I. " Possess not treasures, but those

things which no one can take irom
you.
ii
3. "It is better for a part of the body which contains purulent matter, and threatens to infect the whole, to bt hurnt^ than to continue so in anothtr state (life)."
3. '* You have in yourself something Hmi' lar to God^ and therefore use yourself as the temple of God:'
4. " The greatest honor which can be paid to God, is to know and imitate his/^- fectiony
5. " What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men'* {Analects of Confucius^ p. 76 ; see Max Miiller's The Works of Confucius),
6. ''The moon shines even in the house of the wicked '' {Manu),
7. " They who give, have things given to them ; those who withhold, have things taken from them'* (Ibid.).
8. "Purity of mind alone sees God" (Ibid.) — still a popular saying in India.
1. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal " {Matthew vi. 19).
2. " And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter unto life maimed, than go to hell,*' etc {Mark ix. 43).
3. "Know ye not ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwell- eth in you? '* (i Corinthians, iiL 16).
4. ** That ye may be the children of your Father, which is in Heaven, be ye per- fect even as your FcUher is perfect^ {Matthew v. 45-48).
5. " Do ye unto others as ye would that others should do to you.**
6. " He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust** {Mat-- thew V. 45).
7. ** Whosoever hath, to him shall be given . . . but whosoever hath not, from him shall be (aken away ** {Mat- thew xiii. 12).
8. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God** {Matthew v. 8J.
Plato did not conceal the fact that he derived his best philosophical doctrines from Pythagoras, and that himself was merely the first to reduce them to systematic order, occasionally interweaving with them metaphy- sical speculations of his own. But Pythagoras himself got his recondite doctrines, first from the descendants of Mochus, and later, from the Brah- mans of India, He was also initiated into tlie Mysteries among the hierophants of Thebes, the Persian and Chaldean Magi. Thus, step by step do we trace the origin of most of our Christian doctrines to Middle Asia. Drop out from Christianity the personality of Jesus, so sublime, because of its unparalleled simplicity^ and what remains ? History and
* See " Pirke Aboth ; ** a Collection of Proverbs and Sentences of the old Jewish Teachers, in which many New Testament sayings are found.
THE MYTHICAL CHRIST COPIED FROM BUDDHA. 339
comparative theology echo back the melancholy answer, " A crumbling skeleton formed of the oldest Pagan myths ! "
While the mythical birth and life of Jesus are a faithful copy of those of the Brahmanical Christna, his historical character of a religious reformer in Palestine is the true type of Buddha in India. In more than one respect their great resemblance in philanthropic and spiritual aspirations, as well as external circumstances is truly striking. Though the son of a king, while Jesus was but a carpenter, Buddha was not of the high Brahmanical caste by birth. Like Jesus, he felt dissatisfied with the dogmatic spirit of the religion of his country, the intolerance and hypocrisy of the priesthood, their outward show of devotion, and their useless ceremonials and prayers. As Buddha broke violently through the traditional laws and rules of the Brahmans, so did Jesus declare war against the Pharisees, and the proud Sadducees. What the Nazarene did as a consequence of his humble birth and position, Buddha did as a voluntary penance. He travelled about as a beggar ; and — again like Jesus — later in life he sought by preference the companionship of publi- cans and sinners. Each aimed at a social as well as at a religious reform ; and giving a death-blow to the old religions of his countries, each became the founder of a new one.
^*The reform of Buddha," says Max MUller, "had originally much more of a social than of a religious character. The most important ele- ment of Buddhist reform has always been its social and moral code, not its metaphysical theories. That moral code is one of the most perfect which the world has ez'er known . . . and he whose meditations had been how to deliver the soul of man from misery and the fear of death, had delivered the people of India from a degrading thraldom and from l)riestly t}Tanny.*' Further, the lecturer adds that were it otherwise, ** Buddha might have taught whatever philosophy he pleased, and we should hardly have heard his name. The people would not have minded him, and his system would only have been a drop in the ocean of phi- losophic sj^eculation by which India was deluged at all times." *
The same with Jesus. While Philo, whom Renan calls Jesus*s elder brother, Hillel, Shammai, and Gamaliel, are hardly mentioned — Jesus has become a God ! And still, pure and divine as was the moral code taught by Christ, it never could have borne comparison with that of Buddha, but for the tragedy of Calvary. That which helped forward the deification of Jesus was his dramatic death, the voluntary sacrifice of his life, alleged to have been made for the sake of mankind, and the later convenient dogma of the atonement, invented by the Christians. In
« ii
Buddhism," p. 217.
340 ISIS UNVEILED.
India, where life is valued as of no account, the crucifixion would have produced little effect, if any. In a country where — as all the Indian- ists are well aware — religious fanatics set themselves to dying by inches, in penances lasting for years ; where the most fearful macerations are self-inflicted by fakirs ; where young and delicate widows, in a spirit of bravado against the government, as much as out of religious fanaticism, mount the funeral pile with a smile on their face ; where, to quote the words of the great lecturer, " Men in the prime of life throw themselves under the car of JuggernAth, to be crushed to death by the idol they believe in ; where the plaintiff who cannot get redress starves himself to death at the door of his judge ; where the philosopher who thinks he has learned all which this world can teach him, and who longs for absorption into the Deity, quietly steps into the Ganges, in order to arrive at the other shore of existence," * in such a country even a voluntary crucifixion would have passed unnoticed. In Judea, and even among braver nations than the Jews — the Romans and the Greeks — where every one clung more or less to life, and most people would have fought for it with desperation, the tragical end of the great Reformer was calculated to proiluce a profound impression. The names of even such minor heroes as Mutius Scaivola, Horatius Codes, the mother of the Gracchi, and others, have descended to posterity ; and, during our school-days, as well as later in life, their histories have awakened our sympathy and commanded a reverential ad- miration. But, can we ever forget the scornful smile of certain Hin- dus, at Benares, when an English lady, the wife of a clergyman, tried to impress them with the greatness of the sacrifice of Jesus, in giving his life for us ? Then, for the first time the idea struck us how much the pathos of the great drama of Calvary had to do wiih subsequent events in the foundation of Christianity. Even the imaginative Renan was moved by this feeling to write in the last chapter of his VU de Jesus^ a few pages of singular and sympathetic beauty, f
♦ Max MiUlcr : " Christ and other Masters ;" ** Chips," vol. L f The ** Life of Jesus " by Strauss, which Renan calls " un Ih're^ commode, exact^ spirit uel et consciencieux " (a handy, exact, witty, and conscientious book), rude and iconoclastic as it is, is nevertheless in many ways preferable to the '* Vie de Jesus,'* of the French author. Laying aside the intrinsic and historical value of the two works — with which we have nothing to do, we now simply point to Renan's distorted outline- sketch of Jesus. We cannot think what led Renan into such an erroneous delineation of character. Few of those who, while rejecting the divinity of the Nazarene prophet, still believe that he is no myth, can read the work without experiencing an uneasy, and even angry feeling at such a psychological mutilation. He makes of Jesus a sort of sentimental nmny, a theatrical simpleton, enamored of his own poetical divagations and speeches, wanting every one to adore him, and finally caught in the snares of his enemies. Such was not Jesus, the Jewish philanthropist, the adept and mystic of a
BUDDHA, JESUS, AND APOLLONIUS COMPARED. 34I
ApoUonius, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, was, like him, an enthusiastic founder of a new spiritual school. Perhaps less metaphysical and more practical than Jesus, less tender and perfect in his nature, he nevertheless inculcated the same quintessence of spirituality, and the same high moral truths. His great mistake was to confine them too closely to the higher classes of society. While to the poor and the humble Jesus preached " Peace on earth and good will to men," ApoUonius was the friend of kings, and moved with the aristocracy. He was born among the latter, and himself a man of wealth, while the " Son of man," repre- senting the people, " had not where to lay his head ; " nevertheless, the two " miracle- workers " exhibited striking similarity of purpose. Still earlier than ApoUonius had appeared Simon Magus, called " the great Power of God." His " niiracles " are both more wonderful, more varied, and better attested than those either of the apostles or of the Galilean philosopher himself. Materialism denies the fact in both cases, but his- tory affirms. ApoUonius followed both ; and how great and renowned were his miraculous works in comparison with those of the alleged founder of Christianity as the kabalists claim, we have history again, and Justin Martyr, to corroborate. *
Like Buddha and Jesus, ApoUonius was the uncompromising enemy of all outward show of piety, all display of useless religious ceremonies and hypocrisy. If, like the Christian Saviour, the sage of Tyana had by preference sought the companionship of the poor and humble ; and if instead of dying comfortably, at over one hundred years of age, he had been a voluntary martyr, proclaiming divine Truth from a cross,f his
school now forgotten by the Christians and the Church — if it ever was known to her ; the hero, who preferred even to risk death, rather than withhold some truths which he believed would benefit humanity. We prefer Strauss who openly names him an impos- tor and a pretender, occasionally calling in doubt his very existence ; but who at least spares him that ridiculous color of sentimentalism in which Renan paints him.
• See Chap. iii. , p. 97.
f In a recent work, called the ** World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors" (by Mr. Ker- sey Graves) which attracted our notice by its title, we were indeed startled as we were forewarned on the title-page we should be by historical evidences to be found neither in history nor tradition. ApoUonius, who is represented in it as one of these sixteen '' saviours," is shown by the author as finally ^^ crucified . . . having risen from the dead . . . appearing to his disciples after his resurrection, and " — like Chrbt again — "convincing a Tommy (?) Didymus" by getting him to feel the print of the nails on his hands and feet (see note, p. 268). To begin with, neither Philostratus, the biographer of ApoUonius, nor history says any such thing. Though the precise time of his death is unknown, no disciple of ApoUonius ever said that he was» either crucified, or appeared to them. So much for one " Saviour." After that we are told that Gaulama-Buddha, whose life and death have been so minutely described by several authorities, Barthele- my St. HUaire included — was also ** crucified by his enemies near the foot of the Nepal
342 ISIS UNVEILED.
blood might have proved as efficacious for the subsequent dissemination of spiritual doctrines as that of the Christian Messiah.
The calumnies set aHoat against Apollonius, were as numerous as they were false. So late as eighteen centuries after his death he was defamed by Bishop Douglas in his work against miracles. In this the Right Reverend bishop crushed himself against historical facts. If we study the question with a dispassionate mind„ we will soon perceive that the ethics of Gautama-Buddha, Plato, Apollonius, Jesus, Ammonius Sak- kas, and his disciples, were all based on the same mystic philosophy. That all worshipped one God, whether they considered Him as the " Father " of humanity, who lives in man as man lives in Him, or as the Incomprehensible Creative Principle ; all led God-like lives. Ammonius, speaking of his philosophy, taught that their school dated from the days of Hermes, who brought his wisdom from India. It was the same mystical contemplation throughout, as that of the Yogin : the communion of the Brahman with his own luminous Self — the " Atman." And this Hindu term is again kabalistic, par excellence. Who is " Self? " is asked in the Rig- Veda ; " Self is the Lord of all things ... all things are contained in this Self; all selves are contained in this Self. Brahman itself is but Self," * is the answer. Says Idra Rabba : *' All things are Himself, and Himself is concealed on every side." f The " Adam Kadmon of the kabalists contains in himself all the souls of the Israelites, and he is him- self in every soul," says the Sohar, J The groundwork of the Eclectic School was thus identical with the doctrines of the Yogin, tlie Hindu mys-
mountains" (sec p. 107) ; while the Buddhist books, history, and scientific research tell us, through the lips of Max Miiller and a host of Orientalists, that ^' Gautama- Buddha, (Sikya-muni) died near the Ganges. ... He had nearly reached the city of Ku- sin^ara, when his vital strength began to fail. He halted in a forest, and while sitting under a sal tree he gave up the ghost *' (Max Miiller : ** Chips from a German Work- shop," vol. i., p. 213). The references of Mr. Graves to Higgins and Sir W. Jones, in some of his hazardous speculations, prove nothing. Max Miiller shows some antiquated authorities writing elaborate books "... in order to prove that Buddha had Ijeen in reality the Thoth of the Egyptians ; that he was Mercury, or Wodan, or Zoroaster, or Pythagoras. . . . Even Sir W. Jones . . . identified Buddha first with Odin and afterwards with Shishak." We are in the nineteenth century, not in the eighteenth ; and though to write books on the authority of the earliest Orientalists may in one sense be viewed as a mark of respect for old age, it is not always safe to try the experiment in our times. Hence this highly instructive volume lacks one im- portant feature which would have made it still more interesting. The author should have added after Prometheus the •* Roman," and Alcides the Egyptian god (p. 266) a seventeenth " crucified Saviour " to the list, ** Venus, god of the war," introduced to an admiring world by Mr. Artemus Ward the ** showman !"
* ** Khandogya-upanishad," viii., 3,4; Max Miiller : ** Veda."
f "Idra Rabba," x., 117. % Introd. in " Sohar," pp. 305-312.
LABOULAYE AND ST. HILAIRE ON THE TWO CHRISTS. 343
tics, and the earlier Buddhism of the disciples of Gautama. And when Jesus assured his disciples that " the spirit of truth, whom the world can- not receive because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him," dwells with and in them, who " are in Him and He in them," * he but ex- pounded the same tenet that we find running through every philosophy worthy of that name.
Laboulaye, the learned and skeptical French savant, does not believe a word of the miraculous portion of Buddha's life ; nevertheless, he has the candor to speak of Gautama as being only second to Christ in the great purity of his ethics and personal morality. For both of these opinions he is respectfully rebuked by des Mousseaux. Vexed at this scientific contradiction of his accusations of demonolatry against Gauta- ma-Buddha, he assures his readers that '' ce savant distingu6 n'a point etudi^ cette question." f
'^ I do not hesitate to say/' remarks in his turn Barthelemy St Hilaire, *' that, except Christ alone, there is not among the founders of religions, a figure either more pure or more touching than that of Buddha. Hb life is spotless. His constant heroism equals his convictions. . . . He is the perfect model of all the virtues he preaches ; his abnegation, his charity, his unalterable sweetness oi disposition, do not fail him for one instant. He abandoned, at the age of twenty-nine, his father's court to become a monk and a beggar . . . and when he dies in the arms of his disciples, it is with the serenity of a sage who practiced virtue all his life, and who dies convinced of having found the truth." J This deserved pane- gyric is no stronger than the one which Laboulaye himself pronounced, and which occasioned des Mousseaux's wrath. *' It is more than difficult," adds the former, '' to understand how men not assisted by revelation could have soared so high and approached so near the truth." § Curious that there should be so many lofty souls " not assisted by revelation ! "
And why should any one feel surprised that Gautama could die with philosophical serenity ? As the kabalists justly say, *' Death does not exist, and man never steps outside of universal life. Those whom we think dt'ad live still in us, as we live in them. . . . The more one lives for his kind, the less need he fear to die." || And, we might add, that he who lives for humanity does even more than him who dies for it.
The Ineffable name, in the search for which so many kabalists — ^unac- quainted with any Oriental or even European adept — vainly consume their knowledge and lives, dwells latent in the heart of every man. This
* John xiv. f *'Les Hauts Phenom^es de la Magie,** p. 74.
% Barthelemy St. Hilaire : '* Le Buddha et sa Religion,*" Paris, i86a
§ ** Journal des Debats," Avril, 1853.
I *
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mirific name which, according to the most ancient oracles, " rushes into the infinite worlds axoLfirirm orpo^oXiyyt," can be obtained in a twofold way : by regular initiation, and through the "small voice" which Elijah heard in the cave of Horeb, the mount of God. And " when Elijah heard it he wrapped his face in his tnantle and stood in the entering of the cave. And behold there came tlu voice."
When Apollonius of Tyana desired to hear the " small voice," he used to wrap himself up entirely in a mantle of fine wool, on which he placed both his feet, after having performed certain magnetic passes, and pro- nounced not the " name " but an invocation well known to every adept. Then he drew the mantle over his head and face, and his trauslucid or astral spirit was free. On ordinary occasions he wore wool no more than the priests of the temples. The possession of the secret combination of the '* name " gave the hierophant supreme power over every being, human or otherwise, inferior to himself in soul-strength. Hence, when Max Miiller tells us of the Quiche " Hidden majesty which was never to be opened by human hands," the kabalist perfectly understands what was meant by the expression, and is not at all surprised to hear even this most erudite philologist exclaim : " What it was we do not know ! "
We cannot too often repeat that it is only through the doctrines of the more ancient philosophies that the religion preached by Jesus may be understood. It is through Pythagoras, Confucius, and Plato, that we can comprehend the idea which underlies the term " Father " in the New Tes- tament, Plato's ideal of the Deity, whom he terms the one everlasting, invisible God, the Fashioner and Father of all things,* is rather the " Father " of Jesus. It is this Divine Being of whom the Grecian sage says that He can neither be envious nor the originator of evil, for He can produce nothing but what is good and just,f is certainly not the Mosaic Jehovah, the ''^jealous God," but the God of Jesus, who " alone is good." He extols His all-embracing, divine power, J and His omnipotence, but at the same time intimates that, as He is unchangeable, He can never desire to change his laws, i.^., to extirpate evil from the world through a miracle. § He is omniscient, and nothing escapes His watchful eye. | His justice, which we find embodied in the law of compensation and retribution, will leave no crime without punishment, no virtue without its reward ; ^ and therefore he declares that the only way to honor God is to cultivate moral purity. He utterly rejects not only the anthropomorphic
• "Timaeus;" " Polit.," 269, E.
t «*Timaiis,»'29; "Phxdrus," 182, 247; *«Repub.," il, 379, B.
% " Laws," iv., 715, E.; x., 901, C. § «' Repub.," iL, 381 ; "Thaet," 176^ A,
I "Laws," X., 901, D.
If "Laws," iv., 716, A.; *« Repub.," x., 613, A.
REWARD OF THE POOR ABB6 HUC. 34$
idea that God could have a material body,* but " rejects with disgust those fables which ascribe passions, quarrels, and crimes of all sorts to the minor gods." f He indignantly denies that God allows Himself to be propitiated, or rather bribed, by prayers and sacrifices. J
The Phosdrus of Plato displays all that man once was, and that which he may yet become again. " Before man's spirit sank into sensuality and was embodied with it through the loss of his wings, he lived among the gods in the airy [spiritual] world where everything is true and pure." In the Timaus he says that ** there was a time when mankind did not per- petuate itself, but lived as pure spirits." In the future world, says Jesus, " they neither marry nor are given in marriage," but ** live as the angels of God in Heaven."
The researches of Laboulaye, Anquetil Dui>erron, Colebrooke, Bar- thelemy St. Hilaire, Max Mttller, Spiegel, Burnouf, Wilson, and so many other linguists, have brought some of the truth to light. And now that the difficulties of the Sanscrit, the Thibetan, the Singhalese, the Zend« the Pehlevi, the Chinese, and even of the Burmese, are partially con- quered, and the Vedas^ and the Zend-Avesta^ the Buddhist texts, and even Kapila's SUtras are translated, a door is thrown wide open, which, once passed, must close forever behind any speculative or ignorant cal- umniators of the old religions. Even till the present time, the clergy have, to use the words of Max Mailer — '* generally appealed to the deviltries and orgies of heathen worship . . . but they have seldom, if ever, endeavored to discover the tnie and original character of the strange forms of faith and worship which they call the work of the devil." § When we read the true history of Buddha and Buddhism, by Mttller, and the enthusiastic opinions of both expressed by Barthelemy St. Hilaire, and Laboulaye ; and when, finally, a Popish missionary, an eye-witness, and one who least of all can be accused of partiality to the Buddhists — the 'Abbe Hue, we mean — finds occasion for nothing but ad- miration for the high individual character of these "devil-worshippers;" we must consider SakysL-muni's philosophy as something more than the religion of fetishism and atheism, which the Catholics would have us believe it. Hue was a missionary and it was his first duty to regard Buddhism as no better than an outgrowth of the worship of Satan. The poor Abb6 was struck off the list of missionaries at Rome, || after his
• *« Ph»lrus," 246, C. t E. Zeller : " Plato and the Old Academy."
X " Laws," X., 905, D. § Max Muller: " Buddhism," April, 1862.
I Of the Abb^ Hue, Max Miiller thus wrote in his '* Chips from a German Work- shop," vol. i., p. 187 : •* The late Abbd Hue pointed out. the similarities between the Buddhist and Roman Catholic ceremonials with such a naiveti^ that, to his surprise, he found his delightful ^Travels in Thibet* placed on the * Index.' 'One cannot fail
346 ISIS UNVEILED.
book of travels was published. This illustrates how little we may expect to learn the truth about the religions of other people, through mission- aries, when their accounts are first revised by the superior ecclesiastical authorities, and the former severely punished for telling the truth.
When these men who have been and still are often termed " the ob- scene ascetics," the devotees of different sects of India in short, generally termed " Yogi," were asked by Marco Polo, " how it comes that they are not ashamed to go stark naked as they do?" they answered the inquirer of the thirteenth century as a missionary of the nineteenth was answered. "We go naked," they say, "because naked we came into the world, and we desire to have nothing about us that is of this world. Moreover, we have no sin of the flesh to be conscious of, and therefore, we are not ashamed of our nakedness any more than you are to show your hand or your face. You who are conscious of the sins of the iiesh, do well to have shame, and to cover your nakedness." *
One could make a curious list of the excuses and explanations of the clergy to account for similarities daily discovered between Romanism and heathen religions. Yet the summary would invariably lead to one sweeping claim : The doctrines of Christianity were plagiarized by the Pagans the world over ! Plato and his older Academy stole the ideas from the Christian revelation — said the Alexandrian Fathers ! ! The Brahmans and Manu borrowed from the Jesuit missionaries, and the Bhagaved-gita was the production of Father Calmet, who transformed Christ and John into Christna and Arjuna to fit the Hindu mind ! ! The trifling fact that Buddhism and Platonism both antedated Christianity, and the Vedas had already degenerated into Brahman ism before the days of Moses, makes no difference. The same with regard to Apollonius of Tyana. Although his thaumaturgical powers could not be denied in the face of the testimony of emperors, their courts, and the populations of several cities ; and although few of these had ever heard of the Nazarene proi)het whose " miracles " had been witnessed by a few apostles only, whose very individualities remain to this day a problem in history, yet
Apollonius has to be accepted as the '^ monkey of Christ."
*
being struck/ he writes, * with their great resemblance with the Catholicism. The bishop^s crosier, the mitre, the dalmatic, the round hat that the great lamas wear in travel . . . the mass, the double choir, the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer with five chains to it, opening and shutting at will, the blessings of the lamas, who extend their right hands over the head of the faithful ones, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, the penances and retreats, the cultus of the Saints, the fasting, the processions, the litanies the holy water ; such are the similarities of the Buddhists with ourselves He might have added tonsure, relics, and the confessionaL" * ** Crawford's Mission to Siam," p. 182.
garibaldi's opinion of priests. 347
If of really pious, good, and honest men, many are yet found among the Catholic, Creek, and Protestant clergy, whose sincere faith has the best of their reasoning powers, and who having never been among heathen populations, are unjust only through ignorance, it is not so with the missionaries. The invariable subterfuge of the latter is to attribute to demonolatry the really Christ-like life of the Hindu and Buddhist ascetics and many of the lamas. Years of sojourn among "heathen" nations, in China, Tartary, Thibet, and Hindustan have* furnished them with ample evidence how unjustly the so-called idolators have been slan- dered. The missionaries have not even the excuse of sincere faith to give the world that they mislead ; and, with very few exceptions, one may boldly paraphrase the remark made by Garibaldi, and say that : " A priest knows himself, to be an impostor ^ unless he be a fool, or have been taught, to lie from boyhood^