The Churches and Modern Thought

It is difficult to separate fiction from fact; but the generally accepted records show that, together with superior natural endowments, Gautama Buddha attained to an exceptional purity of life and integrity of purpose. Probably he never arrogated to himself any higher authority than that of a teacher; but his followers, turning for consolation to the theory that he still lived, exalted him, within a quarter of a century of his death, to a place among their deities. As already mentioned, he was very early regarded as omniscient and absolutely sinless.95 All sorts of legends, borrowed from current myths, attach themselves to the story of his life, while his teaching as a simple-hearted, truth-seeking philanthropist became encrusted with the superstitions and religious speculations that were current. As with Krishna, so here there are stories of Buddha’s childhood of which the apocryphal stories of Christ’s childhood are an almost exact reproduction.

PARALLELS OTHER THAN KRISHNA AND BUDDHA

In the case of Krishna and Buddha it is contended by some Christian writers that the stories must have been borrowed from Christian sources both canonical and apocryphal. This contention, founded on the lateness of the mythical stories in literary form, will be considered in due course; but first let us have clearly before our minds those parallels concerning which there is no such contention, for the simple reason that there is no getting away from the fact that the beliefs existed long before the advent of Christ. In ancient religions other than Hindooism and Buddhism, there are, among many others, distinct parallels to—the Virgin Birth; the Heavenly Choir; the Epiphany; the Slaughter of the Innocents; the Temptation and Forty Days’ Fast; the Miracles; the Crucifixion Darkness, and Descent into Hell; the Resurrection and Ascension; the Second Coming and Day of Judgment.

The Virgin Birth.—According to Chinese legends, the sages Fohi (? 3468 B.C.) and Lao-Kiun (about 600 B.C.) were born of virgins. Dean Milman mentions in his History of Christianity that the first Jesuit missionaries who went to China were appalled at finding in the mythology of that country a counterpart of the story of the Virgin. In Persia, Zoroaster,96 the founder of the Perso-Iranian national religion, was miraculously conceived. All attempts to connect him with Hebrew influences are groundless. In Egypt, Horus, who had the epithet of Saviour, was born of the virgin Isis. The Egyptian Bible, remember, is the oldest in the world! Plutarch mentions the notion of the Egyptians that a woman might conceive by the approach of some divine spirit. Egyptian monuments represent the infant saviour in the arms of his virgin mother, or sitting on her knee. The image of the child was worshipped just as the Bambino is worshipped in Rome to-day. Women then, as now, believed in its efficacy for their relief in time of nature’s sorrows. In Grecian and Roman mythology the “Sons of Jove”—Hercules, Bacchus, Amphion, Perseus, Mercury, Æolus, Apollo, and others—have mortal mothers. Speaking of this, the Christian Father, Justin Martyr, declared that the myths regarding the multitude of sons of gods, and especially the myth regarding the virgin’s son Perseus, had been invented by the demons in order to rob the manifestation of Jesus, the true Son of God, of its importance. He also insisted that, with their doctrine of the Virgin-birth of Jesus, of His passion, and of His ascension, the Christians were affirming nothing new as compared with what was alleged of the so-called sons of Zeus.97 Even regarding Plato there was a legend that his mother, Perictione, had experienced a miraculous conception through the influences of the God Apollo, and that the God had declared to Aris, to whom she was betrothed, the parentage of the child (compare St. Matthew i. 20). This was believed in by the disciples of Plato centuries before the Christian era. Among northern nations the sons of Odin take the place of the sons of Jove. Thus “Baldur the Good,” the Beneficent Saviour, was the son of Odin and Friga. The worship of Friga was continued until that of the Virgin Mary took its place. In Mexico, the “Saviour” Quetzalcoatl was born of a pure virgin, who was called the “Queen of Heaven.” An ambassador from heaven announced to the virgin Sochiquetzal, mother of Quetzalcoatl, that it was the will of God that she should conceive a son without connection with man. Here we have an exact parallel to the annunciation of the Virgin Mary (St. Luke i. 26–35), in a part of the globe that was not discovered by Christians till nearly 1,500 years after the birth of Christ! Similar traditions of Saviours are found among various tribes of North and South America.

Regarding the tendency to believe in incarnations, Dr. Illingworth98 explains that “a general tendency in the human mind to expect a thing cannot possibly be twisted into a presumption against its occurrence.... The fact of the expectation does not logically make invention a likelier alternative than occurrence, except upon one hypothesis—namely, that the occurrence is impossible.” This argument skims over—or, I might almost say, neglects—the real contention of the Rationalist. Let us assume that incarnation is not ruled out of court as being à priori impossible; the virgin-birth of Jesus was subsequently invented by the Christian Church because its eminent suitability necessitated its invention. Only thus could the divinity and sinlessness of Jesus Christ be firmly established. More especially would this be the case in an age when everyone was familiar with the notion of virgin-born Saviours. The minds of men were deeply imbued with the idea of miraculous birth in the case of anyone claiming to be of divine origin. Only on this understanding would the heathen, already believing in their own virgin-born Saviours, have accepted Christianity.

The Heavenly Choir.—Even Confucius, the celebrated philosopher (born 551 B.C.), was ushered into the world with dragons and angels hovering about the couch, and with the sound of heavenly music in the air. At the birth of Osiris, the father of Horus, another Egyptian “Saviour,” a voice was heard proclaiming that the “Ruler of all the earth is born.” There was joy in Olympus when Apollo was born, and at the time of the birth of Hercules his father Zeus spake from heaven, and said: “This day shall a child be born of the race of Perseus, who shall be the mightiest of the sons of men.”

The Epiphany.—Legends of the coming of wise men to see an infant grew up in various places. Krishna was visited by sages who brought perfumes. Confucius has a somewhat similar legend, and one occurs even in connection with the birth of Plato.

The Slaughter of the Innocents.—The story of the “dangerous child” is almost universal. Horus, Zoroaster, and Bacchus, for example, were “dangerous” children.

The Forty Days’ Fast and the Temptation.—According to Pliny, Zoroaster lived for thirty years in the wilderness upon cheese. The Devil made Zoroaster magnificent promises; but the temptations were in vain. The ancient Persians had a religious festival, which they annually celebrated, called the “Salutation of Mithras (the sun-god),” and during it forty days were set apart for sacrifice and thanksgiving. Among the ancient Egyptians the priest submitted to abstinence of the most severe description. “The priests in Heliopolis,” says Plutarch, “have many fasts, during which they meditate upon divine things.” Fasting and self-denial were observances required of the Greeks who desired initiation into the mysteries. The same practice was found among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. The Mexicans had a forty days’ fast, in memory of Quetzalcoatl, who was tempted and fasted forty days on a mountain. Lord Kingsborough says: “The temptation of Quetzalcoatl and the fast of forty days … are very curious and mysterious.”99 Mr. Bonwick says: “The Spaniards were surprised to see the Mexicans keep the vernal forty days’ fast.”100

Turning to the Old Testament, we may remind ourselves that Moses went up into a mountain to receive certain instructions from God, and “was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights, and he did neither eat bread nor drink water.” On a second occasion, when he received the Ten Commandments, he was again with the Lord forty days and forty nights, and did neither eat bread nor drink water. Elijah fled to the desert, where an angel gave him cake and water, and in the strength of that meat he went for forty days without food. The number “forty” occurs over and over again in that portion of the Old Testament which the Higher Criticism has shown to be unhistorical. The Rationalist avers that the number “forty” is mythological, and that we have this story of the Forty Days’ Fast and the Temptation in the New Testament because the writer wishes to show that Jesus Christ was proof against all temptation; that He, too, as well as other Christs, could resist the powers of the Prince of Evil. It may be urged that in all these cases the number is quite immaterial. Are we not, then, to take the author of “The Acts” literally when he informs us that Christ spent forty days on earth after His resurrection?

The Miracles.—Not only Krishna and Buddha, but all leaders of religious movements, had the reputation of having performed miracles. Religions were established as much by the miracles as by the preachings. Miracles were needed in those days on all special occasions. Many of them are attested in the gravest manner by the gravest writers, and were firmly believed at the time by the people. Healing miracles, such as those performed by Jesus, were the commonest of all. The Gospel miracles are in no respect singular or more wonderful. Horus, as well as Krishna, raised the dead to life. Bacchus changed water into wine. Æsculapius not only cured the sick, but raised the dead. Pausanias, the eminent Greek geographer and historian, writes that in the temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus there was an old pillar dedicated to the memory of Hippolytus, who had been raised from the dead.101 Apollonius of Tyana was celebrated for the wonderful miracles he performed. He caused a devil to depart out of a youth, and he restored a dead maiden to life. The Christian Fathers inform us that Simon Magus, with the Devil’s aid, could make his appearance wherever he pleased at any moment; could poise himself in the air; produce trees from the earth suddenly [the mango tree trick?]; fling himself from high precipices unhurt [the very feat suggested by the Devil in the Temptation]; and walk through the streets accompanied by spirits of the dead. Tacitus, the celebrated Roman historian, tells us that the Emperor Vespasian (born 9 A.D.) performed wonderful miracles for the good of mankind, and among others he describes the cure of a blind man with the emperor’s spittle.

The Atonement.—In China the Holy One (Tien) dies to save the world. “The sufferings and death of Osiris were the great mystery of the Egyptian religion. His being the divine goodness, and the abstract idea of ‘good,’ his manifestation upon earth (like an Indian god), his death and resurrection, and his office as judge of the dead in a future life, look like the early revelation of a future manifestation of the deity converted into a mythological fable.”102 While Osiris is the judge, Horus, his son, is the mediator. In the Judgment scene in the Book of the Dead, Horus, the son of Isis, leads the deceased, after his heart has been weighed, into the presence of Osiris (see Papyrus of Ani, plates 3 & 4). Mithras, the sun-god of the Persians, was a “Mediator” between God and men—the “Saviour,” who, by his laborious conflicts, worked their salvation. He was also called the “Word.” Attys, called the “Only Begotten Son” and the “Saviour,” was worshipped by the Phrygians, and represented by them as a man tied or nailed to a tree. Adonis was another virgin-born “Saviour” who suffered for mankind. The yearly festival of Adonis in the spring was a special favourite with women. In the Old Testament reference is made to the weeping of the women over Tammuz, the Babylonian equivalent of Adonis (Ezekiel viii. 14). According to the Rev. Sir G. W. Cox,103 he was the crucified Tao (divine love personified). The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, in the chapter on the Resurrection in his Hebrew lexicon, says: “I find myself obliged to refer Tammuz to that class of idols which were originally designed to represent the promised Saviour, the desire of all nations.” Prometheus was a Saviour who suffered the most fearful tortures as the friend of the human race. Æschylus’s tragedy, Prometheus Vinctus, was acted in Athens five hundred years before the Christian era. Even Bacchus, whom most of us think of as the rollicking wine-god of classical mythology, was a slain Saviour.

When we turn to the New World we find the worship of a crucified Saviour among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. Lord Kingsborough tells us that, according to the belief of the ancient Mexicans, “the death of Quetzalcoatl upon the cross” was “an atonement for the sins of mankind.”104 Dr. Daniel Brinton relates how the Aztecs had a feast which they celebrated in the early spring, when “victims were nailed to a cross and shot with an arrow.”105 Alexander von Humboldt, in his American Researches, also speaks of a feast, at which the Mexicans crucified a man and pierced him with an arrow. The Rev. J. P. Lundy, speaking of this, says: “Here is the old story of Prometheus crucified on the Caucasus, and of all other pagan crucifixions of the young incarnate divinities of India, Persia, Asia Minor, and Egypt.”106

Moral Teaching.—There is not only an extraordinary similarity in beliefs, but also in moral teachings. The teachings of Confucius, Mencius, and Wang Yang Ming might, as Professor Nitobe points out,107 just as well be considered plagiarisms from the Divine library, for they furnish numerous remarkable parallels to the New Testament teaching. Taoism, the philosophy of Laotze, for a long time successfully rivalled the more utilitarian system of Confucius, and its close agreement with many of the teachings of Christ is most noticeable. The morals of the ancient Egyptians are clearly set forth in the Book of the Dead, which came into use after 2000 B.C. They indicate a far higher standard than existed in Israel in David’s time. “Yet,” as Dr. Callaway remarks,108 “in traditions which still linger among us, the law under which David lived and reigned was perfect and divine; while the name of Egypt stands for darkness and sin.”

With regard to the parallels in the moral teaching, Dean Farrar, in his work, Seekers after God, has clearly shown that “to say that pagan morality kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, whether furtively or unconsciously, that it dissembled the obligation and made a boast of the splendour, as if it were originally her own, is to make an assertion wholly untenable.” He points out that the attempts of the Christian Fathers to make out Pythagoras a debtor to Hebraic wisdom, Plato an “Atticising Moses,” Aristotle a learner of ethics from a Jew, Seneca a correspondent of St. Paul, were due “in some cases to ignorance, in some to a want of perfect honesty in controversial dealing.”

Apocryphal Gospels.—We are assured by Christian writers that the parallels between the accounts of Krishna’s and Buddha’s childhood and those in the apocryphal gospels of Christ’s childhood are due to the Hindoos having borrowed legends current among the early Christians. Dr. Wallis Budge, the keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum, informs us, however, that “several of the incidents of the wanderings of the Virgin with the child in Egypt, as recorded in the Apocryphal Gospels, reflect scenes in the life of Isis as described in the texts found on the Metternich Stele.”109 And, again, he says: “In the apocryphal literature of the first six centuries which followed the evangelisation of Egypt, several of the legends about Isis and her sorrowful wanderings were made to centre round the mother of Christ.”110 The evidence is conclusive that certain legends prevalent among the early Christians were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion; yet we are to believe that where the Krishna and Buddha parallels are concerned the borrowing process was the other way! So be it. Let us suppose that certain Egyptian superstitions reached the Hindoo through the medium of the Christian; the fact remains that beliefs once held by devout but unlettered Christians have a heathen origin. This is of serious import, for it lends weight to the suspicion that the marvellous tales in the canonical gospels have been similarly derived from heathen legends—legends from which some of the more glaring absurdities and all that would mar the ethical ideals of the Christian religion were eclectically expunged.

ARE THE KRISHNA AND BUDDHA LEGENDS BORROWED FROM CHRISTIANITY?

I have indicated a few of the more striking parallels in other religions besides Krishnaism and Buddhism. Did space permit, it could be shown that there are also parallels to the teaching of Christ, the darkness at the Crucifixion, the descent into Hell, the Resurrection, the claim of Jesus Christ to be “Alpha and Omega” (according to the Revelation of St. John), the prophecy of the Second Coming, the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the doctrine of the Trinity, the worship of the Blessed Virgin, the Christian symbols (cross, triangle, I.H.S., fish, serpent, dove, and lamb). I cannot understand what the Christian cause can gain by ascribing the parallels in Hindoo mythology to Christian sources, when there is all this mass of evidence for parallels that are quite as extraordinary (though less numerous) in those ancient religions where the priority to Christianity cannot reasonably be denied. Certainly the Krishna and Buddha parallels are extremely numerous and strikingly exact; but a policy which seeks to explain them in a different manner from that adopted in the case of the same phenomena in other religions, while it serves to confirm the suspicions of the sceptic, is doomed eventually to failure. This being so, it is unnecessary, I think, to enter at any great length into the controversy.

In Mr. J. M. Robertson’s book, Christianity and Mythology, there is a scholarly investigation from which I extract the following leading points111:—Hindoos, as Professor Tiele urges, could perfectly well have borrowed, if they did borrow, from Egypt before Christianity was heard of. There is hardly a leading detail in the Krishna birth legend which is not variously paralleled in other early non-Christian mythology. The more we collate the main Christian myth-notions with those of Krishnaism, the more clearly does it appear that, instead of the latter being borrowed from the former, they are, not indeed the originals from which Christianity borrowed, but always presumptively the more ancient, and in one or two cases they do appear to be the actual sources of Gospel stories. The lateness of the Purânic stories in literary form is no argument against their antiquity. Scholars are agreed that late documents often preserve extremely old myth-material. The leading elements in the Krishna myth are inexplicable save on the view that the cultus is ancient. The close coincidences in the legends of Krishna and Buddha are to be explained in terms of borrowing by the latter from the former, and not vice versa. I should add here that the denial of the “Christian accretions” theory does not convey also the implication that the Bible story was borrowed from the Krishna and Buddha myths. On the contrary, the strong probability is that there has been little or no borrowing either way—that there is a common source for both in earlier Aryan and Semitic myths.

In the Introduction to his standard work, The Romantic History of Buddha,112 Mr. Beal refers to the legends concerning the pre-existence of Buddha in heaven—his miraculous incarnation—salutation by angels—recognition by Asita (Simeon)—presentation in the Temple—baptism by fire and water—disputation with doctors—temptation in the wilderness—life passed in preaching and working miracles, etc.—and frankly admits that, “if we could prove that they were unknown in the East for some centuries after Christ, the explanation would be easy; but all the evidence we have goes to prove the contrary.” Regarding the parallelisms with the Apocryphal Gospels, he says: “It would be a natural inference that many of the events in the legend of Buddha were borrowed from the Apocryphal Gospels (compare, for example, the Gospel of the Infancy, chap. xx.: ‘Our Lord learning his alphabet,’ with the account given in chap. xi. of this volume), if we were quite certain that these Apocryphal Gospels had not borrowed from it.” In his later work, Buddhist Literature, Mr. Beal modifies his position.

Neither Max Müller in his Introduction to the Science of Religion, nor Forlong in his Short Studies of the Science of Comparative Religions, nor Senart in his learned work, La Légende du Buddha, nor Seydel in his Evangelium von Jesu and his Buddha Legends, nor Pfleiderer in his Urchristentum, supports the theory of Christian accretions. Bunsen, in his Angel-Messiah, maintains (p. 18) “that, according to Sanscrit and Chinese scriptures and the stone-cut edicts of Asoka and the Senchi Tope, certain legends about Buddha circulated in India and China, not only before the apostolic age, but more than three centuries earlier,” and that “among these legends the most ancient are those which refer to the incarnation of Buddha as the Angel Messiah.”

On page 10 of Rhys Davids’ well-known little work, Buddhism (published under the direction of the S.P.C.K.), we read: “There is every reason to believe that the Pitakas now extant in Ceylon are substantially identical with the books of the Orthodox Canon, as settled at the Council of Patna about the year 250 B.C. As no works would have been received into the canon which were not then believed to be very old, the Pitakas may be approximately placed in the fourth century B.C., and parts of them possibly read back very nearly, if not quite, to the time of Gautama himself.” On page 15 it is explained that, when the statements in the Sanscrit and Pali texts agree, the greatest reliance may be placed upon them, “not indeed as to the actual facts of Gautama’s life, but as to the belief of the early Buddhists concerning it.” Professor Rhys Davids enumerates the more important of these early beliefs, and they include many of the startling coincidences which I have noticed. The later beliefs he passes over for the most part in silence; but, speaking generally, he is of opinion that the greater portion, if not all, of the legends could be explained by hero-worship, mere poetical imagery, misapprehension, the desire to edify, applications to Gautama of previously existing stories or sun-myths, and so on. Nowhere does he state or imply that in any of the legends, early or late, there can be any application to Gautama of the Gospel stories of the life of Christ; while he considers M. Senart’s theory of the almost complete dependence of the Buddha legends on solar myths “most interesting.” Now, it is just those very ideas of virgin-birth, resurrection, and ascension appearing in the later legends which were nothing more nor less than solar myths. In any case, whatever their origin, they were world-wide very many centuries before the Christian era; so any argument from the lateness of these legends is founded upon sand. In his Buddhism, as also in his article on Buddhism in the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Professor steers clear of the question of the parallels; but in his Buddhist Suttas, translated by him from the Pali and appearing in the “Sacred Books of the East” series, we read (in the Introduction, p. 165) that while he “ventures to disagree with writers who argue that the resemblances in the Pali Pitakas and passages in the New Testament indicate that the New Testament as the later must be borrowed,” he holds that the resemblance is due not to any borrowing on the one side or the other, but “solely to the similarity of the conditions under which the two movements grew” [and, the Rationalist would add, a similarity in the myths afloat is a part, and a very essential part, of the similarity of the conditions].