The Church of Jerusalem.
Competent critics hold that Luke has based the Acts on earlier records. Certainly the picture of the early Church at Jerusalem is very Essenic. The disciples had all things in common. They lived in groups of houses, with a central house of assembly, like the Therapeuts. They had two main rites, baptism and the breaking of bread. They had for officers, deacons, presbyters, ephemereuts. Wine and flesh meat were forbidden, if we may judge the parent from the daughter. For the Roman Christians before the advent of St. Paul forbade wine and flesh meat, and the Roman Church was the eldest daughter of the Church at Jerusalem. Also we see from the Apocalypse that the saints of the New Jerusalem were "virgins."
Thus history flashes a light, transient but vivid, on the rising religion at three distinct periods.
1. When Christ by the Sea of Tiberias preached the memorable λόγια [Greek: logia], and said, "Be eunuchs, sell all worldly goods. Blessed are the poor!"
2. When James started the vegetarian water-drinking celibates of the Church of Jerusalem.
3. When Irenæus attacked the vegetarian water-drinking celibates of the Church of Jerusalem which had migrated to Pella (A.D.180).
Now, these three flashes of light seem to me to dispel much, notably all disquisitions which seek to combine the Essene Christ and the anti-Essene Christ. Renan holds that the Church of Jerusalem were Pharisees. If so, why had they Essene rites,A.D.34 andA.D.181? He admits that these rites were borrowed from the Mendaites, or Disciples of John, and that there is the closest analogy between the rise of Christianity and the rise of "other ascetic religions, Buddhism for example." ("Les Apôtres," pp. 78-90.) He admits that the accounts in the Acts of Peter's bold preachings in the temple, are not to be reconciled with passages about "closed doors for few of the Jews." What has chiefly led to misapprehensions is not so much the dishonesty of writers like "Luke," as the fiction of the Essenes themselves that they were orthodox Jews. They were most particular about circumcision. They had a Sanhedrim of Justice, and so had the early Christians. The Church of Jerusalem had its "chief priest," as we see from the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. "The daily sacrifices are not offered everywhere, nor the peace-offerings, nor the sacrifices appointed for sins and transgressions, but only at Jerusalem, nor in any place there, but only at the altar before the temple." (Ch. xviii.)
This chief priest must not be confused with the Jewish one. He has been established by God through Christ. (Ch. xix. 7.) It is also stated that Christ has laid down what "offerings and service" must be performed. (Ch. xviii. 14.) This gives a significance to the passages in Revelations describing the temple ofthe mystic Jerusalem, which would of course be modelled on the "temple" familiar to the white-robed virgin saints of the material New Jerusalem, the "angel" taking the "golden censer" and filling it with the fire of the altar, the "lamps," the "candlesticks," the "golden altar," the "incense." The ground near Jerusalem is perforated with caverns. This temple, probably, was some secret crypt like a chapel in the catacombs. Keim points out that the command given in chap. xi. verse 2 of the Revelations to leave out the court of the bloody sacrifices in the ideal temple of the New Jerusalem, is an additional piece of evidence in favour of the Essenism of the early Church.
This is what Hegesippus, the earliest Christian historian, says about James, described in the Protevangelion as the "chief apostle and first Christian bishop."
"He was consecrated from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, neither ate he any living thing. A razor never went upon his head. He anointed not himself with oil, nor did he use a bath. He alone was allowed to enter into the holies. For he did not wear woollen garments, but linen. And he alone entered the sanctuary and was found upon his knees praying for the forgiveness of the people, so that his knees became hard like a camel's through his constant bending and supplication before God, and asking for forgiveness for the people." (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." ii. 33.)
This passage seems to settle the question whether the early Christians were Essenes or Pharisees.Here we have the chief apostle depicted as an Essene of Essenes. He rejects wine and flesh meat. And the "temple" of the Essenes was plainly not the Jewish temple. The temple guards would have made short work of any one rash enough to attempt to enter the Holy of Holies.
Epiphanius adds the two sons of Zebedee to the list of the ascetics, and also announces that James, the chief apostle, entered the Holy of Holies once a year. He gives another detail, that the Christian bishop wore the bactreum or metal plate of the high priest. (Epiph. Hær. lxxviii. 13, 14.)
Clement of Alexandria gives a similar account of St. Matthew:—
"It is far better to be happy than to have a demon dwelling in us. And happiness is found in the practice of virtue. Accordingly, the Apostle Matthew partook of seeds, and nuts, and vegetables without flesh." (Pædag. ii. 1.)
The Clementine "Homilies" give a far more authentic picture of the Church of Jerusalem than the Acts. In them St. Peter thus describes himself:—
"The Prophet of the Truth who appeared on earth taught us that the Maker and God of all gave two kingdoms to two (beings), good and evil, granting to the evil the sovereignty over the present world.... Those men who choose the present have power to be rich, to revel in luxury, to indulge in pleasures, and to do whatever they can; for they will possess none of the future goods. But those who have determined to accept the blessings of the future reign have noright to regard as their own the things that are here, since they belong to a foreign king, with the exception only of water and bread and those things procured with sweat to maintain life (for it is not lawful to commit suicide); and also only one garment, for they are not permitted to go naked." (Clem. Hom. xv. 7.)
A word here about the "Sepher Toldoth Jeshu," a work which orthodoxy as usual would modernise overmuch. It is a brief sketch of Christ's life, and, at any rate, represents the Jewish tradition of that important event. It announces that the Saviour was hanged on a tree for sorcery. After that there was a bitter strife between the "Nazarenes" and the "Judeans." The former, headed by Simeon Ben Kepha, (who, "according to his precept," abstained from all food, and only ate "the bread of misery," and drank the "water of sorrow,") altered all the dates of the Jewish festivals to make them fit in with events in Christ's life. This seems to make Peter and the "Nazarenes" or Nazarites water-drinking vegetarian ascetics.
Old Jerusalem, considered as a religious centre, quite eclipsed holy cities like Benares or mediæval Rome, for the chief rites could only be performed there. The Jewish Christians plainly traded with this exceptional importance, adding a more powerful claim. For in Israel, for at least a hundred years, there had been a strange prophetic book, believed, even by the writer of one Christian scripture (Jude), to be written by the patriarch Enoch. This book was believed to be genuine by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian. For a thousand yearsit was lost to Christendom, and then Bruce brought back three copies from Abyssinia. Archbishop Laurence translated the work in 1821.
The importance of the Book of Enoch is that it gives quite a new view of the mission of the Messiah. From their prophets the Jews expected a conqueror who was to come with a "bow" and the "sword of the mighty," and to "have dominion from the Jordan to the ends of the earth." That he was to be a mere mortal is proved by the fact that, according to Daniel, he was by-and-by to be "cut off." (Dan. ix. 26.) But the Son of Man of Enoch differed from this:—
"Before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of heaven were formed, his name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of Spirits. A support shall he be for the righteous and the holy to lean upon, without falling, and he shall be the light of nations.
"He shall be the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him." (Enoch xlviii.)
"Behold he comes with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon them and destroy the wicked." (Enoch ii.) This is the passage cited by Jude.
"In those days shall the earth deliver up from her womb, and hell deliver up from hers, that which it has received, and destruction shall restore that which it owes. He shall select the righteous and holy from among them." (Enoch i.)
"In those days shall the mouth of hell be opened, into which they shall be immerged. Hell shalldestroy and swallow up sinners from the face of the elect." (Enoch liv.)
"I beheld that valley in which ... arose a strong smell of sulphur.... Through that valley rivers of fire were flowing." (Enoch lxvi. 5-8.)
"He shall select the righteous and holy from among them, for the day of their salvation has approached." ... (Enoch l. 2.)
"I saw the habitations and couches of the saints. Then my eyes beheld their habitations with the angels and their couches with the holy ones. Thus shall it be with them for ever and ever." (Enoch xxxix. 4.)
"The former heaven shall depart and pass away, a new heaven shall appear." (Enoch xcii. 17.)
These texts show where the Jews got the idea of a Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven and summoning the dead from their graves for a great assize. They show where Christianity got its heaven and its hell. The author of the "Evolution of Christianity" gives in parallel columns a number of other passages which seem to have suggested corresponding passages in the Christian scriptures. The defenders of conventional orthodoxy urge that these passages and the passages I have quoted are post-Christian interpolations. In the way of this theory stands the fact that Enoch describes only one advent, that of a superhuman, triumphant Messiah. He knows nothing of a suffering, crucified mortal. That advent, according to the Jewish ideas of the time, seemed at first blush a failure. Surely the first object of an interpolator would have been to suit hisprophecies to the double advent, and make the second explain the failure of the first. It is to be observed, too, that Enoch's Son of Man rules in heaven. There is no mention of Jerusalem. It seems very plain that the Apocalypse has attempted to fuse together the Messiah of Enoch and the Messiah of Micah, and the clumsy expedient of a thousand years preliminary rule in Jerusalem, entailing, as it does, two resurrections and two judgment days, is the result.
The Messiah of Enoch is plainly Craosha of the Persians, who will, one day, summon the dead to judgment in their old material bodies, sending the wicked to Douzakh, and the good to Behisht.
Let us see how this affects our present inquiry.
The Buddhists took over from the Brahmins:—
1. A heaven (Swarga) and a purgatory.
2. Ancestor worship (the S'raddha). The Buddhas of the Past had offerings given to them at stated periods at their topes, for which they were expected to perform miracles.
Nothing can be more explicit than the statements in the gospels about the fate of the dead. Souls and bodies are to remain in the festering grave until a trumpet shall sound. Then the body as well as the soul will arise for an universal judgment.
But side by side with this idea soon sprang up a conflicting one, the "Communion of Saints."
"God dwells in the bones of the martyrs," said St. Ephrem, "and by his power and presence miracles are wrought." ("Wiseman's Lectures," xi. 105.) Soon the Buddhist saint worship and the Buddhist purgatory were taken over by the Church, Alexandrian Buddhism fighting with the dualism of Persian Buddhism.
But if there has been no judgment, how can we tell who is in purgatory, and who are the saints? This question seems to have stirred Cardinal Newman, and he attempted an answer in his "Dream of St. Gerontius." Christ has a "rehearsal of judgment." This is, of course, preposterous.
Johannine Buddhism.
The Indians of old observed that one portion of the sky was dark at night and one portion lit with stars. They judged that the dark portion was spirit—primary substance, and that the light portion was the same substance made tangible to the senses under the form of matter. The Buddhists took over these ideas and called the dark portion Nirvritti and the light portion Pravritti. In Nirvritti dwelt the formless, passionless, inconceivable God—Swayambhu the Self-Existent. Pravritti contained numerous world-systems (Buddha-Kshetras), the Ogdoads of the Gnostics. These christened Nirvritti "Buthos," and Pravritti, the luminous worlds, the "Pleroma." In Buddhism, Pravritti was presided over by five beings, emanations from Swayambhu. These are announced in the Buddhist books to be simply the attributes of Swayambhu personified. They were probably invented to provide the vulgar with a substitute for the old Brahmin hierarchy. Each has a Sakti (wife, female energy). I give a list of them with their Saktis, and the divine attributes that they personify.
ATTRIBUTES.DHYANI BUDDHAS.SAKTIS.Su-vis'uddha Dharma Dhâtu. (Purifying eternal law.)Vairochana. (Sun-born.)Vajra Dhateswatî. (Goddess of eternal elements.)Adarsana. (Invisibility).Akshobhya. (Immovable.)Lochanâ.(Eye goddess.)Prativekshana. (Eyes that sleep not.)Ratna-Sambhava. (Born of the jewel.)Mamukhî.Sânta. (Calmness.)Amitabha. (Diffusing infinite light.)Pândarâ. (Pale goddess.)Krityânushtana.(One who performs rites.)Amogha-Siddha. (Unfailing aim.)Târâ. (Star.)
Turning to Basilides we find that he placed in Buthos the "Unnameable," a being similar to Swayambhu. From the Unnameable emanated also five beings, whom he called Æons (Eternals), a substitute for the Dhyani Buddhas. Their names were Nous (Mind), Logos (Speech), Phronesis (Prudence), Sophia (Wisdom), Dunamis (Power).
Plainly these also are simply divine attributes personified, the five Dhyani Buddhas.
Valentinus has also a supreme Æon, Unbegotten, Invisible, Self-Existent, remaining from everlasting in impassive serenity. This God, named Bythus, has his Sakti like the Dhyani Buddhas. She is called Ennœa (Idea), also Charis (Grace).
Bythus is also called Propator (First Father). After countless ages he determines to evolve the Pleroma, and for that purpose brings forth Nous (Mind) and Aletheia (Truth).
From Nous, according to Valentinus, by the aid ofAletheia proceeded Logos (Word) and Zoe (Life). Nous was also called Monogenes (the Only Begotten).
Zoe brought forth Anthropos (Man) and Ecclesia (Church). These brought forth other Æons.
In this system Christ figures as Phos (Light), Soter (Saviour), and Logos (Word). He gives light to the Pleroma.
Now let us turn to the famous opening verses of the fourth gospel. I copy down the translation of them by the author of the "Evolution of Christianity."
"In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was divine. The same was in the beginning with God. All things came into existence through him, and without him nothing came into existence. That which hath been made in him was Zoe (Life), and Zoe was the Phos (Light) of men, and Phos shineth in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not....
"And the Logos became flesh, and dwelt amongst us, full of Charis (Grace) and Aletheia (Truth). And we beheld his glory, glory as of Monogenes (the Only Begotten) from the Father."
As the author of the "Evolution of Christianity" truly says, we have here a condensation of the Æons of Valentinus. John unifies Christ in Monogenes, Logos, Phos, and Soter. He descends as Phos (Light). He has Æonic relationship with Charis and Aletheia.
"Of his Pleroma have we all received," says the fourth evangelist. (John i. 16.)
"It was the Father's good pleasure that in him the whole Pleroma should have its home" (Col. i. 19).
"In him dwells the whole Pleroma of the Godhead in bodily shape." (Col. ii. 9).
"The Church, which is his body, the Pleroma of him that filleth all in all." (Eph. i. 23.)
We turn now to the Æons or Dhyani Buddhas.
"According to the purpose of the Æons." (Eph. iii. 11.)
"Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations."
The author of the "Evolution of Christianity" shows that the authorised version has no sense. He amends it thus:—
"The mystery concealed from the Æons and from their offspring."
From this two things are patent:—
1. Johannine Christianity is Gnosticism.
2. Gnosticism is Buddhism.
In chapter ii. I said that Buddha, like the Gnostic Christ, ruled the Pleroma or Pravritti. In the "Lalita Vistara" many pages are devoted to show that he is Purusha, the God-man of the Hindoos. Purusha is always contrasted with Pracriti, the Buthos of the Gnostics, that part of the Kosmos which is un-fashioned and non-luminous. Purusha is like the divine man of the Kabbalah, the Christ of St. Paul, humanity, ideal humanity. Valentinus proclaimed that from Sophia the Mother, proceeded Ecclesia the Church. Jesus called his flock the sons of Sophia, and said that his mother, the Holy Spirit, had carried him up to the top of Mount Tabor.
As early as the Asoka inscriptions the triad of Buddhism was:—
1. Buddha or Swayambhu, the Self-Existent.
2. Dharma or Prajñâ (Sophia).
3. Sangha (literally Union). Sangha "created the worlds," says the Pûja Kanda. (For this triad, see Hodgson, "Lit. Nepal," p. 88.) This triad with the vulgar is now Buddha, his Law, and the Church.
A version of this was not unknown in Palestine, for Hegesippus records of the early Christians:—
"In every city that prevails which the Law, the Lord, and the Prophets enjoin."
Rites.
I have left myself little space to write of the many points of close similarity between the Buddhists and the Roman Catholics.
The French missionary Huc, in his celebrated travels in Thibet, was much struck with this similarity.
"The crozier, the mitre, the dalmatic, the cope orpluvial, which the grand lamas wear on a journey, or when they perform some ceremony outside the temple, the service with a double choir, psalmody, exorcisms, the censer swinging on five chains, and contrived to be opened and shut at will, benediction by the lamas, with the right hand extended over the heads of the faithful, the chaplet, sacerdotal celibacy, Lenten retirements from the world, the worship of saints, fasts, processions, litanies, holy water—these are the points of contact between the Buddhists and ourselves."
Listen also to Father Disderi, who visited Thibet in the year 1714. "The lamas have a tonsure like our priests, and are bound over to perpetual celibacy. They study their scriptures in a language and in characters that differ from the ordinary characters. They recite prayers in choir. They serve the temple, present the offerings, and keep the lamps perpetually alight. They offer to God corn and barley and pasteand water in little vases, which are extremely clean. Food thus offered is considered consecrated, and they eat it. The lamas have local superiors, and a superior general." ("Lettres edifiantes," vol. iii., p. 534.)
Father Grueber, with another priest named Dorville, passed from Pekin through Thibet to Patna in the year 1661. Henry Prinsep ("Thibet Tartary, etc.," p. 14) thus sums up what he has recorded:—
"Father Grueber was much struck with the extraordinary similarity he found, as well in the doctrine as in the rituals of the Buddhists of Lha Sa, to those of his own Romish faith. He noticed, first, that the dress of the lamas corresponded with that handed down to us in ancient paintings as the dress of the Apostles. Second, that the discipline of the monasteries and of the different orders of lamas or priests bore the same resemblance to that of the Romish Church. Third, that the notion of an Incarnation was common to both, so also the belief in paradise and purgatory. Fourth, he remarked that they made suffrages, alms, prayers, and sacrifices for the dead, like the Roman Catholics. Fifth, that they had convents filled with monks and friars to the number of thirty thousand, near Lha Sa, who all made the three vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, like Roman monks, besides other vows. Sixth, that they had confessors licensed by the superior lamas or bishops, and so empowered to receive confessions, impose penances, and give absolution. Besides all this there was found the practice of using holy water, of singing service in alternation, of praying for the dead, and of perfect similarity in thecustoms of the great and superior lamas to those of the different orders of the Romish hierarchy. These early missionaries further were led to conclude from what they saw and heard that the ancient books of the lamas contained traces of the Christian religion, which must, they thought, have been preached in Thibet in the time of the Apostles."
In the year 1829, Victor Jacquemont, the French botanist, made a short excursion from Simla into Thibet. He writes: "The Grand Lama of Kanum has the episcopal mitre and crozier. He is dressed just like our bishops. A superficial observer at a little distance would take his Thibetan and Buddhist mass for a Roman mass of the first water. He makes twenty genuflexions at the right intervals, turns to the altar and then to the congregation, rings a bell, drinks in a chalice water poured out by an acolyte, intones paternosters quite of the right sing-song—the resemblance is really shocking. But men whose faith is properly robust will see here nothing but a corruption of Christianity." (Corr. vol. i., p. 265.)
It must be borne in mind that what is called Southern Buddhism has the same rites. St. Francis Xavier in Japan found Southern Buddhism so like his own that he donned the yellow sanghâti, and called himself an apostle of Buddha, quieting his conscience by furtively mumbling a little Latin of the baptismal service over some of his "converts."
This is what the Rev. S. Beal, a chaplain in the navy, wrote of a liturgy that he found in China:—
"The form of this office is a very curious one. It bears a singular likeness in its outline to the commontype of the Eastern Christian liturgies. That is to say there is a 'Proanaphoral' and an 'Anaphoral' portion. There is a prayer of entrance (τῆς εἰσοδου [Greek: tês eisodou]), a prayer of incense (τοῦ θυμιάματος [Greek: tou thymiamatos]), an ascription of praise to the threefold object of worship (τρισαγίον [Greek: trisagion]), a prayer of oblation (τῆς προσ θεσεως [Greek: tês pros theseôs]), the lections, the recitations of the Dharanî (μυστηριον [Greek: mystêrion]), the Embolismus or prayer against temptation, followed by a 'Confession,' and a 'Dismissal.'" ("Catena of Buddhist Scriptures," p. 397.)
Turning to architecture, I must point out that Mr. Fergusson, the leading authority in ancient art, was of opinion that the various details of the early Christian basilica—nave, aisle, columns, semi-domed apse, cruciform ground plan—were borroweden blocfrom the Buddhists. Mr. Fergusson lays special stress on the Dâgoba and its enshrined relics, represented in the Christian Church by the high altar, the bones of a saint, the baldechino. Relic worship, he says, was certainly borrowed from the East. Of the rock-cut temple of Kârle (B.C.78) he writes:—
"The building resembles, to a great extent, an early Christian church in its arrangements, consisting of a nave and side aisles terminating in an apse or semi-dome, round which the aisle is carried.... As a scale for comparison, it may be mentioned that its arrangements and dimensions are very similar to those of the choir of Norwich Cathedral, and of the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, omitting the outer aisles in the latter buildings.
Immediately under the semi-dome of the apse, and nearly where the altar stands in Christian churches, isplaced the Dâgoba. ("Indian and Eastern Architecture," p. 117.)
The list of resemblances is by no means exhausted. The monks on entering a temple make the gesture that we call the sign of the cross. The Buddhists have illuminated missals, Gregorian chants, a tabernacle on the altar for oblations, a pope, cardinals, angels with wings, saints with the nimbus. For a full account I must refer the reader to my "Buddhism in Christendom," where I give (pp. 182, 184) drawings of monks and nuns, the Virgin and Child (p. 205), the adoration of the rice cake on the altar (p. 83), Buddha coming down to the altar with the heavenly host (p. 210), the long candles, artificial flowers, cross, incense burner, and divine figure with the aureole, of the Buddhist temple (p. 208). The election of the Grand Lâma I show to be pin for pin like the election of the Pope. The list is endless.
How is all this to be accounted for? Several theories have been started:—
The first attempts to make light of the matter altogether. All religions, it says, have sacrifice, incense, priests, the idea of faith, etc. This may be called the orthodox Protestant theory, and many bulky books have recently appeared propounding it. But as these books avoid all the strong points of the case, they cannot be called at all satisfactory to the bewildered inquirer.
To this theory the Roman Catholics reply that the similarities between Buddhism and Catholicism are so microscopic and so complete, that one religion must have borrowed from the other. In consequence theytry to prove that the rites of Buddhism and the life of its founder were derived from Christianity, from the Nestorians, from St. Thomas, from St. Hyacinth of Poland, from St. Oderic of Frioul. (SeeAbbé Prouvéze, "Life of Gabriel Durand," vol. ii., p. 365.)
In the way of this theory, however, there are also insuperable difficulties. Buddha died 470 years before Christ, and for many years the Christian Church had no basilicas, popes, cardinals, basilica worship, nor even for a long time a definite life of the founder. At the date of Asoka (B.C.260) there was a metrical life of Buddha (Muni Gatha), and the incidents of this life are found sculptured in marble on the gateways of Buddhist temples that precede the Christian epoch. This is the testimony of Sir Alexander Cunningham, the greatest of Indian archæologists. He fixes the date of the Bharhut Stupa at from 270 to 250B.C.There he finds Queen Mâyâ's dream of the elephant, the Rishis at the ploughing match, the transfiguration of Buddha and the ladder of diamonds, and other incidents. At the Sanchi tope, an earlier structure (although the present marble gateways, repeated probably from wood, are fixed at about 19A.D.), he announces representations of Buddha as an elephant coming down to his mother's womb, three out of the "Four Presaging Tokens," Buddha bending the bow of Sinhahanu, King Bimbisâra visiting the young prince, and other incidents.
A man who invents a novel high explosive, or a quick-firing gun, at once puts his idea to a practical test. Let us try and construct a working model here.Suppose that the present ruler of Afghanistan were paying us a visit, and, introduced at Fulham Palace, he were to suggest that the life of Mahomet should supersede that of Jesus in our Bible, and Mussulman rites replace the Christian ritual in the diocese of London. What would be the answer? The bishop, anxious to deal gently with a valuable ally, would point out that he was only a cogwheel in a vast machinery, a cogwheel that could be promptly replaced if it proved the least out of gear. He would show that the Anglican Church had a mass of very definite rules called canon law, with courts empowered to punish the slightest infringement of these rules. He would show that even an archbishop could not alter a tittle of the gospel narrative. Every man, woman, and child would immediately detect the change.
Similar difficulties would be in the way of St. Hyacinth of Poland in, say, a monastery of Ceylon. The abbot there would be responsible to what Bishop Bigandet calls his "provincial," and he again to his "supérieur général" (p. 478), and so on to the Âchârya, the "High Priest of all the World," who, in his palace at Nalanda, near Buddha Gayâ, was wont to sit in state, surrounded by ten thousand monks. Buddhism, by the time that a Christian missionary could have reached it, was a far more diffused and conservative religion than Anglicanism. It had a canon law quite as definite. It had hundreds of volumes treating of the minutest acts of Sakya Muni.
THE END.
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Amrapalî, the Buddhist Magdalene,61.Alexandria, bridges East and West,102.Altar, Apostles of the Bloodless,99et seq.Antiochus, mentioned by King Asoka,97.Apostles, the Buddhist Parivrajakas,105.Appearances of Buddha after death,67.Architecture, Christian, derived from the Buddhist rock temples,177.Asita, the Indian Simeon,29.Asoka, King,93et seq.Atheism, early Buddhist disproved,77et seq.Atonement,68.Baptism, the Buddhist,43,108.Beal, Rev. S., on a Buddhist liturgy,176.Beatitudes, the Buddhist,48.Bigandet, Catholic bishop, his "Life of Gautama" cited,27et passim.Bimbisâra, advised like Herod to kill the Holy Child,28.Bhikshu, Buddhist beggar, Ebionite,129.Bodhi, Gnosis, interior knowledge,77.Brahma, union with, object of early Buddhism,80.Buddha, born of a virgin,24;Star in the East,26;Baptism and fasting,44;Temptation,45;Disputation with the doctors,30;Third commandment,51;Triumphant entry into the city of the king,54;Forsaken by disciples,58;Transfigured,63;Last supper,65;Death,65;Darkness over all the land at his death,65.Buddhism defined,77;Schools of,84;Eight spiritual states,108.Burnouf, Emile, considers Christianity due to a conflict between Mosaism and Buddhism,1.Ceylon scriptures,85.Chakravartin, King of Kings, Messiah,35.Chief priest in early Church modelled on Jewish,161.Circumcision widely spread amongst savages,15.Church of Jerusalem, creed,129; Description of,160.Clement of Alexandria on the Hylobii and followers of Buddha,89.Colebrooke, Henry, Orientalist, sees Buddhist philosophy in the teaching of Pythagoras,101.Cunningham, Sir Alexander, traces incidents of Buddha's life in pre-Christian sculptures in the Buddhist temples,179.Darkness over the land at Buddha's death,65.Daranatha, Chinese historian, valuable testimony about early Buddhism,90,99.Disciple whom Buddha loved,46.Disciples, twelve great,46.Disderi, Father, visits Lha Sa,174.Ebionite, Buddhist bhikshu,129.Enoch, Book of,164.Epiphanius cited,130.Essenes, due to Buddhist propagandism, Philo on,103."Evolution of Christianity," author of cited,171.Ezra compiles Old Testament,6,7.Faith in Buddhist books,62.Fergusson, James, architect, derives Christian basilica from Buddhist rock temple,177."Follow me!" phrase used by Buddha,46.Freemasonry in Buddhism, Mithraism, etc.,100."Fulfilling," vague word without any meaning in modern polemics,143.Giles, Rev., on the Christian forgeries of Peregrinus,128;Amended version of Luke's opening verses,144.Ginsburg, Dr., on the eight spiritual states of the Essenes,107."Glad tidings" (Subha Shita), word used for the Buddhist revelation,46.Golden book for the Buddhist recording angels,68."Golden Bough," by Mr. Frazer, cited,9.Grueber, Father, on Buddhist rites, etc.,175.Gymnosophists, Buddhists,104.Heaven, the Buddhist,68.Hebrews, Gospel according to,114et seq.;St. Jerome on,101;Condemned and suppressed,129.Hegesippus used Gospel according to the Hebrews,112;Describes James,162.Hippolytus cited to show that the early Church held Christ to be a mere man,129.Hodgson, Bryan, on the Pyrrhonism of the second or "Great Vehicle" school of Buddhism,86.Holy Ghost descendsintoChrist, in the Gospel according to the Hebrews,131.Hylobii, Greek term for Buddhists,89.Irenæus, on Gospel according to Hebrews,112;On the many spurious gospels in his day,128;Shows that early Church of Jerusalem used water in the communion,130.Jacquemont, Victor, French botanist, on similarity of Buddhist and Catholic mass,176.James succeeds Christ, who appears and gives him communion bread on the very night of the Crucifixion,133;Account by Hegesippus,162.Jerome, St., on the Gospel of the Hebrews,111.Jerusalem, Church of,160et seq.Josephus, initiation of Essenes,137.Judas, the Buddhist,64.Justin Martyr,112et seq.Kanishka, or Kanerkos, introduces atheistic Buddhism and Pyrrhonism,85.Kârle, cave temple, described,177.Karma, the Buddhist doctrine, mixed up with the Atonement,68.Lang, Andrew, on savage terrorism,9.Lightfoot, Bishop, on the "swathing bands" of Judaism,141.Luke, Gospel of, analysed,144.Magic, Buddhist,79.Maitreya, Buddha of Brotherly Love,2.Man born blind, parable,79.Matthew, St., an ascetic,164.Marcion's gospel, testimony of Megethius that it has been added to and falsified,146.Megasthenes on the Buddhists,90.Mithras, religion of,99.Müller, Max, on Buddhism,77.Newman, Cardinal, his "Dream of St. Gerontius,"168.Nicator, Seleucus, sends an ambassador to Patna,89.Nicholson, E. B., best authority on the Gospel according to the Hebrews,114.Nirvritti the same as the Pleroma of the Gnostics,169.Nuns in Buddhism and Essenism,106.Origen on the abundant falsification of the gospels in his day,128.Oswald, Felix, cited,57.Papias, Bishop, on the composition of the gospels,111.Parables, the Buddhist,70et seq.Pax Vobiscum! the Hebrew "Schalom!" the Buddhist "Sadhu!"47.Peregrinus composes Christian scriptures,128.Peter, Gospel according to, cited,127.Philo on the Essenes and Therapeuts,104;Connects them with the Gymnosophists of India,104.Photismos in early Church,107.Pravritti, the Buthos of the Gnostics,169.Prodigal Son, Buddhist parable,70.Protevangelion compared with Luke's gospel,149.Pythagoras, Buddha's teaching fathered on,101.Racine translates the "Contemplative Life of Philo,"136."Rakshà Bhagavatî" the great Bible of atheistic Buddhism,86.Rajendra Lala Mitra proves atheistic Buddhism to have been forced on early Buddhism by the "Great Vehicle,"A.D.20,85.Renan on the Church of Jerusalem,161;On the status of St. James,134.Revue des Deux Mondesdefines Christianity as due to a conflict between Buddhism and Mosaism,1.Saints appear at Buddha's death,66.Samanna Phala Sutta cited,79.Sayings of Christ, according to Justin Martyr,117.Semites,4,5.Smith, Professor Robertson, on the "Totems" of the Old Testament,19.Son of Perdition, the Buddhist,64.Sunyapushpa (the "Carriage that drives Nowhere"), nickname of early Buddhists for innovating Pyrrhonism,91.Supper, Buddhist last,65.Sutta, Tevigga, gives Buddha's ideas about God,80.Therapeuts,seeEssenes.Throne, great white,67.Transfiguration, the Buddhist,63.Twelve great disciples of Buddha,46."Vehicle, Great,"85;"Little,"84,85.Valentinus, fourth gospel due to his teaching,172.Walking on water, miracle,59.War in Heaven,61.Washing feet,64.Wassiljew cited,90.Williams, Sir Monier, his views on Buddhism,77.Woman at the well,70.Zacharias, legend about,148.Zoroaster, Buddha as,98.