About ten years ago, I read in a German journal, theFremdenblatt, an article on Judas, wherein the author endeavored to demonstrate that the informer had been the best friend of Jesus. According to him, it was out of love for his master that Judas betrayed him, for he put blind faith in the words of the Saviour, who said that his kingdom would arrive after his execution. But after seeing him on the cross, and having waited in vain for the resurrection of Jesus, which he expected to immediately take place, Judas, not able to bear the pain by which his heart was torn, committed suicide by hanging himself. It would be profitless to dwell upon this ingenious product of a fertile imagination.
To take up again the accounts of the Gospels and the Buddhistic chronicle, it is very possible that the bribed informer was really Judas, although the Buddhistic version is silent on this point. As to the pangs of conscience which are said to have impelled theinformer to suicide, I must say that I give no credence to them. A man capable of committing so vile and cowardly an action as that of making an infamously false accusation against his friend, and this, not out of a spirit of jealousy, or for revenge, but to gain a handful of shekels! such a man is, from the psychic point of view, of very little worth. He ignores honesty and conscience, and pangs of remorse are unknown to him.
It is presumable that the governor treated him as is sometimes done in our days, when it is deemed desirable to effectually conceal state secrets known to men of his kind and presumably unsafe in their keeping. Judas probably was simply hanged, by Pilate's order, to prevent the possibility of his some day revealing that the plot of which Jesus was a victim had been inspired by the authorities.
On the day of the execution, a numerous detachment of Roman soldiers was placed around the cross to guard against any attempt by the populace for the delivery of him who was the object of their veneration. In this occurrence Pilate gave proof of his extraordinary firmness and resolution.
But though, owing to the precautions taken by the governor, the anticipated revolt did not occur, he could not prevent the people, after the execution, mourning the ruin of their hopes, which were destroyed, together with the last scion of the race of David. All the people went to worship at Jesus' grave. Although we have no precise information concerning the occurrences of the first few days following the Passion, we could, by some probable conjectures, reconstruct the scenes which must have taken place.
It stands to reason that the Roman Cæsar's clever lieutenant, when he saw that Christ's grave became the centre of universal lamentations and the subject of national grief, and feared that thememory of the righteous victim might excite the discontent of the people and raise the whole country against the foreigners' rule, should have employed any effective means for the removal of this rallying-point, the mortal remains of Jesus. Pilate began by having the body buried. For three days the soldiers who were stationed on guard at the grave, were exposed to all kinds of insults and injuries on the part of the people who, defying the danger, came in multitudes to mourn the great martyr. Then Pilate ordered his soldiers to remove the body at night, and to bury it clandestinely in some other place, leaving the first grave open and the guard withdrawn from it, so that the people could see that Jesus had disappeared. But Pilate missed his end; for when, on the following morning, the Hebrews did not find the corpse of their master in the sepulchre, the superstitious and miracle-accepting among them thought that he had been resurrected.
How did this legend take root? We cannot say. Possibly it existed for a long time in a latent state and, at the beginning, spread only among the common people; perhaps the ecclesiastic authorities of the Hebrews looked with indulgence upon this innocent belief, which gave to the oppressed a shadow of revenge on their oppressors. However it be, the day when the legend of the resurrection finally became known to all, there was no one to be found strong enough to demonstrate the impossibility of such an occurrence.
Concerning this resurrection, it must be remarked that, according to the Buddhists, the soul of the just Issa was united with the eternal Being, while the Evangelists insist upon the ascension of the body. It seems to me, however, that the Evangelists and the Apostles have done very well to give the description of the resurrection which they have agreed upon, for if they had not done so,i.e., if the miracle had been given a less material character,their preaching would not have had, in the eyes of the nations to whom it was presented, that divine authority, that avowedly supernatural character, which has clothed Christianity, until our time, as the only religion capable of elevating the human race to a state of sublime enthusiasm, suppressing its savage instincts, and bringing it nearer to the grand and simple nature which God has bestowed, they say, upon that feeble dwarf called man.
Chapter III.
§§ 3, 4, 5, 7
The histories of all peoples show that when a nation has reached the apogee of its military glory and its wealth, it begins at once to sink more or less rapidly on the declivity of moral degeneration and decay. The Israelites having, among the first, experienced this law of the evolution of nations, the neighboring peoples profited by the decadence of the then effeminate and debauched descendants of Jacob, to despoil them.
§ 8
The country of Romeles,i.e., the fatherland of Romulus; in our days, Rome.
§§ 11, 12
It must be admitted that the Israelites, in spite of their incontestable wit and intelligence, seem to have only had regard for thepresent. Like all other Oriental peoples, they only in their misfortunes remembered the faults of their past, which they each time had to expiate by centuries of slavery.
Chapter IV
§ 6
As it is easy to divine, this verse refers to Joseph, who was a lineal descendant from King David. Side by side with this somewhat vague indication may be placed the following passages from the Gospels:
—"The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife" ... (Matt. i, 20.)
—"And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David" (Matt. xxi, 9.)
—"To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David;" ... (Luke i, 27.)
—"And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David;" ... (Luke i, 32.)
—"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli ... which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David" (Luke iii, 23-31.)
§ 7
Both the Old and the New Testaments teach that God promised David the rehabilitation of his throne and the elevation to it of one of his descendants.
§§ 8, 9
—"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him."
—"And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions."
—"And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers."
—"And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"
—"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke ii, 40, 46, 47, 49, 52.)
Chapter V
§ 1
"Sind," a Sanscrit word, which has been modified by the Persians into Ind. "Arya," the name given in antiquity to the inhabitants of India; signified first "man who cultivates the ground" or "cultivator." Anciently it had a purely ethnographical signification; this appellation assumed later on a religious sense, notably that of "man who believes."
§ 2
Lukesays(i, 80): "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel." The Evangelists say that Jesus was in the desert, the Buddhists explain this version of the Gospels by indicating where Jesus was during his absence from Judea. According to them he crossed the Sind, a name which, properly spoken, signifies "the river" (Indus). In connection with this word it is not amiss to note that many Sanscrit words in passing into the Persian language underwent the same transformation by changing the "s" into "h"; per example:
Sapta(in Sanscrit), signifying seven—hafta(in Persian);
Sam(Sanscrit), signifying equal—ham(Persian);
Mas(Sanscrit), meaning mouth—mah(Persian);Sur(Sanscrit), meaning sun—hur(Persian);Das(Sanscrit), meaning ten—Dah(Persian);Loco citato—and those who believed in the god Djain.
There exists, even yet, on the peninsula of Hindustan, a cult under the name of Djainism, which forms, as it were, a link of union between Buddhism and Brahminism, and its devotees teach the destruction of all other beliefs, which they declare contaminated with falsehood. It dates as far back as the seventh century, B.C. Its name is derived from Djain (conqueror), which it assumed as the symbol of its triumph over its rivals.
§ 4
Each of the eighteen Puranas is divided into five parts, which, besides the canonical laws, the rites and the commentaries upon the creation, destruction and resurrection of the universe, deal with theogony, medicine, and even the trades and professions.
Chapter VI
§ 12
Owing to the intervention of the British, the human sacrifices, which were principally offered to Kali, the goddess of death, have now entirely ceased. The goddess Kali is represented erect, with one foot upon the dead body of a man, whose head she holds in one of her innumerable hands, while with the other hand she brandishes a bloody dagger. Her eyes and mouth, which are wide open, express passion and cruelty.
Chapter VIII
§§ 3, 4
Zoroaster lived 550 years before Jesus. He founded the doctrine of the struggle between light and darkness, a doctrine which is fully expounded in the Zend-Avesta (Word of God), which is written in the Zend language, and, according to tradition, was given to him by an angel from Paradise.
According to Zoroaster we must worship Mithra (the sun), from whom descend Ormuzd, the god of good, and Ahriman, the god of evil. The world will end when Ormuzd has triumphed over his rival, Ahriman, who will then return to his original source, Mithra.
Chapter X
§ 16
According to the Evangelists, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which the Buddhistic version confirms, for only from Bethlehem, situated at a distance of about seven kilometres from Jerusalem, could the walls of this latter city be seen.
Chapter XI
§ 15
The doctrine of the Redemptor is, almost in its entirety, contained in the Gospels. As to the transformation of men into children, it is especially known from the conversation that took place between Jesus and Nicodemus.
Chapter XII
§ 1
—"Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not?" (Matt. xxii, 17.)
§ 3
—"Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's." (Matt. xxii, 21;et al.)
Chapter XIV
§ 3
According to the Buddhistic belief, the terrestrial buddhas after death, lose consciousness of their independent existence and unite with the eternal Spirit.
§§ 10, 11
Here, no doubt, reference is made to the activity of the Apostles among the neighboring peoples; an activity which could not have passed unnoticed at that epoch, because of the great results which followed the preaching of the new religious doctrine of love among nations whose religions were based upon the cruelty of their gods.
Without permitting myself indulgence in great dissertations, or too minute analysis upon each verse, I have thought it useful to accompany my work with these few little explanatory notes, leaving it to the reader to take like trouble with the rest.
—Finis
1The Vaisyas and Sudras castes.2Brahmins andKshatriyas.3Sanscrit:—"He whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bhodi)," those who need but one more incarnation to become perfect buddhas,i.e., to be entitled to Nirvâna.
1The Vaisyas and Sudras castes.
2Brahmins andKshatriyas.
3Sanscrit:—"He whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bhodi)," those who need but one more incarnation to become perfect buddhas,i.e., to be entitled to Nirvâna.