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beast, before the estate of Buddhahood was reached. The circumstances of the last conception and birth abound with the most extravagant wonders that a prolific imagination could invent. When born he was placed upon the earth, and he walked at once, and shouted, "I am the chief of the world." A venerable ascetic, Asita, seeing the heavenly hosts rejoicing, paid a visit to the new-born child, and prophesied that the misery and wretchedness of men would disappear, and at his bidding peace and joy would everywhere flourish. His youth was spent in the luxury of the palace, and it was sought to exclude from him all suggestions of pain and sorrow; but in spite of every precaution he learned of the world's misery, and that the end of life was weakness, decay, and death. He resolved at length to give up the palace and the kingdom, his wife and child, and discover for himself and for the world the way of escape from pain and woe. Mara, the prince of evil, appeared in the air to oppose his renunciation of the world, promising that he would soon become sovereign over four continents and two thousand islands; but he resisted the temptation, and set himself to the achievement of his purpose. After long years of struggle and failure the great day of victory came, but it was preceded by Mara's last and most terrible attack to prevent the consummation of his purposed good. He sent against the Bodhisat a scourge of wind, of rain, of burning rocks, of swords and spears, of burning charcoal, ashes, sand, and filth, followed by a fourfold darkness; but he stood firm and recounted his good deeds, to which the earth testified with an awful roar, and Mara was at last discomfited. The conflict was ended, and it was followed by the apprehension of the long-sought-for saving knowledge, when the Buddha reached the end of desire, and so of misery. Filled with his suddenly attained perfect wisdom, he went forth to persuade men to follow him in the attainment of deliverance from pain and misery. In all these stories which cluster about the birth, the renunciation, and the illumination of Buddha we are impressed with their extravagance and childishness, standing in entire contrast with the appropriateness and modest dignity of the stories of the birth, the temptations, the teachings, and works of the Divine Redeemer.

The fourth chapter is occupied with the discussion of the legend of Buddha and the story of Christ. Dr. Kellogg discusses in a very candid and scholarly way the question as to whether Buddhism had any influence in Palestine before the time of Christ. He quotes from many high authorities on the subject, and his conclusion is that there is no evidence of such influence, either in the history or the literature of the time. He quotes from Professor Kuenen as saying: "I think that we may safely affirm that we must abstain from assigning to Buddhism the smallest direct influence in the origin of Christianity." Mr. Rhys Davids also says: "I can find no evidence whatever of any actual and direct communication of any of these ideas common to Buddhism and Christianity from the east to the west." There are no traces of Buddhism in Jewish literature before the time of Christ, no evidence that Buddhism was known in the Roman Empire at the time of Christ. The name of Buddha is not named by any Roman author until Clement of Alexandria. The Gospels were written by personal witnesses of the teachings and works of Christ, and there was no time for the facts of his teachings and works to have been corrupted by Buddhistic legends. Yet further, there was no motive for inserting such foreign legends. They were never accused of this by their ancient enemies, who were ready to turn every possible weapon against Christianity. The alleged coincidences either in incidents or teachings between Buddhism and Christianity are natural and appropriate to the time and circumstances as they stand recorded in the Gospels, and the mere fact of coincidence is not sufficient to attribute to them a foreign origin.

There is no likeness between the previous existence of Buddha and Christ. Christ dwelt in the bosom of the Father, in the glory of his eternal Divinity. Buddha passed through a multitude of transmigrations; eighty times as ascetic, fiftyeight times as king, twenty-four times a brahmin, twenty times the god Sakka, forty-three times a tree-god, five times a slave, once a devil-dancer, twice a rat, twice a pig.

Christ was born of a pure virgin, but the attempt of some scholars to prove that Buddhistic authorities attribute virginity to the mother of Buddha is not confirmed by candid investiga

tion, and is contrary to the most ancient traditions. The further attempt to prove that Buddhistic writings teach that Buddha was conceived by the Holy Ghost must also be set aside.

A neighboring king, Bimbasara, we are told, was advised to destroy Buddha while yet a youth for the safety of his kingdom, but the king refused to molest the young prince. This incident has been pressed by men of a lively imagination into likeness to the incident of Herod's seeking to destroy Christ.

Dr. Kellogg criticises with just severity the author of "The Light of Asia" for not infrequently describing the story of Buddha, using language nearly coincident with that of Scripture, and thus leading the reader to infer that the writers of the Gospels were borrowers from Buddhism in these passages, while in fact they seem to be the pure creation of the imagination of the poet, with nothing corresponding to them in Buddhistic writings. Thus the aged Asita says to the mother of the infant Buddha :

"A sword must pierce

Thy bowels for this boy."

"The lord paced in meditation lost,

Thinking, alas! for all my sheep which have

No shepherd, wandering in the night, with none
To guide them. . . . .

There were certain incidental agreements in the life of Buddha and Christ, which however differ so entirely in their circumstances and details that they can only be attributed to accident, without supposing that either Christian or Buddhistic writers were borrowers in what they related. Such was the fact of a past of both Buddha and Christ before entering upon their ministry; their presentation in a temple in infancy; Christ's blessing by Simeon and Anna, and Buddha's blessing by the aged Asita. So there were occasional agreements in the form of teaching of Buddha and Christ, and in illustrations employed. Thus Buddha said: "What is the use of platted hair? Fool! what of the raiment of goat-skins? Within them there is ravening, but the outside thou makest clean." Again: "As when a string of blind men are clinging the one to the other, neither can the foremost see, nor can the middle one see, nor can the hindmost see, just so, methinks, Vasita is the talk

of the Brahmins versed in the three Vedas." Presents were made to Buddha as to Christ at his birth, but the coincidence is naturally explained by the prevalence of the custom of giving presents at the birth of persons of rank. The miracles ascribed to the life of Buddha and those wrought by the power of Christ present the strongest contrasts. Christ's miracles were deliberate and express exhibitions of Divine power, and were wrought as a witness to his mission, and further to symbolize important truths. The Buddhistic miracles were for the most part spontaneous prodigies of nature manifested at certain important epochs in the life of Buddha. They were grotesque and frivolous, and destitute of any ethical end. Christ refused to work miracles to gratify curiosity, but Buddha in an athletic contest threw an elephant sixteen miles, and caused a vessel to move up a stream as swiftly as a race horse!

The temptations of Buddha and Christ have interesting points of likeness, but these likenesses have been exaggerated. Arnold in his "Light of Asia" mistakes the nature of the temptation of Buddha, making it a temptation to the sin of selfishness, and thus of similar ethical significance to the temptation of Christ; but the Buddhistic term thus misinterpreted means: "The affirmation of the existence of an abiding soul, or self," (Rhys Davids). So the language put by Arnold into the mouth of the tempter: "If thou be'st Buddha," is an anachronism, since Gautama did not become Buddha, "the enlightened one," until after the temptation. Arnold heightens the likeness of the temptation of Buddha to that of Christ by choosing those incidents which suggest similarity, and suppressing many others that in their grotesqueness and wild exaggerations are in utter contrast with the temptation of Christ. The story of the temptation of our first parents lingered in the traditions of many nations, and may have had its influence on the legend of the temptation of Buddha. There is an almost universal belief in evil spirits who employ themselves in preventing the accomplishment of that which is good; and thus there were natural causes why the legend of Buddha's temptation should have taken the form in which we find it, and there is no reason for assuming any borrowing, in the account of either temptation.

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The legend of Buddha's first sermon suggests a possible relation to the story of the day of Pentecost, though the divergence is so wide that the similarity may be only accidental; but if there were borrowing it must have been on the part of the Buddhistic writers, since in the Buddhistic legend we can only see at best a wild distortion of the wonderful but unembellished story of Pentecost. Thus we are told that the worlds were left empty, as all the gods and heavenly beings came to listen to Buddha, and so crowded were they that a hundred thousand gods had no more space than the point of a needle, and when Buddha spoke, "Though he spoke in the language of Magadha, each one thought that he spoke in his own language."

Dr. Kellogg in discussing the question as to whether Buddhism could have borrowed from Christianity, points to the fact of the existence of a Syrian Church in India at a very early date, which according to the tradition of that church was founded by Thomas the Apostle. Still further, the truths of Christianity were widely propagated in India and China before the legend of Buddha assumed its final form; and when we remember on the one hand that early Christianity propagated itself among nations who had a quick historical instinct, preserving careful records of important events to transmit to posterity; and on the other, that Buddhism propagated itself in a nation peculiarly destitute of the historical sense, leaving modern scholars to grope in almost hopeless confusion as to the exact dates, and the precise facts concerning almost every question of interest; it becomes evident that the attempt to make Christianity a borrower from Buddhism has no justification in history. The motives that have led men to this line of argument, when traced to their springs, are the desire to rob Christianity of its assumed divine origin, and to deny to it the supreme place as the one religion fitted to satisfy the highest spiritual wants of men; but the attempt is doomed to ultimate failure, and while Buddhism in the total outcome of its teachings is a mass of superstitions, starving men's spiritual natures with that which is not bread, Christianity will continue its glorious mission of breaking the bread of life to a famishing world.

Tungcho, April 24, 1888.

D. Z. SHEFFIELD.

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