  involved  in  a  material  system, 
never  can  be  interpreted  by  it.  On  the  contrary, 
nature  can  only  be  interpreted  or  properly  under- 
stood in  man  as  the  lower .  in  the  hio'her.  Man  is 
an  antagonist  of  nature  ;  he  is  for  ever  condemning 
its  ways,  coming  into  collision  with  its  laws,  refus- 
ing to  live  its  life.  Out  of  this  collision  emerges 
his  religion,  while  his  morality  originates  in  the 
conflict  between  his  own  sense  of  duty  and  its  life 
of  animal  instinct.^  To  conform  to  nature,  he  must 
become    a   brute,  but    he   has   in   him    ideals   and 

^  Mr.  Alabaster,  Wheel  of  the  Law,  preface,  p.  xvi. 

2  Eitel,  Lectures  on  Buddhism,  pp.  59-70  ;  Saint-Hilaire,  Le  Bouddha, 
p.  156. 

3  Jackson's  Bampton  Lectures,  The  Doctrine  of  Retribution,  p.  284  ; 
Caird's  Philosojihy  of  Beligion,  Croall  Lectures,  pp.  259  seq. 


248  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

capacities  transcending  it,  and  by  exercising  these 
capacities  in  pursuit  of  his  ideals  he  finds  his  life. 
Buddha  confessed  to  an  ideal,  and  wrought  hard  to 
realise  it,  but  alas  for  humanity  when  it  finds  no 
higher  than  self  to  reverence  !  Buddha's  theories 
of  self-culture  and  self-deliverance  reduced  to 
practice  have  proved  most  miserable  failures.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise ;  no  man  is  likely  to  move 
the  ship  in  which  he  sits  by  jDufiing  away  at  the 
sails,  or  to  lift  himself  out  of  the  mire  by  simply 
pulling  away  at  his  boots  ;  and  no  philosophy  of 
self-culture,  self-control,  or  self-rescue,  can  succeed, 
which  ignores  or  refuses  to  acknowledge  man's  in- 
stinct of  worship.  What  he  most  needs  is  not  law, 
not  a  system  of  morality,  not  even  an  example  or 
model  to  copy,  but  inspiration.  He  knows  already 
enough  to  condemn  himself,  and  he  has  examples 
which,  though  far  from  perfect,  quite  sufiice  to 
confound  him.  The  command  to  be  perfect  mocks 
him  as  truly  as  a  command  to  see  would  mock  a 
man  stone-blind.  What  he  does  want  is  a  power- 
ful moral  energy  within  him,  for  lack  of  which  he 
has  to  confess  that  he  cannot  do  the  good  he  would, 
but  is  ever  doing  the  evil  which  he  would  not. 
His  real  wretchedness  is  not  his  suffering  and  death, 
not  even  his  ignorance,  as  Buddha  thought,  but  the 
continual  and  seemingly  ineffectual  struggle  be- 
tween the  animal  and  the  man,  the  flesh  and  the 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  249 

spirit.  And  Buddhism  was  powerless  to  help  him 
here.  It  lacked  the  steady  support  of  the  sense  of 
duty  to  the  highest  and  best,  the  inspiration  that 
comes  from  the  faith  that  the  highest  and  best  is 
for  us,  and  is  with  us,  and  in  us.  Belief  in  God, 
as  Bacon  reminds  us,  is  "  essential  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  our  nobility  and  dignity,  for  certainly  man  is 
of  kin  to  the  beasts  by  his  body,  and  if  he  be  not  of 
kin  to  God  by  his  spirit,  he  is  a  base  and  ignoble 
creature."  So  Buddhism  in  unduly  exalting  man 
to  the  level  of  deity  has  in  reality  degraded  him. 
It  has  indeed  lifted  wild  races  out  of  barbarism, 
but  it  has  failed  to  civilise  them.  It  has  certainly 
not  destroyed  ignorance,  and  the  worship  of  intelli- 
gence has  not  tended  to  its  development  and 
diffusion  among  the  peoples  whom  it  has  swayed. 
Judged  even  by  an  ordinary  standard,  the  monks 
of  either  Southern  or  Northern  Buddhism  are  rarely 
found  to  be  enlightened  men,  while  the  vast 
portion  of  the  peoples  among  whom  these  monks 
are  found  are  about  the  most  ignorant  of  all.  And 
just  as  certainly  has  it  failed  to  make  men  free ; 
for  religion  is  the  guarantee  of  freedom.  "  Where 
there  is  no  place  left  in  human  thought  for  deity, 
there  will  soon  be  none  found  for  human  liberty."  ^ 
The  basis  of  individual  right  is  the  recognition  of  a 

^  Saint-Hilaire,  Le  Bouddha,  p.  xxiii  ;  Hardy's  Eastern  Monachism, 
p.  312. 


\ 


250  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA  :  lect.  iv. 

divine  and  purely  moral  government  of  man.  If 
there  be  no  higher  than  the  highest  man  regarding 
us,  we  have  only  the  right  to  live  under  the  power  of 
the  strongest,  and  the  reign  of  terror  must  succeed 
to  that  of  order  and  law.  The  history  of  Buddhism 
and  the  miserable  governments  associated  with  it 
are  telling  comments  upon  and  confirmation  of  the 
truth  that  belief  in  God  is  necessary  to  secure  the 
rights  of  man.^ 

The  progress  of  the  human  race  will  ever  be  in 
proportion  to  the  strength  of  its  conviction  that  it 
is  governed  and  considered  and  sustained  by  a 
Power  of  infinite  goodness  ever  making  for  right- 
eousness. Such  a  conviction  means  inspiration, 
stimulating  endurance  and  hope,  and  resolute 
struggle  with  evil  in  all  its  forms.  In  it  is  implied 
the  assurance  that  resistance  can  never  be  in  vain, 
that  failure  at  the  very  worst  is  only  partial  success, 
and  that  all  things  work  together  for  good.  The 
time  for  this  gos23el  had  not  come  when  Buddha 
called  upon  the  people  of  India  to  "save  themselves 
from  this  condition  of  wretchedness,"  and  the  result 
of  his  mighty  and  benevolent  efforts  shows  convinc- 
ingly how  urgent  in  human  nature  is  the  demand 

1  "Prefix  the  name  of  God  to  this  Declaration"  (of  the  Eights  of 
Man),  said  Abbe  Gregoire  to  the  National  Assembly  in  1789,  "or  you 
leave  it  without  foundation,  and  make  right  the  equivalent  of  force." 
The  Assembly  refused,  but  events  soon  confirmed  his  judgment. — Baring 
Gould,  Development  of  Belief,  vol.  ii.  p.  88. 


LECT.  IV.  THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESCJS  CHRIST.  251 

for  a  Faith  which  will  not  only  enlighten  but  en- 
liven, which,  recognising  fully  not  only  the  sufter- 
ings  but  the  whole  necessities  of  man,  and  creating 
strong  discontent  with  the  world  as  we  find  it,  and 
even  disgust  of  human  life  as  it  is,  will  quicken  in 
us  persevering  and  deathless  efforts  to  reform  the 
one  and  to  imjDrove  the  other.     Such  a  faith  it  is 
our  privilege  and  awful  responsibility  to  commu- 
nicate.    Our  religion  is  higher  than  our  grasp,  for 
it  is  always  above  us.      Alas  !  in  too  many  cases 
it  is  higher  than   our  aim,  for  we  are  too  inclined 
to  let  it  slip,  and  drift  on  the   tides  of  things  as 
they   are ;    but   mankind   will   never    be    satisfied 
with  a  lower.      "  Apres  I'invention   clu  ble  ils   ne 
veulent  pas  encore  vivre  du  gland."     "  We  needs 
must    love  the  highest  when  we   see   it,"   and  we 
needs  must  strive  to  become  like  the  highest  when 
we  love  it.      The  gospel  preaches  consolation  and 
hope  to  a  suffering  world,  and  promises  grace  upon 
grace  to  every  endeavour  to  heal   and  amend  its 
condition.     Christ  purifies    and   imjoroves   the  life 
which  we  have  by  destroying  only  what  is  evil,  and 
by  preserving  and  training  and  ennobling  all  that  is 
truly  natural.     Inexorably  He  demands  the  extinc- 
tion of  selfishness  in  all  its  forms,  and  He  will  not 
even  permit  us  in  our  prayers  to  think  and  ask  for 
ourselves.     He  reminds  us  that  God  is  our  Father 
in  heaven,  and  what  He  gives  is  for  all  His  family. 


252  THE  DHARMA  OF  BUDDHA.  lect.  iv. 

Sternly  He  denounces  as  sinful  the  attempt  to 
secure  our  own  happiness  here  or  in  a  better  world 
hereafter ;  but  He  offers  the  heaven  and  Nirvana 
which  He  found  in  assuming  the  burdens  of  others, 
and  in  bearing  their  cross.  So  He  assures  us  that 
it  is  worth  our  while  to  live,  even  in  a  world  groan- 
ing and  travailing  with  suffering,  and  that  it  will  be 
worth  our  while,  even  in  agony  if  we  must,  to  die. 
It  is  indeed  a  very  evil  world,  but  as  long  as  we 
draw  our  inspiration  from  Him  we  can  hve  in  it 
not  only  without  damage  but  with  great  profit. 
When  we  offer  ourselves  in  His  strength  for  its 
salvation  we  will  be  saved  from  its  sins.  In  the 
times  of  our  deepest  distress  we  will  have  the  peace 
which  He  left  us,  and  when  most  severely  beset 
and  cast  down  with  sorrow  because  of  what  seems 
baffled  endeavours,  we  have  only  to  think  of  that 
hope  of  ultimate  victory  which  made  Him  to  endure 
to  the  end,  to  rise  into 

"  that  last  large  joy  of  all, 
Trust  in  the  goodness  and  the  love  of  Him 
Who,  making  so  much  well,  will  end  all  well." 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  ^  :    THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

The  designation  "  Church,"  never  wholly  appli- 
cable to  Buddhism  in  the  sense  in  which  Christians 
employ  it,  was  totally  inapplicable  to  the  primitive 
Buddhist  communities.  The  institution  of  the 
Church  is  peculiar  to  Christianity,  for  though  we 
speak  of  the  worship  of  Krishna,  or  the  religion  of 
Baal,  we  never  speak  of  the  church  of  the  one  or 
the  other.  Christianity  is  the  only  religion  which 
has  created  a  society  which  no  political  revolution 
can  destroy,  and  no  civilisation,  however  advanced, 
can  outlive.  It  may  change  its  form,  or  express 
itself  in  several  co-existent  forms ;  but  it  is  so 
adapted  to  the  nature  and  necessities  of  man  that 
it  is  properly  described,  in  its  relation  to  his 
present  condition,  as  divine  and  everlasting. 

Though  the  Church  is  the  creation  of  Christ 
and  the  fruit  of  His  mission,  the  idea  of  it  had 
been  suggested  to  the  world  long  ages  before  He 

'  Sarujha,  originally  an  assembly  (of  disciples  gathered  around  a 
Hindu  sage).  In  Buddhism,  the  entire  fraternity  (like  the  Order  of 
Francis  or  Dominic). — Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism,  p.  176. 


254  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

came.  "  Ecclesia  "  is  peculiarly  a  New  Testament 
word,  but  there  are  found  in  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures  plain  foreshadowings  of  the  reality  repre- 
sented by  it.  In  Abraham,  "  called  "  out  from  his 
country  and  kindred,  that  he  might  be  separated 
unto  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  we  have  the  first  pre- 
intimation  of  the  Church.  In  relation  to  other 
nations,  his  descendants  were  the  "peculiar  people" 
and  Ecclesia  of  Jehovah,  and  when  as  a  nation  they 
failed  to  embody  and  express  the  universal  truths, 
which  it  is  the  Church's  function  to  communicate 
for  the  blessino;-  of  all  the  world,  there  was  called 
out  from  them,  or  rather  there  was  formed  within 
them,  "  the  remnant,"  so  often  referred  to  by  Isaiah 
and  the  subsequent  prophets  ;  and  in  this  spiritual 
community  and  fellowship,  dissociated  from  the 
national  religion,^  were  conserved  and  perpetuated 
the  truths  and  ideals  from  which  they  had  fallen 
away.  After  the  Captivity,  in  the  rise  of  the  syna- 
gogue system  of  ^vorship,  there  was  provided  an 
organisation,  whose  essential  details  Christ  and 
His  apostles  in  instituting  the  Church  could  either 
adopt  or  copy ;  and  there  can  be  no  question  that 
from  out  this  synagogue  system  the  Christian 
Church  emerged,  and  that  even  to-day  it  reflects 
some  of  its  peculiar  features. 

The  Church  was   the  fruit  of  (Christianity,  but 

^  Robertson  Smith,  Froj'lids  of  Israel,  p.  275. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  255 

the  Sangha  was  the  root  out  of  which  Buddhism 
sprang.  In  a  Sangha  its  founder  Hved  and  learned 
and  taught,  till  as  Buddha  he  founded  his  own  ; 
but  just  as  he  gave  a  new  significance  to  the 
doctrines  in  which  he  had  been  instructed,  so  he 
gave  the  Sangha  an  application  which  accounts  for, 
though  it  does  not  justify,  the  designation  often 
accorded  to  it  of  a  church.  As  an  order  without 
worship,  a  brotherhood  without  any  recognition  of 
the  uniting  Fatherhood  in  heaven,  a  confraternity 
in  wdiich  seniority  was  assigned  only  to  age,^  and 
whose  leaders  never  pretended  to  hold  any  priestly 
office  or  to  exercise  any  hierarchical  authority,  the 
Sangha  at  first  and  for  long  was  not  a  church  ;  yet 
when  we  examine  its  constitution  and  aims  we 
need  not  wonder  that  the  religious  instincts  of 
Buddhists,  proving  stronger  than  their  creed,  should 
have  developed  their  Sangha  into  something  like  a 
church,  with  a  cult  which,  at  first  consisting  only 
of  veneration  for  his  images  and  relics,  for  long- 
lias  been  almost  second  to  none  in  the  world  for 
solemnity  and  dignity  and  pomp.- 

We  have  seen  that  philosophic  schools  and 
religious  sects  originating  in  secessions  from  the 
national  religion  abounded  in  India  lono-  before 
Buddha's    day.       In    the    Gangetic    valley,   as    in 

^  Kullavagtf.i,  vi.  2.  3,  4  ;  Sacral  Boohs  of  the  East,  vol.  xx. 
2  Weber,  Indian  Literature,  p.  30(3. 


256  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA :  lect.  v. 

Greece,  the  new  sages  attracted  their  disciples  by 
the  fame  of  their  teaching,  but  there,  not  as  in 
Greece,  the  disciples  lived  with  their  masters  apart, 
and  distinguished  from  the  world  by  peculiar  dress 
and  manners.  Of  Monachism,  an  early  outgrowth 
of  Hindu  religion,  and  indeed  its  essential  adjunct, 
as  being  the  state  which  marked  the  maturity  and 
completion  of  a  good  man's  earthly  life,  there  were 
already  many  forms,  all  held  in  high  respect  by  the 
people.  Celibacy  and  mendicancy  were  common  to 
all  Sanghas,  but  in  regard  to  vows  of  silence,  and  fast- 
ing, and  self-torture,  they  differed  greatly  from  one 
another.  The  majority  of  them  were  Brahman  in 
their  constitution  and  in  their  recognition  of  caste  : 
but  long  before  the  rise  of  Buddhism  the  Sraman 
fraternities,  founded  on  the  non-recognition  of  caste, 
were  quite  equal  to  the  purest  Brahman  ones  in 
public  esteem.  Now  in  organising  the  Sakya-putta- 
Samanas,  the  ■  designation  by  which  his  disciples 
were  first  known  by  the  people,  Buddha  adopted 
many  features  and  details  of  discipline  common  to 
all  these  fraternities,  while  yet  the  peculiarity  of 
his  doctrines  gave  to  the  community  of  his  own 
disciples  a  character  quite  distinctive. 

The  Brahman  Orders  believed  that  Brahman s 
only  could  be  finally  saved,  and  Brahman  reformers 
could  only  encourage  inferior  castes  that  came  to 
them  for  enlightenment  by  the  hope  of  possibly 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  257 

securing  a  higher  birth  in  a  future  state.  Buddha, 
however,  considered  all  men  alike  in  respect  of 
need,  so,  knowing  of  only  one  way  of  deliverance, 
he  proclaimed  it  without  distinction,  and,  like  the 
Sramans,  he  opened  his  Sangha  to  all  who  were 
willing  to  submit  to  his  discipline.  Unlike  many 
of  the  Sraman  fraternities,  he  discouraged  the 
life  of  solitude,  and  prohibited  the  practice  of  self- 
torture  and  severe  austerities.  In  ojDposition  to 
the  hated  Nigganthas,  who,  aiming  at  perfection, 
went  about  with  only  the  light  and  air  for  their 
clothing,  he  insisted  that  his  disciples  should  be 
decently  clad.^  In  respect  that  he  required 
obedience  from  disciples  only  as  long  as  they  con- 
tinued to  be  so,  and  would  not  permit  irrevocable 
vows — indeed,  exacted  from  them  no  vow  at  all — 
his  Sangha  was  more  like  some  Anglican  guild  than 
any  monastic  institution  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted. 

Still  more  widely  did  it  differ,  not  only  from 
many,  but  from  all  the  existing  fraternities  in  the 
purpose  for  which  he  instituted  it.  Hitherto  India 
had  never  witnessed  a  religious  sect  that  could  be 
called  propagandist.  Brahmanism  was  essentially 
exclusive,  for  no  man  could  become  a  Brahman  by 
conversion.       The    Sraman    sages    again,    left    the 

1  Dhaniniapadda,  141  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  Part  i.  ; 
Patimokkha  Sekliiya  Dhamnia,  1,  2,  .3,  4  ;  ibid.  vol.  xiii.  p.  59. 

R 


258  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

masses  to  ripen  in  evil  ways  for  worse  lives  in  more 
degraded  spheres  of  future  existence,  in  order  to 
deliver  themselves  by  ascetic  practices  and  medita- 
tion. At  best  they  taught  those  who  resorted  to 
them,  and  were  prepared  to  consort  with  them. 
Buddha,  however,  by  laying  upon  the  brethren  the 
obligation  of  extending  the  knowledge  of  the  law, 
inaugurated  a  revolution  in  the  monastic  system 
which  anticipated  that  of  the  great  Mendicant 
Orders  of  Christendom.  Just  as  St.  Francis  emptied 
the  monasteries  and  sent  forth  their  inmates  to 
find  their  own  in  seeking  the  salvation  of  others, 
so  Buddha  broke  down  the  barriers  between  the 
Indian  recluses  and  the  world,  l3y  ordaining  the 
members  of  his  Sangha  to  teach  their  fellow-men 
the  way  to  liberty.  "  Therefore,  0  brethren,  to 
whom  the  truths  which  I  have  perceived  have  been 
made  known  by  me,  having  thoroughly  mastered 
them,  meditate  upon  them,  practise  them,  spread 
them  abroad,  in  order  that  the  pure  Dhamma  may 
last  long  and  be  perpetuated,  in  order  that  it  may 
continue  to  be  for  the  good  and  happiness  of  the 
great  multitude,  out  of  pity  for  the  world,  to  the 
good,  and  gain,  and  weal  of  gods  and  men."  ^ 

This  was  the  original  element  ^  in  his  conception, 
and  while  one  of  its  effects  was  to  save  the  members 

^  Mahaparanibhana  Sutta,  iii.  65  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xi. 
2  Kuenen,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  279. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  259 

of  the  Saiigha  from  some  of  the  evils  besetting  the 
hfe  of  the  rechise  by  balancing  the  duty  of  contem- 
plation by  that  of  active  itineration,  its  chief  and 
immediate  result  was  to  give  Buddhism  an  expansive 
power  marvellous  to  Indians.  Keligious  fraternities 
depended  upon  the  presence  of  their  teachers,  and 
consequently  the  members  were  few,  but  Buddha 
commanded  the  brethren  to  go  forth.  "  Let  not  two 
of  you  go  the  same  way  "  was  the  original  instruction, 
and  preach  the  doctrine  "  which  is  glorious  in  the 
beginning,  glorious  in  the  middle,  glorious  in  the 
end,  in  the  spirit  and  in  the  letter,  for  the  pure  and 
perfect  life,  for  the  complete  cessation  of  sorrow."^ 
By  and  by  these  missionaries  were  authorised  to 
receive  those  who  desired  admission  into  the 
Sangha,  and  after  a  due  novitiate  to  ordain  them  ;  ^ 
and  so  we  need  not  wonder  that  this  itineracy, 
which  in  the  earliest  days  was  the  very  essence 
of  a  good  Buddhist's  duty,  should  have  had  the 
effect  of  spreading  the  doctrines  and  gathering 
converts  so  rapidly  that  in  some  of  the  earliest 
extant  scriptures  the  Sangha  wps  known  as  "  the 
Brotherhood  of  the  Four  Quarters  "  ^  of  what  to 
Indian  thought  was  the  world. 

Thus    far    the    Sangha    was   diiferent  from   the 

^  Mahavagga,  i.  11  ;  Sacred  Bools  of  the  East,  vol.  xiii. 
-  Ibid.  i.  12  ;  ibid.  vol.  xiii. 

3  Ibid.  viii.   27.  5  ;  ibid.    vol.   xvii.  ;  KuUavagga,   vi.    1.3;    ibid. 
vi.  9.  2  ;  ibid.  vol.  xx. 


260  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

institutions  that  preceded  it,  but,  unlike  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  which  finally  emerged  from  Judaism 
as  the  one  holy  Church  of  all  nations  and  of  both 
sexes,  and  of  all  classes  of  men,  the  Buddhist  Sangha 
bore  with  it,  and  never  lost,  several  marks  of  its 
Hindu  origin.  One  relic  of  its  extraction  it  most 
zealously  conserved  as  essential  to  the  moral 
restraint  which  it  encouraged ;  for  though  later  on 
it  attracted  associates  whom  it  recognised  as  in 
the  ways  of  deliverance,  it  was  from  the  very  first 
an  exclusively  monastic  order.  Indeed,  Mona- 
chism,  or  the  life  of  retbement,  privation,  and 
chastity,  had  in  Buddhism  a  place  quite  difierent 
from  that  which  it  occupied  in  Brahmanism.^  The 
meditative  Brahman  anchorite  was  not  considered 
the  only  man  who  Avas  in  the  way  to  deliverance, 
for  every  believer  in  Brahman  ascendency  was 
free  to  choose  one  of  three  ways  of  securing  salva- 
tion,^ but  in  Buddhism  renunciation  of  the  world 
represented  the  highest  form  of  religion,  and  the 
indispensable  condition  of  reaching  Nirvana.  So, 
though  in  opening  the  Sangha  to  all  classes,  and 

^  Kuenen,  Hibbert  Lectures,  pp.  251  seq.  The  doctrine  that  it  bore 
nobler  fruit  is  expressly  contradicted  by  some.  See  Apastaniba,  pres.  ii. 
pat.  ix.  khan.  23  ;  also  pres.  ii.  pat.  ix.  k.  24.  15  ;  Sacred  Books  of  tJie 
East,  vol.  ii.  pp.  156,  159. 

'^  The  way  of  "  Works  '' — ceremonial  and  sacrificial  religion  ;  the  way 
of  "  Faith  " — devotion  (heart)  to  the  deities  without  works  ;  the  way  of 
"  Knowledge,"  or  true  enlightenment. — Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism, 
p.  95. 


LKCT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  261 

proclaiming,  in  opposition  to  Brahmanism,  that 
every  man  was  capable  of  the  highest  enlighten- 
ment, Buddha  sapped  the  foundation  of  caste,  it  was 
only  to  replace  it  in  another  form.^  The  mendi- 
cant monk,  as  has  been  truly  observed,  took  the 
Brahman's  place,  and  for  him  alone  Nirvana  was 
reserved.  So  sharply  defined  were  the  lines  which 
divided  the  Sangha  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  that 
no  one  who  had  not  come  out  from  the  world  was 
regarded  as  in  it  and  of  it. 

This  was  quite  in  keeping  with  the  Buddhist 
conception  of  deliverance.  The  Sangha  simply  was 
an  attempt  to  realise  the  idea  and  purpose  of  the 
creed.  Salvation  according  to  Christ  meant  rescue 
from  the  power  of  evil,  but  not  withdrawal  from  the 
world  as  so  incurably  evil  that  the  sooner  man  got 
out  of  it  the  better.  Instead  of  making  His  Church 
an  asylum  and  refuge  from  the  world,  He  organised 
it  for  the  redemption  of  the  world.  Instead  of 
attempting  to  destroy  civil  society.  He  aimed  at  its 
purification  by  the  leavening  influence  of  the  new 
society  which  He  was  creating.  The  Church  was  to 
be  Christ's  witness  when  He  was  no  longer  visible, 
the  instrument  by  which  His  own  power  would 
bear  upon  the  wants  of  mankind.  The  slavery  and 
the  degradation  of  society,  the  destruction  of  the 
world,  was  never  meant   to    be    the    condition    of 

*  Saint-Hilaire,  Le  Bouddha,  etc.,  p.  152. 


262  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

the  existence  or  of  the  liberty  and  dignity  of  the 
Church.  It  was  but  a  means  to  an  end,  a  means 
so  essential  that  without  it  the  end  could  not  be 
reached,  but,  once  the  end  has  been  reached,  the 
Church  will  be  superseded,  or  rather  will  be 
merged  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  So  the  very 
symbol  of  it  is  not  found  in  the  apocalyptic 
visions  of  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth.  In 
the  civitas  of  the  new  Jerusalem  St.  John  saw 
flunilies  and  nations  and  kingdoms,  but  he  could 
see  no  temple  therein,  for  the  instrumentality  of 
which  the  temple  was  the  symbol  had  done  its 
work  in  the  emancipation  and  education  of  the 
human  race,  and  had  vanished  into  the  more 
glorious  and  eternal  realities  of  the  throne  of  God 
and  of  the  Lamb. 

In  Buddhism  we  find  a  set  of  ideas  quite  con- 
tradictory to  all  these.  The  Sangha  was  the  vehicle 
of  rescue  from  out  the  world,  not  the  bringer  of 
salvation  to  it ;  it  worked  not  for  the  regeneration 
of  society,  but  for  its  disintegration  and  destruc- 
tion. It  considered  the  world  to  be  so  hopelessly 
incurable,  and  even  existence  to  be  so  weighted  with 
misery,  that  wisdom  would  move  men  to  abandon 
the  one  to  its  fate,  and  goodness  impel  them  to 
strive  to  bring  the  other  to  an  end.  The  monastery, 
therefore,  was  naturally  its  loftiest  conception  of 
the  Civitas  Dei,  and  into  that  it  endeavoured  to 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  263 

transform  as  large  a  section  of  humanity  as  was 
inclined  to  accept  its  law. 

This  unnatural  theory  of  life  indicates  the 
essential  weakness  of  Buddhism,  and  makes  its 
history  very  instructive  to  Christians.  In  the 
Church,  perhaps,  room  may  be  accorded  to  the 
monastery  and  convent,  as  long  as  they  are  sanc- 
tified by  the  Christian  idea  of  self-abnegation  in 
the  service  of  others,  but  the  attempt  to  transform 
the  Church  into  a  monastery,  dominated  by  the 
Buddhist  idea  of  abnegation  of  the  world  for  the 
sake  of  self,  can  only  create  unmitigated  evil.  The 
effect  of  it  in  primitive  Buddhism  was  not  only 
to  withdraw  good  men  from  the  world  at  the  very 
time  when  its  diseased  condition  most  required 
the  help  of  their  preserving  salt,  but  the  salt  itself, 
not  being  used  for  its  natural  and  proper  purpose, 
soon  lost  its  savour.  The  substitution  of  an  arti- 
ficial for  a  natural  standard  of  excellence  inevitably 
tends  to  destroy  even  virtue.  Very  soon  in  the 
Sanghas  active  itineracy  and  devout  contempla- 
tion gave  way  to  listless  indolence  and  enervating 
reverie,  and  there  emerged  a  mode  of  life  from 
which  the  great  mass  of  healthy  men  will  ever 
revolt,  as  sanctioning  the  idea  that  the  more  use- 
less we  become  in  this  world  the  more  fitted  for 
a  better  we  may  safely  consider  ourselves  to  be. 

The  Buddhist  Sangha,  therefore,  though  in  no 


264  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

sense  resembling  the  Christian  Church,  does  re- 
semble some  of  its  after- growths.  These,  however, 
must  be  regarded  as  parasitical  in  their  nature, 
for  though  fed  by  its  life,  they  do  not  spring  from 
its  root.  In  Christianity,  Monachism  represents 
a  tendency  of  human  nature  incidental  to  its  de- 
velopment rather  than  the  essential  fruit  of  Chris 
tian  principle ;  but  the  Buddhist  idea  of  a  true 
society  is  one  essentially  and  completely  monastic. 
This  one  fact  is  sufficient  to  show  that  the  simi- 
larities discoverable  between  the  Buddhist  and 
Christian  institutions  are  more  apparent  than  real, 
while  the  contrasts  between  them  are  found  to  be 
deeper  and  more  substantial  the  more  they  are 
examined. 

The  monachism  of  Christianity  originated,  it 
is  said,  in  the  endeavour  to  reproduce  the  ideal 
of  excellence  represented  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  In 
the  life  of  Jesus  there  was  nothing  monastic. 
Though  He  appeared  in  the  land  of  the  Essenes, 
though  heralded  by  a  solitary  ascetic,  though  the 
age  was  one  of  universal  defection,  when  because 
of  its  corruption  it  seemed  impossible  to  live  a 
man's  life  in  society,  Jesus  lived  freely  in  the  world 
as  He  found  it,  and  laid  His  blessing  on  all  of  it 
that  was  natural,  and  on  all  of  it  that  was  neces- 
sary. He  did  not  refuse  to  enjoy  any  of  the  good 
gifts  of  God  ;  He   warned  us  against   despising  or 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  265 

throwing  them  away,  though  He  asked  us  to  be 
ready,  when  love  calls,  to  let  them  go,  or  relinquish 
them  for  the  good  of  others.  He  gave  Himself 
wholly  to  His  mission,  and  He  took  no  thought 
for  the  morrow.  If  He  called  His  apostles  from 
their  secular  callings,  it  M'^as  not  because  such  call- 
ings hindered  their  own  salvation,  but  because, 
withdrawn  from  them  for  love  of  God  and  man, 
they  would  be  freer  to  serve  the  world.  We  have 
interpreted  the  Apostolate  as  expressing  His  desire 
that  in  the  Church  there  will  always  be  an  order 
devoted  specially  to  the  service  of  religion,  but  this 
form  of  service  was  never  meant  to  be  regarded  as 
the  only  religious  service.  If  one  calling  is  conse- 
crated, it  is  as  one  day  is  consecrated,  that  all 
may  be  sanctified  thereby.  The  world  was  never 
renounced  by  the  apostles  that  they  might  work 
out  their  own  salvation ;  and  if  they  "  exercised  " 
themselves  it  was  because  self-control  fitted  them 
to  render  more  valuable  service  for  man's  re- 
demption. The  missionary  zeal  which  drove  the 
members  of  the  Primitive  Church  all  over  the 
world  to  sow  the  seeds  of  truth  and  love  made 
them  take  no  thought  of  what  they  should  eat 
or  what  they  should  drink  ;  and  missionary  zeal 
all  through  the  Christian  ages  has  manifested  the 
same  indifference  to  the  yStwrt/ca  of  existence ;  but 
those  who  have  been  most  inspired  by  it,  and  who 


266  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

have  found  nothing  impracticable  in  following  the 
manner  of  life  which  our  Lord  Himself  led,  have  never 
deemed  it  the  only  way,  or  even  the  highest  way, 
of  Christian  service.  It  was  that  to  which  they 
felt  inwardly  moved  and  called  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and,  like  the  apostles,  they  exhorted  all  others 
to  abide  in  the  callings  wherein  they  were  called. 

Primitive  Christianity,  like  any  other  religion, 
was    susceptible    to    morbid    aftections,    and    the 
germs  of  disease  with  which  the  atmosphere  around 
it  was  charged  found  early  a  lodgment  within  it, 
and  soon  matured  into  portentous  fertility.     The 
persecutions  of  the  Church,  the  terrible  corruption 
of  the  world,  the  troubles  and  temptations  conse- 
quent   on   the  first  junction    of  Christianity   with 
the   Imperial   Power,   the  mistaken  idea   that  the 
world  which  the   Church  had  manifestly  failed  to 
transform,  or  even  preserve,  was  doomed,  and  that 
Christ  was  speedily  coming  in  His  glory  to  judge 
it,  strengthened  the  ascetic  tendency  to  come  out 
and  be  separate  from  it.^    By  the  end  of  the  third 
century  the  deserts  of  Egypt  and  Arabia,  and  the 
mountains    of  Asia  Minor,  were    so   peopled   with 
recluses    that    in   one   spot   alone  there   were  ten 
thousand  men  and  twenty  thousand  women.     At 

1  Not  without  protest,  however,  by  fathers  and  doctors  of  the  Church. 
See  Hernias,  Simil  v.  ;  Clem.  Strom,  iii.  ;  TertuUian,  De  Jejunio, 
p.  123  seq.  ;  De  PalHo,  p.  181  seq. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  2(57 

the  close  of  another  century  Monachism  had  a 
home  in  every  province  of  the  Oriental  Church, 
and  monks  and  nuns  formed  "  a  nation,"  as 
distinct  from  the  clergy  as  the  clergy  were  from 
the  common  believers,  and  in  many  instances  they 
were  hated  and  persecuted  by  clergy  and  laity 
alike.  ^ 

The  original  purpose  of  the  founders  of  the 
new  institution,  however,  was  not  to  shelter  mystics 
and  visionaries,  but  to  train  soldiers  and  martyrs. 
Solitude  was  not  intended  to  be  an  asylum  for 
the  weak,  or  an  infirmary  for  the  diseased,  but  an 
arena  for  the  training  and  testing  of  athletes. 
"  Come,"  says  Chrysostom,"  "  and  see  the  tents  of 
the  soldiers  of  Christ.  Come,  behold  their  order  of 
battle."  Auo'ustine  also  refers  to  them  as  "  milites 
Christi,"  even  as  later  on  they  were  designated  as 
"the  chivalry  of  the  Church"  and  "the  paladins 
of  God."  Though  not  of  the  world,  and  being 
above  its  ways,  they  were  yet  in  it  and  for  it. 
So  these  retreats  were  not  only  technical  schools, 
representing  the  industries  essential  to  the  well- 
being  of  man  ;  they  were  also  academies  for  sacred 
studies,  from  which  went  forth  champions  like 
Athanasius  to  defend  the  faith  against  the  heretic, 
and  like  Basil  to   defend   the  Church  against  the 

1  Gieseler,  Eccles.  Hist.  vol.  i.  pp.  289  seq.  ;  Neander's  Church  Hist. 
vol.  iii.  pp.  305  scj.  '■*  Honi.  on  .St,  Matth.  69,  70. 


268  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

Empire.  They  were  also  brotherhoods  of  charity, 
in  which  in  self-imposed  austerities  men  grew 
tender  in  respect  for  the  miseries  of  others,  and 
anticipated  in  much  more  unfavourable  times  the 
hospitals  for  "  sick  children  "  and  "  lepers  "  and 
"  incurables,"  which  we  are  inclined  to  regard  as 
the  peculiar  products  of  the  latest  Christian  cen- 
turies.^ Of  course,  early  Christian  Monachism  had 
its  ridiculous  extravagances,  in  types  like  the 
Stylites  and  Browsers ;  and  of  course  even  its 
soberer  types  soon  degenerated  through  over  culti- 
vation, till  it  became  a  greater  hindrance  to  the 
spread  of  Christianity  than  all  external  opposition 
and  persecution.  The  spirit  of  piety  which  it  origin- 
ated was  speedily  poisoned  by  superstition ;  theo- 
logical discussion  supplanted  the  love  of  earnest 
study  ;  the  spirit  of  obedience  and  loyalty  was 
superseded  by  that  of  intrigue  and  revolt.  So 
though  it  spread,  it  was  not  as  a  contagion  of 
health,  but  as  an  infectious  disease,  whose  evil 
effects  are  traceable  in  the  decrepitude  which  the 
Oriental  Church  has  never  been  able  to  throw  oft'. 

In  the  Western  Church,  Monachism,  though 
less  brilliant  in  its  beginnings  than  its  Eastern 
precursor,  has  had  a  longer  and  healthier  course. 
It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  lecture  even  to 

1  Montalembert,   Monks   of  the   West,   vol.    i.    p.    319  ;   Neander's 
Church  History,  vol.  iii.  pp.  .338,  339. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  269 

sketch  it,  or  to  analyse  and  tabulate  its  results. 
We  live  in  an  age  which  has  certainly  little  sym- 
pathy with  the  ideal  of  Christianity  which  it 
souo;ht  to  realise,  but  that  is  not  sufficient  reason 
that  we  should  affect  to  despise  it,  or  imagine  that 
we  have  outgrown  the  necessity  for  it.  The  life  of 
the  recluse  may  be  beyond  our  attainment,  for  we 
may  be  so  afraid  to  be  alone,  and  so  unable  to 
endure  "  conversation  with  ourselves,"  that  we 
have  to  take  refuge  in  perpetual  society.  The 
"  weakness  "  of  the  old  asceticism  many  of  us  have 
not  the  strength  to  practise,  for  we  are  too  much 
under  the  dominion  of  the  flesh,  which  they  at 
least  could  master,  and  we  are  far  too  inclined  to 
treat  with  unnecessary  tenderness  what  they  chas- 
tised and  immolated.  The  vows  of  poverty  and 
obedience  and  chastity  may  be  the  very  medicine 
Ave  require,  in  a  condition  of  public  sentiment  so 
unhealthy  that  a  man's  standing,  and  worth,  and 
even  life,  seems  to  consist  in  the  abundance  of  his 
goods,  and  his  freedom  in  licence  to  despise  all 
authority  and  indulge  all  his  likings.  No  doubt, 
in  the  West  as  in  the  East,  Monachism  eventually 
became  an  impediment  to  Christian  civilisation,  but 
not  until  it  had  considerably  regenerated  and  up- 
lifted it.  It  kept  before  the  Church  the  dignity 
of  manual  labour,  it  wiped  out  the  discredit  attach- 
ing to  honest  poverty,  it  proclaimed  the   equality 


270  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

of  men  by  treating  rich  and  poor  alike,  and  it 
proved  the  defender  of  the  oppressed,  the  mediator 
between  the  strong  and  the  feeble.  "  We  are  the 
poor  of  Christ,"  says  Bernard,  "  and  the  friendship 
of  the  poor  makes  iis  the  equals  of  kings."  Then 
just  as  unquestionably  it  was  the  pioneer  of  learn- 
ing and  of  enterprise,  the  guardian  of  law  and  the 
fosterer  of  charity.  There  is  hardly  a  city  or 
populous  centre  in  Europe  which  does  not  owe  its 
churches,  universities,  hospitals,  charitable  insti- 
tutions, either  in  their  origin  or  growth,  to  the 
coenobites  and  celibates  of  former  ages ;  and  whether 
we  acknowledge  or  repudiate  our  debt  to  them, 
"  its  magnitude  confronts  us  more  imposingly  the 
more  we  honestly  consider  it." 

But  like  all  unnatural  segregations  of  human 
beings  from  society,  for  which  man  was  made, 
Monachism  everywhere  became  eventually  an  ex- 
cuse for  indolence  and  misanthropy  ;  a  refuge  for 
the  melancholy,  and  for  all  who  had  become  unlit 
to  serve  either  the  world  or  the  Church.  Its 
whole  history  in  the  Christian  Church  has  justified 
the  warning  of  St.  Paul  against  artificial  methods 
of  attaining  to  saintliness.  The  vices  which  beset 
society  never  lost  any  of  their  power  over  the 
recluses  of  the  desert  or  the  inmates  of  the 
monastery,  while  many  other  vices  were  added  to 
the   host   that   assailed   the    solitary,    undefended 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  271 

by  his  fellows.^  "  Woe  to  him  that  is  alone,  for 
when  he  falls  there  is  not  another  to  raise  him  up  ! 
Woe  to  hun  that  is  alone,  for  there  is  no  one  to 
keep  him  from  falling ! "  are  the  lessons  of  this 
long  mistaken  attempt  to  realise  an  undemancled 
standard  of  excellence  ;  and  yet,  just  because  of 
the  consistency  of  its  ideal  with  one  side  of  Chris- 
tian service,  modern  Christendom,  though  in  altered 
and  modified  forms,  has  not  parted  with  Mona- 
chism  yet, 

"  The  ideal  of  the  Christian  monk,"  says  Mont- 
alembert,  "is  that  of  manhood  in  its  purest  and 
most  energetic  form — manhood  intellectually  and 
morally  superior,  devoting  itself  to  efforts  greater 
and  more  sustained  than  are  exacted  in  a  worldly 
career ;  and  this  not  to  make  earthly  service  a 
stepping-stone  to  heaven,  but  of  life  a  long  series 
of  victories  for  man."  ^  Surely  this  is  the  ideal  of 
every  Christian  minister  truly  consecrated  to  the 
service  of  man ;  yea,  the  ideal  of  every  brother 
or  sister  who,  married  or  single,  in  business  or 
society,  is  trying  to  reach  forward  to  the  mark 
of  our  high  calling.  There  is  no  code  of  dis- 
abilities in  the  service  of  Christ,  and  the  way  to 
the  highest  honours    is   open  to  all  who  wish   to 

^  Cassian,  Collationes,  ii.  5-8  ;  De  Instit.  Monachi,  x.  ;  De  capitali- 
bus  vitiis,  quoted  by  Farrar,  Lives  of  the  Fathers,  vol.  ii.  p.  224  ;  Burton, 
Anatomy  of  Melanchohj^  ii.  510. 

^  Monks  of  the  West,  vol.  i.  p.  27. 


272  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  y. 

enter  it,  of  whatever  condition  or  rank  or  mental 
capacity  they  may  be.  When  this  common  ideal 
was  fallen  from  in  the  monastic  orders,  it  was 
being  realised  by  many  private  members  of  the 
Church ;  when  the  professional  Church  had  falsified 
it,  it  was  being  upheld  by  so-called  "  men  of  the 
world "  ;  and  therefore,  as  a  natural  consequence, 
when  the  monastic  orders  of  Christendom  became 
corrupt,  society,  true  to  its  better  instincts,  rose 
up  and  reformed  them  or  swept  them  away. 
There  was  alwavs  a  larQ-e  volume  of  life  outside 
the  particular  channel  which  these  orders  filled, 
to  purify  it  when  it  became  foul,  or  to  force  it 
onward,  when  stagnant,  into  the  life  of  the  Church. 
But  it  was  not  so  in  Buddhism.  Its  lay 
associates,  however  numerous,  were  but  the  fringes 
of  religious  communities  essentially  and  wholly 
monastic.  When,  therefore,  deterioration  or  de- 
gradation in  the  Order  set  in,  reformation  of  it 
by  the  people  was  hopeless.  In  the  Order  this 
deterioration  showed  itself  earlier  that  its  domin- 
ant ideal  was  lower  than  the  Christian.  In  early 
Christian  Monachism,  fortitude  and  devotion  all 
sprang  from  the  immolation  of  self  for  the  universal 
good.  In  Buddha's  Sangha,  however,  though  there 
was  both  devotion  and  fortitude  displayed,  the 
goal  to  be  reached  was  simply  self-rescue.  Its 
course    of    beneficence    therefore    was     not    only 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  273 

shorter  but  shallower.  Unintentionally  it  wrought 
out  social  reforms,  and  perhaps  political  revolution. 
It  restrained  luxury,  and  checked  the  unbounded 
sensuality  to  which  Indians  are  j)rone ;  it  rebuked 
the  earthly-minded,  and  witnessed  nobly  of  the 
higher  interests  of  life  to  peojDles  that  sorely  needed 
the  testimony.  It  not  only  propagated  morality, 
but  promoted  learning,  and  a  love  of  the  beautiful 
in  nature  and  art,  but  its  force  was  eventually 
exhausted.  Very  early  it  sank  into  the  stagnation 
in  which  it  has  existed  for  centuries,  and  any 
advance  registered  by  the  nations  among  whom 
the  institution  has  existed  has  been  due,  for  more 
than  a  thousand  years,  to  the  influx  of  Christian 
ideas  and  sentiments. 

Its  own  methods  hastened  its  decay.  Like  all 
Eastern  religious  growths,  it  represented  the 
piety  of  inertion.  Manual  labour  of  all  kinds 
was  placed  under  the  ban,  and  beyond  attending 
to  the  cleanliness  of  his  person  and  of  his  lodging 
the  Buddhist  monk  was  not  allowed  to  do  any- 
thing save  itinerate  for  his  maintenance  and  the 
preaching  of  the  law.  He  was  instructed  that 
every  moment  abstracted  from  meditation  was 
serious  loss.  This  was  in  direct  contradiction  to 
the  very  first  rule  of  Christian  solitary  life,  which 
even  in  the  stifling  heat  of  the  desert  demanded 

manual  tasks,  which  fasting  might  be  said  to  have 

s 


274  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

doubled,  continued  through  the  long  day  till 
vespers  summoned  the  labourers  to  worship.  The 
Buddhist  monk  knew  neither  the  healthy  life  of 
physical  exertion  nor  the  spiritual  refreshment 
of  worship.  He  might  vindicate  his  idleness 
against  the  reproaches  of  the  industrious  by  the 
assertion  that  he  too  in  his  quiet  life  was  also 
"  ploughing  and  sowing  "  to  much  better  purpose/ 
but  then  the  effect  of  his  ploughing  and  the 
fruit  of  his  sowing  were  all  confined  to  himself, 
who  alone  was  freed  by  it  from  suffering.  He 
could  not  answer,  as  the  Nicsean  monk  and  quondam 
courtier  replied  to  Valens,  when  challenged  as  to 
whither  he  was  going,  "I  go  to  pray  for  your 
empire."  ^  Augustine  has  indeed  assured  us  that 
'"■  the  less  a  monk  labours  in  anything  but  prayer 
the  more  serviceable  he  is  to  men  " ;  but  the  prayer 
which  he  had  in  view  was  not  selfish.  On  the 
contrary,  the  tears  and  penitential  exercises  of  men 
who  had  become  strangers  to  all  personal  desires 
"were  mighty  to  drown  sin  and  purify  the  world."^ 
As  long  as  monks  were  truly  prayerful,  and  nuns, 
like  vestals,  kept  alive  the  sacred  fire  for  every 
hearth,  they  represented  that  side  of  the  Church's 
mediation  which  is  most  important  and  effective ; 

^  Sutta  Nipata,  75-81  ;  Sacred  Boohs  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  p.  ii. 
2  Theod.  Ecdes.  Hist.  lib.  iv.  cap.  26. 

^  "  They  prayed  for  the  whole  world." — Chrysost.  if.  78,  In  Jo- 
hannem. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  275 

for  no  one  can  be  really  effective  in  the  service 
of  man  who  is  not  frequent  in  the  service  of  wait- 
ing upon  God.  The  heroes  of  the  Christian 
Church,  who  have  evangelised  and  civilised  the 
wild  waste  places  of  the  world,  who,  like  the 
apostle,  laid  aside  every  encumbrance  to  run 
their  race,  were,  like  the  apostle,  men  of  much 
meditr  tion  and  prayer.  We  have  no  such  examples 
in  Buddhism,  for  it  lacked  the  provision  which 
alone  could  nurture  them.  In  the  life  of  the 
Buddhist  monk  there  was  probably  more,  and 
more  intense  meditation  than  in  that  of  the 
Christian,  but  there  was  a  vast  difference  in  their 
respective  themes  of  meditation.  The  Christian 
could  draw  his  inspiration  from  a  source  far  higher 
and  purer  than  himself,  and  in  communion  with 
the  Father,  Redeemer,  Sanctifier  of  his  spirit 
gather  a  strength  which  astonished  the  world ; 
but  what  possible  inspiration  for  endeavour  could 
come  to  a  poor  Buddhist  monk  who  was  chiefly 
occupied  in  contemplating  the  impurity  of  his 
perishable  body,  and  whose  very  highest  theme 
of  meditation  was  simply  "  nothing  whatever  "? ' 

Another  essential  distinction  between  the  two 
modes  of  life  is  disclosed  in  their  relation  to  charity. 
We  have  seen  that  Buddhism  had  no  conception 
of  charity  in  the  Christian  sense,  and  that  practical 

'  Oklenberg,  Buddha^  etc.,  pp.  317,  318. 


276  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

charity  in  it  was  represented  from  a  pole  quite 
opposite  to  that  of  Christianity.  As  if  conscious 
of  its  defects,  later  Buddhism  originated  faith  in 
and  hope  of  Maitreya,  the  Buddha  who  is  next  to 
come,  and  who,  as  the  son  of  love,  will  realise  its 
unconscious  prophecies,  fulfil  its  longings,  and 
perfect  all  things ;  but  notwithstanding  this  the 
Buddhist  monk  continued  to  be  the  receiver,  not 
the  dispenser,  of  charity.  His  whole  merit  con- 
sisted in  taking  what  it  was  the  merit  of  the  layman 
to  offer  him  :  ^  and  the  taking  was  all  for  himself 
and  for  his  Order.  He  had  no  conception  of  the 
life  suggested  in  the  saying,  "  As  poor,  yet  making 
many  rich,"  and  he  never  could  have  said  of  his 
monastery  that  it  was  "I'infirmiere  des  pauvres." 
To  offer  charity  to  others  was  the  last  conception 
which  he  could  form  of  his  duty  :  yea,  to  clothe 
the  naked,  take  the  leper  from  the  dunghill,  and 
help  the  outcast,  was  the  very  reverse  of  his  duty. 
His  creed  as  to  misery  in  this  being  the  fruit  of 
evil  done  in  a  former  existence,  cut  him  off  from 
that  service  of  the  lost  and  fallen  which  in  Chris- 
tendom has  been  accounted  glorious,  and  for  the 
rendering  of  which,  several  of  its  monastic  insti- 
tutions have  been  spared  the  penalty  of  their 
corruption. 

The   charity  which   the   Buddhist   monk   prac- 

1  Mahavagga,  viii.  15  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xvii. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  277 

tised  was  in  his  preaching  and  exposition  of  the 
law  for  the  dehverance  of  the  multitudes.  And 
that  this  may  be  the  very  highest  form  in 
which  benevolence  can  express  itself  all  Chris- 
tians must  admit,  for  the  greatest  gift  which 
any  man  can  bestow  is  the  truth  which  makes 
one  free.  Buddhist  monk  and  Christian  mission- 
ary alike  proclaimed  a  gospel  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  men ;  and  as  the  gospel  of  Christ's  sal- 
vation brings  ever  many  blessings  in  its  train,  so 
the  preaching  of  the  mendicant  Buddhist  was 
attended  with  material  beneficial  results  to  those 
who  heard  and  believed  it.  The  Buddhist,  how- 
ever, while  expounding  the  law  for  the  rescue  of 
the  individual,  never  laboured,  like  the  Christian 
missionary,  for  his  temporal  and  social  improvement. 
His  message  had  no  promise  for  the  life  that  now 
is,  and  consequently  he  never  seems  to  have  played 
the  part  so  nobly  sustained  by  many  of  the  monks 
of  Christendom — that  of  defending  the  opj^ressed 
and  befriending  the  helpless.  He  never,  so  far  as 
can  be  gathered  from  the  texts,  proclaimed  the 
equality  of  men  in  the  same  way  and  for  the  same 
purpose  as  a  Christian  reformer  would  preach  it. 
Theoretically,  he  maintained  the  right  of  all  classes 
to  be  admitted  to  the  brotherhood,  but  Dr.  Olden- 
berg  has  asserted  that  "in  the  composition  of  the 
Order  a  marked  leaning  to  the  existing  aristocracy 


278  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

was  observable."^  Buddha  never  had  occasion  to 
confess  with  the  Christian  apostle  "  that  not  many 
noble,  not  many  mighty,  were  called,"  nor  had  his 
Order  ever  to  bear  the  reproach  of  the  Church, 
that  its  members  were  recruited  from  the  lowest 
strata  of  society.  The  references  to  his  disciples 
from  the  first  all  indicate  ^^eople  of  rank  and  wealth 
and  education.  It  is  not  implied  that  persons  of 
humble  origin  would  have  been  rejected  had  they 
come,  only  that  "the  scriptures  afford  no  evidence 
that  they  did  come";  and  yet  they  yield  unmis- 
takable evidence  that,  as  the  Order  prospered,  all 
lepers,  cripples,  blind,  or  one-eyed  persons,  all  who 
were  deaf  and  dumb,  all  who  were  consumptive  or 
subject  to  fits,  were  rejected."  The  Order  was  for 
the  reputable,  the  noble,  and  especially  for  the 
religious,  for  the  Brahman  votary,  and  Sraman 
seeker  after  truth.  These  again  were  all  attracted 
to  it ;  they  were  not  sought  out  as  by  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  Not  for  one  moment  would  Christ 
allow  the  Church  to  become  select.  He  not  only 
welcomed  all  penitents — for  all  men  needed  salva- 
tion, and  the  poorest  and  the  guiltiest  were  most 

^  "  I  am  not  aware  of  any  instances  in  Avhich  the  pariah  of  the 
age  is  mentioned  as  a  member  of  the  Order."  "  According  to  Buddhist 
dogmatics,  a  good  Sudra  or  Vaisya  could  only  hope  to  be  re-born  as  a 
Kshatrya,  and  this  clearly  indicates  that  the  distinctions  of  castes  had 
by  no  means  vanished  or  become  worthless  in  Buddha's  consciousness  " 
{Buddha,  etc.,  p.  156). 

2  Mahavagga,  i.  39.  76  ;  Sacred  Boola^  of  the  East,  vol.  xiii. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  279 

in  need  of  it, — but  He  sent  forth  His  apostles  to 
seek  and  gather  them,  and  in  order  to  reason  down 
all  natural  fears,  based  on  the  personal  unworthi- 
ness  of  these  outcasts  of  society,  they  were  in- 
structed to  "compel  them  to  come  in."^ 

Of  propagandism  in  this  sense  the  Buddhist 
Sangha  knew  nothing.  It  was  moved  by  no 
enthusiasm  of  humanity ;  it  felt  nothing  of  that 
earnestness  which  from  the  days  of  the  apostles 
has  characterised  the  true  propagators  of  the 
gospel.  In  no  discourse  that  has  come  down  to 
us  is  there  any  impassioned  entreaty  of  men  to 
repent  and  believe.  There  is  no  sorrow  over  the 
unbelieving  who  refuse  their  salvation,  no  burning 
indignation  against  those  who  despise  or  who  scoff 
at  the  truth.  In  Buddha's  last  view  of  the  world 
there  is  no  weeping  as  over  Jerusalem,  reprobate 
because  of  its  wickedness,  and  in  none  of  his  suc- 
cessors do  we  find  any  trace  of  the  apostle's  willing- 
ness to  be  anathema  for  the  sake  of  his  brethren. 

This  tolerant  spirit  of  Buddhism,  however,  has 
been  contrasted,  as  greatly  in  its  favour,  with  that 
alleged  intolerance  which  Christianity  is  sup- 
posed to  have  inherited  from  Judaism.     We  must 

^  Christianity  does  not,  as  Goethe  averred,  "prefer  what  is  despised 
and  feeble,"  but  as  in  God's  eyes  nothing  is  despised  and  abject,  so,  in 
fellowship  with  the  Father,  Christ  cherished  the  maimed  and  lame  and 
blind,  though  hated  of  the  soul  of  the  natural  man,  and  this  disposition 
will  ever  be  a  "  mark  "  or  "  note  "  of  tlie  true  Church  of  Christ. 


280  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

remember  that  Christianity  must   be  judged  as  it 
is  presented  in  Christ,  and  not  by  His  professing 
followers,  who  have  often  misrepresented  Him.     Of 
hypocrisy,  cruelty,  deceit,  Christ  was  indeed  intol- 
erant, but  toward  error  and  misbelief,  because  of 
ignorance,  He  was  very  compassionate.    Christianity 
would  make  no  compromise,  again,  with  false  systems 
of  heathendom.    It  would  have  no  peace  save  through 
victory  ;  it  would  not  accept  a  place  in  the  Pantheon 
for  its  Lord,  and  it  was  content  to  be  persecuted  till 
He  was  allowed  to  rule  from  the  throne  of  the  world. 
The  alleged  intolerance  of  Christianity,  therefore, 
is  simply  its  conviction  of  the  infinite  importance 
and  value  to  all  men  of  the  truth  which  compels 
it  to  be  propagandist.     Now  if  Buddhism  tolerates 
everything,  it  is  because  it  is  not  sure  about  any- 
thing, but,  on  the  contrary,  is  in  doubt  about  every- 
thing.      It    is    essentially    sceptical,    "raising   the 
rejection    of  every    affirmation   to   the    rank   of    a 
principle."^     Earnestness  in  a  preaclier  of  sceptical 
quietism  was  an  impossibility.      He  had  no  heart 
touched  with  the  feeling  of  heavenly  love,  wounded 
by  sin,  impelling  him  to  proclaim  forgiveness,  and 
he  had  no  such  hearts  to  appeal  to.     The  Christian 
missionary  appeals  to  soul  and  conscience  in  name 
of    a    Saviour    crucified    for    sin  ;    the     Buddhist 

1  Kuenen,  Hibbert  Lectures,  1882,  p.  284;  Rhys  Davids,  Hibbert 
Lectures,  1881,  p.  155. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  281 

missionary  only  appealed  through  the  intellect  to 
self-interest.  His  preaching  was  purely  didactic, 
expository,  and  advisory  in  character.  He  was  at 
best  a  theologian  or  moral  philosopher  teaching 
the  ignorant,  and  not  a  preacher  aiming  at  the 
conviction  of  sinners,  endeavouring,  with  his  whole 
heart  and  strength  and  mind,  to  sway  them  to 
conversion.^  He  never  experienced  the  almost  con- 
suming glow  and  fervour  of  inspiration  which  made 
the  apostles  agonise  in  their  mission.  "Now  is  the 
accepted  time,  now  is  the  day  of  salvation."  "  I 
pray  you,  in  Christ's  stead,  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God." 
As  might  have  been  expected,  the  early  enthusiasm 
of  Buddhists  for  the  enlightenment  of  others  soon 
died  out,  and  its  missionary  spirit,  once  spent,  has 
never  undergone  a  true  revival.  It  can  boast  of 
many  ecclesiastics  and  philosophers,  but  for  hun- 
dreds of  years  it  cannot  point  in  its  honour-roll 
to  either  a  Xavier  or  a  Livingstone.  It  has  long 
ago  ceased  to  be  aggressive.  At  this  day  no 
Oriental  Buddhist  seriously  contemplates  becoming 
a  missionary.  Paris  may  add  to  its  attractions  and 
curiosities  a  real  Buddhist  temple,^  but  the  priests 
who  officiate  in  it,  however  devoted  they  may  be 
to  their  cult,  will  certainly  never  dream  of  taking 
the  trouble  of  preaching  it  in  the  streets. 

'  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  etc.,  pp.  181,  182. 
-  The  Scotsman,  August  17th,  1889. 


282  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

In  the  Church  of  the  middle  ages,  supposed 
to  consist  only  of  pope  and  bishops  and  clergy 
and  monks  and  nuns,  of  which  medisevalism  a 
remnant  survives  in  those  who  speak  of  "  entering 
the  Church,"  not  when  as  children  they  are  bap- 
tized into  its  communion,  but  when  they  are  to 
be  ordained  to  service  in  it,  we  must  look  for  any 
resemblance  to  the  Buddhist  Sangha,  In  ancient 
India,  a  church,  meaning  the  fellowship  of  the 
faithful  in  its  totality,  was  an  impossibility.  Brah- 
manism  had  no  church,  and  never  attempted  a 
conversion,  but  Buddha  in  seeking  to  rescue  others 
from  evil,  and  in  offering  a  place  of  escape  which 
they  were  free  to  accept  or  reject,  created  not  a 
church  but  a  precursor  of  one.^  Admission  into 
his  Brotherhood  was  at  first  open  to  all  who 
requested  it,  but  as  disciples  crowded  around  him, 
and  parents  complained  that  they  were  bereaved 
of  their  children,  and  masters  that  they  were 
robbed  of  their  slaves,  and  creditors  that  they 
were  dejDrived  of  what  was  owing  by  their  debtors, 
and  even  the  judges  that  criminals  escaped  the 
prison  ;  and  when  accusations  grew  frequent  and 
loud  that  the  new  movement  would  ruin  households, 
injure  the  State,  and  depopulate  the  country,  re- 
strictions were  devised.  Gradually  conditions  were 
imposed     by    which    all    who    were    diseased,    or 

^  E.  Burnouf,  Science  ths  Religions,  p.  94. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  283 

criminals,  or  soldiers,  or  debtors,  or  slaves,  or 
children  nnder  fifteen  years  of  age,  or  youths 
under  twenty  who  had  not  received  their  parents' 
consent,  were  disqualified.^  At  first  the  disciple 
was  admitted  without  any  ceremony,  beyond  that 
of  shaving  the  whole  head,  and  putting  on  the 
yellow  robes  which  distinguished  the  ascetic  and 
the  recluse,  but  eventually  a  rite  of  initiation 
was  adopted,  which  in  Ceylon  has  continued 
substantially  unaltered  to  this  day. 

It  consisted  of  two  stages;"'  the  first  that  of  the 
novitiate  into  which  a  canditate  could  be  received 
by  any  fully  accredited  monk.  The  ceremony  was 
called  the  Pabbagga,  or  "  outgoing,"  a  word  used 
from  old  time  to  describe  the  last  act  of  a  pious 
Brahman,  when,  warned  by  approaching  age,  he 
gave  up  his  possessions  to  his  family,  and  left 
them  to  enter  upon  the  hermit  life  of  meditation. 
The  Buddhists  naturally  adopted  it  to  mark  the 
first  step  by  which  a  layman  at  any  age  exchanged 
the  secular  for  the  religious  life.  It  was  a  con- 
fession that  he  desired  to  be  done  with  the  world, 
to  put  off  the  old  man  with  his  deeds  and  to  put 
on  the  new.  So  with  head  and  face  completely 
shaven,  and  holding  three  lengths  of  yellow  cotton 
cloth,  first  torn  to  render  them  valueless,  and  then 

1  Mahavagga,  i.  49.  6. 

-  Ibid.  i.  54.  5  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xiii. 


284  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

sewed  together,  he  presented  his  petition  three 
times,  that  "the  reverend  monks  would  take  pity- 
on  him,  and  invest  him  with  the  robes,  that,  like 
them,  he  might  escape  sorrow,"  The  presiding 
monk  then  tied  the  clothes  around  his  neck,  re- 
peating sentences  regarding  the  perishable  nature 
of  the  body,  and  the  petitioner  retired.  When 
he  reappeared  he  had  laid  aside  the  loin-cloth, 
generally  the  only  article  of  raiment  in  tropical 
lands,  and  had  assumed  the  new  investiture  of 
the  two  under-garments  and  the  loose  robe,  which 
covered  the  whole  body,  except  the  right  shoulder, 
of  a  Buddhist  mendicant.  Three  times,  thus  clothed, 
in  "robes  of  humility  and  religion,"  in  reverential 
salaam  to  the  monk  or  monks  present,  he  made 
public  confession  that  he  took  refuge  in  Buddha, 
Dharma,  Sangha,  and  receiving  instructions  as 
to  conduct  and  duty,  he  became  a  Sramanera,  a 
bachelor  as  it  were,  a  monk  of  lower  degree. 

When  the  novice  who  had  thus  "gone  forth" 
from  the  world,  or  from  the  membership  of  another 
fraternity,  had  "  seen  the  truth,  mastered  the  truth, 
understood  the  truth,  penetrated  the  truth ;  when 
he  had  overcome  uncertainty,  dispelled  all  doubts, 
was  dependent  on  nobody  else  for  his  knowledge 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  Teacher,"  ^  he  presented 
himself  before   the   Order,   of  Avhom   ten   members 

1  Mahavagga,  i.  7.  10-15  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xiii. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  285 

at  least  had  to  be  in  session,  and  reverentially 
cowering  on  the  ground  with  his  hands  clasped  on 
his  forehead,  he  three  times  entreated  them  "  to  take 
pity  upon  him  and  draw  him  out  of  the  evil  world 
by  granting  him  Upasampada"  or  the  "arrival" 
initiation  rite.^  Then  followed  his  examination  as  to 
whether  he  was  qualified '  in  his  person,  his  health, 
his  social  and  civil  relations,  whether  he  had 
provided  an  alms-bowl  and  the  yellow  robes,  what 
was  his  own  name,  and  that  of  the  teacher  with 
whom  he  was  to  consort,  and  whom  he  was  to 
serve  during  a  course  of  five  years'  instruction  in 
the  whole  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the  system. 
If  the  answers  to  all  these  questions  were  satis- 
factory, the  resolution  to  receive  him  was  formally 
put  by  the  presiding  monk,  and  thrice  repeated  : 
"  Whosoever  of  the  venerable  is  for  granting  Upas- 
ampada to  this  novice,  with  brother  So-and-so 
for  his  teacher,  let  him  be  silent."  When  no 
dissent  was  intimated  the  resolution  was  passed. 
"  The  Sangha  is  in  favour  of  it,  therefore  it  is 
silent — thus  I  understand,"  said  the  president, 
and  the  novice  became  a  Samana,  a  fully  accredited 
member  of  the  Order  of  Bikkhus. 

There  was  certainly  nothing  of  the  Church  in 
all  this  ceremony,  and  Sir  Monier  Williams  very 
properly  guards  us  from  applying  to  it  the  sacred 

1  Mahavagga,  i.  29.  ^  Ibid.  i.  76.  1-10. 


286  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

word  of  ordination.^  ^i^y  oi^e  who  cares  to  read 
the  texts  in  which  the  proceedings  are  described 
will  be  inclined  to  think  that  the  questions  put 
to  the  novice,  in  their  childishness  and  absurdity, 
seem  diabolically  framed  to  caricature  the  solemn 
and  soul-searching  questions  addressed  to  candi- 
dates for  the  Holy  Ministry.  Yet  in  the  instruc- 
tion given  to  the  newly  admitted  member,  con- 
cerning the  "  four  chief  forbidden  acts"  from  which 
he  must  abstain,  and  "  the  four  resources  "  '^  in  which 
he  was  to  trust,  there  was  a  touch  of  the  solemnity 
which  belongs  to  the  charge  which  follows  Chris- 
tian ordination.  The  monk  was  reminded  that  in 
regard  to  v/hat  was  pleasant  and  permissible  to 
other  men  he  had  subjected  himself  to  self-denial 
and  a  yoke.  He  might  receive  from  the  pious, 
without  offence,  offerings  of  food  and  clothing, 
and  medicine  and  shelter,  but  he  must  be  prepared 
for  the  hard  life  of  one  whose  food  might  only 
be  scraps  and  refuse  put  into  his  bowl,  whose 
clothing  might  have  to  be  made  of  cast-off  rags, 
whose  shelter  might  often  be  the  tree  in  the 
jungle  or  the  cave  in  the  lock,  and  whose  medicine 

^  Buddhism,  p.  80  ;  Dr.  Rhys  Di  vids  states  that  a  new  or  cloister 
name  was  given  on  admission,  in  exchange  for  the  family  one  (Hibbert 
Lectures,  p.  39),  but  Professor  Oldenberg  alleges  that  this  is  supported 
only  by  solitary  cases  (Buddha,  etc.,  p.  353  note). 

2  Mahavagga,  i.  30.  1-4 ;  also  ibid.  vi.  14.  6 ;  and  Kullavagga, 
vi.  1-2. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  287 

might  be  only  the  foul  deposit  of  the  cattle-pen. 
He  was  warned  that  any  breach  of  the  four  cardinal 
precepts — against  unchastity,  which  to  him  meant 
what  to  others  was  the  lawful  estate  of  marriao-e, 
against  theft,  even  of  a  blade  of  grass,  against  murder, 
even  to  the  crushing  of  a  flea,  against  assumption 
of  virtues  not  really  possessed,— would  necessitate 
expulsion  from  the  Order.  "  For  even  as  a  man 
whose  head  is  cut  off  cannot  live  with  the 
trunk ;  ...  as  a  dry  leaf  separate  from  the  stalk 
can  never  again  become  green;  ...  as  a  stone 
spht  in  two  cannot  be  made  into  one;  ...  as  a 
palm  whose  top  is  destroyed  cannot  again  grow, 
so  the  monk  who  breaks  the  least  of  these  laws  is 
no  longer  a  Samana,  no  longer  a  follower  of  the 
Sakya-putta."^ 

To  the  credit  of  Buddha,  however,  it  must  be 
observed,  that  a  monk  who  had  entered  the  Order 
was  at  any  time  free  to  withdraw  from  it.  If  he 
had  a  hankering  after  home,  or  the  pleasures  of 
the  old  life  which  he  had  forsaken,  he  was  exhorted 
to  confess  his  weakness  and  renounce  a  vocation 
which  he  had  found  too  high  for  him.  He  had 
simply  to  declare  before  a  witness  that  he 
renounced  Buddha,  Dharma,  Sangha — yea,  he 
could  go  forth  without  making  any  declanition  at 
all.      Freely  as  he  had  joined,  as  freely  could  he 

'  Mahavacrora,  i.  78.  1-5. 


288  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

abandon  the  brethren ;  no  anger  was  expressed 
or  even  felt ;  no  discredit  attached  to  him,  for  the 
working  out  of  his  dehverance  was  his  own  concern. 
Yea,  if  at  any  time  he  repented  of  his  action, 
and  desired  to  renew  with  the  companions  of 
wiser  days  the  relation  of  votary  or  novice,  he 
was  not  subjected  to  any  disci23line,  such  as  a 
lapsed  member  of  the  Church  might  be  expected 
to  undergo  when  seeking  re-communion.  He  was 
treated  upon  his  confession  as  though  his  past 
had  not  been  remembered,  and  as  if  his  folly  or 
fault  had  never  been  committed.^  Such  facility 
of  withdrawal  and  readmission  seemed  to  tend 
to  laxity,  and  may  have  occasioned  very  great 
abuses,  but  on  the  very  face  of  it,  it  appears 
calculated  to  preserve  monastic  life  in  India  in  a 
much  healthier  condition  than  has  always  j)revailed 
in  the  recluse  institutions  of  Christendom.  In 
how  many  cases  has  the  monastery  become  worse 
than  a  prison,  and  the  convent  become  a  very 
chamber  of  tortures,  because  occupied  by  reluctant 
tenants,  who  have  been  cruelly  immured  in  them 
against  their  will,  or  have  thoughtlessly  devoted 
themselves  to  a  vocation  for  which  they  were 
totally  unfit.  The  Eastern  sage  may  even  have 
shown  greater  wisdom  than  the  Western  bishops 
and  presbyters,  who  have  bound  over  for  life  those 

1  Mahavagga,  i.  79.  1-3. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  289 

admitted  to  a  sacred  profession,  so  that  freedom 
from  it  can  only  be  got  by  ignominious  expulsion, 
and  by  degradation  for  a  fault  or  a  crime. 

The  Sangha  from  the  first  was  an  order  of 
Coenobites,  not  Solitaries,  and  it  was  an  exception 
for  a  mendicant  to  be  alone  ;  for  with  his  practical 
insight  Buddha  seems  to  have  discovered  that 
the  life  of  solitude  has  more  disadvantages  and 
dangers  tha.n  that  of  fellowship.  So  he  ordained 
that  the  newly  admitted  monk  must  attach  him- 
self for  five  years  to  a  tutor  and  teacher,^  one  of 
whom  must  have  been  ten  years  in  the  Order, 
rendering  to  them  such  personal  offices  as  Elislia 
rendered  to  Elijah,  and  receiving  such  parental 
instruction  as  St.  Paul  bestowed  upon  his  son  in 
the  faith.  No  vow  of  obedience,  so  essential  to 
the  monastic  rule  of  Christendom,  unless  in  regard 
to  the  laws  of  the  Order,  was  exacted.  No  man 
could  be  called  Rabbi  among  them,  for  the  know- 
ledge which  brought  deliverance  could  be  and 
must  be  acquired  by  each  man  for  himself^'  A 
monk  was  expected  to  reverence  his  superior  in 
age  and  knowledge,  but  his  obedience  was  to 
be  rendered  not  to  his  brother,  who  was   simply 

1  Mahavagga,  i.  25.  1-24,  for  the  duties  of  novice  to  his  Upagghaya  ; 
ibid.  i.  32,  Kullavagga,  viii.  13,  14,  for  his  duties  to  his  Akariya. 
The  duties  to  both  are  the  sarae,  but  the  Upagghaya  seems  to  have  been 
the  more  important  of  the  two  tutors. 

2  Dr.  Ehys  Davids,  Handbook  of  Buddhism,  p.  169. 

T 


290  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v 

his  equal  in  respect  of  need  and  capability  ot 
deliverance,  but  only  to  The  Laiv  which  alone 
could  secure  it. 

While  obedience  to  a  superior  was  not  exacted, 
the  law  of  poverty  and  chastity  was  as  obligatory 
upon  the  Buddhist  monk  as  on  the  members  of 
the  Christian  Orders.  Francis  of  Assisi  could 
not  more  highly  have  eulogised  poverty  as  "  the 
way  to  salvation,  the  nurse  of  humility,  the  root 
of  perfection,"  than  did  the  Indian  monks  who 
compiled  the  Buddhist  scriptures.  "  In  supreme 
felicity  live  we,  though  we  call  nothing  our  own. 
Feeding  on  happiness,  we  are  like  the  gods  in  the 
regions  of  light. "  ^  Food  a  monk  could  receive, 
but  not  ask  for,  and  of  what  he  so  received  he 
could  only  have  one  meal  a  day.  Gold  or  silver 
he  could  on  no  account  accept,  though  he  might 
accept  its  equivalents  in  food  or  medicine.  If  like 
Achan's  wedsfe  it  was  found  to  have  been  secreted 

o 

by  any  covetous  member,  one  of  the  brethren  had 
to  hide  it  away  in  the  jungle,  in  a  place  which 
could  not  again  be  recognised.  Bitter  controversies 
regarding  this  prohibition  seem  to  have  exercised 
the  primitive  Sanghas,  and  though  it  was  success- 
fully maintained  for  long,  concessions  in  relation  to 
it  were  eventually  agreed  upon.  These  however 
proved  as  fatal  to  the  prosperity  of  the  Buddhist,  as 

^  Dhammapada,  200  ;  Sacred  Boohs  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  Part  i. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  291 

similar  concessions  proved  to  that  of  the  West- 
ern monastic  estabhshments.  They  were  seeds  of 
evil  which  speedily  grew  np  into  thickets  of  trouble. 
The  individual  member  professed  to  observe  the 
original  law  and  maintain  the  principle  that  "  a 
man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  his 
goods,"  but  the  several  fraternities  came  speedily 
to  abound  in  lands  and  property  of  every  kind,  so 
that  in  the  East  as  in  the  West  it  may  be  said 
the  monasteries  fell,  because  crushed  with  their 
weight  of  wealth. 

Even  while  the  primitive  rule  was  observed 
the  mendicants  could  easily  procure  what  of  the 
necessaries  of  food  and  shelter  and  clothing  they 
required ;  the  jungle  gave  them  all  the  shelter  they 
needed,  though  it  exposed  them  to  frequent  perils 
of  being  poisoned  by  snake-bites,  and  devoured  by 
beasts.  The  rains  put  an  end  ^periodically  to  their 
peregrinations,  and  gathered  the  twos  and  threes  who 
had  been  associating  together  into  common  retreat 
in  the  viharas.  These  originally  were  intended  to 
be  only  temporary  shelters  from  the  annual  floods, 
but  as  by  degrees  the  system  extended  into  distant 
regions,  they  became  permanent  institutions,  each 
one  a  centre  of  influence  in  its  own  territory,  like 
the  abbeys  in  the  original  dioceses  of  mediaeval 
Europe. 

Life  in  a  Buddhist  vihara  two  thousand  years 


292  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

ago  must  however  have  been  very  different  from 
life  in  a  monastic  estabhshment  in  the  middle  ages. 
Labour,  as  we  have  seen,  of  no  kind  was  allowed, 
either  among  them  or  for  them.  "A  monk  who 
digs  the  earth  or  causes  it  to  be  dug  is  liable  to 
punishment."^  Scant  time  was  allowed  for  sleep, 
and  when  there  were  no  books  to  read  or  tran- 
scribe, the  studies  or  literary  occupations  of  the 
West  were  out  of  the  question.  All  the  intellectual 
energies  were  claimed  for  the  repetition  of  such 
sacred  works  as  they  knew,  and  for  the  committing 
to  memory  of  others  which  they  had  only  acquired. 
Examination  of  self,  meditation  on  the  five  prin- 
cipal themes  which  occupied  the  place  of  jDrayer 
or  devotion  in  their  system,  was  expected  to  absorb 
the  most  of  the  day.  Notwithstanding  its  intervals 
of  instruction  and  discussion,  it  must  have  been 
a  very  vacant  life  indeed,  lacking  entirely  the 
worship,  and  most  of  the  duties,  which  rendered 
monastic  life  in  Christendom,  if  not  always  profit- 
able, at  least  supportable. 

Two  outstanding  features  of  it,  however,  com- 
pare very  favourably  with  some  forms  of  the  ascetic 
life  both  in  India  and  Europe.  In  the  Buddhist 
Sanofhas  would  be  witnessed  neither  the  slovenli- 
ness    nor    the    dirtiness    which    has     often    been 

^  Patimokkha ;    Pakittiya  Dhamma,    10  ;  said    to    be    because   he 
might  kill  or  harm  some  living  creature. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  293 

associated  with  the  hfe  of  those  who  have  renounced 
the  world  and  have  professed  to  despise  its  pleasant 
things.     Around  them, 

"  Besmeared  with  mud  and  ashes,  crouching  foul, 
In  rags  of  dead  men,  wrapped  about  their  loins,"  ^ 

were   many   solitaries   endeavouring    to    gain    per- 
fection or   exhibit  it,   in    types   more  conform    to 
Nebuchadnezzar  in  his  madness  or  the  demoniacs 
who  had  their  dwellings    in  the  tombs.     Buddha 
condemned   uncleanliness    in   all    its   forms.      The 
robes    which    he     enjoined     his    monks    to    wear 
may    have     been    made    up    of    rags    picked    up 
from    a   dunghill    or   from   a   cemetery,   but   they 
were  scrupulously  washed,  properly  dyed,  and  care- 
fully mended.      The  ground  all  round  the  vihara, 
as   well   as   its    floors    within,    had    to    be    swept 
every  day,  and  its  every  item  of  furniture  had  to 
be  punctually  dusted  and  garnished.     His  monks 
were  Pharisees  in  regard  to  the  washing  of  hands 
and  bowls  and  other  utensils,  and  they  anticipated 
our   modern   demand    for    proper   ventilation.^     A 
Buddhist  mendicant   of  the   days   of  King  Asoka 
might   prove   a  good    model   of  personal  neatness 
and  domestic  tidiness  for  many  a  Christian  minister 
in    these   days    of  Queen   Victoria.     He   belonged 
to  an  Order  originally  founded  by  a  man  who  was 

^  Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  Light  of  Asia,  p.  95. 

2  Kullavagga,  v.  vi.  viii.  2}assim  ;  Mahavagga,  i.  25.  15. 


\ 


294  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

in  every  sense  a  gentleman,  and  which  for  long 
numbered  among  its  members  many  noble  and 
even  princely  men.  Inheriting  their  instincts,  he 
stoutly  maintained  their  traditions,  that  "  neither 
plaited  hair,  nor  dirt,  nor  lying  on  the  earth,  nor 
rubbing  with  dust,  can  purify  a  mortal  who  has 
not  overcome  desires";  "that  he  who,  though 
well  dressed,  exercises  tranquillity,  is  quiet,  sub- 
dued, restrained,  chaste,  and  has  ceased  to  find 
fault  with  all  other  beings,  he  is  indeed  a  Brah- 
mana,  a  Sramana,  a  Bikkhu."  ^ 

Again,  in  these  old  pictures  of  Buddhist  Sangha 
life,  there  is  no  reflection  of  that  insane  passion 
for  suffering  which  marked  the  gaunt  and  self- 
mutilated  Yogis  around  them,  and  which  also  dis- 
tinguished many  of  the  ascetics  of  Christendom. 
The  flagellations,  and  lacerations,  and  macerations 
which  at  one  time  became  popular  in  European 
monasteries,  and  which  made  even  a  man  like  the 
founder  of  the  Franciscan  Order  refuse  food  and 
sleep  for  days  together,  spend  whole  nights  in 
winter  up  to  the  neck  in  snow  or  water,  pat 
ashes  in  the  meals  which  had  been  cooked  for 
him,  would  not  for  an  hour  have  been  tolerated ; 
yea,  they  would  have  been  laughed  out  of  the 
world  by  Buddha  and  his  monks.  Wherever 
they  went,  they  encountered  grievous  companies  of 

^  Dhammapada,  141,  142  ;  Sacred  Boolcs  of  the  East,  vol.  x.  Part  i. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  295 

"Eyeless  and  tongiieless,  sexless,  crippled,  deaf: 
The  body  by  the  mind  being  thus  stripped 
For  glory  of  uiucli  suffering,  and  tlie  bliss 
Which  they  shall  win,"  ' 

but  they  never  seem  to  have  been  tempted  to  give 
way  to  this  intoxication  which  was  supposed  to 
make  men  gods.  Self-denial  was  essential,  but 
severe  austerities  and  bodily  penance  were  strongly 
discouraged.  "  Blooming,  well-fed,  with  healthy 
colour  and  skin,"  is  the  description  often  given  in 
the  old  texts  of  a  model  Bikkhu.  Buddha,  when 
first  met  by  the  Brahman  sages  after  his  illu- 
mination, surprised  them  by  the  serenity  of  his 
countenance,  the  purity  and  brightness  of  his  com- 
plexion. Among  the  first  salutations  addressed 
to  the  brethren  on  their  return  from  their  wander- 
ings was  the  question  whether  they  had  been 
well  fed.^  It  is  true  some  Buddhist  saints  might 
be  found  sitting  for  days  in  the  burning  sun, 
oblivious  to  its  fiery  torments,  but  these  must 
have  been  exceptions,  for  there  is  no  mistaking 
either  the  teaching  or  the  life  of  Buddha  himself. 
All  these  extravagant  cruelties,  by  which  men  have 
abused  or  sought  to  destroy  the  most  beautiful 
organism  and  the  most  perfect  instrument  which 
has  ever  been  produced  in  this  world,  were  by 
him    regarded    as    foolish    and    dangerous,    and    as 

^  Sir  Kdwin  Arnold,  Light  of  Asia,  pp.  9a,  96. 
-  Mahavagga,  i.  .31.  4. 


296  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

debasing  as  the   sensualism  which  they  sought  to 
avoid. 

Though  we  have  hitherto  referred  to  the  Bud- 
dhist Order,  it  is  hardly  correct  to  think  of  it  as 
just  one  community.  Though  theoretically  the 
Sanglia  of  Buddha  was  the  ideal  unit,  practically 
it  never  became  so.  After  his  decease  there  was 
no  central  governing  power  to  direct  and  inspire 
the  whole  organisation.  The  patriarchs,  of  whom 
a  long  succession  is  given,  were  not  hierarchs  in 
the  Greek  or  Latin  sense.^  They  were  simply  out- 
standing Arhats,  the  heroic  defenders  and  apostles 
of  the  system.  Primitive  Buddhism  Avas  repre- 
sented not  by  one  but  by  many  Sanghas,  for  each 
brother  as  he  went  forth  became  the  centre  of  a 
new  fraternity.  Its  original  cultus  was  based 
on  the  idea  that  community  of  aim  would  suffice 
to  gather  the  knots  of  people  who  lived  near  each 
other  for  mutual  confession  and  instruction  and 
discipline.  So  they  continued  a  custom  which  had 
come  down  from  their  Vedic  ancestors,  who,  in 
the  four  days  of  the  lunar  month,  when  the  moon 
is  new,  or  full,  or  half-way  between  the  two, 
celebrated  the  fast  preparatory  to  the  offering  of 
the  intoxicating  Soma.  The  Buddhists  had  neither 
fast,   nor    sacrifice,   nor    offering,    nor    any   form   of 

^  Introduction  to  Dliaminapada,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x. 
p.  xliv :  a  long  list  quoted  from  the  Northern  Scrijiture  by  Dr.  Edkins 
in  Chinese  Buddhism. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  297 

religious  worship  whatever,  but  in  these  days  they 
gathered  for  careful  examination  of  themselves  in 
the  light  of  the  Prohibitions,  for  public  confes- 
sion Oxie  to  another,  and  for  discipline.  For  these 
weekly  gatherings  the  manual  of  the  Patimokkha 
or  Disburdenment  was  composed,  it  is  averred,  by 
Buddha  himself^  To  this  public  catechising  and 
purgation  of  the  Roll  all  the  brethren  had  to  come  ; 
even  a  sick  man  was  only  excused  when  he  could 
assure  the  assembly,  through  a  sponsor,  that  he  was 
clean  of  fault,  and  if  no  brother  was  available  for 
this  office  the  assembly  had  to  adjourn  to  meet 
at  his  couch.  Its  president,  who  also  summoned 
the  brethren,  was  the  monk  of  the  longest  standing 
among  them.  So  far  it  seemed  to  anticipate  our 
principle  of  Presbyterian  parity,  but,  like  Convoca- 
tion, it  was  an  exclusively  ecclesiastical  gathering, 
for  neither  nun,  nor  novice,  nor  layman  was 
allowed  to  be  present.  Like  our  presbyteries 
when  applying  their  privy  censures,  they  expected 
to  be  "alone."  Then,  when  all  were  reverentially 
placed,  in  presence  of  no  heart-searching  God,  but 
before  one  another,  there  was  recited  by  the 
president  the  order  of  confessional,  according  to 
the  rule  that  if  there  was  no  transo-ression  there 
was  no  interruption,  and  silence  indicated  inno- 
cence. 

'  The  (iuestion  was  thrice  put,  "  Are  ye  pure  ? "  Mahavagga,  ii.  1-36. 


298  THE  BUDDHIST  SxVNGHA  :  lecx.  v. 

First  came  the  recitation  of  the  gravest  offences : 
the  four  Paragikii  renounced  upon  their  admis- 
sion, commission  of  any  one  of  which  involved 
expulsion  from  the  Order.  Then  came  the  list  of 
the  less  serious  transgressions  —  Samghadisesas, 
involving  temporary  degradation,  and  lastly  that 
of  the  Pakittya,  or  venial  faults,  which  were  atoned 
for  by  simple  confession.  It  was  a  lengthy,  minute, 
ill-arranged  form  of  inquisition,  more  comprehensive 
and  rigid  than  any  catechism  of  the  confessional 
which  E-omanism  ever  devised.^  It  out-phariseed 
the  Pharisees  in  its  trivialities  and  repetitions  and 
straining  out  of  gnats,  and  no  manual  of  the  cloister 
ever  discovered,  could  equal  its  disgusting  details 
of  every  conceivable  form  of  unnatural  vice  sup- 
posed to  be  perpetrable  by  the  brethren."  It 
reads  more  like  a  suggestion  to  sin  than  a  defence 
against  temptation.  We  can  understand  from  it 
alone,  how  impossible  it  was  for  Buddhism  to  live 
up  to  its  true  principles,  how  incapable  it  was  of 
urging  on  the  steady  moral  progress  of  the  race, 
and  of  even  realising  the  example  of  its  founder. 
Life's  whole  strength  was  wasted  in  watching 
against  petty  and  artificial  transgressions,  so  that 
none  was  available  for  the  prosecution  of  real  duty. 
Yet  if  deliverance   was  to  come  by  the  huv,   the 

^  See  for  a  specimen  the  KuUavaga,  v.  21  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East, 
vol.  XX.  2  Bishop  of  Colombo,  in  Nineteenth  Century,  July  1888. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  299 

most  trivial  details  of  action  had  to  be  tried ;  but 
here,  as  elsewhere,  by  the  law  was  only  the  know- 
ledge of  sin,  and  that  not  as  an  offence  against  an 
infinitely  Holy  One,  but  only  as  a  misfortune,  or 
at  worst  an  imprudence,  a  stumbling-block  placed 
by  man  himself  in  the  way  of  advancing  his  interest. 
At  the  close  of  the  rainy  season,  when  the 
brethren  were  making  ready  for  their  wanderings, 
another  solemn  conference  for  self-purgation  was 
held.  In  this  exercise  of  the  Pavarana  or  Invitation 
no  one  known  to  be  under  the  burden  of  scandal 
could  take  part,  but  all  who  were  consciously  clean, 
from  the  oldest  to  the  youngest,  invited  the 
brethren  to  name  any  offence  which  during  their 
common  retreat  they  might  have  noted  in  their 
conduct.  "  I  invite,  venerable  ones,  the  Order  ;  if 
ye  have  seen  anything  offensive  on  my  part,  or  have 
heard  anything,  or  have  any  suspicion  about  me, 
have  pity  upon  me,  and  na.me  it.  If  I  see  it,  I  will 
make  amends."  ^  It  may  be  asked  whether  such 
an  institution  as  this  could  ever  have  flourished  in 
Christendom,  although  the  purest  of  our  Churches 
might  adopt  it  with  profit.  These  Buddhist 
brethren  could  not  pray  the  one  for  the  other, 
but  they  could  confess  their  faults  one  to  another 
by  a  simpler  and  more  effective  method  than  has 
ever  been  attempted  by  the  confessional.     That  in- 

^  Mahavagga,  iv.  1.  18  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xiii. 


300  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

stitution  in  Christendom  has  tended  more  to  corrupt 
and  degrade  than  to  purify  and  elevate  society, 
for  it  has  interfered  with  the  divinely  instituted 
and  much  more  ancient  confessional  of  home.  In 
its  secrecy,  sealed  by  afPection  to  father  or  mother, 
or  brother  or  sister,  can  be  told  out  the  things  that 
burn  within  ;  and  no  priest  or  ecclesiastic  can  usurp 
this  parental  or  brotherly  function  without  injuring 
what  they  must  earnestly  desire  to  protect.  This 
confessional,  however,  of  the  one  to  the  whole  little 
brotherhood,  making  them  watch  for  and  consider 
one  another,  must  have  tended  to  mutual  edifi- 
cation. It  seems  of  all  the  observances  of  the 
Sangha  to  have  most  nearly  realised  one  great 
purpose  of  the  Church,  that  of  being  helpful  to 
each  other's  salvation.  St.  Paul  and  St.  James 
would  have  felt  at  home  in  such  a  conference. 
They  would  probably  have  warned  the  brethren 
against  judging  one  another,  and  they  would  have 
instructed  them  that  only  One  whose  knowledge 
is  perfect,  because  His  love  is  infinite,  could  try 
the  lives  of  men ;  but  they  would  have  commended 
them  for  this  honest  endeavour  to  fulfil  one  of  the 
precepts  of  the  perfect  law  of  liberty  :  "  Brethren, 
if  a  man  be  overtaken  in  a  fault,  ye  who  are 
spiritual  restore  such  an  one  in  the  spirit  of  meek- 
ness, considering  thyself,  lest  thou  also  be  tempted." 
The  part  played  by  woman  in  the  early  history 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 


301 


of  Buddhism  was  analogous  to  that  assumed  by 
woman  in  relation  to  primitive  Christianity.  Women 
were  among  the  most  zealous  supporters  of  Buddha, 
ministering  to  him  of  their  substance.  Subse- 
quently, as  in  the  case  of  the  Christian  Church,  the 
largest  proportion  of  the  wealth  which  was  lavished 
in  such  marvellous  munificence  upon  the  Order 
came  from  female  votaries.  Evidently  in  those 
days  in  India  the  position  of  woman  was  not  so 
degraded  and  helpless  as  it  afterwards  became. 
Women  in  old  Indian  literature  are  seen  to  be 
much  more  on  an  equality  with  men  ;  they  are  not 
only  represented  as  receiving  scholastic  instruction, 
but  even  to  them  as  authoresses  some  of  the  Vedic 
hymns  were  ascribed.^  At  any  rate,  women  appear 
in  almost  every  Buddhist  episode,  and  they  move 
about  with  a  freedom  which  contrasts  strangely 
with  the  seclusion  and  restraint  in  which  in  India 
they  have  lived  for  ages.  In  the  character  of 
Buddha  there  seems  to  have  been  much  that  was 
peculiarly  attractive  to  the  best  type  of  women,  and 
at  least  one  of  these  stands  forth  with  very  clearly 
marked  individuality.-     His  mother  is  only  a  shadow 

'  Weber,  Indischa  Studien,  x.  118  ;  Metrical  translations  by  Dr. 
John  Muir,  p.  250,  where  Professor  Eggeling  is  quoted. 

2  Maha-pagapati  the  Gotaini,  his  aunt  and  nurse  (KuUavaga,  x.  1) 
whose  entreaty,  through  Ananda,  led  him  to  found  the  Order  of  Bikkhuni, 
seems  more  than  a  name.  Visakha,  "  the  rich  and  bountiful,"  is  another 
type  of  votary  (Mahavagga,  viii.  15). 


302  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

in  the  legends,  and  we  can  only  conjecture  what 
the  parent  of  so  good  and  gentle  a  man  must  have 
been.  But  his  wife  confronts  us  with  so  much  that 
is  womanly  in  the  picture  that  we  feel  she  must 
have  been  drawn  from  life.  Very  pathetic  and 
tender  is  the  graphic  account  of  her  first  interview 
with  him,  upon  his  return  as  the  illustrious  Buddha 
to  his  father's  house. ^  When  all  came  to  do  him 
honour,  Yasodhara  did  not  come,  for  she  said,  "  If 
I  am  of  any  value  in  his  eyes,  he  will  come  himself, 
and  I  can  welcome  him  better  here."  Buddha, 
noting  her  absence,  went  attended  by  two  of  his 
disciples  to  the  place  where  she  was,  and  he  warned 
his  companions  not  to  prevent  her  should  she  seek 
to  embrace  him,  although  no  member  of  the 
Order  could  touch  or  be  touched  by  a  woman. 
And  when  she  saw  him,  a  mendicant  in  yellow 
robes,  with  shaven  head  and  face — though  she  knew 
it  would  be  so — she  could  not  contain  herself,  but 
fell  at  his  feet,  which  she  held,  passionately  weep- 
ing. Then  remembering  the  great  and  impassable 
gulf  which  he  had  fixed  between  them,  she  rose 
and  stood  at  his  side.  His  father  sought  to  apolo- 
gise for  her,  telling  how  in  the  greatness  of  her  love 
she  mourned  and  afflicted  her  soul  for  loss  of  him,  and 
refused  to  be  comforted.     She  became  his  disciple  ; 

^  Buddhist  JataJca  Stories,  translated  by  Rhys  Davids,  pp.  87,  90  ; 
Bigandet,  Life  of  Gaudama,  old  ed.,  pp.  156,  168. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  303 

and  when  afterwards,  much  against  his  incUnation, 
he  admitted  women  into  a  separate  branch  of  the 
Order,  the  poor  wife,  whom  he  had  not  only  widowed, 
but  had  bereft  of  her  only  child,  "passed  into  the 
silent  life,"  as  one  of  the  first  of  Buddhist  nuns. 

All  candid  readers  of  the  early  Buddhist  scrip- 
tures will  admit  that  Buddha  must  not  only  have 
been  gentle  in  disposition  but  pure  in  character. 
From  male  and  female  disciples  alike  he  demanded 
chastity,  in  the  Christian  conception  of  the  virtue. 
In  the  reported  discourses  of  Buddha  there  is  the 
same  absence  of  direct  denunciation  of  the  vices 
that  corrupt  society  which  is  observable  in  the 
Gospels  ;  but  the  impression  made  by  the  reading 
of  both  narratives,  is  that  of  characters  so  far  re- 
moved from  such  vices,  that  people  in  their  jDresence 
or  under  their  influence  could  not  even  think  of 
them.  In  both  narratives  we  have  presentations  of 
"  women  who  were  sinners  "  in  relation  to  Buddha 
and  Christ,  but  it  will  be  confessed  that  the  effect 
produced  upon  us  is  very  different  in  each  case. 
The  Indian  episodes  lack  the  stirrings  of  the  depths 
of  spiritual  feeling,  the  creative  word  of  command 
exorcising  the  lust,  and  unsealing  the  long  con- 
gealed fountains  of  penitence,  which  confront  us  so 
prominently  in  the  scenes  of  the  gospel.  Buddha 
was  a  pure  man,  demanding  purity  from  all  who 
would  be  saved,  but  demanding  it  only  as  moralists 


304  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

have  demanded  it  all  along.  There  did  not 
radiate  from  him  that  blending  of  horror  of  sin 
and.  of  pity  for  sinners  which  makes  the  influence 
of  Christ  upon  the  wickedness  and  infirmities 
of  men  to  be  unique  in  its  regenerative  power. 
Had  Christ  insisted  upon  purity  just  as  Buddha 
did,  the  world  would  have  profited  little  by 
the  teaching.  Unquestionably  the  mission  of 
Buddha,  though  intended  to  make  for  chastity, 
has  not  purified  Eastern  Asia  from  the  gross  and 
unnatural   vices   to   which   all   along    it  has    been 

prone. 

For  Buddha's  conception  and  estimate  of  woman 
was  very  inferior  to  that  of  Christ.^  She  was  re- 
garded by  him  through  the  medium  of  the  tradi- 
tional prejudice  of  her  inferiority  to  man  in  every 
respect.  To  him,  as  to  Plato,  women,  of  all  snares 
which  the  tempter  spreads  for  man,  were  the  most 
dangerous.  Not  only  was  the  very  smallest  love 
for  them  to  be  destroyed,  but  they  were  to  be 
avoided,  not  to  be  spoken  to,  not  looked  upon,- 
not  to  be  helped  even  when  in  distress.  Of  their 
future  as  women  in  the  life  hereafter  he  had  no 
hope,^  and  the  only  reward  which  he  could  hold  out 
to  them  for  obedience  or  benevolent  service,  the  very 

1  Dhaiumapada,  284  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x. 

2  Book   of  the  Great  Decease,  v.  23  ;    Sacred  Books  of  the  East, 

vol.  xi. 

^  Eitel,  Lectures  on  Buddhism,  p.  10. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  305 

liighesfc  object  of  aspiration  which  he  could  present, 
was  that  they  might  be  re-born  as  men  in  another 
stage  of  existence.  His  disciple  Ananda  did  good 
service  when  he  wrung  from  him  permission  to  form 
the  order  of  Nuns/  for  a  nun  might  hope  for  salva- 
tion ;  but  alas  for  woman  and  for  the  progress  of 
society  if  she  had  no  other  gosjDcl  to  trust  in  than 
that  which  Buddha  preached  ! 

His  ideal  of  purity  was  from  the  first  vitiated 
by  his  celibate  views  of  life,  and  from  these  views 
human  nature  has  always  revolted  in  proportion  to 
the  honesty  with  which  men  have  striven  to  realise 
them.  Celibacy,  when  dominant  or  prevalent,  has 
only  produced  a  more  vicious  and  unnatural  con- 
dition of  socie,ty  than  that  from  which  it  attempted 
to  escape.  The  Son  of  Man  represented  nobler 
traditions,  and  taught  far  sublimer  doctrine. 
Woman,  though  different  from,  and  in  some  respects 
weaker,  is  in  others  higher  and  j^urer  than  man, 
and  altogether  his  consort.  The  pure  love  of  the 
man  for  the  woman  was  recognised  by  Christ  as 
one  of  the  most  sanctifying  influences  in  life  ;  and 
marriage,  the  most  sacred  of  all  Divine  institutions^ 
as  the  bond  which  more  than  any  other  keeps 
society  together,  obtained  His  special  benediction, 
and  was  committed  by  Him  to  His  Church  to 
guard  as  the  palladium  of  social  freedom  and  dignity. 

'  Kullavagga,  x.  1.  3,  4  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xx. 

U 


306  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

Notwithstanding  its  many  defections,  the  Church 
has  never  been  permitted  to  lose  sight  of  the  Lord's 
ideal.  Even  in  the  days  of  corrupted  faith,  when 
its  laudation  of  virginity  was  most  extravagant,  its 
unmistakable  tendency  was  to  acknowledge  the 
true  dignity  of  the  wife/  A  recent  writer  professes 
to  be  unable  "  to  see  that  Christianity  has  had  any 
favourable  effect  on  the  position  of  women — on  the 
contrary,  it  tended  rather  to  lower  their  character 
and  contract  the  range  of  their  activities."  ^  It  is 
noticeable  that  his  facts  or  quotations  are  drawn 
from  a  period  when  asceticism  had  deeply  tainted 
the  Church,  and  that  they  cannot  be  held  to  re- 
present the  tendency  of  the  teaching  of  Christ. 
The  unmistakable  influence  of  His  religion  has  been 
to  ennoble  family  relations,  and  to  secure  woman  in 
her  true  position  as  the  comjDanion  and  helpmeet  of 
man.  It  has  been  stated  by  one  who  cannot  be 
regarded  as  a  special  pleader,  that  what  most  differ- 
entiates the  European  from  the  Hindu  branch  of 
the  Aryan  race,  is  that  the  first  has  steadily  carried 
forward,  for  the  elevation  of  woman,  the  series  of 
reforms "  from  which  the  other,  though  going  a 
little  way,   recoiled.     No  one  need  fear  to  assert 

^  Clement  of  Alexandria  gives  prominence  to  the  value  of  marriage 
and  of  the  family  life,  Strom,  vii.,  Pacdag.  iii.  So  Tertullian,  Ad 
Uxorem,  ii.  c.  8. 

-  Principal  Donaldson,  Contemporary  Review,  Sept.  1889. 

^  Sir  Henry  S.  Maine,  Early  History  of  Institutions,  p.  341. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  307 

that  the  chief  factor  in  these  reforms,  sometimes 
carried  against  the  resistance  and  opposition  of  the 
Church,  was  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  In  propor- 
tion as  the  exam^^le  of  Christ  has  been  honoured, 
and  His  teaching  has  been  accepted  and  obeyed, 
the  emancipation  of  woman  and  the  recognition  of 
her  real  rights  have  been  secured.  In  any  case  it 
is  certain  that  the  rehgion  of  Buddha,  though 
probably  not  intended  to  perpetuate  the  inferior 
position  characteristic  of  woman  in  the  East,  has 
succeeded  neither  in  lifting  her  out  of  it,  nor  in 
preventing  her  from  lapsing  more  deeply  into  it. 

The  time  for  discovering  the  worth  of  woman 
had  not  come  in  Buddha's  age,  and  we  must 
remember  his  antecedents  and  surroundings  be- 
fore we  condemn  his  estimate  of  or  his  relations 
to  her.  If  the  tradition  be  reliable,  he  prophesied, 
upon  yielding  to  Ananda's  intercession,  that  be- 
cause of  women  holy  living  would  not  long  be 
preserved.  They  would  prove  in  the  fair  field  of 
his  Order  what  "  the  disease  of  mildew  proved  to 
be  in  a  field  of  rice."  ^  So  though  he  admitted  them 
to  a  separate  branch  of  the  Order,  he  placed  them 
under  very  stringent  regulations,  and  thoroughly 
under  the  tutelage  of  the  monks.  "A  nun,  though 
admitted  a  nun  a  hundred  years  ago,  must  bow 
reverentially  before  a  monk,  though  only  admitted 

^  Kullavagga,  x.  1.  6. 


308  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

to-day."  She  must  not  pass  the  rainy  season  in  a 
district  in  which  monks  were  not  residing ;  she 
must  report  herself  twice  a  month  to  the  Sangha 
for  confession  and  instruction  ;  she  must  give  the 
Pavarana  invitation,  and  she  must,  if  guilty  of 
offence,  atone  for  it  before  both  monks  and  nuns. 
She  could  only  be  admitted  after  a  two  years' 
novitiate  ;  under  no  circumstances  must  she  revile 
or  rebuke  a  monk ;  yea,  on  no  occasion  what- 
ever must  she  charge  him  with  any  offence.^  Be- 
tween them  and  the  superior  sex  the  strictest 
separation  was  maintained  from  the  first.  The 
brother  who  was  to  teach  and  exhort  them  was 
never  allowed  to  enter  their  nunnery,  unless  a  sister 
was  very  ill.  For  a  monk  to  journey  alone  with  a 
nun,  to  cross  a  river  in  the  same  boat  with  one,  to 
sit  alone  with  a  nun,  with  or  without  witnesses,  was 
a  very  grave  offence.^  In  short,  in  the  Buddhist 
Sangha  women  were  only  tolerated  at  the  best,  and 
they  were  very  severely  guarded  and  restrained,  as 
creatures  not  at  all  calculated  to  influence  any  one 
for  good,  and  who  could  only  be  prevented  or  tamed 
from  doing  mischief  or  harm.^ 

'  KuUavagga,  x.  1.  27. 

2  Patiraokkha ;  Pakittiya  Dhamiua,  6,  7,  27,  66,  67. 

''  "  You  are  not,  0  monks,  to  bow  down  before  women,  to  rise  up  in 
their  presence,  to  stretch  out  your  joined  hands  towards  them,  nor  to 
perform  towards  them  those  duties  that  are  proper  to  them  (from  an 
inferior  to  a  superior)." — KuUavagga,  x.  3.  1.     "  Giving  honour  unto  the 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  309 

The   Sangha,  as  a   brotherhood  and   sisterhood 
leading  a  ceUbate  life,  coupled  with  abstinence  from 
labour  and  from   active    services    of   charity,  was 
simply  vicious  in  its  tendency,  and  it  proved  one 
of  the  most  obstinate  hindrances  to  the  realisation 
of  Buddha's  best  ideas,  and  one  of  the  most  power- 
ful   factors    in    the    degradation    of  his    religion. 
Human  nature  was  too  strong  to  submit  to  such 
artificial  restrictions ;  so  very  early  there  gathered 
around  him  and   his  monks  many  who  would  not 
abandon  their  families   and   their  callings,  though 
they  took  refuge  in  Buddha,  and  proved  the  reality 
of  their  devotion  by  faithful  service  of  the  Order 
and  practice  of  the  Law.     These  were  the  votaries,  j 
*'upasaka"  (masc),  "upasika"  (fem.),  corresponding/ 
with  the  lay  associates  of  the  great  Mendicant  Orders 
of  Christendom.     Converted  to  the  observance  of  the 
precepts,  they  could  only,  as  long  as  they  continued 
in  the  world,  be  sustained  by  a  very  faint  and  far- 
off  hope  of  deliverance.      Theoretically  they  might 
attain   to    sainthood,    and  from    "  this    shore "    of 
common  life,  in  most  exceptional  cases  they  might 
"pass  across  the  dominion  of  death,"  and  reach  to  the 
other  shore.^     The  father  of  Buddha  is  said  to  have 
done  so  on  his  deathbed,  and  another  is  recorded  in 

wife,  as  unto  the  weaker  vessel,  and  as  being  heirs  together  of  the  grace 
of  God."— 1  Peter  iii.  1-7. 

^  Dhamniapada,  85,  86  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x. 


310  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA  :  lect.  v. 

the  legends  as  having  gained  Nirvana.^  As  a  rule, 
however,  it  was  reckoned  impossible  for  them  to  gain 
what  was  considered  as  so  barely  possible  for  the 
Order  of  Mendicants,  that  only  one  or  two  even 
of  them  did  actually  gain  it  here.  Pious  votaries, 
however,  could  hope  for  a  happy  re-birth,  and  for 
strength  of  merit  to  be  acquired ;  in  some  hereafter 
sufficient  to  enable  them  eventually  to  pluck  the 
fruit  of  Nirvana.  For  such  lay  associates  no  cere- 
mony of  initiation  was  required ;  only  in  presence  of  a 
monk  the  candidates  made  j^rofession  that  they  took 
refuge  in  Buddha  and  Dharma  and  Sangha.  They 
had  to  observe  certain  precepts  and  prohibitions  ; 
had  to  renounce  any  trade  involving  the  making  or 
selling  of  arms,  or  the  killing  of  animals  ;  they  had 
to  abstain  from  all  traffic  in  and  use  of  intoxicating- 
drinks,  and  to  put  far  away  from  them  all  falsehood, 
and  theft,  and  unchastity.  To  seal  this,  however, 
no  formal  vow  was  demanded  of  the  votary,  and  to 
maintain  them  in  their  obedience  no  pastoral  super- 
vision was  accorded.  When  they  transgressed,  even 
in  the  matter  of  scandalous  living,  there  was  neither 
censure  nor  discipline,  and  when  they  offended  by 
injuring  the  Order  or  insulting  one  of  its  members, 
the  only  penalty  inflicted  was  the  refusal  of  their 
invitations  to  dine,  and  the  withdrawal  from  them  of 

^  T.  W.  Ehys  Davids,   Handbook   of  Buddhism,    p.    125  ;    Spence 
Hardy,  Eastern  Monachism,  p.  199. 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  311 

the  alms-bowl.^     Into  the  Uposatha  assemblies  they 
dared  not  intrude,  and  from  the  very  slightest  share 
of  the  business  of  the  Order  they  were  strictly  ex- 
cluded."   They  could  only  listen  to  the  preaching  of 
the  monks,  whom  they  could  feed,  and  lodge,  and 
endoAv  with  houses  and  lands  ;  and  all  the  reward 
they  could  hope  for,  was  the  prospect  of  acquiring 
in  some  future  life  merit  sufficient  to  enable  them 
to  renounce  the  world  and  become  mendicants  like 
them.     For  the  present  they  were  not  inside,  but 
only  about,  the  circle  of  the  Sakkya-putta-Samanas  ; 
he  was  not  a  member  of  the  family,  but  only  a 
servitor  and  a  slave.  ^     The  elect,  the  disciples  in 
deed  and  in  truth,  the  heirs  of  salvation,  were  ex- 
clusively the  monks ;  and  the  Upasaka  at  the  best 
was  one  for  whom  it  was  good  "  continuously  to  dis- 
pense   rice    milk,   and    honey  lumps,   if   he    had   a 
longing  for  joy,  whether  he  desired  heavenly  joy  or 
coveted  only  human  prosperity."^     His  merit  was 
most  likely  to  be  acquired  by  being  useful  to  the 
good,  who  served  him  by  accepting  his  ofierings,'^ 
and  taught  him — though  to  a  purpose  undreamed 

^  The  bowl  was  "  turned  down  "  in  relation  to  him,  and  his  house  be- 
came an  unlawful  resort. — Kullavagga,  v.  20.  3  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East,  vol.  XX. 

^  Sir  Monier  "Williams  states  that  though  votaries  did  not  confess  to 
monks,  the  four  days  were  observed  by  them. — Buddhism,  p.  84. 

3  Oldenberg,  Buddha,  <tc.,  p.  162  note. 

*  Mahavagga,  vi.  24.  1-6. 

*  Kullavagga,  vi.  1-5  ;  ibid.  vi.  4.  10. 


312  THE  BUDDHIST  SANGHA :  lect.  v. 

of  by  St.  Paul  when  he  quoted  his  Saviour's  saying 
— that  in  his  case,  at  least,  it  was  "more  blessed 
to  give  than  to  receive." 

It  is  to  the  lasting  honour  of  Buddha  that  he 
converted  the  Sangha  into  a  propaganda  for  j^reach- 
ing  to  all  his  way  of  salvation.  He  did  not,  for  he 
could  not,  conceive  of  that  better  society  which  our 
Lord  has  created  in  the  Holy  Catholic  Church.  It 
is  true,  alas  1  that  the  actual  or  visible  Church  has 
often  caricatured,  and  has  never  yet  properly  repre- 
sented, its  Lord's  ideal ;  but  it  has  never  been  per- 
mitted wholly  to  lose  sight  of  that  Kingdom  whose 
citizenship  is  free  to  all  who  believe  and  repent, 
and  of  that  royal  jDriesthood  of  which  all  are  mem- 
bers who  trust  in  the  one  sacrifice  and  prevailing 
intercession  of  the  Great  High  Priest  of  our  pro- 
fession. If  the  visible  Church  has  failed  to  convert, 
or  even  to  attract,  the  members  of  the  Buddhist 
Sanghas,  it  is  because  of  something  wrong  in  its 
methods,  or  false  in  its  presentation  ;  for  notwith- 
standing its  failure,  it  possesses  in  the  great  gospel 
of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  intrusted  to  its  keeping, 
potentialities  for  gathering  all  mankind  into  the 
only  brotherhood  which  will  satisfy  their  heaven - 
born  aspirations.  The  manifestation  of  it  may  still 
be  a  far-off  Divine  event,  and  to  bring  it  about 
God  may  employ  many  agencies  other  than  those 
which  the  Church  as  at  present  organised  may  be 


LECT.  V.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  313 

willing  to  recognise  or  to  use ;  but  once  that  holy 
brotherhood  is  manifested,  He  alone  will  be  found 
at  the  head  of  it,  who  on  His  way  to  His  agony, 
and  to  the  cross  on  which  He  was  to  reveal  to  the 
uttermost  the  love  of  the  Creator  for  the  human 
race,  paused  by  the  brook  Kedron,  and  made  this 
supplication  mingle  with  the  ripple  of  its  waters 
and  the  whispers  of  the  olives  of  Gethsemane,  "I 
pray  .  .  .  that  they  all  may  be  one,  even  as  thou, 
Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also 
may  be  in  us." 


LECTURE    VI. 

THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY. 

I. — External  Diffusion, 

In  His  apostles,  and  the  disciples  who  gathered 
round  them,  endowed  with  the  memory  of  His 
words  and  deeds,  two  simple  sacraments,  and  a 
promise  that  He  would  be  with  them  to  the  end 
of  the  seen,  while  they  fulfilled  His  commission  to 
evangelise  and  baptize  all  nations  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
the  continuance  of  the  Church  which  our  Lord  had 
founded  was  secured.  Buddha  left  behind  him 
neither  sacrament  to  signify  and  seal  the  benefits 
which  he  had  conferred,  nor  any  promise  of  per- 
sonal fellowship  with  or  interest  in  his  followers ; 
but  he  was  survived  by  the  Monastic  Order  which 
he  had  founded,  by  a  law  containing  the  essentials 
of  his  system,  and  a  form  of  discipline  containing 
the  customs  to  be  observed  in  their  assemblies,  and 
the  rules  to   which    all    the    brethren  were   to   be 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lil^ 

subject.  Though  the  personal  guide  to  Nirvana 
was  lost  to  them,  they  still  in  the  law  possessed  his 
way  to  it,  and  by  observing  the  law,  and  following 
his  way,  they  would  fulfil  his  last  stirring  exhorta- 
tion,^ "  Be  ye  lamps  unto  yourselves,  be  ye  a  refuge 
to  yourselves,  O  monks." 

So  much  importance  being  attached  to  the  laM", 
his  disciples,  immediately  after  his  decease,  accord- 
ing to  the  tradition,  set  about  collecting  the 
materials  of  it,  in  his  remembered  discourses, 
decisions,  and  in  all  that  he  said ;  and  this  labour 
of  recalling,  determining,  and  perpetuating  his 
teaching  seems  to  have  occupied  them  for  several 
generations.  There  is  no  trace  of  any  correspond- 
ing anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  Church  to 
collect  the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  The  Gospels 
are  not  the  earliest  of  our  scriptures,  and  they  were 
produced  more  for  the  edification  of  Jewish  and 
Gentile  converts,  than  to  secure  for  the  Church  a 
standard  of  belief  and  of  discipline.  The  function 
of  the  Church  was  not  so  much  to  recall  and  per- 
petuate the  teaching  of  its  Lord  as  to  interpret  the 
significance  of  His  life,  and  death,  and  resurrection. 
No  written  or  remembered  instructions  were 
required,  for  the  apostles  believed  that  they  had 
Himself  to  tell  them  on  every  occasion  what  they 
should   do  and  teach.     From   the  very  first  they 

^  Malidparanibhana  Sutta,  ii.  33.  35. 


316  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

prayed  to  Him  in  full  assurance  that  He  heard  and 
answered  them.  They  believed  that  He  had  shown 
Himself  to  some  of  them,  and  that  He  was  wit- 
nessed for  in  all  of  them  by  a  new  possession.  The 
Gentile  world  had  been  familiar  with  the  /xai^ta  of 
the  medium  through  whom  a  Divine  oracle  was 
supposed  to  be  given,  and  with  the  rabies  of  the 
howling  priests  of  the  goddess  Cybele,  but  the 
Christians  professed  to  be  inspired  by  the  TTpevfxa 
ayiov.  In  some  instances  this  inspiration  manifested 
itself  in  extravagant  forms  and  in  mysterious  utter- 
ances/ but  those  who  were  most  under  its  control 
had  complete  possession  of  themselves  ;  their  speech 
was  intelligible,  and  sober,  and  most  convincing, 
making  "  manifest  the  secrets  of  the  heart." 

Unquestionably  this  belief  in  the  presence  of 
Christ  in  the  Spirit — whether  truly  founded  or  not 
— was  universal  in  the  Church.  All  the  utterances 
of  primitive  Christianity,  the  scriptures  of  its 
apostles,  the  treatises  of  its  fathers  and  doctors, 
and  all  the  monuments  of  the  first  ages,  bear  wit- 
ness not  to  a  Christ  who  once  lived  and  had  died, 
but  who  was  living  triumphant  and  glorified,  reign- 
ing for  them,  and  in  them  to  reign.  Unquestion- 
ably also  in  this  belief  was  the  hiding  of  that  power 
which  enabled  the  Church  to  confront  the  whole 
world,  endure  the  full  weight  of  its  persecutions,  and 

^  1  Corinthians  xiv. 


LECT.  vr.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  317 

finally  win  the  victory  over  it.  It  also  explains  the 
appearance  in  the  Church,  from  the  first,  of  that 
succession  of  persons  who,  because  of  their  strongly 
marked  individualities,  gave  both  direction  and 
impetus  to  its  progress.  Buddhism,  though  both 
its  southern  and  northern  scriptures  record  a  patri- 
archal succession,  and  though  probably  not  deficient 
in  highly  cultured  disciples,  seems  to  have  lacked 
from  the  very  first  men  who  had  genius  to  organise 
or  intellect  to  command  its  forces.  Its  own  early 
writings  disclose  a  movement  which  very  speedily 
congealed,  because  ruled  only  by  a  remembered 
law,  interpreted  by  very  adulterated  traditions. 
Christianity  represents  quite  a  different  movement  ; 
it  was  not  the  perpetuation  of  a  system,  but  the 
development  of  a  new  inspiration,  of  a  life  mani- 
fested in  Christ  and  communicated  to  all  who  be- 
lieved on  Him.  Consequently  it  never  was  without 
its  heroes,  whom  it  had  the  power  to  produce  ;  and 
consequently  also  it  never  could  stiffen  into  a 
tradition,  for  where  its  leaders  attempted  to  fix  it, 
in  either  confession  or  in  ritual,  it  was  sure  to  evade 
them.  It  has  been  appropriately  described  as  "  the 
most  changeable  of  religions,"  ^ — mutable  in  its 
forms,  immutable  in  its  essence.  For  Christianity 
is  not  a  system  either  of  philosophy  or  theology  ; 

^  "  Das  Christenthum  ist  das  tillerveriindei-lichste  ;  da.s  ist  seiii  beson- 
derer  Kuhm." — Rotlie,  Stille  Stundni,  p.  357. 


318  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

it  is  a  j)erpetuallj  reforming  spirit,  fed  by  faith  in 
One  who  is  the  same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  and 
for  ever. 

Both  rehgions  entered  the  world  as  missionaries 
bent  upon  its  conversion,  and  though  Buddhism 
was  afterwards  to  ecHpse  Christianity  in  the  super- 
ficial extent  of  its  conquests,  the  annals  of  the 
primitive  Church  record  a  much  more  rapid  exten- 
sion. The  early  development  of  Christianity,  even 
taking  into  account  the  circumstances  which  helped 
or  facilitated  its  progress,  remains  one  of  the  marvels 
of  history.  In  the  New  Testament  the  Church  is 
seen  to  have  gained  a  footing  almost  wherever  the 
waves  of  the  Diaspora  had  reached.  St.  Paul  found 
Christians  not  only  in  Rome,  but  in  little  Puteoli, 
and  his  letters  imply  that  there  were  churches  in 
Spain  and  in  southern  Gaul.  St.  Peter  wrote  from 
Babylon  to  a  wide  circle  of  Christian  communities 
gathered  out  of  the  regions  of  Asia  Minor. ^  There 
seem  to  have  been  even  then  churches  in  most  of 
the  chief  cities,  and  in  a  multitude  of  minor  towns 
all  over  the  Empire ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
distrust  the  tradition,  that  before  the  last  of  the 
apostles  fell  asleep,  the  gospel  had  called  multitudes 
living  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  Empire  to  make 
good  their  citizenship  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

The   churches  may  have   been  small  in  respect 

^  Acts  xxviii.  13  ;  Rom.  xv.  24  ;  2  Tim.  iv.  10  ;  1  Peter  i.  1. 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  319 

of  membership,  for  tlie  rapid  diftusion  of  Christianity 
by  no  means  involved  the  conversion  en  masse  of 
the  people.  Facts  will  hardly  bear  out  the  glowing 
testimony  of  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  who  found  in 
the  populous  metropolis  of  a  large  province  only 
seventeen  Christians,  and  in  twenty-five  years  re- 
ported that  he  could  find  only  seventeen  heathens.^ 
With  Gibbon  we  may  have  to  discount  as  "splendid 
exaggeration  "  the  testimony  of  Tertullian,  "  Hes- 
terni  sumus,  et  vestra  omnia  implevimus."  Still 
the  direct  testimony  of  Tacitus  as  to  the  multitude 
of  Christians  in  Rome,  the  evidence  of  the  Cata- 
combs, and  many  other  indications,  point  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  rapid  numerical  increase  of  Chris- 
tians was  as  singular  as  was  the  territorial  diffusion 
of  their  religion.  The  whole  Empire  must  have 
been  sensibly  leavened,  and  the  converts  must  for 
long  have  been  gathered  from  other  than  the  lower 
classes  of  society,  before  the  conversion  of  Constan- 
tine  became  possible.  Emperors — even  Roman 
ones — follow  in  such  matters,  and  do  not  lead  their 
subjects  ;  and  so  we  may  be  sure  what  had  at  first 
been  glad  tidings  to  the  slaves  and  the  poor  must 
for  some  time  have  become  the  consolation  of  many 
a  noble  Pudens  and  Linus,  and  of  many  a  Claudia 
of  royal  descent,  before  it  could  be  recognised  as 
the  relio'ion  of  the  State. ^ 

^  Greg.  Nyss.  Op.  iii.  574.  -  Keiui,  Rom  unci  Christcnthum^  p.  417. 


320  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.         lect.  vi. 

Many  circumstances  undoubtedly  contributed 
to  this  result.  A  consolidated  empire,  with  nearly 
all  the  representative  nations  fused  into  a  union, 
comprising  all  the  existing  elements  of  culture  and 
forces  of  civilisation  ;  the  great  E-oman  highways, 
with  means  of  easy  communication  so  abundant  as 
to  be  surprising  to  us ;  the  widespread  under- 
standing of  the  two  leading  languages,  making 
virtually  of  one  speech  a  great  section  of  the  most 
important  part  of  the  world ;  the  innumerable 
communities  of  Jews,  everywhere  tolerated,  and 
"  cutting  channels  through  the  adamantine  mass  of 
heathen  society,"  ^  immensely  aided  the  missionary 
activities  of  the  apostles  and  their  followers. 
Moreover,  the  moral  and  religious  condition  of  the 
Empire,  the  bankrujjtcy  of  the  old  faith,  the  despair 
and  confusion  and  perplexity  of  people,  everywhere 
seeking  mightier  or  better  deities  than  they  knew, 
everywhere  trembling  "  between  the  two  immen- 
sities of  terror,"  rendered  possible  the  victory  of 
Christianity.  Multitudes  were  thus  prepared  to 
welcome  a  Deliverer  who  had  come  in  the  name, 
not  of  Jupiter  Maximus  Tonans,  but  of  the  Father 
in  heaven,  to  give  peace  in  this  world's  tribu- 
lations, and  sure  hope  of  joy  in  the  world  beyond 
it."       And  yet    all    this,    even    when    added    to 

*  Uhlhorn,  Conflict  of  CJiristianity,  pp.  54,  90. 
2  Neander,  Church  History,  vol.  i.  pp.  10,  40. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  321 

Gibbon's  five  causes,  will  not  account  for  the  his- 
torical puzzle,  that  a  faith,  originatmg  in  a  manger 
in  a  Syrian  cattle-shed,  brooded  over  for  thirty 
years  of  a  life  of  poverty  and  toil,  preached  for 
three,  with  the  result  of  being  almost  universally 
rejected,  and  quenched  to  all  appearance  in  the 
blood  of  crucifixion,  should  immediately  after  the 
death  of  its  Founder  have  broken  out  all  over  the 
Roman  world.  Converting  its  agents  from  farms, 
and  harbours,  and  prisons,  it  called  them  to  martyr- 
dom ;  for  it  sent  them — poor  "  weavers,  and  shoe- 
makers, and  fullers,  and  illiterate  clowns  " — to  pro- 
claim "  barbarous  dogmas,"  and  "  extravagant 
hopes,"  "  universally  detested  "  by  Jew  and  Gentile, 
and  to  bear  the  full  weight  of  a  prolonged  series  of 
persecutions  involving  indescribable  tortures  and 
disgrace.^  Yet  somehow  it  never  paused  for  a 
moment,  never  abated  one  iota  of  its  claim,  till  in 
the  course  of  a  few  generations  it  was  found  upon 
the  throne.  We  never  will  explain  this  wonder 
by  showing  how,  as  a  system  of  ethics,  or  as  a  new 
theory  of  life,  it  found  the  condition  of  the  world 
favourable  to  its  reception.  The  correlation  of  the 
state  of  the  world  to  the  new  faith  has  been 
claimed  as  providential, — an  indication  of  a  Divine 
purpose  making  all  things  work  together,  for  this 

1  Grig.  cont.  Ceh.  iii.  44-54  ;   Tatian,  c.  33  ;   Minut.  Felix,  Odav. 
8.  12  ;  Tertull.  Apolog.  37  et  pa-mm. 

X 


322  THE  TWO  EELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

maDifestation  of  a  new  power  or  principle  of  life 
in  society,  which  as  yet  has  had  no  historical 
counterpart.^ 

The  early  scriptures  of  Buddhism,  though  pre- 
serving a  tradition  that  in  twelve  years  from  the 
time  in  which  the  doctrine  was  first  preached  it 
had  spread  over  sixteen  kingdoms,  disclose  no  such 
rapidity  of  diffusion.  The  kingdoms  referred  to  are 
not  to  be  regarded  as  kingdoms  in  our  sense  of  the 
word,  for  in  extent  and  influence  they  would  not 
equal  a  German  principality,  and  were  probably 
only  tribal  communities.  After  the  death  of 
Buddha  the  many  Sanghas  that  had  arisen  seem  to 
have  suffered  for  lack  of  a  central  governing  power. 
If  his  Order  is  to  be  called  a  Church,  it  had  mani- 
festly no  church-government.  It  had  synods,  and 
assemblies,  and  councils,  but  not  one  with  the 
authority  of  an  Ecumenical  as  representative  of  the 
whole.  It  was  more  Congregational  than  Presby- 
terian in  its  constitution,  and  for  this  very  reason 
it  was  w^eak  when  compared  with  the  compact 
organisation  of  Brahmanism,  with  which  it  competed 
for  supremacy.  Disorder  and  dissension  are  trace- 
able in  it  from  the  first,  and  the  early  texts,  though 
containing  many  admonitions  against  schism,  warn- 
ings that  offences  must  come,  and  woes  upon  those 
who  would  cause  them,  record  no  practical  steps  to 

^  Newman,  Grammar  of  Assent,  pp.  460  seq. 


LECT.  vr.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  323 

prevent  or  remedy  them.  ^  Vigorous  expansion  was , 
consequently  not  to  be  looked  for,  and  for  two 
centuries  we  may  safely  infer  that  Buddhism 
represented  only  a  struggling  sect,  which,  beyond 
the  limits  in  which  it  was  first  preached,  had  made 
little,  if  indeed  any,  progress. 

At  the  close  of  this  period,  when  its  literature 
was  reaching  a  canonical  form,  and  its  manuals 
of  discipline  and  common  order  were  generally 
in  use,  it  found  its  Constantine  in  the  conqueror 
Chandragupta.  In  opposition  to  the  Brahmans, 
who  despised  him  for  his  low-caste  origin,  he  seems 
to  have  lifted  it  from  obscurity  into  the  sunshine 
of  really  imperial  favour.  His  grandson  Asoka, 
who  consolidated  his  conquests,  proved  its  Theo- 
dosius,  in  not  only  greatly  endowing  it,  but  in 
establishing  its  supremacy.  There  were  no  quarrels 
between  him  and  the  Sanghas  as  to  their  inde- 
pendence, as  afterwards  between  the  Emperors 
and  the  Popes,  for,  like  a  true  son  of  the  Church, 
he  acknowledged  their  authority.  By  obeying 
in  appearance,  he  in  reality  became,  what  Bud- 
dhism since  the  death  of  its  founder  sorely  needed, 
the  head  of  the  system,  and  under  his  wise  and 
energetic  rule,  the  religion  emerged  into  a  vigour 
which  it  was  to  maintain  for  centuries. 

^  KuUavtigga,   iv.   14.  25  ;  also  ibid.  vii.  1.  5  ;  Sacred  BooJcs  of  the 
East,  vol.  XX. 


324  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  m. 

An  earnest  Buddhist,  he  seems  to  have  been 
something  better.  He  called  himself  Pryadarsi,^ 
the  "  beloved  of  the  gods,"  and  a  Daniel  indeed 
he  appears  to  have  been,  raised  up  for  the  blessing 
of  millions.  His  edicts — stone  inscriptions  found 
all  over  India — the  first  written  testimonies  which 
Buddhism  left  of  itself,"  all  breathe  a  lofty  spirit  of 
righteousness  and  kindness  and  toleration,  appealing 
to  both  Brahman  and  Buddhist,  and  commending 
themselves  at  this  day,  "  to  Jew  and  Christian  and 
Moslem  alike,  as  part  of  the  universal  religion  of 
humanity."^  One  of  them  refers  to  a  council  which 
he  assembled  at  Patna,  for  the  pacification  and 
reformation  of  the  Order.  Durinof  its  session  the 
ancient  collections  of  rules  and  dogmas  were 
rehearsed,  and  as  the  list  is  considerably  shorter 
than  the  contents  of  the  Tripitaka,  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  Southern  tradition  that  Buddha  himself 
was  the  author  of  all  the  books  comprising  that 
collection  has  no  foundation  in  fact."*  A  far  more 
momentous  act  of  this  ancient  council  than  the 
recension  of  the  canon,  was  that  of  establishing  the 
first  great    Buddhist   missions.      To  a  revived  and 

1  E.  Burnouf,  Science  of  Religions,  p.  288,  notes  the  analogy  between 
Pryadarsi  and  "  a  man  greatly  beloved  "  in  Daniel  ix.  23. 

^  See  Lotus  de  la  bonne  Lol,  App.  x.  p.  659  seq. :  Prinsep's  trans., 
Jour.  A  slat.  Sac.  Beng.  vol.  vii.  pp.  219  seq.  ;  Prof.  H.  H.  Wilson's, 
vol.  xii.  of  Jour.  Asiat.  Soc.  Beng.  pp.  153  seq. 

2  Wheeler,  History  of  India,  vol.  iii.  p.  214. 

•*  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Handbook  of  Buddhism,  p.  225. 


LFX'T.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  325 

veformed  Order  the  suggestion  of  the  pious  king, 
that  they  should  go  forth  and  fulfil  their  great 
teacher's  original  commission,  was  welcome.  Their 
dissensions,  as  has  often  happened  in  Christendom, 
were  due  to  their  living  to  themselves.  An  army 
inactive  in  quarters,  is  more  likely  to  quarrel  or 
nuitiny  than  one  in  service  in  the  field.  These  good 
Buddhists  wisely  determined  to  carry  the  war  of 
deliverance  beyond  them,  and  so  into  the  Punjab, 
Kashmir,  the  Central  Himalayan  regions,  over  into 
the  Malay  Peninsula,  went  the  missionaries,  armed 
only  with  the  words  of  the  Law  or  the  legends 
which  had  been  floating  round  the  memory  of  their 
master,  and  supported  only  by  the  offerings  put  into 
their  alms-dish,  to  gain  whatever  victories  they 
could  in  the  fair  conflict  of  reason  with  reason.^ 

In  India  they  would  of  course  be  supported  by 
imperial  influence,  and  indeed  the  mission  to  Ceylon, 
headed  by  Mahinda,  the  son  of  Asoka,  seems  to  have 
been  accredited  by  royal  embassy ;  but  nowhere  was 
Buddhism  propagated  as  Islam  subsequently  was  by 
Mohammed,  or  as  Christianity  was  by  Charlemagne, 
with  an  army  at  its  back.  Eaces  ever  ready  to 
credit  the  supernatural  would  probably  be  more 
easily  won  by  the  wonders  which  were  then  being 
formulated  in  reference  to  Buddha ;  but  whatever 
be  the  explanation  of  it,  the  success  of  these  mis- 

'  Dipavainso,  chap.  viii. 


326  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

sionaries  anticipated  that  of  the  apostles.  In  Cey- 
lon there  was  founded  a  Sangha,  which  was  destined 
to  nurse  and  preserve  the  original  creed  in  some- 
what of  its  purity,  when  all  the  others  betrayed 
and  corrupted  it.  Surviving  several  changes  of 
dynasty,  that  Sangha,  330  years  after  Buddha's 
decease,  is  said  to  have  reduced  its  canon  to  writing. 
The  result  has  been  somewhat  contradictory  to  the 
theory,  that  it  matters  very  little  whether  a  canon 
be  oral  or  written,  for  Southern  Buddhism,  having 
an  authority  to  which  it  was  thus  earlier  anchored, 
has  held  more  closely  to  the  original  system,  from 
which,  having  no  such  check  for  long,  every  section 
of  Northern  Buddhism  has  irrecoverably  fallen  away. 
After  the  death  of  Asoka,  the  empire  which  he 
sought  to  consolidate  by  the  preaching  of  the  Law 
fell  to  pieces,  and  Buddhism  was  destined  to  be  tested 
by  more  than  one  rude  shock,  A  Brahman  reaction 
took  place,  which  is  even  supposed  to  have  resulted 
in  the  persecution  of  all  Buddhists  living  in  India. 
If  so,  it  was  the  first  which  the  religion  en- 
countered— so  unlike  Christianity,  which  had  to 
endure  for  three  centuries  the  fierce  assaults  of  its 
enemies.  Persecution  by  a  religion  so  tolerant  as 
Brahmanism  is  hard  to  conceive,  but  if  it  took  place 
at  this  period,  it  only  tended,  as  in  the  early  Chris- 
tian trials,  to  the  wider  expansion  of  the  persecuted 
faith.    "They  that  were  scattered  abroad  went  every- 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  327 

where  preaching  "  the  Law.     Some  of  them  pushed 
through  Afghanistan   into  the  regions  of  Central 
Asia,  and  there,  just   as  Ulphilas  and   Severinus, 
centuries  later,  gained  a  hold  over  the  wild  races 
that  conquered  the  moribund  Empire,  so  Buddhist 
missionaries  succeeded  in  sowing  the  seeds  of  their 
Law  among  the  rude  Scythian  tribes,  who  were  then 
in  great  commotion  in   their  vast  inland  steppes. 
Driven  from  their  ancestral  homes,  a  branch  of  the 
e-reat  tribe  of  Huns  about  160  B.C.  overthrow  the 
Bactrian  kingdom,  and  after  generations  of  struggle 
they  conquered  Kashmir,  the  Punjab,  and  a  consider- 
able part  of  India.    Then  just  as  the  Goths  and  Huns, 
in  the  moment  of  their  conquest  of  Rome,  tendered 
their    submission   to    Christianity,    so  the   conver- 
sion of  Kaniska,  the  greatest  of  the  Indo-Scythian 
kings,  a  contemporary  with  Augustus  and  Antony, 
enabled  Buddhism  to  enter  with  fresh  vigour  upon 
a  second  period  of  very  brilliant  supremacy.^ 

Though  the  difference  between  the  Northern 
and  Southern  Buddhists  was  already  showing  itself, 
and  thou  Ml  soon  after  it  manifested  itself  in  a 
divergence  as  complete  as  that  which  sundered  the 
Greek  Orthodox  from  the  Latin  Catholic  Churches, 
monumental  evidence,  harmonising  with  that 
derived  from  its  own  literary  relics,  indicates  that 
for  four  or  five  centuries  after  this  Buddhism  was 

1  T.  W.  Ehys  Davids,  Handbook  of  Buddhism,  p.  259. 


328  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

most  successfully  propagated  almost  everywhere 
save  in  India.  In  the  land  of  its  origin  it  was 
gradually  declining,  because  drawing  nearer  to  the 
Brahmanism  from  which  it  had  seceded.  Fa-Hian 
in  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  though  describing 
it  as  dominant  everywhere,  found  the  place  of  its 
nativity  only  a  wilderness.^  Later  on,  the  viharas 
were  deserted,  the  dagobas  in  ruins,  "the  monks  were 
few,  the  heretics  many,"  and  by  the  seventh  century 
the  process  of  assimilation  with  and  absorption  into 
Hinduism  was  in  India,  save  in  widely  separated 
and  remote  localities,  almost  complete.  What  it 
lost  in  India,  however,  it  was  to  gain  in  other 
directions.  Its  greatest  conquest  was  in  China. 
In  the  days  of  Asoka  eighteen  missionaries  are  said 
to  have  reached  China,  Avhere  they  are  held  in 
reverence  to  this  day,  their  images  occupymg  a 
conspicuous  place  in  every  temple.  The  faith  which 
they  introduced  seemed  to  have  struggled  with  very 
little  success  to  gain  a  footing  till  about  a.d.  68." 
Thirteen  years  before  this  date,  in  obedience  to  a 
vision  which  appeared  to  him  at  Troas,  St.  Paul 
brought  Christianity  from  Asia  to  Europe.  On 
the  thirtieth  day  of  the  twelfth  Chinese  month  in 
A.D.  68,  the  Emperor   Mingti,  in  consequence  of  a 

^  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  World,  trans,  by  Prof.  Beal,  vol.  i. ; 
Fo-Kwo-ki,  chap.  xxii.  p.  xlix,  vol.  ii.  ;  Hiuen  Tsiang,  B.  vi.  pp.  1.3,  14. 
2  Lassen,  IndWhe  Alterth.  vol.  ii.  p.  1078  ;  vol.  iv.  p.  741. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  329 

dream,  sent  ambassadors  to  the  distant  West  for 
Buddhist  monks  and  manuscripts.^  Travelling  in 
almost  royal  state,  the  invited  missionaries  were 
accorded  in  China  a  welcome  in  marvellous  contrast 
to  the  reception  of  the  Christian  apostle  in  the  first 
colonial  city  he  had  reached.  From  this  time 
onwards  a  perpetual  succession  of  monks  and 
manuscripts  entered  China ;  yet,  though  tolerated 
from  the  first,  and  often  royally  patronised,  cen- 
turies elapsed  before  it  succeeded  in  winning  a 
place  as  one  of  the  three  rehgions  of  China,  while 
Christianity,  persecuted  from  the  first,  succeeded 
after  a  fierce  struggle  in  conquering  the  Empire 
of  Rome,  and  then  by  a  long  process  in  evangelising 
Europe. 

The  conversion  of  the  most  of  Eastern  Asia  was 
the  work  of  the  Northern  or  more  corrupt  Bud- 
dhism. Southern  Buddhism,  like  the  orthodox 
Eastern  Church,  which  contented  itself  with  its 
evangelistic  achievements  among  the  Goths,  and  its 
Nestorian  missions,  soon  exhausted  its  propagative 
force.  The  introduction  of  the  religion  into  Burma, 
Siam,  and  the  adjacent  kingdoms,  may  be  said  to 
sum  up  its  triumphs.  Northern  Buddhism,  on  the 
other  hand,  ran  from  the  beginning  of  our  era  a 
course  of  unchecked  triumphs.     In  the  close  of  the 

1  Dr.    Beal,   Buddhism    in    China,    p.   51  ;    Dr.    Edkins,    aiinese 
Buddhism,  Preface,  p.  i. 


330  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

fourth  century  it  spread  from  China  to  Corea,  and 
in  the  sixth  it  reached  Japan.  Previous  to  this  it 
entered  the  isolated  regions  of  Tibet,  more  wel- 
comed than  resisted  by  the  demonolatrous  inhabit- 
ants on  account  of  the  adulterated  form  in  which 
it  presented  itself  There,  after  a  struggle  for  some 
two  centuries,  it  succeeded,  about  the  period  when 
Islam  was  beginning  its  conquests  elsewhere,  in 
securing  strong  royal  support.  After  experiencing 
for  many  generations  the  vicissitudes  of  popu- 
larity and  persecution,  the  conquests  of  Genghiz, 
and  the  strong  favour  of  Kublai,  his  greatest  suc- 
cessor, established  its  hierarchy  as  supreme,  and 
in  spite  of  changes  of  dynasty,  it  has  there  domi- 
nated the  whole  relations  of  life  in  a  manner  like 
unto,  but  to  an  extent  far  beyond,  the  wildest 
dreams  of  Rome's  most  ambitious  Pope.^ 

It  thus  appears  that  Buddhism  in  the  second 
period  of  its  history,  and  after  it  had  succeeded  in 
winning  the  support  of  powerful  kings,  reached  its 
furthest  extension  and  achieved  its  grandest  con- 
quests. Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  was  more 
rapidly  diffused  in  the  primitive  than  in  the  sub- 
sequent ages.  Tested  by  its  intensive  hold  upon 
the  nations,  it  had  only  nominally  converted  the 
Roman  Empire  by  the  end  of  the  fourth  century. 
Gibbon's  estimate  of  the  number  of  Christians  within 

^  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  E.  Schlagintweit,  pp.  61-75. 


LKCT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  331 

it,  is   acknowledged    by   friendly   authorities/  like 
Bishop  Lightfoot,  to  err  if  at  all  on  the  side  of  excess. 
During  the    reign   of  Constantine,  probably  not  a 
twentieth  of  the  whole  population  of  the  Empire 
were   Christians,  even  by  profession.      After  this 
period,  no  doubt,  the  proportion  must  have  greatly 
increased,    for    the   barbarous  hordes    that  poured 
downwards  in  successive   deluges  over  the   South 
were  converted  so   suddenly   and  so  silently  that 
"  scarce  a  legend   remains  to  tell   the   tale."      In 
regard,   however,    to    the    conversion    of    heathen 
Europe,  it  is  a  mistake  to   suppose  that  the  mis-- 
sionaries  had  only  to   come,  and  see,  and  conquer. 
The  conversion  of  England  by  the  Eoman  monks, 
and  of  Ireland,   Scotland,    and  Wales  by   Oriental 
and,  it  is  said,  Arian  missionaries,  cannot  be  said 
to  have  been  accomplished  before  the  close  of  the 
seventh   century.     Afterwards,    the    conversion   of 
Central  and  Northern  Germany  occupied  the  Celtic 
and  British  missionaries  for  two   centuries.      The 
conversion  of  the  Scandinavians,  beginning  in  the 
ninth,  could  not  be  said  to  have  been  effected  till 
the  middle  of  the   eleventh  century,  while  that  of 
Slavonia,  undertaken  in  the  tenth,  did  not  terminate, 
if  indeed  even  then,  before  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  conquest  of  Europe  was  the  result  of  a  prolonged 
and  often  desultory  warflire,  in  which,   while   the 

1  Comparative  Progress  of  Ancient  and  Modern  Missions. 


332  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

advance  was  slow,  Christianity  sometimes  failed  to 
hold  the  ground  which  it  had  gained.     The  power- 
ful Churches  in  Asia,  the  seats  of  its  great  Councils 
and   the  capitals   of  its  rule,  either  died   or   were 
swept  away ;  Antioch  and  Constantinople,  once  its 
citadels,   became  the  strongholds  of  an  alien  and 
hostile  faith  ;  the  mighty  Churches  of  Egypt  and 
Abyssinia  dwindled  into  a  condition  of  immedicable 
disease,  and  the  flourishing  Church  of  Africa,  with 
its  more  than  six  hundred  bishoprics,  was  simply, 
because  ripe  for  destruction,  obliterated  by  the  forces 
of  Islam.    Toward  the  latter  half  of  the  tenth  century 
it  seemed  as  if  Christianity  in  Europe  was  surely 
following  the  fate  of  Buddhism  before  its  disappear- 
ance from   India.       On   all  sides  it  was  pressed  in 
the  deadly  grip  of  Pagan  and  Moslem  alike,  while 
its   bishops,  and  priests,    and  nobles,   oblivious  of 
the  danger,   were    living   in  sinful  self-indulgence. 
It    seemed   as   if    Clmstendom    was    being   surely 
blotted  out  from  the  geography  of  the  world  ;  and 
yet  as  by  a  miracle  it  survived,  or  was  preserved,  till 
came  the  Renaissance,  and  that  marvellous  emer- 
gence of  missionary  zeal,  which   sent  Christianity, 
Beformed  and  Unreformed,  to  the  very  ends  of  the 
earth,   and  which,  increasing  in    every  generation 
since   then,   was   never   more   abundant  nor   more 
fervent  than  now.^ 

^  Dr.  Maclear,  Gradual  Conversion  of  Enrojye,  pp.  6-12. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  333 

Christianity,  unlike  Buddhism,  came  very  early 
into  collision  with  the  most  advanced  civilisation  and 
highest  culture  of  the  world,  while  Buddhism  for 
centuries  encountered  only  the  religions  of  inferior 
peoples.  The  only  equal  or  superior  civilisation 
which  it  met  was  that  of  China,  and  there,  though 
tolerated  and  even  patronised  from  the  first,  it  seems 
for  centuries  to  have  been  regarded  as  an  exotic. 
Natives  of  India,  like  the  Jews  in  the  Boman 
Empire,  were  allowed  to  build  Buddhist  temples, 
but  only  in  the  fourth  century  a.d.  did  Chinese 
people  begin  extensively  to  be  converted  to  the 
Buddhist  religion.  As  it  rose  into  favour  its  con- 
flicts with  the  Confucianists  began,  and  the  issue  of 
its  varied  fortunes  has  been,  that  though  indirectly 
it  has  greatly  influenced,  it  has  only  subdued  a 
section  of  the  Chinese  people.^  While  other  inferior 
races  came  quickly  under  its  influence,  the  most 
civilised  of  Eastern  peoples  resisted  it,  and  have  at 
most  only  been  leavened  by  it."  Christianity  had 
also  its  easy  conquests,  as  when  some  northern 
tribes  were  converted  in  a  day  by  the  baptism  of 
their  chiefs ;  but  its  principal  struggle  with  the 
historic  Paganism  of  aristocratic  Bome  was  fierce 
and  obdurate.  There  the  position,  as  in  the  case  of 
Hinduism  to-day,  was  not  carried  by  assault,  but 

^  Nouveau  Journ.  Asiat.  pp.  106,  137,  139. 
^  Dr.  Edkins,  Chinese  Buddhixm,  pp.  84,  207. 


334  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vr. 

by  slow  and  almost  imperceptible  approaches.  The 
Church  at  Kome  for  two  centuries  was  more  a  Greek 
than  a  Latin  one.  The  names  of  its  bishops  were 
Greek,  and  the  Catacomb  inscriptions  sufficiently 
indicate  that  Greek  was  the  language  of  its  members. 
Slowly  and  indirectly,  however,  it  gained  the  hold 
upon  ancient  thought  and  custom,  operating  like 
an  alterative  in  the  system,  supplanting  what  was 
good,  by  simply  taking  possession  of  it  and  inspiring 
it  with  a  new  life,  while  that  which  was  decaying 
and  waxing  old  gradually  vanished  away. 

In  this  respect,  therefore,  there  is  a  significant 
difference  between  the  two  religions.  Christianity, 
with  all  the  world  against  it,  and  in  spite  of  three 
centuries  of  unparalleled  persecutions,  succeeded  in 
vanquishing  the  highest,  while  yet  approving  itself 
as  a  gospel  to  the  lowest  civilisation.  Buddhism, 
with  the  greatest  powers  of  the  Eastern  world  in 
its  favour,  and  never,  perhaps,  save  in  China,  called 
to  bear  the  shock  of  a  single  persecution,  has  only 
succeeded  in  being  accepted  by  inferior  branches  of 
the  human  race.  The  Hindu  Aryans,  assimilating 
what  of  it  they  approved,  rejected  what  of  it  was 
peculiar  and  clistmctive.  The  Semitic  followers 
of  Islam  simply  crushed  it  under  foot,  and  it  never 
rose  high  enough  even  to  touch  the  Western  Aryans.^ 

1  "It  may  be  safely  asserted  that  no  Aryan  race,  while  existing  in  any- 
thing like  purity,  was  ever  converted  to  Buddhism,  or  could  permanently 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  335 

Very  early  it  -withdrew  itself  entirely  within  the 
circles  of  the  Turanian  peoples ;  and  if  to-day  in 
Mongolia,  IManchnria,  among  the  Kalmucs  on  the 
Wolga,  and  the  Bunjads  on  the  shores  of  the  Baikal 
Sea,  it  may  be  said  to  be  advancing,  the  most  com- 
petent authorities  assure  us  that  everywhere  else 
its  progress  is  arrested,  and  that,  even  where  it  is 
most  upheld  by  local  governments,  in  the  regions 
of  its  most  dominant  supremacy,  it  yields  manifest 
signs  of  decay.' 

Another  and  even  more  significant  contrast  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  the  advance  of  Christianity 
has  ever  been  furthest  and  most  rapid  when  its 
faith  was  purely  taught  and  most  consistently  illus- 
trated. It  never  sought  peace  with  other  religions 
without  being  defeated,  and  never  allied  itself  with 
superstition  without  bringing  shame  and  disaster 
on  all  concerned.  It  has  had  its  periods  of  deterio- 
ration and  defection,  but  somehow  it  has  always 

adopt  its  doctrines." — Fergusson,  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship,  p.  57.  The 
old  Turanian  race,  far  from  being  savage,  or  even  barbarous,  not  only  laid 
the  basis  of  Chinese  civilisation,  but  seems  to  have  been  also  the  first 
civiliser  of  Western  Asia,  and  the  first  to  spread  art  and  science  along  the 
southern  coasts  of  Europe.  The  Iberian,  Etruscan,  Phoenician,  Hittite, 
even  Egyptian  monuments,  are  now  acknowledged  to  be  relics  of  this 
mighty  race,  which  must  have  sent  horde  after  horde  over  Asia  and 
Europe  long  before  the  historic  advance  westwards  in  the  thirteenth 
century  a.d.  ;  its  latest  invasion  of  India  may  have  been  represented,  not 
by  Scythian  ancestors  of  Buddha,  but  the  Sikhs. — Conder,  "  Early  Races 
of  Western  Asia,"  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.  August  1889,  pp.  30-43. 

^  Sir  Monier  AVilliams,  Buddhism,  Introduction  ;  Eitel,  Lectures  on 
Buddhism. 


336  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

survived  them.  Indeed,  its  vitality  is  as  truly  in- 
dicated by  the  corruptions  which  it  has  outlived, 
as  by  the  external  opposition  which  it  has  van- 
quished. Its  real  conquests  are  due  to  the  expan- 
sive power  of  its  inherent  and  original  principles. 
The  very  opposite  is  the  case  with  Buddhism.  Its 
fundamental  principles  being  unnatural  and  repug- 
nant to  the  essential  instincts  of  mankind,  it  was 
from  the  very  first  a  morbid  growth,  having  in  it 
the  seeds  of  decay.  It  never  could  have  lived  in 
the  strength  of  its  own  principles,  and  so  the  story 
of  its  advance  is  one  of  perpetual  comjDromise  with 
every  popular  superstition  that  it  met.  The  more  it 
assimilated  itself  to  them,  the  more  it  seemed  to 
grow  ;  but  as  foreign  influences  took  possession  of 
it,  its  own  life  oozed  out  of  it,  till  very  early  it 
represented  a  system  so  perverted  that  its  founder 
would  liave  repudiated  and  abhorred  it.  The  Church 
has  often  travestied  Christianity,  but  it  never  fell 
from  the  faith  so  fearfully  as  Buddhism  has  every- 
where fallen  from  the  oriofinal  doctrine  of  Buddha, 
Religion,  worship,  even  the  purest,  he  intended  by 
his  system  to  supersede,  and  now  his  name  is  em- 
ployed to  support  the  grossest  of  all  superstitions,^ 
a  religion  with  more  idols  in  it  than  that  of  the 
most  idolatrous  of  peoples,  a  worship  founded  on 
the  efficacy  of  magical  incantations,  and  of  prayers 

^  Sir  MoTiier  Williams,  Buddhism,  pp.  114,  156. 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  337 

rendered  by  machines.     Just  for  this  very  reason 

its 

II. — Internal  History 

is  very  instructive,  and  we   shall  now  proceed   to 
consider  a  few  of  its  most  salient  points. 

Buddhism,  in  a  quiet  land  and  tranquil  age,  was 
launched  upon  the  world  as  a  new  theory  of  life — 
a  system  so  rounded  off  and  completed  that  its 
disciples  had  no  other  duty  than  that  of  believing, 
obeying,  and  propagating  it.  Christianity,  on  the 
other  hand,  began  its  career  amid  the  convulsions  of 
political  revolution,  and  for  tliree  centuries  of  con- 
flict it  had  to  fight  every  inch  of  its  way.  It  was 
not,  however,  as  a  new  system  that  it  appeared  in 
history,  but  as  a  new  principle  of  life,  round  which 
all  the  moral,  and  spiritual,  and  intellectual  energies 
which  it  found  in  mankind,  and  all  which  itself 
might  awaken,  might  form  and  gather  strength. 
It  was  impossible,  therefore,  that  it  ever  could 
remain  stationary.  Its  apostles  were  commissioned 
to  carry  on  all  that  their  Lord  had  "  begun  both  to 
do  and  to  teach."  He  distinctly  promised  them 
increase  of  knowledge  and  power  from  on  high,  and 
all  the  changes  which  increase  or  growth  implies. 
To-day  His  religion  could  no  more  be  made  to 
return  to  the  form  in  which  it  was  manifested 
eighteen  centuries  ago  than  man  could  be  made 
to  put   on   the  clothes  of  his   childhood.     Its  de- 


338  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

velopment,  however,  is  that  of  its  inherent  hfe, 
manifesting  all  the  continuity  and  identity  of  the 
sapling  with  the  tree,  of  the  hoy  with  the  man. 
Like  all  growing  things,  it  has  been  subject  to 
disease  by  contagion  and  infection,  but  it  has  always 
preserved  life  in  sufficient  volume  to  slough  off  its 
impurities  and  to  pass  onward  through  reformation 
to  health.  Now,  the  history  of  Buddhism,  on  the 
contrary,  reveals  only  a  long  process  of  degradation, 
without  having  manifested  any  power  as  yet  to 
recover  and  to  reform  itself  according  to  its  original 
and  essential  principles.^ 

The  offspring  of  Brahmanism,  from  which  it 
differed  more  in  degree  than  in  substance,  at  no 
period  of  its  history  did  it  succeed  in  completely 
disentangling  itself  from  it.  Not  only  did  the 
forms  of  the  old  religion  cling  to  it ;  its  very  life 
was  continued  in  the  new.  While  Buddha  rejected 
all  the  sacrificial  rites  and  religious  observances  of 
Brahmanism,  and  preached  a  law  subversive  of  all 
its  faith  in  revelation,  he  accepted  and  continued 
its  ascetism  and  its  hope  of  deliverance  by  a  process 
of  meditation  and  of  abstraction.  It  was  by  himself, 
therefore,  and  not  by  his  cousin  Devadatta,"  that 
the  heretic  leaven  was  introduced  into  the  lump. 

^  Wassilief,  Lc  Bouddldsme,  etc.,  i^p.  14,  18. 

2  Devadatta's  Five  Points  (Kullavagga,  vii.  3.  14,  15)  all  insist  upon 
a  more  ascetic  rule  than  the  Sangha  practised. 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  339 

Devadatta's  attempted  changes  were  not  innova- 
tions, but  a  return  to  the  primitive  rule,  a  logical 
deduction  from  a  law  which  Gotama  never  wholly 
rejected.  Just  as  to  the  patriarchs  of  the  Greek, 
the  Western  or  Romish  Church  "  is  the  chief  heresy 
of  latter  days,"  just  as  the  Pope  w^as  branded  in 
their  Encyclical  of  1848  "as  the  first  founder  of  Ger- 
man Kationalism," '  so  the  successive  advances  and 
orthodox  decisions  of  the  Buddhist  Councils  were 
denounced  as  apostasies  by  men  like  Devadatta. 
Still  these  changes  were  due  in  great  measure  to 
the  beliefs  which  Buddhism  had  inherited,  for 
when  in  the  inevitable  rebound  from  its  unnatural 
Nihilism  the  theistic  movement  set  in,  the  spirit 
of  Brahmanism,  which  had  passed  into  it  at  the 
first,  began  to  assert  itself,  and,  interpenetrating 
it  more  and  more,  prepared  it  for  that  issue  in 
which,  blending  with  the  popular  forms  in  which 
Brahmanism  was  then  expressing  itself,  Buddhism 
merged  into  the  composite  system  of  Hinduism 
which  confronts  us  in  India  to-day. 

In  Christianity,  as  in  nature,  the  grafting  of  the 
good  stock  upon  the  wald  conquered  the  wald. 
Christ  took  nothing  from  Judaism  but  the  univer- 
salism  of  its  prophets,  its  faith  in  one  living  and 
true  God,  the  Heavenly  Father  of  multitudes  whom 
Abraham  was  ignorant    of,  and  Israel  did  not  ac- 

^  Stanley,  Eastern  Clnirch,  pp.  45,  50. 


340  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

knowledge.     His  apostles,  judged  by  the  literature 
which  they   have   bequeathed,   seem    faithfully   to 
have  carried  out  His  principles  ;  but  many  of  their 
converts  Avere  strict  Jews,  who  insisted  npon  some 
visible  connection  with  the  old   religion.     Just  as 
Devadatta,    their     prototype,     held     that    a    true 
Buddhist  must  first  be  a  good  Brahman  in  respect 
of  asceticism,  so  they  insisted  that  Christians  were 
debtors  to  keep  what  of  the    old  law  was  expressed 
in  circumcision,  and  the  observance  of  certain  other 
commandments   and    ordinances.       The    danger   of 
Christianity  being  reduced   to  the  bondage  of  the 
old  was  serious,  but  the   inspiration    of  St.  Paul, 
the  providential  destruction  of  the  nation,  and  the 
marvellous  spread  of  the  religion  among  the  Gen- 
tiles, eventually  overcame  it.     The  spirit  of  Judaism, 
it  is  true,  has  never  been  wholly  cast  out  from  the 
Christian   Church.       All   through   its   history   it   is 
traceable  in  one   form  or  another  of  the  ritualism 
and  asceticism  which,  like  Brahmanism,  it  may  be 
held  to  represent.     There  have  been  times  when  it 
has  attained  to  portentous  and  pernicious  influence, 
and  such  times  may  happen  again ;   but  from  the 
early  days  there   has  always  been   in   Christianity 
vitality  sufficient  to  detect  and  try  and  condemn 
it ;  and  so  though  Judaism,  and  even  Paganism,  to 
some  extent,  still  taint  the  theology  and  worship  of 
the  Church,  we  need  have  no  fear  that  the  genius 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  341 

of  the  old  religion  will  ever  gain,  as  it  did  in  the 
case  of  Buddhism,  permanent  ascendency  over  the 
new. 

The  opposite  of  Ritualism  and  Asceticism,  repre- 
sented by  Judaism  and  Brahmanism,  is  the  Bation- 
alism  which  such  reforming  religions  may  be  said 
to  beget  of  themselves  ;  and  if  its  spirit  of  inquiry 
be    uncontrolled,    it   will   certainly   dissipate   their 
energy.       As    early    as    St.     Paul's    day    we    see 
Rationalism    working    upon    the    development    of 
Christianity,  and  necessitating  the  rise  of  a  theo- 
logy,   which,   perhai3S   inevitably,    has    often    been 
confounded  with,  and,  in  the  estimation  of  many, 
has  supplanted  the  Christian   religion.     The  many 
sects  which  Rationalism  produced  in  the  first  cen- 
turies do  not  so  much  indicate  hostility  to  the  new 
faith,  as  the  mighty  ferment   through   which   the 
minds  of  men  were  passing  in  regard  to  it.     Now 
though   Buddhist   scri^^tures  manifest   rationalistic 
movements  in  the  Sanghas  from  the  first,  they  seem 
to  have  proceeded  in  quite  a  different  direction.     Of 
conflict  as  to  fundamentals  of  creed  there  appears 
to   be  very    little   trace,    but    there   are   abundant 
indications  of  considerable  controversy  as  to  prac- 
tice.     The  first  quarrel  traceable  in  the  Christian 
Chin-ch  arose  over  the  peculiar  institution  of  com- 
munity of  goods  ;  and  though  the  Sanghas  avoided 
that  mistake,  their  earliest  troubles  were  concerning 


342  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

the  possession  of  property.  The  original  rule 
enjoined  upon  the  brethren  absolute  poverty,  and 
the  regulations  in  regard  to  food  and  shelter  were 
equally  stringent.  Very  soon  after  Buddha's 
decease  a  reaction  set  in,  and  a  feeling  began  to 
prevail  that  his  standard  of  morality  and  his  ideal 
of  the  Order  were  too  lofty  for  all  but  exceptional 
men  to  realise.  He  may  have  succeeded  as  the 
fully  Enlightened  One,  but  common  men  could 
not  hope  to  "  wind  themselves  so  high ;  "  so  out 
of  consideration  for  human  infirmity  there  com- 
menced a  constant  and  increasing  relaxation  in 
their  interpretation  of  his  precepts  of  perfection.^ 
The  law  of  absolute  poverty  was  modified  to  the 
extent  that  property  might  be  held  in  common, 
and  the  laws  regulating  diet,  dress,  and  even 
meditation,  were  soon  subjected  to  the  same  treat- 
ment. The  wealth  which  poured  in  upon  them, 
and  the  consequent  improvement  of  their  position, 
was  not  followed  by  corresponding  spiritual  growth. 
The  more  they  prospered,  the  more  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Order  were  neglected,  evaded,  or 
explained  away.  The  friendly  conferences  of  the 
rainy  season  gave  place  to  controversy,  and  con- 
troversy proved  so  fruitful  of  schism,  that  very 
early   in   its   career    Buddhism    is    said    to    have 

1  Turnour,  "Pali  Bud.  Annals,"  Journ.  Asiat.  Soc.  Bcnrj.  vol.  vi. 
p.  729  ;  Wassilief,  Lc  Bouddhisme,  etc.,  p.  18. 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  34a 

produced  eighteen  different  sects,  ranged  in  four 
great  divisions.  Yet  in  no  one  schism  seemed 
there  a  great  principle  to  be  involved ;  they  were 
but  Pharisee  quarrels  at  best,  in  which  though 
they  strained  out  the  gnat  they  swallowed  the 
camel.^ 

Side  by  side  with  this  relaxation  of  the  law 
advanced  the  growth  of  the  legends  concerning  him 
who  first  preached  it.  The  further  they  removed 
from  his  decease,  the  higher,  as  was  natural,  he 
rose  in  their  esteem.  As  one  by  one  the  fathers 
fell  asleep,  and  the  early  enthusiasm  died,  and  the 
law  was  felt  to  be  more  and  more  burdensome, 
the  less  he  seemed  to  be  a  man  of  like  passions 
with  themselves,  till  eventually  they  came  to  regard 
him  as  "  omniscient  and  absolutely  sinless."  '  He 
had  taken  away  their  gods,  and  disowned  their 
•eligious  cravings.  He  professed  to  find  no  proper 
livine  being  to  whom  any  instinct  should  attach 
tself — yea,  in  his  dissection  and  analysis  of  human 
nature  he  found  no  religious  faculty  to  be  relied 
upon  ;    but  he   could  not  unmake  his  fellow-men, 


I 


1 


1 


The  beginning  of  the  dissensions  is  related  in  Kullavagga  vii.  with 
much  legendary  adornment.  There  too,  in  vii.  5,  and  in  Mahavagga, 
X.  1.  6,  the  distinction  is  drawn  between  "  dissension  "  and  "  schism,"  and 
the  woe  predicted  for  the  breaker-up  of  the  Sangha  when  it  was  at  peace  : 
"  He  is  boiled  for  a  kalpa  in  Niraya,  doomed  for  so  long  to  a  penance 
of  misery."  The  reconciler  of  a  divided  Sangha  was  made  happy  for 
a  kalpa  in  heaven, 

2  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Handbook  of  Buddhism,  p.  182. 


344  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

whose  religious  instinct  education  can  neither 
originate  nor  eradicate ;  and  so,  defrauded  of  its 
natural  gratification,  it  inevitably  turned  to  illegiti- 
mate methods  of  appeasing  itself  In  the  first 
instance,  it  found  the  objects  of  its  reverence  in 
the  relics  which  survived  him,  the  law  which  he 
preached,  and  the  Order  which  he  founded. 
Originally  it  could  not  be  called  worship ;  it  was 
more  an  expression  of  affectionate  homage.^  But 
so  strong  is  man's  impulse  to  worship,  that  very 
early  they  expressed  it  in  images  of  Buddha 
everywhere,  though  the  images  of  the  Law  and 
of  the  Order  have  only  been  found  in  the  lands 
where  the  Northern  Buddhism  reigns. 

This  earliest  triad  of  personalities,  called  "tri- 
ratna,"  the  three  gems  or  three  holies,  seems  to 
have  been  suggested  by,  and  certainly  corresponds 
with,  the  primitive  triad  of  deities  in  the  old  Indian 
Pantheon.^  It  was  the  first  indication  of  the 
bankruptcy  of  Buddhism,  of  its  failure  out  of  its 
own  resources  to  meet  the  religious  wants  of  its 
disciples,  and  it  marked  only  the  beginning  of  a 
revolt,  which  was  to  issue  in  complete  disavowal 
of  every  doctrine  essential  to  original  Buddhism. 
The  religious  conscience  and  common  sense  which 

^  Beal,  Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  101  :  "a  worship  of  association  and 
memory." 

^  Agni.  Indra,  Surya  ;  Kern,  Buddhismus,  vol.  ii.  p.  156;  Sir  Monier 
Williams,  Buddhism,  p.  1 75. 


LEOT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  345 

rebelled  against  its  unnatural  atheism,  would  not 
long  be  satisfied  with  the  worship  of  the  memory 
of  a  completely  vanished  Buddha,   or  of  the  idea 
of  an  impersonal  Law,  or  of  a  miscellaneous  Order. 
So  pious  Buddhists  turned    readily  to   a   doctrine 
said  to  be  taught  by  the  Master,  and  formulated 
before   the  settlement    of  the   Southern   canon   in 
its  present  form,  according  to  which  Buddha  is  not 
a  distinctive  name  of  just  one  person,  but  a  title 
descriptive  of  a  long  series   of  Enlightened   Ones, 
who,  leaving,  as  he  was  supposed  to  have  done,  the 
estate  of  a   Bodhisatva^   in   the   Tushita  heavens, 
appeared  at  distant  intervals  to  proclaim  the  same 
truth  for  the  deliverance  of  men  and  gods.     The 
names  of  twenty-four  of  these  Buddhas  who  pre- 
ceded Gotama   have   been  handed  down,  and   the 
name  of  his  successor,  to  whom,  upon  the  attain- 
ment   of  Buddhahood,  he  transferred  his   Bodhis- 
atvaship,  and  who  is  to  appear  after  five  thousand 
years  for  the   rediscovery    of  the   truth,    was    an- 
nounced as   Miutreya.      To   this   coming   one,    the 
Buddha  of  "  kindness  and  mercy  " — thought  to  be 
a  personification  by  some  imaginative  poet  of  the 
gentle  spirit  of  Buddhism — the  thoughts  and  the 
hopes  of  the  disciples  turned,  and  out  of  this  hope 

^  "A  being  whose  essence  (sattva)  has  become  intelligence  (bodhu) 
derived  from  sdf-enlightening  intellect,  and  who  has  only  once  more  to 
piss  through  human  existence  before  attaining  Buddhahood."— Eitel, 
Scmskr it-Chinese  Diet.,  p.  26  ;  Sir  ]SIonier  Williams'  Buddhism,  p.  98, 


346  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

arose  a  doctrinal  system,  which,  expanding  and 
enlarging  by  manifold  additions  as  the  time  went 
on,  showed  that  however  atheistic  the  original 
creed  might  be,  the  religion  itself  had  become 
polytheistic/  To  Maitreya,  in  his  glorious  heavens, 
the  deliverer  of  distant  generations,  prayers 
ascended,  and  worship  was  rendered  by  all  Bud- 
dhists everywhere  alike ;  and  out  of  this  cult  by 
far  the  largest  section  of  them  began  to  evolve 
deity  after  deity,  till  tlie  heavens,  in  which  Buddha 
could  find  no  superior  to  himself,  were  crowded 
with  objects  of  idolatrous  regard. 

In  this  polytheistic  development  a  very  great 
distinction  emerged  between  the  Northern  or 
Mahayana  and  the  Southern  or  Hinayana  system 
of  Buddhism.  How  the  divergence  originated  has 
not  been  clearly  ascertained,  but  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Christian  era  it  seems  to  have  been 
very  manifest,  and  at  that  time,  when  sectarian 
controversy  and  philosophical  speculation  threatened 
to  rend  the  system  into  fragments,  Nagardjuna,^  a 

^  Wassilief,  Le  Boudclhisme,  etc.,  pp.  124  seq.  ;  Burnouf,  Le  Lotus  de 
la  bonne  Loi,  p.  302. 

^  Nagardjuna,  the  Nagasena  of  the  MiliiiJipanha,  Avas  the  chief 
representative,  if  not  founder,  of  one  of  the  Mahaj'iina  Schools.  He  hns 
been  regarded  as  a  mythical  personage,  and  the  n;nne  has  been  supposed 
to  be  the  generic  one  of  various  authors  and  doctors  of  the  system.  For 
an  account  of  Hinayana  and  Mahayana  doctrine,  with  its  subdivisions, 
see  Wassilief,  Le  Bouddhisme,  etc.,  pp.  9  seq.,  118  seq.  ;  Schlagintweit, 
Buddhism  in   Tibet,   jjp.    19-57.       Nalanda  must   have  been   a  very 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  347 

monk  of  Niilanda,  is  said  to  have  done  for  Northern 
Buddhism  what  Gregory  and  Benedict  did  for  the 
Western  Churcli.  Under  him,  and  certainly  after 
him,  Northern  Bnddhism,  both  in  respect  of  expan- 
sive power  and  of  dogmatic  and  rituahstic  develop- 
ment, left  Southern  Buddhism  far  behind  it.  The 
Hinayana,  or  the  "  little  way "  of  deliverance,  is 
believed  to  have  been  applied  by  the  Northern, 
not  without  contempt  for  the  Southern  school's 
arrestment.  They  did  not  profess  to  contradict 
the  Southern  faith  :  they  simply  included  it,  and 
advanced  in  their  "  great  way "  beyond  it.  To 
the  Southern  the  summum  honum  of  life  meant 
Arhatship,  for  that  once  attained  there  would  be 
no  more  re-birth.  They  acknowledged  and  w^or- 
shipped  only  one  Bodhisatva,  the  coming  Maitreya  ; 
but  the  doctors  of  the  North,  properly  conceiving 
the  estate  of  the  Bodhisatva  to  be  nobler  than  that 
of  Arhat,  propounded  it  as  the  goal  of  aspiration. 
Arhatship  would  indeed  secure  one's  owii  deliver- 
ance ;  but  Bodhisatvahood  would  enable  them,  as 
possible  coming  Buddhas,  to  confer  the  blessings  of 
deliverance  upon  coiuitless  multitudes.  Along  with 
Maitreya  they  discovered  many  persons  who,  like 
Buddha's  great  disciples  and  their  successors,  had 
through  merit,  acquired  in   a  long  series  of  lives, 

important    centre   in    BiuUlhist   times. — Fergusson,    Tree   and   Serpent 
Worship,  p.  79. 


348  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

taken  his  Tiishita  heavens  by  violence ;  but  who, 
unUke  him,  were  under  no  obUgation  to  quit  their 
celestial  abodes,  and  ^^roceed  through  Buddhahood 
to  Nirvana.  They  might  enjoy  their  blessedness  to 
the  full,  and  sit  beside  their  nectar  without  concern, 
for  they  fulfilled  every  function  expected  of  them  in 
being  objects  of  worship,  to  whom  mortals  could 
appeal  for  comfort  in  sorrow  and  help  in  time  of 
need. 

In  India,  as  early  as  Fa-Hian's  time,  and  probably 
earlier  in  China,^  out  of  these  happy  gods  a  new 
triad  was  formulated,  receiving  such  worship  as 
Hindus  would  render  to  their  later  triad  of  deities, 
Brahma,  Vishnu,  Siva.  The  title  of  one  of  these, 
Mandjus-ri,  was  said  to  have  been  the  name  of 
the  monk  who,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after 
Buddha,  introduced  the  religion  into  Nepaul,  and 
founded  the  system  which  Nagardjuna  consoli- 
dated." He  in  this  connection  is  believed  to  be 
the  personification  of  that  "wisdom"  or  "spiritual 
insidit "  which  the  Northern  school  valued  so 
highly.  Another  deity,  Avalokites'vara,  "the  lord 
who  sees  from  on  high,"  is  supposed  to  be  the 
mythical  term  for  that  "  kindly  providence  "  which 
watched    over    the    whole   Buddhist   world.     And 

^  Dr.  Edkins  says  about  190  a.d. 

2  Buriiouf,  lutrod.  a  Vhistoire  du  Bud.  hid.  vol.  i.  pp.  220,  224 
(Paris,  1844)  ;  also  Burnouf,  Le  Lottis  de  la  bonne  Loi,  chap.  xxiv. 
pp.  261-268  ;  also  Appendix  in.  pp.  498-511  (Paris,  1852). 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  349 

Vajra-dhara,  "  the  thunderer,"  represented  the 
power  which  protected  the  faithful  from  the  maUce 
of  demons.  How  such  a  worship,  so  contradictory 
to  the  doctrines  of  primitive  Buddhism,  came  to 
be  introduced  and  recognised,  is  a  puzzle  to  all 
our  scholars.  Rhys  Davids  and  Sir  Monier  Wil- 
liams are  inclined  to  regard  it  as  suggested  by 
the  second  Hindu  triad  of  deities  already  referred 
to.  Professor  Max  Mtiller^  considers  it  to  be  a 
graft  from  the  superstitions  of  some  northern 
Scythian  or  Turanian  race,  while  Dr.  Beal  advances 
the  theory  that  it  was  in  all  probability  intro- 
duced from  a  western  monotheistic  religion,  either 
landward  through  Persia,  or  by  sea  from  Arabia. 
However  it  came,  from  this  date  and  onwards, 
all  over  the  wide  extent  of  territory  covered  by 
it,  Buddhism  rapidly  deteriorated.  While  the 
Southern  system  was  everywhere  yielding  to 
the  influence  of  the  popular  mythology,  and  that 
so  unmistakably  that  it  became,  wherever  it 
reached,  "  the  unconscious  propagator  of  Hindu 
doctrine,"  the  Northern  became  a  heterogeneous 
mixture  of  all  the  superstitions  which  it  met. 
From  this  second  triad  of  deities  it  went  on  dis- 
covering or  inventing  its  five  triads  of  Dhyani- 
Buddhas,   among   whom   Gotama  was   the   emana- 

^  Miiller,  Giiibrd  Lectures,  Natural  Religion,  p.   543  ;   Dr.    Beal, 
Buddhism  in  China,  p.  123  ;  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism,  p.  195. 


350  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

tion  of  Avalokites'vara,  who  again  was  the  seon 
of  Amitabha,  "  immeasurable  Ught."  Behind  all 
these  again,  they  professed  to  find  the  Adi-Bud- 
dha,  the  primordial  Buddha,  who,  out  of  himself, 
by  the  exercise  of  five  meditations,  evolved  the 
Five  Dhyani/  Each  of  these  again  by  "insight" 
evolved  their  corresponding  seons,  who  in  their  turn 
from  out  of  their  immaterial  essence  produced  a 
material  world.  It  is  as  if  the  Gnosticism  which  had 
broken  out  in  the  West  long  before  this  time  had 
also  invaded  the  distant  East,"  and  as  if  its  dreams, 
more  restrained  by  Western  sobriety,  were  in  the 
East  free  to  produce  a  phantasmagoria  more  con- 
fused still.  Certainly  it  is  a  convincing  proof 
that,  notwithstanding  its  rich  ethical  sources,  the 
essential  principles  of  Buddhism  had  no  inherent 
propagative  power.  For  just  as  it  had  to  return 
from  its  atheism  to  the  deities  which  it  had 
discarded,  so  it  had  to  substitute  for  its  Nihilism 

^  Hodgson,  Illustrations  of  the  Literature  and  Religion  of  the  Bud- 
dhists, p.  30;  Burnouf,  Introduction,  etc.,  pp.  116-121  ;  also  in  note  at 
p.  118,  quoting  Hodgson. 

2  Though  strong  affinities  exist  between  Gnosticism  and  Buddhism, 
■which  may  indicate  later  connection,  in  their  origin  they  appear  to  have 
been  quite  distinct.  The  methods,  aims,  and  terminology  of  Gnosticism, 
all  betoken  derivation  from  purely  Western  sources.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  Gnosticism  may  have  given  Adi-Buddha  to  the  East,  but  the  ques- 
tion of  their  relations  is  still  undetermined.  See  Weber,  Hist.  Ind.  Lit. 
p.  309  ;  Obry's  Nirvana,  etc.,  p.  161  ;  Bishop  Lightfoot,  Essny  on  the 
Essenes  {Epistle  to  Colossians),  p.  157  ;  Home  and  Foreign  Review, 
vol.  iii.  pp.  143  seq.  (1863). 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  351 

the  Western  Paradise,  where,  beyond  the  confines 
of  the  world,  the  pious  Buddhist  at  last  hopes  to 
join  the  one  Supreme  Amitabha,  and  millions  of 
blessed  Buddhas  discoursing  upon  all  things  good, 
in  a  state  in  which  there  is  no  sorrow,  and, 
"  strangest  to  say,  no  Nirvana."  ^ 

The  more  these  imaginary  deities  increased,  the 
more  must  the  earnest  moral  teachings  of  Buddha 
have  been  obscured.  The  discovery  of  the  Bodhi- 
satvas  opened  the  way  to  a  rapid  declension  from 
primitive  self-culture  to  a  system  of  "  voluntary 
humility."  Discipleship  became  easier  in  propor- 
tion as  the  worship  of  these  shadowy  creations 
extended.  It  is  much  easier  to  idolise  than  obey, 
to  say,  ''Lord,  Lord,"  than  to  do  the  thing 
which  he  commands.  This  falling  away  from  the 
high  Buddhist  rule  of  self-control,  pi'oceeding  step 
by  step  with  the  growth  of  the  legends,  is  just  an 
illustration  of  the  tendency  in  every  religion  to 
allow  the  ethical  and  metaphysical  elements  so  to 
drift  asunder,  that  instead  of  being  one  in  holy 
wedlock  they  l)ecome  thoroughly  and  irreconcilably 
opposed. 

It  was  inevitable  in  Buddhism  that  morality, 
considered  essential  to  self-rescue,  should  be  sup- 
planted by  that  debasing  belief  in  the  efficacy  of 

^  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Buddhism,  p.  203 ;  Dr.  Beal,  CJiinese  Bud- 
dhism, p.  128  ;  Dr.  Eitel,  Lectures,  p.  98. 


352  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  lect.  vi. 

rites  which  the  system  was  launched  to  destroy. 
Its  founder  went  to  the  unnatural  extreme  of 
ignoring  man's  craving  for  reconciliation.  He  had 
no  faith  in  Divine  forgiveness,  or  in  the  grace  of 
repentance,  and  he  never  wearied  of  pouring  con- 
tempt upon  sacrifice  and  prayer.  No  Hebrew 
prophet  could  be  more  severe  in  his  scorn  of  useless 
rites ;  but  then  the  Hebrew  believed  in  the  efficacy 
of  one  sacrifice,  a  "  heart  broken  by  sorrow,"  for  sin 
not  as  a  misfortune  or  a  folly,  but  as  an  offence  to 
a  Holy  Being  who  was  ready  to  forgive,  and  to  be 
pleased  with  the  worship  of  a  will  surrendered  in 
gratitude  and  in  love.  Very  early  in  his  history 
man  has  indicated  his  sense  of  alienation  from  God 
in  his  endeavours  to  discover  an  atonement.  The 
instinctive  sense  of  wrong  relations  to  the  powers 
that  govern  life  has  been  liable  to  fearful  perversion, 
but  Buddha,  with  all  his  denunciation,  could  not 
destroy  it,  nor  reason  men  out  of  it.  He  could 
induce  some  to  withdraw  their  imploring  cries  and 
o-lances  from  the  gods,  but  he  could  not  sweep  the 
heavens  clean  of  them.  Belief  in  the  existence  ^  of 
gods,  and  demons,  and  fairies,  and  charms  against 
ill-luck,  was  strong  in  his  disciples  from  the  first ; 
and  when  an  object  of  worship  was  recognised  and 
allowed,  an  elaborate  ritual  of  worship,  and  latterly 
of  propitiation,  was  rapidly  developed.     In  Northern 

1  Kullavagga,  v.  21.  4  ;  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xx. 


LECT.  VI.  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  353 

Buddhism  this  recoil  was  most  extreme,  for  there, 
especially  in  Nepal  and  Tibet,  belief  in  the 
efficacy  of  rites  deteriorated  into  belief  in  spells 
and  incantations,  till  it  issued  in  the  Tantra  system 
— a  mixture  of  magic  and  sorcery  whose  abominable 
doctrines,  Burnouf,  out  of  very  loathing,  refused  to 
translate  to  us.^  Christianity  has  had  many  cor- 
rupters, who  have  never  scrupled  to  propose  or  to 
accept  any  compromise  with  heathenism  at  all 
calculated  to  strengthen  the  power  of  the  priest- 
hood, but  it  never  had  its  Asanga,"'  who  cleverly 
succeeded  in  reconciling  the  demonolatiy  of  the 
people  of  Nepal  and  Tibet  with  the  acceptance  of 
the  Buddhist  system.  This  he  did  by  placing  their 
male  and  female  devils  in  the  inferior  heavens 
as  worshippers  of  Buddha  and  Avalokites'vara,  and 
by  thus  making  it  possible  for  the  half-savage 
tribes  to  bring  their  sacrifices,  even  of  blood,  to 
their  congenial  shrines,  and  under  cover  of  allegi- 
ance to  the  priests  of  the  new  to  continue  the  old 
hideous  idolatry. 

A 

This  discovery  of  Asanga's  is  said  to  have  se- 
cured the  rapid  extension  of  the  Buddhist  hierarchy 

^  Introd.  §  vi.  p.  558  :  "  La  plume  se  refuse  a  transcrire  des  doctrines 
aussi  niiserables  quant  a  la  forme,  qu'odieuses  et  degradantes  pour  le  fond." 

2  Aryasanga,  founder  of  the  Yogacharya  or  contemplative  system  of 
Mahayana  {circa  400  a.d.).  For  an  account  of  his  doctrine,  see  Wassilief, 
Le  Boiuld.  pp.  288  seq.,  and  Schlagintweit,  Bud.  in  Tibet,  pp.  39  seq.y 
46  seq.  ;  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhism,  p.  207  seq. 

Z 


354  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

in  these  half-barbarous  regions  ;  but  the  hierarchy 
itself  indicated  a  complete  reversal  of  the  primitive 
constitution  of  the  Order.     Buddha  endeavoured  to 
emancipate  his  fellow-men  from  faith  in  the  efficacy 
of  a  priesthood  to  mediate  between  men  and  Deity, 
or  to  secure  deliverance.     He  never  dreamed  that 
either  temple  or  priest  would  arise  in  his  system  ; 
but  the  temple  grew  naturally  out  of  the  dagoba 
and  the  relics  which  it  enshrined,  and  the   priest- 
hood as  naturally  was  evolved  from  the  Sthavira  or 
senior  Bikkhu.     In  Southern  Buddhism  the  priest 
is  more  like  a  Protestant  minister  of  religion  than 
like  a  priest  in  the  Bomish  sense  of  the  word  ;  but 
in  Northern  Buddhism,  and  especially  in  that  form 
of  it  dominant  in  Tibet,  the  people  from  the  seventh 
century  have  been  completely  under  the  power  of 
the  Lamas  who  alone  can  work  out  their  salvation. 
With  the  exception  of  a  short  interval  of  neglect 
and  persecution,  a  hierarchy  marvellously  similar  to, 
and  no  doubt  in  some  respects  suggested  by,  that 
of  Bomish  Christianity,  has   completely  controlled 
all  the  relations  of  life,^  with  the  terrible  result  that 
cruelty  and  immorahty  most  abhorrent  to  the  good 
and  gentle  Buddha  have  been  permitted  to  assert 

1  A  writer  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  October  1889,  professes  to 
describe  the  testimony  of  the  only  reporter  who  has  written  of  Lha^^il 
since  Hue  and  Gabet  were  expelled  from  it  forty-five  years  ago.  Accord- 
ins  to  this  witness,  the  Church  is  now  actually  in  grip  of  tlie  State, 
though  nominally  dominant.      Of  five  members  of  the  Council  of  the 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  355 

themselves  unopposed,  though  a  devotee  who 
slaughters  his  fellow-men  in  cold  blood  will  shudder 
with  horror  if  by  accident  he  should  tread  upon  a 
worm  or  crush  an  over-irritating  flea.^ 

Only  once  in  that  region  has  it  experienced  any 
attempt  at  reform.  In  the  fourteenth  century, 
when  the  policy  of  the  Ming  dynasty  in  reducing 
the  predominance  of  any  one  sect  had  prepared 
the  way  for  him,  Tsong-Kapa,  "  the  Tibetan 
Luther,"  endeavoured  to  effect  a  revival  of  the 
primitive  rules  of  the  Order,  and  succeeded  in 
restoring  something  of  the  ancient  simplicity  in 
dress,  the  celibacy  of  the  priests,  the  fortnightly 
confession,  the  season  of  yearly  retreat,  and  the 
invitation  ceremony  at  its  close.  He  set  his  face 
also  against  the  Shamanism  of  the  Tantra  system, 
adhered  to  the  purer  forms '  of  the  earlier  Maha- 

Gi-and  Laniii  four  are  laymen,  superior  military  officers,  with  the  Regent 
iit  their  head.  Till  the  (xrand  Lama  is  eighteen  years  of  age,  the  Regent 
is  supreme,  and  for  sixty  years,  not  a  single  Grand  Lama,  chosen  as  an 
infant,  has  survived  his  eighteenth  birthday  !  ! 

'  Buddhism,  however,  introduced  into  Tibet  the  benefits  of  the  art 
of  writing,  the  reduction  of  its  language  to  an  alphabet,  and  grammar  ; 
and  not  only  the  sacred  literature  represented  by  the  collection  of  the 
Kandjur,  but  the  very  miscellaneous  literature  of  tlie  Tandjur.  Several 
of  its  Buddhist  missionaries  and  the  kings  who  favoured  them  were 
really  great  men.  Kublai  Khan  and  the  first  Lamistic  Pope  Phags-pa, 
1259-94,  rendered  lasting  service  to  the  cause  of  civilisation.  See  Kcip- 
pen's  Die  LamaisrJie  Hierarchic  und  Kirche,  being  vol.  ii.  of  his 
celebrated  and  most  laborious  work,  Die  Relufion  <1es  Biuhlhn  ;  T.  W. 
Rhys  Davids,  Art.  Lamaism,  Encyc.  Brit.  vol.  xiv.  :  Sir  Monior  Williams, 
Buddhism,  ]ip.  2(i2-,302. 


356  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

yana  school,  and  succeeded  in  creating  a  new  sect, 
whose  leaders  in  the  fifteenth  century  were  by  the 
Chinese  Emperor  recognised  as  titular  lords  over 
the  Church  and  tributary  rulers  over  the  State, 
under  the  titles  of  Dalai  Lama  and  Pantshen 
Lama.  The  dream  of  Hildebrand  or  Leo  for  the 
Papacy  was  for  centuries  more  than  realised  in  the 
Lamaism  of  Tibet,  for  the  Lamas  are  more  than 
Popes,  being  re-incarnations  of  Avalokites'vara  and 
of  his  father  Amitabha,  who  never  die,  but  at  the 
act  of  dying  transfer  themselves  into  another  body, 
born  at  that  very  moment,  to  be  found  in  it  in  due 
time  through  a  procedure,  according  to  lot,  nevei' 
yet  known  to  fail.  When  discovered,  he  has,  how- 
ever, to  be  accepted  after  the  Erastian  fashion  by 
the  Chinese  Government  or  its  representative,  who, 
with  the  Desi  or  Regent,  must  also  be  present 
when  the  final  lot  is  drawn.  ^ 

Never  under  the  Papacy,  even  in  the  times 
when  its  pretensions  were  most  extravagant,  and 
its   power  was    most    unchecked,  has    Christianity 

1  The  most  recent  and  reliable  information  as  to  this  perverted  form 
of  Buddhism — if  it  is  to  be  called  Buddhism,  for  it  seems  to  be  no  more 
Buddhism  than  Vandoux  worship  can  be  called  Christianity — will  be 
found  in  the  works  of  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids  ;  Sir  Monier  Williams, 
Bwldhism ;  Babu  Sarat  Chunder  Das,  "  Religious  Hist,  of  Thibet," 
Jourii.  Asiat.  Soc.  Bnu/.  1881  ;  Life  and  Worhs  of  Alex,  ('soma  de 
Koros,  Th.  Duka,  Lond.  1885  ;  E.  C'olborne  Baber,  Travels  and  Re- 
searches in  Western  China  ;  Bushell's  "  Hist,  of  Thibet,"  Journ.  B.A.S. 
vol.  xii.  1878-79. 


LEOT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  357 

deteriorated  so  fearfully  as  Buddhism  has  done  in 
Nepal  and  Tibet.  Not  even  in  the  Abyssinian — the 
most  degraded  of  all  the  Churches  that  have  worn 
the  name  of  Christ,  in  respect  of  its  incorporation  of 
old  Jewish  rites  and  Egyptian  superstitions — can 
we  find  the  contrivance  of  the  prayer-wheel,  or  the 
poles  with  their  silken  flags  blazoned  with  the  six 
sacred  syllables,  "  om  mani  padme  hum,"^  fluttering 
their  supposed  incantations  to  the  heavens.  Bud- 
dhism's ages  of  worship  have  been  only  a  long  sad 
history  of  degradation,  of  perpetual  falling  from  bad 
to  worse."  The  higher  the  worship  of  Buddhists  for 
the  founder  of  their  system  has  risen,  the  more  have 
they  fallen  from  his  virtue  ;  but  in  Christianity  the 
ages  of  strongest  devotion  to  Christ  have  ever  been 
the  periods  of  progress.  The  more  intense  man's 
reverence  for  Christ  has  been,  the  loftier  has  been 
the  standard  of  virtue  attained.  Worship  and  pur- 
suit of  holiness  have  gone  hand  in  hand,  and  we 
cannot  conceive  of  a  life  truly  offered  up  in  adora- 
tion of  Christ  ever  proving  immoral  or  impure. 

The  story  of  Buddhism  in  India,  where  without 
much  resistance  it  yielded  to  the  seductions  of 
Vishnaism  and  Sivaism,  the  record  of  its  conquests 
in    the    surrounding   countries,    and    especially   in 

'  An  invocation  of  Avalokites'vara,  who  is  believed  to  have  delivered 
it  to  the  Tibetans. — Klaproth,  Fragments  Honddhiqucff,  p.  27;  Hodgson, 
Illustrations,  p.  171  ;  Charles  Loring  Brace,  G(sta  ChriMt,  p.  455. 

-  Schlagintweit,  ButhUiism  in  Tibet,  pp.  227-272. 


358  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.         lect.  vi. 

those  just  referred  to,  present  few  and  slight  analo- 
gies to  the  history  of  Christianity  ;  but  the  story  of 
Buddhism  in  China  as  related  by  those  most  com- 
petent to  testify  of  the  changing  forms  which  it 
assumed  from  the  fourth  century  onwards,  is  signi- 
ficantly akin  to  that  of  Chiistianity  after  it  became 
the  religion  of  the  Empire.  China,  unlike  India, 
had  before  the  Christian  era  a  very  ancient  history, 
marked  by  distinct  epochs.  Its  annals,  even  of  the 
eighth  century  B.C.,  seem  to  reflect  a  civilisation 
similar  to  that  of  Europe  in  the  thirteenth  century 
A.D.  Two  thousand  years  B.C.  the  Chinese  are 
said  to  have  attained  to  an  idea  of  Deity  somewhat 
equivalent  to  the  El  Elion  of  Melchizedek.'  Shangti, 
the  highest  of  all  spirits  to  whom  the  people  sacri- 
ficed, was  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Governor  of 
the  world,  unapproachable  by  the  sinner,  but 
merciful  to  all  penitents  ;  and  in  this  idea  of  God, 
and  in  the  morality  which  sprang  from  it,  we  have 
the  secret  of  that  social  and  political  progress  whose 
arrestment  and  decay  Confucius  lamented.  Living 
in  a  degenerate  age,  he  laboured  earnestly  as  a 
reformer  of  personal  morality  and  social  order ;  but, 
departing  himself  from  the  ancestral  faith  in  a 
Supreme  Kuler  of  nature  and  man,  "  respecting, 
but  keeping  aloof,  as  he  said,  from  all  spiritual 
beings,"   expressively  silent  as  to  the  future,  and 

^  Chinese  Review,  vol.  xi.  p.  162  ;  Beal,  Buddhism  in  China,  p.  233. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  359 

refusing  to  present  motives  of  conduct  drawn  from 
consideration  of  it,  his  vigorous  ministry,  conducted 
for  many  years  in  many  of  the  States,  could  only 
have   the   effect  of  preparing   the  way  for   a  real 
regeneration  of  society.     He  had  great  faith  in  man, 
as  born  good,  with  an  innate  moral  faculty  which 
only  contact  with  the  world  and  the  delusion   of 
the  senses  prevent  from  making  him  virtuous.     Man 
was  made  for  society,  and  the  five  relations  of  which 
society  consists — that  of  ruler  and  subject,  husband 
and   wife,    parent    and    child,    elder    brother    and 
younger,  and  friend  and  friend — were  Divine  ordi- 
nances.      His   standard   of  personal    righteousness 
and  social  purity,  his   strong  faith  in  the  power  of 
example,  his  golden  rule,  "  What  you  would  not  like 
to  have  done  to  yourself,  do  not  to  any  other,''  ^  his 
demand,  as  urgent  as  was  that  of  Isaiah  or  Socrates,^ 
that  language  should  be  used  ever  with  scrupulous 
care  to  express  only  the  thing  that  is,  have  gone 
far    to   form,    with    beneficial   ethical    results,    the 
ordinary  Chinese  character.     His  ignoring  of  per- 

1  Once  when  a  heathen  asked  Hillel  to  show  him  the  whole  Jewish 
religion  in  a  few  words,  he  replied,  "  Do  not  unto  others  what  thou 
wouldst  not  should  be  done  unto  thee."  Kuenen's  Religion  of  Israel, 
p.  243  (quotes  Talmud,  Sabbath,  31  a.) 

2  See  Isaiah  xxxii.  5,  6.  Socrates  says  in  Phaedo,  "to  use  words 
wrongly  and  indefinitely  is  not  merely  an  error  in  itself ;  it  also  creates 
evil  in  the  soul."  A  vast  amount  of  mischief  is  done  by  the  misapplica- 
tion of  good  adjectives  to  bad  subjects.  All  true  reformers,  with  Con- 
fucius, labour  for  a  rectification  of  names. 


360  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

sonal  Deity,  only  referred  to  under  the  vague  term 
Heaven,  and  of  the  future  of  man,  could  not  long 
arrest  the  degeneracy  of  society  or  purge  out  the 
secret  vices  burrowing  beneath  its  surface.  If 
Buddha  is  to  be  regarded  in  his  bold  metaphysical 
speculations  as  the  first  of  Gnostics,  Confucius  in 
his  pure  secularism  may  be  designated  the  first 
Agnostic,  and  the  monotonous  and  stagnant  type 
of  humanity  which  his  teaching  has  produced  may 
be  a  warning  of  the  kind  of  civilisation  which 
the  world  may  expect  should  ever  philanthropic 
secularism  supplant  or  supersede  the  religion  of 
Christ.' 

Contemporary  with  Confucius,  though  much 
older  in  years,  was  Lao-tsze  the  Venerable,  the 
author  of  the  celebrated  Tao-teh-King,  in  which  not 
only  Komish  missionaries  but  scholars  like  Montucci 
of  Berlin  (1808)  and  Eemusat"  (1823)  professed  to 
find  the  mystery  of  the  Holy  Trinity  and  the  name 
of  Jehovah  phonetically  expressed.  Twenty  years 
later  Stanislas  Julien  •*  dispelled  these  illusions,  and 
showed  that  the  treatise  was  as  agnostic  in  its  essen- 
tial teachings  as  were  the  Analects  of  Confucius. 
A  poet  and  a  mystic,  he  gave  his  whole  strength  to 

1  Shu  King,  8lii  King,  Pref.  and  Introd.  pp.  1-27,  by  Dr.  Legge  ; 
Sacred  Books  of  Oic  East,  vol.  iii. 

^  Menioire  sur  let,  Vie  ct  les  (Jjnnio^is  dr  Lao-tsze. 

^  Translation  of  the  Tao-teh-King,  under  the  title,  Le  Livre  de  la 
Voie  et  de  la  Vertu. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  361 

enforce  the  virtue  of  Tao — the  ivay  ^  of  man's  return 
to  that  spontaneity  of  action  without  motive  which 
prevails  in  nature,  and  which  will  manifest  itself 
in  man,  in  humility,  gentleness,  refusal  to  take  pre- 
cedence in  the  world,  in  accounting  the  great  as 
the  small,  the  small  as  the  great,  and  in  recom- 
pensing injury  with  kindness.^  He  does  not  affirm 
the  existence  of  God,  but  he  does  not  deny  it,  and 
his  language  seems  to  imply  it.  Certainly  there  is 
not  a  word  which  savours  of  superstition,  and  yet 
he  is  the  reputed  founder  of  a  most  idolatrous 
religion,  which  is  found  in  shape  five  centuries  after 
his  death.  The  works  of  his  earliest  followers  are 
said  to  be  full  of  the  most  grotesque  and  absurd 
beliefs.  As  early  as  221  B.C.  some  of  them  were 
in  search  of  the  Eastern  Hesperides,  where  grew 
the  herb  of  immortality.  In  the  first  century 
A.D.  another  professor  of  Taoism  invented  a  pill 
containing  the  elixir  of  life,  and  spells  which  could 
tame  and  destroy  by  the  touch  of  a  pencil  millions 
of  demons.  All  through  its  history  it  has  been  a 
conglomerate  of  superstitions  so  base,  and  so  con- 
trasted  with    the   teaching   of  the    Tao-teh-King, 

'  fx(6o8os,  Prof.  Douglas,  Confucianism  and  Taoism,  p.  189. 

-  It  is  very  interesting  to  find,  so  long  before  Christianity,  and  so  far 
from  its  cradle,  this  fundamental  rule  in  Christian  morals.  In  the  Book 
of  Proverbs  its  enunciation  may  have  preceded  that  in  the  Tao-teh- 
King  in  point  of  time  ;  Imt  its  being  uttered  at  the  end  of  the  world, 
along  with  the  "  golden  rule "  of  Confucius,  prove  how  essentially  one 
are  the  moral  instincts  of  humanity. 


362  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

that  to  make  the  author  of  that  literary  reh'c  bear 
the  obloquy  of  even  the  slightest  connection  with 
Taoism,  appears  to  be  one  of  the  grossest  wrongs  of 
history/ 

These  sages  preceded  Buddha  by  a  century, 
whose  religion,  though  it  came  into  contact  with 
China  shortly  after  the  reign  of  Asoka,  did  not 
seriously  begin  to  influence  it  till  about  the  fourth 
century  a.d.  The  Buddhism  of  that  period  was  the 
religion  of  the  Northern  school,  well  advanced  in 
its  second  stage  of  degeneracy.  Wherever  it  was 
encouraged,  or  allowed  to  maintain  itself,  it  reared 
monasteries  and  nunneries,  temples  and  shrines  of 
idols  and  relics,  and  established  the  worship  of 
saints  and  images,  which  sometimes,  like  winking 
Madonnas,  opened  their  eyes  and  otherwise  worked 
miracles.  Its  effect  upon  Taoism  was  simply  to 
absorb  it ;  for  before  then  that  religion  had  neither 
monasteries  nor  temples,  nor  any  system  of  worship. 
All  these  it  borrowed  from  Buddhism,  whose  Tri- 
ratna  and  endless  pantheon  of  deities  it  greedily 
accepted,  with  the  effect  that  though  Taoism  has 
existed  nominally  distinct  from  Buddhism  in  China, 
it  has  simply  been  as  Buddhism  in  a  native  dress, 
and  thus  far  the  Hindu  mind  can  be  truly  said  to 
have  powerfully  influenced  Chinese  thought. 

^  Dr.  Legge's  Preface  to  vol.  iii.  of  Sacred  Booh  of  the  East,  p.  xxi  ; 
alsr>  Art.  Lao-tsze,  Encyc.  Brit.  vol.  xiv. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  363 

By  the  Confucians  the  reception  of  Buddhism 
was  very  difierent.     They  might  have  laughed  at 
its  idolatrous  system  budding  vigorously  into  life, 
but  they  could  not  endure  its  full-blown  anti -social 
Monasticism.     Its  morality  they  could  appreciate, 
though  it  seemed  inferior  to  their  own  ;  for  though 
its  teaching  as  to  future  rewards  commended  itself 
to  the  moral  instincts  of  the  masses,  the  Confucians, 
more  logical  than  Buddhists,  averred  that  to  avoid 
wrong-doing  for  fear  of  future  punishment  w^as  not 
doing  right  for  its  own  sake  ;  while  to  labour  for 
happiness  hereafter  led  to  neglect  of  the  present, 
and  promoted  lazy  inactivity.     Such  a  scheme  of 
religion   was  by  them  judged    inimical  to  virtue, 
which  was  its  own  reward,  and  the  manner  of  life 
by  which  it  was  illustrated  was  condemned  as  par- 
ticularly immoral.     The  State,  the  Family,  Society, 
were  Divine  institutions  which  ought  to  be  main- 
tained and  perfected.     Industry,  public  and  private, 
was  essential  to  then-  ideal  of  propriety ;  and  Bud- 
dhism, with  its  religion  of  inaction,  its  celibate  rule, 
and  abandonment  of  all  secular  business,  was  simply 
odious  to   the  instincts  of  a  practical  and  kindly 
people.      There   could    only  be   war   between   two 
such  contradictory   systems — a  war  not  of  words, 
but,  on  the  Chinese  side  at  least,  of  very  hard  blows. 
Their  hostility  manifested   itself  in    repeated  and 
prolonged  persecutions.      In  one  of  these  250,000 


364  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

monks  and  nuns  were  forced  to  return  to  social 
life,  while  their  proj^erty  was  confiscated,  and  the 
copper  of  their  images  and  bells  was  minted  into 
coin.  The  Confucians  have  long  ceased  to  perse- 
cute, but  they  have  never  withdrawn  their  first 
indictment  against  the  Buddhists  for  teaching  what 
to  them  is  criminal  because  disloyal,  and  immoral  ^ 
because  anti-social. 

To  the  ethical  system  of  China,  as  represented  by 
Confucians,  Mahayana  Buddhism  could  not  add  much, 
if  indeed  anything,  of  value ;  but  its  speculative 
philosophy  seems  peculiarly  to  have  fascinated  them, 
and  it  produced  remarkable  and  permanent  changes 
in  their  thinking.  The  literature  and  the  art  of 
China  reflect  not  Chinese  but  Indian  scenes  and 
manners.  Its  grammatical  and  arithmetical  sciences 
owe  much  to  Indian  tutelage.  An  educated  China- 
man, while  avowing  himself  Confucian  in  respect  of 
ethics,  will  in  all  metaphysical  problems  reason 
according  to  Buddhist  methods  and  enunciate 
Buddhist  ideas.  To  this  extent,  therefore,  it 
affected  the  Confucians,  but  not  with  beneficial 
results.  It  aided  Confucius  in  his  evil  work  of 
shaking  the  faith  of  "  the  classes  "  in  the  personal 
Ruler  of  the  Universe,  while  its  effect  upon  "  the 
masses"  was  even   more   injurious,    for  it   dragged 

^  Dr.  Edkins,  Omiese  Buddhism,  pp.  128,  202  ;  Beal,  Introduction  to 
Fa-Hian,  p.  27. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  365 

them  down  to  a  polytheism  from  which  for  centuries 
they  had  been  free,  and  put  in  place  of  the  imper- 
sonal principle  with  which  Confucius  had  supplanted 
their  ancestral  faith,  those  shadowy  crowds  of 
Buddhas  and  Bodhisatvas,  to  lead  them  still  further 
away  from  the  purer  works  and  ways  of  more 
reverential  ages.^ 

The  episodes  in  the  history  of  Chinese  Buddhism 
from  the  fourth  century  onward  were  marvellously 
similar  to  the  scenes  and  incidents  witnessed  in 
Europe  during  the  same  period  in  connection 
with  the  Christian  Church.  Cardinal  Newman  has 
somewhere  said  that  in  "  professing  to  write  the 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Gibbon  has 
rekictantly,  but  actually,  written  the  Rise  and 
Progress  of  Christianity."  The  most  zealous  de- 
fender of  the  faith,  however,  must  admit  that  the 
Christianity  which  maintamed  in  Europe  from  the 
fourth  century  onward  had  grievously  declined  from 
that  of  the  primitive  ages.  It  is  the  fashion  in 
some  quarters  to  attribute  this  degradation  to  the  alli- 
ance of  the  Church  with  the  State,  and  to  aver  that 
had  it  kept  apart  from  the  embraces  of  the  Emperors 
it  would  have  preserved  itself  from  corruption. 
Unquestionably  Constantine  was  a  "  sair  sanct "  to 
the  Church  ;  a  convert  more  from  expedience  than 

^  Douglas,  Confucianism,  p.  84  ;  Beal,  Buddhism  in  China,  p.  235  ; 
Edkins,  Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  333. 


366  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        leut.  vi. 

conviction,   he   and  his  successors    endeavoured  to 
utilise    the    Christian   hierarchy   to   buttress    their 
own   throne.      Unquestionably,    too,     the    Church 
suftered  more  indignity  and  harm  from  the  Christian 
Emperors  who  patronised  it,  than  ever  it  did  from 
the  heathen  Emperors  who  persecuted  it.       Candid 
inquiries  will,  however,  convince  most  people  that 
the  alliance  with  the  Empire  was  more  an  incident  in 
than  the  cause  of  the  Church's  degradation.     The 
transfer  of  the  seat  of  rule  to  the  Bosporus  left  the 
Western  Church  free  from  the  Imperial  influence 
to  regulate  its  own  affairs,  and  yet  it  became  not 
less  but  even  more  corrupt  than  its  Oriental  neigh- 
bour.    The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  corruption 
of  the  Church  was  due  more  to  its  external  or  ma- 
terial prosperity  than  to  anything  else.     To  churches 
and  to  nations  that  is  the  real  ordeal  by  fire.     In 
the  poverty  and  struggles  they  have  higher  hopes, 
but  when  difficulties  are  surmounted,  and  they  dwell 
at  ease,  they  mistake  or  forget  their  vocation.     The 
adversity  and  terrible  persecution  of  the  Church, 
coincident    with    its    primitive    enthusiasm,    did    a 
very  great  deal  to  preserve  its  health  and  purity ; 
and  it  was   simply  natural,  and   to   be  expected, 
that  when  it  emerged  into  prosperity  and  popular 
favour,  like  Jeshurun  in  his  fatness,  it  should  have 
rebelled,  and  instead  of  serving  as  it  was  ordained 
to  do,  should  have  usurped  the  power  to  rule. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  367 

The    iconography  of  early  Christianity  reflects 
even  more  clearly  than  its  literature  the  various 
stages  of  its  deterioration.     As  long  as  the  world 
was  against  it,  and  it  was  compelled  to  use  such 
places  as  the  Catacombs  for  its  shelter  and  worship, 
its  faith  was  pure,  and  its  life  was  full  of  exhilara- 
tion and  brightness.     Its  symbolism  was  thoroughly 
ideal    and   spiritual,   in  sharp  and  instructive  con- 
trast with   every  Pagan  specimen    that   has   been 
discovered,  and  with  its  own  subsequently  paganised 
art.     It  was   a   symbolism,    moreover,    only  of  its 
hopes,   and   not   of  its    one   object   of  faith    or   of 
worship.     It  tolerated  no  symbol  in  worship  save 
the  water  of  Baptism  and  the  bread  and  the  wine 
of  the  Eucharist.     It    needed,  as  yet,  no  crucifix, 
not  even  a  cross, ^  and  it  would  not  allow  any  image 
to    reveal    to   the    imagination    the    present    but 
invisible  Christ,  or  to  suggest  the  profound  mean- 
ing of  His  atonement.      But  when  it  went  forth, 
the  admired  of  the  world,  into  the  sunshine,  and 
began  to  rear  the  grand  basiHcas,  and  people  them 
with  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs  and  the  enshrined 

1  111  the  whole  raii^a^  of  ilie  Catacombs  no  crucifix,  and  only  very 
few  crosses  have  been  found,  and  these  generally  in  a  disguised  form. 
The  communion  of  the  early  Church  was  with  Christ  risen  and  trium- 
phant ;  it  was  only  when  the  spirit  and  fervour  of  worship  declined 
that  it  made  so  much  of  the  crucifixion.— Northcote  and  Brownlow's 
Abridgment  of  De  Rossi's  Roma  Sotterranea  ;  Smith  and  Cheetham, 
Did.  of  Christian  Antvj.,  Art.  Catacomrs,  pp.  294  seq.  ;  Witherow, 
Catucombs,  pp.  260,  281. 


368  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        leot.  vi. 

relics  of  the  saints,  the  very  desire  to  rise  led  it  to 
fight  heathenism  with  its  own  weapons,  and  to  copy 
its  splendours.^  Even  before  this  it  was  falling- 
back  from  the  simple  service  of  the  synagogue  to 
that  of  the  destroyed  temple,  but  now  it  was  found 
adopting  the  heathen  festivals,  or  accommodating- 
its  own  to  their  dates,  and  incorporating  with  its 
own  the  more  imposing  rites  of  still  popular  heathen 
fanes.  To  "offer  the  new  law's  new  oblation"  it 
invented  a  new  ritual  and  priesthood  ;  and  seeing 
a  priesthood  must  have  somewhat  to  offer,  it  dis- 
covered a  new  sacrifice  in  the  very  sacrament  which 
was  the  Divine  pledge  and  human  thanksgiving  for 
the  abrogation  of  all  external  sacrifice.-^  Then  the 
government  of  the  Empire  became  the  model  of  its 

^  The  efficiency  of  relic-worship  may  be  said  to  have  been  established 
as  early  as  the  fourth  century.  Julian  compares  the  churches  to 
whited  sepulchres,  full  of  dead  men's  bones.  Development  of  imagc- 
worshij)  proceeded  pari  passu  with  the  erection  of  fine  churches  and 
their  adornment  with  painting  and  sculpture.  There  were  all  along 
strong  protests  from  individual  bishops,  and  even  prohibitions  by 
Councils,  but  the  fashion  was  too  strong  for  their  fulminations.  Even  in 
the  eighth  century  the  iconoclastic  reformation  of  Leo  the  Isaurian  was 
too  late.  His  zeal,  moreover,  was  wrongly  directed.  He  assailed  high 
art,  and  condemned  only  the  truly  fine  paintings,  sparing  the  ruder  and 
more  ancient  productions,  and  leaving  untouched  the  worship  of  and 
disgraceful  traffic  in  relics,  real  and  spurious.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  in  opposition  to  all  this  Gregory  in  the  West  became  the  champion 
of  art  as  an  aid  to  devotion.— Milman,  Lat.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.  p.  152. 

2  In  protesting  against  the  Mass,  the  Reformed  Churches  maintain 
the  universal  priesthood,  and  therefore  perpetual  sacrifice,  of  the  visible 
Church.  As  Christ's  witness  on  earth,  the  Church  must  be  always  offer- 
ing itself,  in  thanksgiving  for  its  own  redemption,  for  the  salvation  of 
the  world. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  369 

organisation,  and  soon  it  was  crowned  in  a  Paj)acy 
professing  to  dominate,  as  vicegerent  for  Christ,  a 
world  which  confessedly  it  has  not  yet  been  able 
to  convert. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  the  sickening 
degradation  of  Christianity  through  all  its  en- 
counters and  compromises  with  heathenism,  till  in 
the  gathering  gloom  its  degenerate  art  reached  a 
point  where  it  dared  to  portray  to  the  eye  of  sense 
the  death-pangs  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  its  worshij* 
touched  a  depth  of  idolatry  in  which  it  symbolised 
the  mystery  of  the  Holy  Trinity  by  a  three-headed 
figure  quite  after  the  model  of  the  Hindu  Trimurti. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  it  appears  to  have  pro- 
ceeded on  parallel  lines,  and  at  as  rapid  a  pace  as 
the  degeneracy  of  Buddhism  in  the  East.  It  too 
has  its  iconography  as  well  as  its  literature,  and  it 
is  interesting  to  trace  its  passage  from  its  earliest 
graffiti — the  stone  edicts  of  Asoka,  where  we  have 
the  religion  without  even  the  name  of  the  founder 
— through  the  carvings  of  the  Sanchi  gateway, 
where  there  is  alteration,  though  to  no  considerable 
extent,  on  to  those  at  Amravati,  where  we  have  the 
full-blown  Buddhism  to  which  China  to  a  consider- 
able extent  succumbed.^  Through  all  this  period 
everywhere  in  Chinese  Buddhist  temples  were  seen 

1  Fergusson,  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship,  p.  67  ;  Cunninghaiii,  Bhilsa 
Topes,  p.  130. 

2  A 


370  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

the  idols  of  the  saints,  everywhere  were  found  their 
worshipped  rehcs.  A  bone,  a  tooth,  a  single  hair, 
would  be  purchased  by  the  revenue  of  a  State  and 
welcomed  with  imperial  honours.  The  rationalists 
of  the  West  might  protest  as  loudly  and  as  scoffingiy 
as  they  pleased  that  there  was  as  much  wood  of 
the  true  cross  and  as  many  veritable  nails  of  it 
in  Europe  as  would  suffice  to  build  a  navy.  The 
Confucian  mandarins  at  the  court  of  a  relic- wor- 
shipping Emperor  might  indignantly  denounce  the 
desecration  and  pollution  of  the  royal  palace  by 
the  introduction  of  part  of  the  carrion  of  a  monk 
who  had  died  long  ago.^  With  the  father  of 
Gideon,  deriding  the  wonder-working  powers  of 
these  relics,  they  might  insist  that  they,  and  even 
Buddha  himself,  should  plead,  Baal-like,  for  them- 
selves against  their  iconoclastic  ire  ;  but  at  that 
time  neither  law,  nor  persecution,  nor  common 
sense  could  prevail  to  cure  this  perverted  disposi 
tion.  Belief  in  the  virtue  of  a  fetich  marks  both 
the  infancy  and  decay  of  most  religions.  In 
Chinese  Buddhism  to-day  this  belief  is  as  vigorous 
as  ever,  and  notwithstanding  the  influence  of  the 
Reformation,  and  the  spread  of  scientific  discovery, 
this  belief  marks  an  extreme  of  thought  from  which 
neither  Romanism  nor  Protestantism  as  yet  can  be 
said  to  be  free. 

^  Dr.  Edkins,  Chinese  BiuhUiism,  p.  126  ;  .Judges  vi.  31. 


LECT.  VI.         THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  371 

The  Buddhism  of  the  earhest  traditions  was 
concerned  chiefly  Avith  morahty  as  essential  to 
deHverance,  and  the  Christianity  of  the  New- 
Testament  is  a  faith  and  hope  and  love,  dominat- 
ing and  fusing  and  moulding  life  after  a  nobler  type. 
In  China,  as  elsewhere,  the  Buddhism  of  morality 
gave  way  to  the  Buddhism  of  mystic  contempla- 
tion. Yielding  to  the  same  tendency  which  after- 
wards made  so  many  Christians  abandon  the 
paths  of  obedience  and  practice  of  righteousness 
for  the  cultivation  of  the  inner  life,  Buddhism  as 
early  as  520  a.d.  was  prepared  to  follow  eagerly 
Bodiharma,^  who  came  from  Southern  India  to 
sweep  away  the  alien  growth  of  all  book-instruc- 
tion, and  to  establish  the  truth  that  "  out  of  mind 
there  is  no  Buddha,  out  of  Buddha  there  is  no 
mind ;  that  virtue  is  not  to  be  sought,  and  vice  is 
not  to  be  shunned ;  that  nothing  is  to  be  looked 
upon  as  pure  or  polluted,  for  all  that  is  needed  is 
to  avoid  both  good  and  evil,  and  he  that  can  do 
this  is  a  truly  religious  man. 


"  2 


'  Originally  called  Bodhitara,  but  renamed  by  his  teacher  Payantara, 
in  token  of  his  religious  "insight.''  He  is  said  to  have  brought  to  China 
the  famous  alms-bowl,  which  all  the  Buddhas  of  the  Kalpa  have  used, 
and  will  use,  and  whose  final  disappearance  will  indicate  that  the  religion 
is  about  to  jjerish.  Thus  Buddhism  has  also  its  San  Greal.  Bodiharma 
is  called  the  "wall-gazing  Brahman,"  though  a  Kshatrya,  because  on  his 
arrival  in  (Jhina  he  spent  nine  years  in  silent  meditation. — Eitel, 
Sanskrit  Chinese  Diet.  p.  24. 

-  Dr.  Edkins,  Chiiirxc  Buddhism,  p.  130. 


372  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

In  proclaiming  that  ethical   distinctions  mark 
an  inferior  stage  of  discipleship,  for  a  "  good  man, 
though    never    against,    is    always   above    them,'' 
Bodiharma,  the  nominal  founder  of  Esoteric  Bud- 
dhism, simply  formulated  more  clearly  the  teaching 
of  Nagardjuna,  the  reputed  founder  of  the  Mahayana 
system.      It  was   only  another  expression  of  that 
indefinable  phase  of  thought,  found  in  all  religions 
as  mysticism,  and  which,  though  commonly  identi- 
fied only  with  its  extravagant  outbursts,  is  really 
of  the  very  essence  of  religion.      The  dominating 
thought  in  a  religious  man  is  that  of  a  Supreme 
One   in  whom  we   live   and   move   and   have    our 
being,   and   there  are  times  in  his  worship  when 
the  balance  of  consciousness  is  disturbed,  and  self 
is  lost  in  consciousness  of  the  Divine.     Man  without 
the  aid  of  prayer    or   sacramental   grace   finds   in 
himself  the  revelation,  and  alas  !  as  his  conscious- 
ness is  always  imperfect,  and  very  often  confused,, 
the  revelation  is  too  often  distorted  and  the  reverse 
of  Divine.^ 

Mysticism,  as  was  natural  in  a  religion  quicken- 

1  Men  who  have  in  vain  sought  God  witliout  have  hapi^ily  found 
Him  in  the  witness  of  their  own  conscience  and  affection,  but  generally 
they  who  conceitedly  reject  the  revelation  without  them  only  obscure- 
the  seeing  faculty  within.  "  Wiien  mysticism  threw  off  external  autho- 
rity it  went  mad,  as  in  the  revolutionary  pantheism  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
When  it  incorporated  itself  more  and  more  in  revealed  truth,  it  became 
a  benign  power— as  on  the  eve  of  the  Reformation." — Vaughan,  Hours- 
witli  tJte  Mystics,  vol.  ii.  p.  .356. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  373 

ing    both    thought   and    emotion,    appeared    early 
in  Christianity,  and  from  the  days  of  St.  John  it 
has   never  lacked    a   representative.     In  its  mani- 
fold  varieties    and    aberrations    it  presents   many 
similarities  to  the  mysticism  of  the  East,   but  in 
reality  it  is  as  different  from  it  in  its  nature  as  it 
is  distant  from  it  in  its  source.     Eastern  mysticism 
has  always   been   more  speculative  than  practical 
in  character.     Pantheistic  in  its  origin,  it  assumes 
that  all  things  are  as  divine  as  it  is  their  nature 
to  be,  and  aspires   to  get  at  the  unity  of  being. 
Western  mysticism,  on  the  other  hand,  starts  always 
from   a    sense   of   the    disorder   and    alienation    of 
things,  and  endeavours  to  get  at  man's  true  life. 
The  Eastern  finds  its  object  within,  the  Western 
generally  without ;  the  Eastern  considers  identity 
with  Deity  a  natural  state,  the  Western  regards 
perfect  fellowship  with  Deity  as  a  goal  of  spiritual 
attainment.     In   Christianity  mysticism   has   been 
occasional  in  its  manifestations,  and  has  always  been 
regarded  as  an  innovation  ;  but  in  the  East  it  is  the 
normal  deduction  from  Hindu  Pantheism  and  Bud- 
dhist Nihilism.^     Nagardjuna  and  Bodiharma  were 
the  natural  outcome  of  Gotama's  teaching.    In  Chris- 
tianity it  has  often  shown  itself  to  be  marvellously 
practical,  and  generally  in  revolt  from  some  stereo- 
typed system  of  dogma  or  form  of  worshij).     Though 

1  "  Mysticism,"  A.  Seth,  Encyc.  Brit.  vol.  xvii.  pp.  129-136. 


374  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

associated  in  our  thoughts  more  with  the  senti- 
mental than  the  intellectual  aspects  of"  religion/  it 
has  manifested  frequently  a  decidedly  rationalistic 
tendency.  Refusing  to  be  dominated  by  authority 
or  to  be  bound  by  antiquity,  it  has  questioned  fear- 
lessly the  dicta  of  Scripture,  avowing  that  reason  is 
not  superseded,  but  divinely  inspired  and  controlled 
as  the  organ  of  revelation.  In  Christianity  its 
extravagances  may  be  forgiven  in  consideration  of 
the  benefits  which  have  flowed  from  it.  It  power- 
fully helped  to  bring  about  the  Reformation,  and 
since  then,  in  the  Churches,  whether  reformed  or 
unreformed,  it  has  tended  to  sweeten  and  intensify 
devotion.  It  has  kept  them  mindful  of  their  com- 
mon lineage  by  insisting  upon  those  essential  and 
universal  truths  which  are  confessed  to  be  vital 
in  all  religions,  and  especially  by  proclaiming  the 
supremacy  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  fountain  of 
all  enlightenment  and  activity. 

As  manifested  in  St.  Paul  and  St.  John,  mysticism 

^  Correctly  so,  if  we  are  to  judge  of  Mysticism  even  from  its  purest 
phases  and  its  best  representatives,  e.g.  the  (Quietism  of  Madame  Guyon, 
the  ^Spiritualism  of  Swedenborg,  the  Romanticism  of  F.  von  Harden- 
berg,  better  known  as  Novalis.  Even  on  its  speculative  or  philosophical 
side,  it  would  not  be  ditficult  to  cull  from  the  writings  of  the  Cambridge 
Platonists,  and  the  Idealists  of  Europe  and  America,  extracts  equi- 
valent to  the  aphorisms  of  Novalis,  that  "  action  is  morbid,"  "  to  dream  is 
to  ovei-come,"  that  "  the  soul  must  abandon  the  actual  world  if  it  would 
discover  in  the  recesses  of  the  mystic  night  the  Queen  of  Heaven, 
Eternal  Beauty." — Hymns  to  Night,  Schriften,  vol.  ii.  p.  158. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  375 

is  the  recognition  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  Witness 
of  Christ,  and  therefore  the  supreme  lord  over  all 
man's  emotions  and  reasonings  and  purposes.  Con- 
sequently the  asceticism  with  which  mysticism  has 
always  been  associated  has  been  in  Christianity  more 
kept  under  control.  Occasionally  it  has  lapsed  into 
frightful  excesses ;  indeed,  the  extravagances  prac- 
tised in  the  East  to  attain  to  insight  have  been 
equalled  by  the  devices  resorted  to  by  many  in  the 
West  to  gain  the  vision  of  the  Divine.  In  ingenious 
methods  of  self-torture  the  West  certainly  vied  with 
the  East,  but  at  self-torture  perverted  Christianity 
stopped,  while  degenerate  Buddhism  went  on  to  in- 
vent and  put  in  practice  most  revolting  methods  of 
self-destruction  as  well.  The  law  of  Buddha  prohi- 
bited this,  and  forbade  even  the  mention  of  the 
advantages  of  death.  It  was  an  offence  of  the  gravest 
kind,  punished  by  the  severest  penalty  which  the 
Order  could  inflict,^  for  a  monk  to  procure  a  weapon 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  away  his  life,  or  to  teach 
how  death  may  be  procured.  Still,  in  India  before 
Fa-Hian's  time,  self-nuirder  was  practised,  and  in 
China  Imperial  edicts  against  self-mutilation-  and 
self-immolation  w^re  required  to  prevent  fanatics 
evading  the  primitive  law  by  the  quibble,  that 
while    prohibiting    suicide,    Buddha    enjoined   the 

1  Patimokklia  ;    Paragika  Dhamma,  3  ;   Sacred  Boohs  of  the  East, 
vol.  xiii. 


376  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

destruction  of  anger  and  lust,  and  that  it  was 
against  these  alone  that  they  raised  their  hand, 
in  order  to  complete  their  deliverance/ 

Christianity  demands  that  an  acricT^crts  shall  be 
practised  by  all  who  desire  the  illumination  of  the 
Spirit,  for  all  that  is  vile  must  be  purged  out  of 
life,  and  all  that  is  animal  in  it  must  be  subdued. 
The  discipline,  however,  is  always  moral  as  well  as 
religious,  and  it  aims  only  at  controlling,  never, 
like  Stoicism  or  Cynicism,  at  stifling  or  violating 
natural  affection.  Unlike  Plato,  who  regarded 
matter  as  evil,  Christ  and  His  apostles  recognised  it 
as  the  creature  of  God,  and  taught  us  to  seek  the 
seat  of  evil,  not  in  the  body,  but  in  the  f)erverted 
will.  In  the  spirit  is  the  true  fons  et  origo  mali ; 
but  as  the  occasion  of  sin  directly  or  indirectly 
often  originates  in  some  desire  for  bodily  indulgence 
or  some  dread  of  bodily  pain,  temperance  and  forti- 
tude demand  that  the  body,  if  not  inured  to  hard- 
ness, should  be  at  least  kept  under  control.  So 
bodily  exercise,^  though  in  itself  profiting  little, 
profiteth  much  as  moral  discipline,  a  means  to  a 
spiritual  end.     Consequently  the  fast  in  its  literal 

1  Beal,  Introduction  to  Fa-Eian,  p.  42.  In  an  important  aspect  the 
perversion  of  Christianity  was  worse  than  that  of  Buddhism.  The 
Buddhist  ascetics,  though  merciless  to  themselves,  never  tortured  theii- 
vanquished  opponents.  There  is  no  parallel  to  the  Eomish  Inquisition 
and  some  Protestant  atrocities  in  any  of  the  annals  of  Buddhism. 

'-  T]  (TunaTiKr]  yvfivaa-la,  1  Tim.  iv.  8. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  377 

sense  has  its  place  in  the  Christian  system  as  an 
expedient  generally  most  required  in  the  times 
when  we  are  inclined  to  despise  it.  The  fanaticism 
which  would  destroy  or  injure  what  is  natural  is 
condemned  by  Christianity  as  severely  as  is  the 
sensuality  which  would  unduly  strengthen  it.  What 
it  demands  is  that  the  whole  nature  be  educated 
and  ennobled  by  loving  surrender  to  the  control 
of  an  infinitely  holy  Will.  Enjoyment  of  the  vision 
beatific,  communion  with  the  Divine  Being,  is  the 
summum  honum  of  Christianity,  and  that  is  the 
portion  only  of  the  sanctified.  "  Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall  see  God." 

Bodiharma's  mystic  or  esoteric  Buddhism  had 
no  such  influences  to  steady  and  sober  it,  and  its 
aberrations  were  wilder  than  the  fancies  of  our  de- 
lirium. The  supernatu]'al  pretensions  of  mysticism 
have  always  been  disallowed  or  condemned  in  Chris- 
tianity by  overwhelming  healthy-minded  majorities, 
but  the  consequence  of  the  practice  of  Esoteric 
Buddhism  was  believed  by  all  to  be  supernatural 
power.  An  adept  in  it  professed  to  see  through  all 
ages  and  worlds,  and  move  through  space  by  a  sheer 
exercise  of  will.  All  the  phenomena  of  modern 
spiritualism  may  have  been  witnessed  in  India  and 
China  two  thousand  years  ago — yea,  centuries 
perhaps  before  Buddha  appeared.  The  first  pre- 
tenders to  these  mysteries  were  the  Indian  Yogis 


378  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

and  the  medicine-men  of  savage  and  barbarous 
races.^  The  "  Neo-Buddhism  "  and  "  Theosophy  " 
of  to-day  simply  confront  us  in  the  cast-off  yellow 
rags  of  these  pitiful  superstitions.  Their  disciples 
attempt  to  warm  themselves  and  to  walk  in  the 
light  of  the  unhallowed  flames  which  the  deluded 
followers  of  Bodiharma  believed  they  could  kindle. 
In  whatever  way  the  phenomena  of  spiritualism 
are  to  be  explained — and  one  cannot  say  what 
phenomena  may  emerge  when  the  human  mind  is 
abandoned  to  vacuity,  and  the  human  will  to  an 
ungoverned  fancy — we  may  be  certain  that  investi- 
gation of  them  will  never  disclose  the  reality  of 
benign  supernatural  power.  What  capabilities  may 
be  dormant  in  humanity  no  one  can  tell.  Christ 
who  redeemed  us  is  the  prophecy  of  what  He 
can  make  us.  He  had  supernatural  power  because 
His  being  accorded  perfectly  with  the  Heavenly 
Father's  will ;  but  supernatural  power  as  mani- 
fested by  Christ  is  very  different  indeed  from  the 
ludicrous  exhibitions  of  the  "  spmtualists."  Christ "s 
supernatural  power  was  not  manifested  just  in 
their  ways,  and  certainly  not  by  their  methods ; 
will  it  ever  be  acquired  ? " 

^  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  vol.  i.  p.  440. 

2  "  Vient  enfin  le  mysticisme  de  la  derniere  epoque,  qui,  de  meme  que 
tous  les  mysticismes,  finit  de  la  maniere  la  plus  miserable,  et  enfante  une 
idolatrie  grossiere,  ainsi  que  les  stupides  pratiques  de  la  sorcellerie" 
(Laboulaye,  Introd.  to  La   Conime's   transl.  of  Wassilief's  Buddhvmi, 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  379 

It  is  not  compatible  with  our  space  to  trace  the 
parallels  betAveen  Esoteric  Buddhism  and  some 
nineteenth-century  forms  of  speculation  in  which 
the  finite  is  again  seen  to  be  going  back  to  the 
absolute,  and  the  reality  of  everything  but  the  self 
is  denied.  On  the  religious  side,  however,  it  is 
interesting  to  notice  a  later  stage  of  it  in  a  system 
which,  originating  not  long  after  Bodiharma,  took 
some  four  centuries  to  establish  itself  The  T'ien-t'ai 
or  Chi-Che  school  differed  from  Bodiharma's  theory 
of  pure  mental  abstraction  to  be  gained  through 
complete  withdrawal  from  all  sensible  surroundings, 
in  that  it  sought  to  aid  contemplation  by  sensuous 
exercises.  Worship  of  gay  idols,  music  of  many 
persons  chanting  in  unison,  postures  of  kneeling 
and  standing,  exercises  of  continued  and  loud 
recitation,  with  intervals  of  profound  silence  and 
intense  meditation,  were  supposed  to  produce  the 
desired  illumination.  It  seemed  to  be  the  first 
recognition  of  feeling  in  the  Buddhist  religion,  and 
the  first  attempt  to  employ  it  to  produce  ecstasy. 
The  same  attempt  has  often  been  repeated  in  the 
history  of  Christianity,  sometimes  in  very  grotesque 

[).  xlv).  This  has  often  been  verified  in  the  religious  history  of  the 
West,  and  the  fate  of  many  former  "  spiritual "  aspirants  to  enter  or  to 
peer  into  the  Invisible  and  Unutterable  should  be  a  powerful  warning 
to  all  who  are  now  aiming  at  surpassing  the  natural  conditions  of 
existence.  In  endeavouring  to  transcend  humanity,  we  are  likely  to 
fall  miserably  below  it. 


380  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

and  extravagant  forms.  In  every  outburst  of 
religious  enthusiasm  we  may  see  rude  examples 
of  it,  but  it  is  also  the  principle  on  which  sesthetic 
worship  is  generally  defended.  It  is  a  reminder, 
therefore,  to  some  very  superior  people,  of  our 
common  human  nature,  and  a  warning  that  when 
left  to  itself,  or  indulged,  even  the  aesthetic,  like  all 
other  instincts,  will  just  run  the  same  round  of 
extravagance  in  manifold  and  ever-recurring  variety. 
The  tendency  in  human  nature  to  pervert  a 
religion  is  as  strongly  manifested  in  Christianity 
as  in  Buddhism;  but  there  is  this  outstanding 
distinction  between  them,  that  while  a  survey  of 
Buddhism  shows  that  everywhere  it  has  run  its 
course,  and  has  exhausted  its  intellectual  and  moral 
and  spiritual  resources,  Christianity  upon  ex- 
amination appears  to  be  only  in  an  early  stage 
of  development.  In  spite  of  the  perversions  of  the 
Church,  and  its  repeated  resistance  to  Christian 
movements,  Christianity  has  always  produced  what 
has  condemned  and  corrected  and  vanquished  them. 
It  is  the  recuperative  power  of  Christianity  which 
most  distinguishes  it.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
history  of  Buddhism  which  at  all  corresponds  with 
the  Beformation.  To-day  all  over  the  world  it  is 
stereotyped  and  unprogressive,  whereas  everywhere 
in  Christendom  there  is  ferment  of  thought  and 
stirring  of   life,   plainly  indicating  that   whatever 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  381 

power   may   claim   the   past,    Christianity  has  the 
sure  promise  of  the  future. 

In  China,  two  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago, 
originated  a  sect  whose  adherents,  scattered  through 
the  villages  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  and  belonging 
principally  to  the  lower  classes  of  society,  may 
be  called  Protestant  or  Reformed  Buddhists. 
They  are  described  by  Dr.  Edkins  ^  as  opposed  to 
idolatry  in  all  its  forms,  as  having  no  temple,  but 
only  plain  meeting-houses,  signalised  with  only 
the  common  tablet  to  heaven,  earth,  king,  parents, 
and  teachers,  as  their  symbol  of  reverence.  Their 
worship  consists  not  in  ceremonies,  but  in  quiet 
meditation,  and  inner  adoration  of  the  all-pervading 
Buddha.  They  are  called  the  "  Do-Nothing  Sect," 
not  because  they  are  idle,  like  the  ignorant  inmates 
of  the  monasteries — for  they  are  really  industrious 
and  virtuous, — but  because  they  hold  that  the 
highest  virtue  is  never  intentional,  but  wholly  un- 
conscious of  self.  Like  M.  Aurelius,"'  they  consider 
that  to  ask  to  be  "  paid  for  virtue  is  as  if  the  eye 
demanded  a  recompence  for  seeing."  In  thinking 
of  them,  the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  recur  to  us : 
"  Do  good,   and   lend,   hoping  for  nothing  again." 

^  CJdnese  Buddhism,  pp.  .370-379. 

-  Also  Seneca  :  "  We  do  not  love  virtue  because  it  gives  us  pleasure, 
but  it  gives  us  pleasure  because  we  love  it." — De  Vit.  Beat.  c.  ix.  "  In 
doing  good  man  should  be  like  the  vine,  producing  grapes,  and  asking 
for  nothing  in  having  done  so." — M.  Aurel.  v.  G  and  ix.  42. 


382  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

George  Fox,  and  the  quiet  and  charitable  Society 
which  he  founded,  and  which  still  continues  in 
formal  garb  his  protest  against  all  formalism  in 
worshipping  God,  not  by  clamouring  to  Him,  but 
in  silently  waiting  till  He  speaks,  seems  to  be  the 
realisation  of  what  these  good  Wu-wei-Kiau 
aspire  to  in  their  religion.  They  have  not  been 
able  to  free  themselves  from  Buddhism  or  Taoism. 
Buddha,  though  not  worshipped,  is  believed  in 
by  them,  and  they  have  found  an  object  of  adora- 
tion in  Kin-mu,  the  Golden  Mother  of  the  soul, 
who  can  protect  and  deliver  from  calamity,  and 
even  save  those  that  have  died  from  misery.  They 
have  four  principal  festivals,  two  of  which  celebrate 
the  birth  and  death  of  Lo-tsu,  their  founder.  On 
these  occasions  three  small  cups  of  tea  and  nine 
tiny  loaves  of  bread  are  placed  on  the  tables, 
according  to  the  appointment  of  Lo-tsu  himself 
On  this  account  they  are  nicknamed  "  the  Tea  and 
Bread  Sect."  They  are  strict  vegetarians,  but  in 
no  other  sense  ascetics,  honouring  marriage  and 
family  life,  and  having  no  monastic  institute  among 
them.  They  aver  that  one  of  their  leaders  during 
a  persecution  was  crucified,  and  their  great  hope 
is  that  the  world  will  soon  come  to  an  end,  and 
that  the  Golden  Mother  will  appear,  to  take  all 
her  children — all  who  lielieve  in  her  as  they  do — 
home  to  her  beautiful  heaven. 


LECT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  383 

This  can  hardly  be  called  a  reformation  of  Bud- 
dhism according  either  to  its  original   form   or  its 
fundamental   principles.       It  is  a  departure  from, 
and   an  immense  improvement  upon   it,    which   is 
manifestly  due  to   foreign  and  probably  Christian 
influence.       The    Nestorians  entered  China  in  the 
seventh,  and  the  Jesuits  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
while    Reformed    Christianity    only    came    in  con- 
tact with  China  in  the   present  generation.     If  it 
be   denied    that    Christianity    helped   to    produce 
the  Do-Nothing  Sect,  it  will  be  difficult  to  disj^rove 
the  claim  that,  directly  or  indirectly,  it  has  done 
much  to    produce    the   latest    forms   in    which,    in 
China  and  Japan,  Buddhism  is  now  presented  to  the 
world.     In  both  countries  Beforined  Buddhists  are 
found  differing  in  much  from  one  another,  but  gener- 
ally agreeing  in  rejecting  polytheism  for  the  worship 
of  one  divinity  :  in  China,  Kwan-yin,  who  for  long 
has  changed  sexes,  and  is  now  the  goddess  of  mercy  ; 
in  Japan,  Buddha,  whose  attribute  is  Amita,  the 
infinite.       One  sect,  called  the  "  Salvation  without 
Works  Sect,"  has  progressed  greatly  in  Japan,  under 
the  title   of  Shin-Shin,   "the  true  religion."      The 
worshipper    renounces    all    merit,    and    trusts    for 
salvation  in  nothing  but  the  mercy  of  Amita. ^     The 
soul  is  brought  into  a  state  of  salvation  by  an  act 
of  faith,  and  though  sure  of  salvation,  the  faithful 

^  Herzog,  Encyclop.  (Schaff),  vol.  i.  p.  334. 


384  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

must  not  abandon  the  struggle  with  evil,  for  holiness 
is  not  the  beginning,  but  the  result  of  salvation. 
In  Kioti,  a  Buddhist  sect  has  a  college  quite  West- 
ern in  its  curriculum  and  arrangements.  There 
too  the  Japanese  newspapers  not  only  record  the 
successes  of  able  Buddhist  preachers  in  spreading 
their  doctrine,  and  in  founding  schools,  they  ad- 
vertise a  Buddhist  propaganda  for  the  conversion 
of  Europe  and  America.  Its  only  organ  as  yet  is 
a  little  magazine  called  the  Bijou  of  Asia,  but  it  is 
printed  in  English  for  the  enlightenment  of  all  who 
believe  in  the  moribund  creeds  of  the  West,  and 
for  the  rescue  especially  of  souls  from  the  snare  of 
that  Christian  superstition  which  "  happily  all  over 
the  world  is  rapidly  declining  in  power  "  I 

If  this  be  not  impure  Christianity,  no  one  will 
dare  to  call  it  pure  Buddhism.  Surely  it  is  a  hopeful 
indication  for  the  future  of  Japan,  as  being  evidently 
a  movement  somewhat  similar  to  that  inaugurated 
in  India  by  Bammohun  Boy,  and  greatly  furthered 
in  our  days  by  Chunder  Sen.  The  first  professed 
to  trace  his  reform  to  the  Upanishads  redis- 
covered, and  expounded,  and  applied ;  and  the 
second  to  the  Vedas  as  the  primitive  fountains  of 
the  faith.  Both  reformers  and  their  work  would 
have  been  impossible  two  thousand  years  ago  ;  yea, 
they  would  have  been  equally  impossible  to-day,  had 
not  the  West  given  of  its  thoughts  to  the  East, 


LEUT.  VI.        THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.  385 

and  Christendom  communicated  to  it  something  of 
its  better  life.  It  is  one  thing  to  read  the  Vedas 
and  Upanishads,  as  the  Rishis  recited  or  the  Brah- 
mans  expounded  them  long  ago,  and  quite  another 
to  have  them  interpreted  by  natives  of  India, 
around  whose  forefathers  for  several  generations  all 
the  influences  of  Christian  civilisation  have  been 
playing.  So  is  it  with  the  reforming  Buddhists 
of  China  and  Japan,  who  have  enterprise  to  send 
their  sons  to  study  at  oui'  British  Universities. 
They  are  reading  their  old  literature — even  when 
rejecting  our  systems  of  belief — with  minds  un- 
consciously saturated  with  Christian  intelligence, 
and  no  doubt  they  often  find  there  what  the  Gospel 
has  put  m  themselves. 

We  may  rest  assured  that  the  reform  of  the 
Oriental  religions  will  only  be  efl:ected  by  the 
infusion  into  them  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  A 
higher  religion  meeting  them  as  Christianity  does, 
may  not  supplant  or  destroy  them,  but  it  will 
revive  and  transform  them.  It  will  destroy  much 
that  is  false,  correct  much  that  is  wrong,  supply 
aU  they  lack,  and  so  in  the  end  annul  them. 
The  product  will  not  likely  be  a  facsimile  of  any 
of  the  Churches  of  Christendom.  It  may  be  a 
religion  in  which  Buddha  and  the  great  teachers 
of  his  system  will  be  lifted  to  their  places  among 
the   prophets   who,  "since  the   world  began,"  un- 

2b 


386  THE  TWO  RELIGIONS  IN  HISTORY.        lect.  vi. 

consciously  testified,  by  their  errors  as  well  as  by 
their  truths,  by  their  failures  as  well  as  by  their 
successes,  to  the  Mystery  to  be  revealed.  The  fact 
that  in  Buddhism  the  object  of  worship  is  not  the 
Buddha  that  was,  but  Maitreya  who  is  to  be,  is 
a  pathetic  confession  that  its  Messiah  has  yet 
to  come.  Though  Buddha  did  not  proclaim  His 
commg,  the  result  of  his  mission  bears  witness  to 
the  need  of  Him.  So  he  was  a  lawgiver  preparing 
the  way  for  Moses,  even  as  Moses  prepared  the 
way  for  the  Baptist,  and  as  the  Baptist  heralded 
the  Christ  of  God.  Could  his  voice  reach  down 
to-day  from  "  the  quiet  shore "  to  the  millions 
who  have  taken  hold  of  him  in  hope  of  finding 
deliverance  from  the  miseries  and  perplexities  of 
this  sinful  world,  it  would  be  to  repeat  a  testimony 
once  heard  on  Jordan's  banks  from  him  than  whom 
no  one  born  of  woman  was  greater  :  "  There  standeth 
One  among  you  whom  ye  know  not,  the  latchet 
of  whose  shoes  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose." 


POSTSCRIPT. 

In  endeavouring  to  perform  the  very  honourable 
task  assigned  to  me,  I  have  had  to  contend  all  along 
with  the  difficulty  of  comprising  in  six  what  would 
require  many  more  lectures  properly  to  relate. 
Much  which  was  actually  prepared  I  have  been 
forced  to  omit,  consoling  myself  with  the  thought 
that,  after  all,  I  had  simply  to  lecture  and  not  to 
write  a  compendious  treatise,  and  that  it  was 
my  business  to  sketch  as  truthfully  as  I  could 
what  it  was  simply  impossible,  within  the  limits 
prescribed,  adequately  to  depict.  It  was  originally 
my  intention  to  give  in  parallel  quotations  the 
alleged  similarities  between  the  contents  of  the 
Pitakas  and  the  New  Testament,  but  the  conditions 
of  time  and  space  compelled  me  to  be  content  with 
references  to  specimens  of  them  in  the  Sacred  Books 
of  the  East,  from  which  any  ordinary  English 
reader  may  be  able  to  form  a  judgment  concerning 
them.  Moreover,  when  well  on  with  the  work,  I 
discovered  that  a  much  more  thorougli  examination 
of  Professor  Seydel's  Buddhist-Christian  Harmonij 


388  .  POSTSCRIPT. 

than  I  could  profess  to  make  had  ah'eady  been  pub- 
Kshed  by  Professor  Kellogg  of  Allegheny,  U.S.,  in  his 
book  on  the  Light  of  Asia  and  the  Light  of  the  World. 
An  Indian  missionary  of  eleven  years'  experience, 
and  the  author  of  an  excellent  Grammar  of  the 
Hindi  language,  can  write  upon  this  subject,  not 
only  with  greater  authority,  but  to  much  better 
purpose,  than  one  who  only  knows  Indian  books 
through  the  medium  of  European  translations,  and 
who  has  not  seldom  been  compelled  to  take  on 
trust  what  he  felt  strongly  inclined  to  question. 
If  Dr.  Kellogg's  book  is  not  extensively  read  in 
this  country,  it  certainly  deserves  to  be. 

Our  sketch  has  been  confined  to  Buddhism  as  a 
religion  and  as  an  ethical  system.  The  philosophy 
which  has  grown  out  of  it,  and  especially  the 
psychology  which  lies  at  the  base  of  its  original 
dogmas,  would  require  a  large  volume  to  expound. 
A  great  field  is  open  here  for  those  who  have  the 
ability  and  the  leisure  to  cultivate  it ;  and  though 
good  work  has  already  been  done  in  it,  we  may  be 
convinced  that,  until  this  psychology  has  been 
more  thoroughly  investigated,  we  must  continue  in 
uncertainty  as  to  what  original  Buddhism  was. 
Though  much  has  been  written  upon  the  origin 
and  growth  of  Buddhism,  the  first  authoritative 
words  are  only  now  beginning  to  be  spoken  by  the 
learned  translators  of  the  Pali  texts  ;  and  though 


POSTSCRIPT.  389 

they  have  dispelled  illusions  and  corrected  false 
impressions  not  a  few,  we  cannot  affirm  that  there 
is  a  strong  consensus  of  opinion  among  them  as  to 
the  life  and  teaching  of  the  founder  of  Buddhism, 
One  is  greatly  impressed  by  the  modest  hesitation 
with  which  they  have  presented  their  views,  but 
this  very  diffidence  makes  one  fear  that  we  may 
be  attributing  to  Buddha  sayings  which  he  never 
uttered,  or  that  we  have  drawn  from  them  infer- 
ences which  he  would  have  disowned. 

In  working  out  a  sketch  like  this,  the  temptation 
constantly  besetting  one  is  to  compare  or  contrast 
actual  Buddhism  with  ideal  Christianity. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  bear  in  mind  that  our 
modern  religion  may  in  many  features  grossly  mis- 
represent that  of  its  Divine  Author,  and,  indeed, 
that  "  Christianity  has  all  along  been  much  embar- 
rassed in  being  obliged  to  apologise  for  Christen- 
dom." ^  In  like  manner  I  have  tried  to  make  plain 
the  great  distinction  between  the  original  system  of 
Buddha  and  that  which  very  soon  came  to  be  known 
by  his  name.  An  Oriental  will  certainly  misjudge 
Christianity  if  he  derives  his  knowledge  of  it  from 
mediaeval  theology  or  from  some  nineteenth-century 
sermons ;  and  we  may  unconsciously  commit  the 
same  mistake  in  ascribing  to  the  primitive  dogmas 
the    interpretation   put    upon   them    by   its    later 

^  Eicrmd  Atonemeyit,  by  Dr.  R.  T).  llitclicock,  p.  157. 


390  POSTSCRIPT. 

schools.^  I  have  read  several  books  in  which  this  mis- 
take was  flagrant,  and  1  should  be  extremely  sorry 
to  follow  their  bad  example.  In  the  present  state  of 
our  knowledge,  however,  and  until  the  earliest  texts 
have  been  accurately  ascertained,  and  sifted,  and 
classified,  this,  to  a  certain  extent,  is  inevitable, 
and  therefore  excusable.  If  I  have  failed  in  my 
attempt  to  portray  accurately  even  the  salient 
features  of  this  great  religion,  it  has  been  from  no 
desire  to  caricature  it.  The  days  have  surely 
passed  when  it  could  be  said  that  we  were  "  too 
infatuated  by  a  sense  of  the  superiority  of  our  own 
to  make  a  fair  survey  of  other  religions." "  It  is 
our  duty,  and  it  will  be  for  our  interest,  to  do 
justice  to  them,  and,  instead  of  being  content  with 
the  schoolboy's  endeavour  to  prove  them  false,  we 
should  seek  carefully  among  the  ruins  of  the  most 
degraded  of  them  for  all  the  elements  of  truth  we 
can  discover.  It  is  in  this  direction  that  we  must 
proceed  if  we  would  find  solid  foundations  for  a  true 
Christian  theology,  and  the  more  we  address  our- 
selves to  the  work  the  more  likely  shall  we  be  to 
convince  the  Church  of  the  proper  value  of  the 
Faith  deposited  in  its  keeping,  and  to  rouse  it  to 
realise  its  destiny  and  fulfil  its  glorious  mission  to 
the  world. 

1  T.  W.  Pthys  Davids,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  196. 
'^  Qiiinet,  Le  Genie  des  Religions,  p.  13. 


POSTSCRIPT.  391 

In  correcting  these  sheets  for  the  press,  I  have 
often  been  sensible  of  my  great  obhgations  to 
a  very  highly  valued  personal  friend,  whose  good- 
ness was  as  remarkable  as  his  learning.  May  I 
be  forgiven  if,  in  gratitude  for  his  kind  and  gener- 
ous help  in  these  very  studies,  given  now  long- 
ago,  I  desire  to  keep  alive  the  memory  of  this  j  ustly 
esteemed  Sanskrit  scholar,  by  adding  this  little 
stone  to  his  cairn,  and  adorning  my  book  with  the 
name  of  Dr.  John  Muir. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  Her  Majesty, 

at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press. 


Date  Due 


Ap   18  '3^ 


o 


0  2  5  '31  r- 


Jf  I  0  1»^ 


Hy13'53 


i-  -' 


^ 


4^