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    THE METAPHYSIC

    OF

    CHRISTIANITY

    AND

    BUDDHISM.

    _A SYMPHONY._

    BY
    MAJOR-GENERAL DAWSONNE M. STRONG, C.B.
    (_Late Indian Army_),

    AUTHOR OF "SELECTIONS FROM THE BOSTĀN OF SÂDI,
    TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE."

    "Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon."--_Bible._

    LONDON:

    WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET ST.

    1899.




    LOVINGLY DEDICATED

    TO

    MY WIFE

    IN MEMORY OF OUR SOJOURN

    IN

    THE EAST.




CONTENTS.


  CHAP.                                         PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                                   vii

  I. JESUS AND GOTAMA                              1

  II. GOD AND THE KOSMOS                          33

  III. SOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA       55

  IV. HEAVEN AND NIRVANA                          82

  V. SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS                     103

  AT THE MALAGAWA TEMPLE, CEYLON                 113

  APPENDIX:--METRICAL ADAPTATIONS OF BUDDHISTIC
  LEGEND AND SCRIPTURE:--

    1. The Last Words of Gotama Buddha to his
    Favourite Disciple Ananda                    115

    2. Samsâra and Nirvana                       116

    3. Rejoice                                   118

    4. The Goal                                  120

    5. Buddha and the Herdsman                   123

    6. Buddha and the King                       126




INTRODUCTION.

 "Si notre foi diffère quant à la forme et aux dogmes, nos âmes restent
 toujours d'accord sur un principe éternel et divin."--GEORGE SANDS.


An immense difficulty has to be encountered by those who have been
deeply impressed by the value and beauty of Christianity when they are
called upon to consider the claims of other faiths. Anyone who has had
within his experience and under his observation such an exceptional
case as that of a sincere Christian who, from childhood to old age,
has set before him the ideal Christ and the Christian conception of an
all-compassionate Father--a Christian whose inner light has been so
pure that no darkness of doubt has ever dimmed it, and no doctrinal
warfare has ever stained its radiance--he, I contend, has an almost
insuperable obstacle to overcome when he attempts to associate holiness
and purity, of the same supreme order, with the followers of other
religious systems which have been formulated for the comfort and
salvation of humanity.

It is doubtful if any ordinary adherent of the Christian faith, however
extensive his sympathies towards persons outside his own flock, has
ever been able to pass this barrier, which always seems to interpose
itself when search is made for a common bond of union with an alien
belief.

A man may have lived many a year in the East, and witnessed there, with
deep appreciation, the purity, the endurance, the touching self-denial
of the devout peasantry, and the beautiful charity of the poor towards
the poor; or he may have associated with saintly ascetics in India,
and with the yellow-robed and gentle _religieux_ of Ceylon; he may
have surveyed the famous temple of that fair island, in the intense
stillness of a tropical night, till all identity of self seemed to
vanish in the solemnity of the surroundings, and the only sound was
that of a monk's intoning voice heard from within the dungeon-like
apertures of the building, and the only light that of the fitful
fireflies amid the lofty and drooping foliage;--yet, in each and all of
these experiences, that aroma of holiness, so perceptible at times in
our own religious atmosphere, would somehow seem strangely absent to
the unacclimatized senses, and no halo would be distinguishable by a
vision which had been restricted by prejudice.

Still more difficult is it to rise to the same height of reverence
for a saintly and surpassing personality if it is presented in
sacred records other than those to which one has owned a prior
allegiance. Nevertheless, the discovery in other religious systems of
a correspondence with one's own particular persuasion must assuredly
tend towards the attainment of that attitude of mind commended by St.
Paul of "being all things to all men." To pave the way towards the
acquisition of this mental posture in relation to religious concepts is
the main object I have had in view in composing this small book.

It has been said that no age has more needed a departure in this
direction than our own. "On the one hand, sectarian hatred and
dogmatism almost obscure the great truths _common_ to all mankind; on
the other, merciless and destructive criticism, in undermining much
that used to be generally accepted, seems at times to threaten even the
foundations of truth."

Some people, however, maintain that there is an appreciable value
to be attached to all dogmatic declarations, and that those who are
working in strictly-confined theological grooves are contributing, as
specialists, to a knowledge of the whole. Even if these workers are
possessed of all the uncharitable qualities sometimes attributed to
the narrow-minded, yet they may be held deserving of encouragement
in view of the probability that the more their limited ideas become
exposed to the light by their enthusiastic endeavours to assert them as
final truth, the sooner will their imperfections be obliterated. The
fragmentary opinions they cling to will then be discovered to possess
no value except as constituent elements of the whole.

Others go the length of advocating that the flames of bigotry should be
fanned to furnace-heat in order that the feeding fuel may be the more
rapidly consumed.

In any case, the more apparent it becomes that every religion worthy
of the name springs from a root common to all, and is really, at
bottom, the one true cosmic religion, and that the variations are
superficial and unimportant in themselves, the greater will be the
advantages accruing to humanity in the political, social, and moral
spheres. In other words, the advantage to be derived from the study of
the obscure phases of religions lies in this--that, in so doing, our
minds are better able to grasp the solidarity of religious thought and
aspirations throughout the world. We are enabled to see more clearly
that all religious forms, and even formless philosophies, however crude
and idolatrous the former may appear to people of wide culture, and
however mystical and evasive the latter may be regarded by those of
narrow vision, are but the effects of one cause common to all.

When we have got rid, Buddhistically, of the idea of separateness,
or, in a Christian sense, have exercised self-suppression, we can
then proceed to eliminate the notion of separateness in religions and
philosophies. Thus, whether we are Determinists or Indeterminists,
we shall experience the sensation that, according to the law of
development, it is in the scheme of things for us to struggle forward
on our several paths, not in antipathy to, but hand in hand with, those
who make use of different modes of progression towards one identical
goal.

Missionary propagandism, under these conditions, will have the same
_raison d'être_, and our cherished symbolisms will in no wise suffer.
Holding this view, I have felt no misgivings as to the propriety of
placing side by side, as it were, the historical and radiant figures of
Jesus the Christ and Gotama the Buddha, and of indicating an analogy
between the essential features of the two systems of religion which
these great deliverers of a world on earth have fashioned and commended
for the acceptance of their fellow creatures.

Indeed, Buddhism should occupy a very large place in the affections
and admiration of all true Christians on account of the many points of
resemblance discernible in the characters and gospels of Gotama and
Jesus.

St. Augustine, the great vindicator of Christianity, clears the ground
for an assimilation of the two systems. He writes: "For the thing in
itself which is now called the Christian religion really was known to
the ancients, nor was wanting at any time, from the beginning of the
human race until the time that Christ came into the flesh, from which
the true religion which had previously existed began to be called
Christian; and this in our day is the Christian religion--not as having
been wanting in former times, but as having in later times received
this name."

Köppen says: "As, from the standpoint of Buddhism, all men--nay, all
beings--are brothers, children of one sin, sons of the same nonentity,
thus all religions of the globe appear to it as related, as sprung from
one source; all pursuing the same end, and arriving at the same goal.
The religious views, creeds, etc., etc.... of all nations, Churches,
schools, sects, and parties, however diverse they may seem, are hence,
according to the conception of the believing Buddhist, not alien,
but inwardly akin. They are merely peculiar forms, modifications,
obscurations, degenerations of the same truth--of one law, one faith,
one redemption. For him there is only one doctrine and one Way; and
all religions belong, in one way or another, to this doctrine, and are
all on that Way."

Among the things that can never be shaken are the foundations of
Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, and other cognate religious
systems. Here and there, perchance, a steeple may come down with
a crash, a minaret may fall, a pagoda crumble into dust; but the
foundation-stones, laid beneath the surface, buried in mystery, and
encompassed by darkness, remain irremoveable, changeless, and eternal.

It is, then, in this brooding darkness which envelopes their occult
sources that we must take our stand; and not until we have grown into
and become one with the encircling gloom, and been subjectively steeped
in it, can we hope to understand or pronounce a fair judgment upon what
is the less obscure and objective.

The comparative study of religions requires approach with an open and
receptive mind, and a large amount of intuitive sympathy with all. It
cannot be fairly undertaken if the initial object of investigation is
to mould the one or the other to the shape of personal fancy.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, a most interesting exponent of Buddhism in relation
to Christianity, says that the study of an ancient religion is not
philosophy, but pure history. This may be true, in a sense; but, at
the same time, it is necessary that the records of the past should be
studied in a philosophical and synthetic spirit, with an Impressionist
rather than a pre-Raphaelite tendency. Mr. Lillie hardly makes due
allowance for the measure of failure which must accompany all human
efforts to do justice to a great idea, and perhaps overstrains the
theory that literary and philological analysis have had their day, and
that archæology and history should now reign supreme.

In connection with the placing of too great a reliance upon the
"letter" of venerated records, a warning--serious enough if we
appropriate it to ourselves--has issued from the pen of the Rev. Spence
Hardy, who, in a passage of his book, entitled _Eastern Monachism_
(p. 166), emphasizes with tremendous force the precarious position of
those who take their stand solely upon sacred books. "The priests of
India," he writes, "are encompassed by weapons that may be wrested
from their hands and used to their own destruction. When it is clearly
proved to them that their venerated records contain absurdities and
contradictions, they must of necessity conclude that their origin
cannot have been divine; and, the foundations of the system being thus
shaken, the whole mass must speedily fall, leaving only the unsightly
ruin as a monument of man's folly, when he endeavours to form a
religion from the feculence of his own corrupt heart or the fancies of
his own perverted imagination."

It may be apposite here to demonstrate how far short of the Pauline
standard the cultivated European critic falls, by referring to some
remarks of the Rev. Prof. Bruce in one of his Gifford Lectures[A] of
last year, in which he treats of Gotama's views concerning the moral
order of the universe. Of the two leading doctrines of Buddhism, Karma
is called by him "fantastic" and Nirvana "morbid"; and, not content
with such a contemptuous dismissal of these remarkable conceptions, he
proceeds to say: "The well-being of the race demanded warriors, brave
in the field of battle against evil, not monks, immured in cloisters
and passing their lives in poverty, wearing the yellow robe of a
mendicant order."

 [A] _Vide Glasgow Herald_, January, 1898.

This rhetorical flourish may have sounded very effective and convincing
as a peroration, and have produced the desired result of clearing
the lecturer from any possible imputation of sympathy with Buddhism,
except as an ethical system of considerable excellence; but such a
summing-up of Buddhism is neither more nor less than a throwing of
dust in the eyes of beholders, and is, in my opinion, very far removed
from the dispassionate survey one would expect from a Gifford Lecturer.
Alighting on such a misrepresentation of his religious system, a
Buddhist would naturally feel aggrieved, and his belief in our
self-adopted reputation for fair-play all round might be rudely shaken.

"Karma" is undoubtedly one of the so-called mysteries of Buddhism; but
is it in any sense more fantastic than any other religious mystery? Is
this theory of the transmigration of character (as it has been somewhat
loosely described) more fanciful in its conception than that of the
transmigration of the soul, a "vaguely-apprehended, feebly-postulated
ego," to a dim locality such as heaven? Then, again, it may be asked,
what is there so objectionable in a quiet, unobtrusive resistance to
evil, that it should prompt the lecturer to magnify the importance of a
crude aggressiveness?

It is by no means true that Buddhist monks are usually immured in
cloisters; they, in fact, move about freely as examples, within human
limits, of the highest morality, and they chiefly occupy themselves
(as in Burma) with the education of children.[B] General Forlong, in
his _Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions_, says:
"Gotama's religion widened from Jaino-Buddhism into one of work and
duty towards his fellows; his instructions to the order of monks were
to the following effect: that they were not to _beg_ from door to door,
but only to accept gifts in return for services performed; and this was
their service--to be an example to all men."

 [B] Those who have not yet read that pathetically beautiful book, _The
 Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding, are referred to chapters x. and
 xi., wherein are set forth the true characteristics, functions, and
 aspirations of the Buddhist monkhood in Burma.

Condemnation of these monks for passing their lives in poverty sounds
strangely inappropriate coming from the lips of a Christian professor;
and, as to the well-being of the race not demanding the wearing of
yellow garments, one might reasonably ask if it demanded the wearing
of a black gown. We must, in all fairness, I think, credit Gotama with
possessing a large measure of that "Light which lighteth _every man_
that cometh into the world."

Sir Edwin Arnold, I believe, refers to the mysteries of Buddhism as
"blank abstractions," but I do not suppose he regards them as more
"blank" than the mysteries of other religions. All mysteries are, in
a sense, blank abstractions, and the blanker they are the nearer the
truth; and what religion is without them? It may be conceded, however,
that such a conception as "Ultimate Reality" upon which to fall back in
time of need might prove to some minds a more comfortless one than that
presented by the "Compassionate Father" of the Christian God-idea. But
even this Christian symbolism has an element of mystery in it.

Then there is the poetic phase of anthropomorphism, which is not
altogether to be despised from an æsthetic point of view. Such as the
Mohammedan Allah, who is described with exquisite imagery in the Bostān
of Sâdi as a beautiful cup-bearer at Sufistic banquets,

  "So fair, They spill the wine and stare,"[C]

which recalls the anthropomorphic Deity of the Psalms:--

  "In His hand is a cup, and the wine is red."

  [C] Author's translation of _Bostān of Sâdi_.

Another picture of great poetical merit is that of the Incarnate
Saviour of the Mexicans, who does not ascend to heaven on his departure
from the earth, but sets forth upon the wide ocean in a wizard bark of
serpent skins for the fabled shores of the kingdom of his Father.

Dr. Paul Carus, in his preface to _The Gospel of Buddha_, says: "A
comparison of the many striking agreements between Christianity and
Buddhism may prove fatal to a sectarian conception of Christianity,
but will in the end only help to mature our insight into the essential
nature of Christianity, and so elevate our religious convictions.
It will bring out that nobler Christianity which aspires to be the
cosmic religion of universal truth.... It will serve both Christians
and Buddhists as a help to penetrate further into the spirit of their
faith, so as to see its full width, breadth, and depth."

The theological formation which has gradually developed into what may
be called the crust of creeds, and which has probably now reached
its limits of hardening, is seen, from day to day, under varying
influences, to be cracking into wider and deeper fissures. The curious
inquirer now possesses ample opportunities of looking below the surface
and observing some of the conditions that have, in the course of ages,
given rise to the accretions.

The deeper we look, or the further our horizon recedes, the greater
perhaps is the sense of bewilderment and isolation; yet so to wander
is, at any rate, to be free; and we need not just at present fear
that ultimate knowledge is nescience, when our vision will no longer
be bounded by any horizon, and when even vision itself will at last
disappear.

As it has been stated of science, so it may be affirmed of all inquiry,
"that at a certain stage of its development a degree of vagueness best
consists with fertility."

Christianity and Buddhism possess three prominent features--"the
metaphysical," "the ethical," and "the biographical." As the two
latter have been so exhaustively contrasted in connection with these
systems, I have confined myself in the following pages chiefly to a
consideration of their mystical relationship.

  D. M. S.

 _Caledonian United Service Club, Edinburgh.
   February, 1899._




SANSCRIT AND PALI TERMS USED.


               {Includes everything of which impermanence may be
               {predicated, or, which is the same thing, everything
  SAMSKĀRA     {which springs from a cause. (Childers.)
  SANKHĀRA     {Gestaltungen--Oldenberg's _Buddha_, German edition.
               {Conformations--English translation of Oldenberg's
               {_Buddha_.

  SKANDHAS     The five attributes or elements of being--form, sensation,
               perception, discrimination, and consciousness.

  BHIKKHU      {Mendicant, monk, friar.
  BHIKSHU      {

  AKĀSA        Space.

               {The ocean of Birth and Death, transiency, worldliness,
  SAMSĀRA      {the restlessness of a worldly life, the agitation of
               {selfishness, the vanity fair of life. (Paul Carus.)

  MAHĀYĀNA     The great vehicle--viz., of salvation.

  HINĀYĀNA     The little vehicle--viz., of salvation.

  KARMA        Action, work, the law of action, retribution, results of
               deeds previously done, and the destiny resulting
               therefrom. (Paul Carus.)

ERRATUM.

For Professor Oldenberg's _Buddhism_ read everywhere Professor
Oldenberg's _Buddha: His Life, His Doctrine, His Order_.




CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM.




CHAPTER I.

JESUS AND GOTAMA.

"For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos;
are ye not carnal?"--BIBLE.


In any attempt to appreciate the relationship of Christianity to
Buddhism it is important to bear in mind, not only the differences
which have characterized the process of their evolution, but also to
recognize that the two religions are, in their origin, distinct as
to time and _locale_; that they developed on different soils, and
have borne fruit of very different kinds; and that the races which
subsequently appropriated them as religious systems were in many
respects dissimilar, and lived under widely divergent conditions.
Only by regarding these religions as growing apart, and in no manner
connected in this sense, can we ultimately arrive at a just and logical
estimate of the character of the founders.

It is not by confounding their sources at the start, or by attempting
to prove that the one system is a product of the other, that we can in
the end draw closer the bonds which seem to unite them. A consideration
of almost equal weight is that of the dual nature of the great
personalities of Jesus and Gotama. We must not confuse the significance
of the term "God" with the man Jesus, nor the mystical principle
embodied in the title "Buddha" with the personal and human Gotama. Both
Jesus as God and Gotama as Buddha are dual personalities, and combine
in themselves tangible and intangible realities. The former is to be
regarded as man and God, the latter as Gotama and Buddha.

But, while wishing to emphasize the fact of the independent origin of
Christianity and Buddhism, I have no intention of combating the fact
that a spurious Buddhism had, in the garb of Essenism, established a
footing in Palestine at a date anterior to the Christian era, and that,
under the influence of St. John the Baptist, the recognized leader of
the Essenes, a way was prepared and made ready for the great light
which was to shine forth afresh in the majestic humanity of Jesus. The
presence of Essene Buddhists in Palestine at that date is a matter
of history, and has been clearly established by prominent Oriental
scholars. Moreover, the Church of England itself has, through the
medium of some of its most reliable authorities, openly acquiesced in
the fact.

The Essenes, who were, from the second century before Christ
onwards, domiciled in the Holy Land, although virtually Buddhists, do
not seem to have preserved intact the tenets of Gotama, though the
ethics remained unadulterated. They retained many of the qualities
of the monastic Buddhists, such as asceticism, brotherly love, a
rare benevolence towards mankind in general, and the still rarer
consideration for animal life. Nor was any departure made from the vows
of chastity, the belief in the transitory nature of things, and in
their attitude of non-resistance to evil. It was rather with regard to
metaphysical obscurities that they wandered from the strict teaching of
Gotama; and we cannot wonder that such was the case when we remember
the doubts, difficulties, and uncertainties that must have beset
the paths of these followers of Gotama when they had no longer the
Enlightened One to point to them the way of truth.

Especially do they seem to have gone astray in the matter of the
doctrine of the soul. This they described "as coming from the subtlest
ether, and as lured by the sorcery of nature into the prison-house of
the body." The Essenes derived their Buddhistic tenets and practices
directly from Gnosticism, which is said to have prevailed in Alexandria
two centuries before the birth of Christ, and its existence in that
city owed its origin to the importation of Buddhism from India,
constant communication having been established in those days between
Egypt and the West Coast of India as far north as the mouths of the
Indus.

Further, the edicts of King Asoka go to prove that at about this time
he was on intimate terms and in frequent correspondence with the
Greeks; also, that during his reign and under his royal patronage
Buddhist missionaries found their way to Egypt, and there scattered the
seed from which arose the Gnostics, or Therapeuts, and the kindred sect
of the Essenes.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in his _Buddhism in Christendom_, p. 75, writes:
"The most subtle thinker of the modern English Church, the late
Dean Mansel, boldly maintained that the philosophy and rites of the
Therapeuts of Alexandria were due to Buddhist missionaries who visited
Egypt within two centuries of the time of Alexander the Great. In this
he has been supported by philosophers of the calibre of Schelling
and Schopenhauer and the great Sanscrit authority Lassen. Renan, in
his work _Les Langues Sémétiques_, also sees traces of this Buddhist
propagandism in Palestine before the Christian era. Hilgenfeld, Mutter,
Bohlen, King, all admit the Buddhist influence. Colebrooke saw a
striking similarity between the Buddhist philosophy and that of the
Pythagoreans. Dean Milman was convinced that the Therapeuts sprung from
the 'contemplative and indolent fraternities' of India."

When we travel back from Essenism to Gnosticism we approach nearer
geographically and conceptionally to the source from which they both
originated. Gnosticism, however, presumes to tell us more than Gotama
chose to reveal as to the beginnings of things, and enters into details
about various spiritual emanations which are at variance with any
inferences that can be legitimately drawn from early Buddhism.

In the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, under "Gnosticism," we read: "The
Supreme Being, according to Gnosticism, was regarded as wholly
inconceivable and indescribable; as the Unfathomable Abyss; the
Unnameable. From this transcendant source existence sprang by emanation
in a series of spiritual powers. It was only through these several
powers that the Infinite passed into life and activity, and became
capable of representation. To this higher world was given the name of
Pleroma, and the divine powers composing it in their ever-expanding
procession from the Highest were called Æons."

Jesus, according to the Gnostic conception, was one of these higher
Æons or Buddhas "proceeding from the Kingdom of Light for the
redemption of this lower Kingdom of Darkness."

If the above was whittled down to the bare statement that the
Boundless, to be made perceptible, had to become active and creative,
and that thus it happened that the Boundless was manifested by and in
the universe, Gnosticism, on this point, would not greatly differ from
what was probably in the mind of Gotama when he pointed out that the
Uncreated or Unproduced must have existence, otherwise the created, the
produced, could not be.

In face of the historically-established fact that Buddhism had reached
Palestine before the Christian era had commenced, and that Buddhistic
influences were widely disseminated throughout the Holy Land when Jesus
arose upon the scene, I wish to maintain that Jesus, although nurtured
in the mixed society of ceremonial and Essenic Jews, cannot be claimed
as belonging to the Essenes or any other sect _after_ he emerged from
his long retirement and commenced his ministry. During the time of his
withdrawal from publicity it must be assumed that he was growing in
wisdom, and continued to do so until the perfect enlightenment came to
him, when the Holy Ghost descended upon him, and he knew himself to
be the Son and symbol of God, and, as such, capable of revealing the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to those who had ears to hear and
eyes to see. This view, or reading, of the Scriptures was the cardinal
tenet of the adoptionist Christology of the Paulician school in Armenia.

Jesus, as human, was undoubtedly begotten, not made, and died. Jesus,
as divine, became so, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh,
but by taking of the _manhood_ into God--first the natural, after that
the spiritual, as St. Paul says. Jesus, as God, was immortal.

Jesus, as a perfected soul on earth, was a presentation of the
Logos, in the sense given to this term by Dr. Paul Carus, "as forms
of speech," which, containing in words eternal truth, is the most
important part of the human soul, when soul is regarded as the
formative factors of the various forms and their relations that have
been evolving, and are constantly evolving and re-evolving. Jesus was,
in this respect, altogether independent of his _entourage_, although
a part of it in all other relations. He utilized what was good and
answered his purpose in the tenets of the several sections of the
society in which he moved. He was an eclectic, and stood midway between
mystical and anti-mystical Israel.

The Essenes, as already stated, derived their doctrines and customs
chiefly from the Gnostics of Egypt, and the origin of the latter has
been traced to the propagation of Buddhism by Indian missionaries sent
to Egypt in the time of King Asoka.

Now, Gotama Buddha was, in point of time, an earlier presentation of
Logos; and, as Gotama's influences were at work in Palestine when Jesus
appeared, it follows in the natural course of things that Jesus, as a
presentation of this same Logos, or Bodhi, would have shown a stronger
leaning towards the tenets and practices of the Essenes than towards
those of the ceremonial Jews.

The position of Jesus in Palestine closely corresponded with that
of Gotama in Hindustan. Gotama was isolated between the ceremonial
Brahmin class and the extreme mystical party. He also assimilated, as
Jesus did, in furtherance of his mission, some of the tenets of each
party, with certain modifications. He shocked the ceremonialists by
showing disdain for rites as rites, and estranged himself from the
extreme mystical party by refusing to give his imprimatur to factitious
asceticism. In the same manner Jesus ignored some of the Essenic
restrictions by partaking of wine and animal food.

Brahmanism suffered corruption through the acquisition by the priests
of wealth and power. To the endowment of the Christian Church, and the
elevation of its priests to temporal sway by the Emperor Constantine,
has been attributed the beginning of the decadence of the Christian
ideal. The decline of true Buddhism in India was due in a great measure
to the munificence of King Asoka, who erected and enriched monasteries
and other religious institutions. This led ultimately to many serious
abuses, as well as to deviations from the precepts which Gotama had
endeavoured to inculcate.

In Palestine, at the commencement of the Christian era, the ceremonial
Jews or Pharisees,[D] though a numerically small section, were the
dominant party of Judaism, and were represented by dignitaries of an
overbearingly proud demeanour. Suppressed by them, the spirituality of
the Essene Buddhists was thrown into the shade, and, when the voice
crying in the wilderness was no longer to be heard and the commanding
personality of St. John the Essene disappeared from the scene, Essenism
as an organization came to an end.

 [D] An indiscriminate denunciation of the Pharisees is, I think,
 unjustifiable. They must be held deserving of commendation in so far
 as they were guided by conscience to a close adherence to the letter
 of that Law which had been delivered to them by the Almighty, through
 Ezra the Lawyer, for strict and undeviating observance.

To contend with these ceremonialists of Palestine and the corrupt
Brahmanism of India, and to further the success of their respective
missions in the face of these formidable forces, both Jesus in the one
case and Gotama in the other realized the expediency of initiating a
mode of proselytism which, by the humble bearing and unworldly aspect
of its agents, would differentiate it from the arrogant and exclusive
methods of the priestly classes. The missionaries whom these new lights
sent forth into the world to propagate the doctrine of salvation
received explicit instructions not to provide themselves with gold or
silver, or change of raiment and shoes; in fact, they were to pose as
examples of that humility and forbearance which was the keynote, in
their ethical significance, of the two systems as formulated for the
redemption of humanity. In both cases the spell of this evangelism
was