The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions, by Thomas William Doane.

[294:13] Hardy: Eastern Monachism, pp. 6 and 62 et seq.

While at Rajageiha Buddha called together his followers and addressed them at some length on the means requisite for Buddhist salvation. This sermon was summed up in the celebrated verse:

"To cease from all sin,
To get virtue,
To cleanse one's own heart—
This is the religion of the Buddhas."

(Rhys David's Buddha, p. 62.)

[294:14] See Matt. viii. 19, 20; xvi. 25-28.

[295:1] Müller: Science of Religion, p. 27.

[295:2] Hardy: Eastern Monachism, p. 230.

"Gautama Buddha is said to have announced to his disciples that the time of his departure had come: 'Arise, let us go hence, my time is come.' Turned toward the East and with folded arms he prayed to the highest spirit who inhabits the region of purest light, to Maha-Brahma, to the king in heaven, to Devaraja, who from his throne looked down on Gautama, and appeared to him in a self-chosen personality." (Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah. Compare with Matt. xxvi. 36-47.)

[295:3] "Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee." (Matt. xii. 38.)

[295:4] See Matt. xxiv; Mark, viii. 31; Luke, ix. 18.

[295:5] Mark, xxviii. 18-20.

Buddha at one time said to his disciples: "Go ye now, and preach the most excellent law, expounding every point thereof, and unfolding it with care and attention in all its bearings and particulars. Explain the beginning, the middle, and the end of the law, to all men without exception; let everything respecting it be made publicly known and brought to the broad daylight." (Rhys David's Buddhism, p. 55, 56.)

When Buddha, just before his death, took his last formal farewell of his assembled followers, he said unto them: "Oh mendicants, thoroughly learn, and practice, and perfect, and spread abroad the law thought out and revealed by me, in order that this religion of mine may last long, and be perpetuated for the good and happiness of the great multitudes, out of pity for the world, to the advantage and prosperity of gods and men." (Ibid. p. 172.)

[295:6] Müller: Science of Religion, p. 244.

[295:7] Matt. xix. 16-21.

[295:8] Matt. vi. 19, 20.

[296:1] Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. x, note.

[296:2] Matt. iv. 17.

[296:3] i. e., to establish the dominion of religion. (See Beal: p. 244, note.)

[296:4] The Jerusalem, the Rome, or the Mecca of India.

This celebrated city of Benares, which has a population of 200,000, out of which at least 25,000 are Brahmans, was probably one of the first to acquire a fame for sanctity, and it has always maintained its reputation as the most sacred spot in all India. Here, in this fortress of Hindooism, Brahmanism displays itself in all its plentitude and power. Here the degrading effect of idolatry is visibly demonstrated as it is nowhere else except in the extreme south of India. Here, temples, idols, and symbols, sacred wells, springs, and pools, are multiplied beyond all calculation. Here every particle of ground is believed to be hallowed, and the very air holy. The number of temples is at least two thousand, not counting innumerable smaller shrines. In the principal temple of Siva, called Visvesvara, are collected in one spot several thousand idols and symbols, the whole number scattered throughout the city, being, it is thought, at least half a million.

Benares, indeed, must always be regarded as the Hindoo's Jerusalem. The desire of a pious man's life is to accomplish at least one pilgrimage to what he regards as a portion of heaven let down upon earth; and if he can die within the holy circuit of the Pancakosi stretching with a radius of ten miles around the city—nay, if any human being die there, be he Asiatic or European—no previously incurred guilt, however heinous, can prevent his attainment of celestial bliss.

[296:5] Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. 245.

[296:6] Matt. iv. 13-17.

[296:7] Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. 11.

[296:8] John, i. 17.

[296:9] Luke, xxi. 32, 33.

[296:10] Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 228.

[296:11] Matt. v. 27, 28.

On one occasion Buddha preached a sermon on the five senses and the heart (which he regarded as a sixth organ of sense), which pertained to guarding against the passion of lust. Rhys Davids, who, in speaking of this sermon, says: "One may pause and wonder at finding such a sermon preached so early in the history of the world—more than 400 years before the rise of Christianity—and among a people who have long been thought peculiarly idolatrous and sensual." (Buddhism, p. 60.)

[297:1] Rhys Davids' Buddhism, p. 138.

[297:2] I. Corinth. vii. 1-7.

[297:3] Rhys Davids' Buddhism, p. 103.

[297:4] John, ix. 1, 2.

This is the doctrine of transmigration clearly taught. If this man was born blind, as punishment for some sin committed by him, this sin must have been committed in some former birth.

[297:5] Hardy: Buddhist Legends, p. 181.

[297:6] See the story of his conversation with the woman of Samaria. (John, iv. 1.) And with the woman who was cured of the "bloody issue." (Matt. ix. 20.)

[297:7] Müller: Science of Religion, p. 245.

[297:8] Matt. v. 29.

[297:9] Hardy: Buddhist Legends, p. 134.

[297:10] Matt. xxi. 1-9.

Bacchus rode in a triumphal procession, on approaching the city of Thebes. "Pantheus, the king, who had no respect for the new worship (instituted by Bacchus) forbade its rites to be performed. But when it was known that Bacchus was advancing, men and women, but chiefly the latter, young and old, poured forth to meet him and to join his triumphal march. . . . It was in vain Pantheus remonstrated, commanded and threatened. 'Go,' said he to his attendants, 'seize this vagabond leader of the rout and bring him to me. I will soon make him confess his false claim of heavenly parentage and renounce his counterfeit worship.'" (Bulfinch: Age of Fable, p. 222. Compare with Matt. xxvi.; Luke, xxii.; John xviii.)

[297:11] "There are few names among the men of the West that stand forth as saliently as Gotama Buddha, in the annals of the East. In little more than two centuries from his decease the system he established had spread throughout the whole of India, overcoming opposition the most formidable, and binding together the most discordant elements; and at the present moment Buddhism is the prevailing religion, under various modifications, of Tibet, Nepal, Siam, Burma, Japan, and South Ceylon; and in China it has a position of at least equal prominence with its two great rivals, Confucianism and Taouism. A long time its influence extended throughout nearly three-fourths of Asia; from the steppes of Tartary to the palm groves of Ceylon, and from the vale of Cashmere to the isles of Japan." (R. Spence Hardy: Buddhist Leg. p. xi.)

[298:1] "Gautama was very early regarded as omniscient, and absolutely sinless. His perfect wisdom is declared by the ancient epithet of Samma-sambuddha, 'the Completely Enlightened One;' found at the commencement of every Pali text; and at the present day, in Ceylon, the usual way in which Gautama is styled is Sarwajnan-wahanse,' the Venerable Omniscient One.' From his perfect wisdom, according to Buddhist belief, his sinlessness would follow as a matter of course. He was the first and the greatest of the Arahats. As a consequence of this doctrine the belief soon sprang up that he could not have been, that he was not, born as ordinary men are; that he had no earthly father; that he descended of his own accord into his mother's womb from his throne in heaven; and that he gave unmistakable signs, immediately after his birth of his high character and of his future greatness." (Rhys Davids' Buddhism, p. 162.)

[299:1] Gautama Buddha left behind him no written works, but the Buddhists believe that he composed works which his immediate disciples learned by heart in his life-time, and which were handed down by memory in their original state until they were committed to writing. This is not impossible: it is known that the Vedas were handed down in this manner for many hundreds of years, and none would now dispute the enormous powers of memory to which Indian priests and monks attained, when written books were not invented, or only used as helps to memory. Even though they are well acquainted with writing, the monks in Ceylon do not use books in their religions services, but, repeat, for instance, the whole of the Patimokkha on Uposatha (Sabbath) days by heart. (See Rhys Davids' Buddhism, pp. 9, 10.)

[299:2] Compare this with the names, titles, and characters given to Jesus. He is called the "Deliverer," (Acts, vii. 35); the "First Begotten" (Rev. i. 5); "God blessed forever" (Rom. ix. 5); the "Holy One" (Luke, iv. 34; Acts, iii. 14); the "King Everlasting" (Luke, i. 33); "King of Kings" (Rev. xvii. 14); "Lamb of God" (John, i. 29, 36); "Lord of Glory" (I. Cor. ii. 8); "Lord of Lords" (Rev. xvii. 14); "Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev. v. 5); "Maker and Preserver of all things" (John, i. 3, 10; I. Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 16); "Prince of Peace" (Isai. ix. 6); "Redeemer," "Saviour," "Mediator," "Word," &c., &c.

[300:1] Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 41.

[300:2] "He joined to his gifts as a thinker a prophetic ardor and missionary zeal which prompted him to popularize his doctrine, and to preach to all without exception, men and women, high and low, ignorant and learned alike." (Rhys Davids' Buddhism, p. 53.)

[300:3] Bunsen: The Angel-Messiah, p. 45.

[300:4] Ibid. p. 46.

[300:5] "The success of Buddhism was in great part due to the reverence the Buddha inspired by his own personal character. He practiced honestly what he preached enthusiastically. He was sincere, energetic, earnest, self-sacrificing, and devout. Adherents gathered in thousands around the person of the consistent preacher, and the Buddha himself became the real centre of Buddhism." (Williams' Hinduism, p. 102.)

[300:6] "It may be said to be the prevailing religion of the world. Its adherents are estimated at four hundred millions, more than a third of the human race." (Chambers's Encyclo., art. "Buddhism." See also, Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 251.)

[301:1] It should be understood that the Buddha of this chapter, and in fact, the Buddha of this work, is Gautama Buddha, the Sakya Prince. According to Buddhist belief there have been many different Buddhas on earth. The names of twenty-four of the Buddhas who appeared previous to Gautama have been handed down to us. The Buddhavansa or "History of the Buddhas," gives the lives of all the previous Buddhas before commencing the account of Gautama himself. (See Rhys Davids' Buddhism, pp. 179, 180.)

[301:2] "The date usually fixed for Buddha's death is 543 B. C. Whether this precise year for one of the greatest epochs in the religious history of the human race can be accepted is doubtful, but it is tolerably certain that Buddhism arose in Behar and Eastern Hindustan about five centuries B. C.; and that it spread with great rapidity, not by force of arms, or coercion of any kind, like Muhammedanism, but by the sheer persuasiveness of its doctrine." (Monier Williams' Hinduism, p. 72.)

[301:3] "Of the high antiquity of Buddhism there is much collateral as well as direct evidence—evidence that neither internecine nor foreign strife, not even religious persecution, has been able to destroy. . . . Witness the gigantic images in the caves of Elephanta, near Bombay and those of Lingi Sara, in the interior of Java, all of which are known to have been in existence at least four centuries prior to our Lord's advent." (The Mammoth Religion.)

[301:4] Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 250.

[302:1] Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. vi.

[302:2] Ibid. pp. x. and xi.

[302:3] Ibid. pp. vii., ix. and note.

[303:1] Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 50.

[303:2] Quoted by Prof. Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. viii.

[303:3] Rhys Davids' Buddhism, p. 86.

[303:4] Science of Religion, p. 243.

[303:5] Rhys Davids' Buddhism.

[303:6] Ibid. p. 184.

"It is surprising," says Rhys Davids, "that, like Romans worshiping Augustus, or Greeks adding the glow of the sun-myth to the glory of Alexander, the Indians should have formed an ideal of their Chakravarti, and transferred to this new ideal many of the dimly sacred and half understood traits of the Vedic heroes? Is it surprising that the Buddhists should have found it edifying to recognize in their hero the Chakravarti of Righteousness, and that the story of the Buddha should be tinged with the coloring of these Chakravarti myths?" (Ibid. Buddhism, p. 220.)

[303:7] In Chapter xxxix., we shall explain the origin of these myths.

CHAPTER XXX.

According to Christian belief, Jesus instituted this "Sacrament"[305:2]—as it is called—and it was observed by the primitive Christians, as he had enjoined them; but we shall find that this breaking of bread, and drinking of wine,—supposed to be the body and blood of a god[305:3]—is simply another piece of Paganism imbibed by the Christians.

The Eucharist was instituted many hundreds of years before the time assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus. Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome, and one of the most illustrious of her statesmen, born in the year 106 B. C., mentions it in his works, and wonders at the strangeness of the rite. "How can a man be so stupid," says he, "as to imagine that which he eats to be a God?" There had been an esoteric meaning attached to it from the first establishment of the mysteries among the Pagans, and the Eucharistia is one of the oldest rites of antiquity.

The adherents of the Grand Lama in Thibet and Tartary offer to their god a sacrament of bread and wine.[305:4]

P. Andrada La Crozius, a French missionary, and one of the first Christians who went to Nepaul and Thibet, says in his "History of India:"

In certain rites both in the Indian and the Parsee religions, the devotees drink the juice of the Soma, or Haoma plant. They consider it a god as well as a plant, just as the wine of the Christian sacrament is considered both the juice of the grape, and the blood of the Redeemer.[306:2] Says Mr. Baring-Gould:

"Among the ancient Hindoos, Soma was a chief deity; he is called 'the Giver of Life and of health,' the 'Protector,' he who is 'the Guide to Immortality.' He became incarnate among men, was taken by them and slain, and brayed in a mortar. But he rose in flame to heaven, to be the 'Benefactor of the World,' and the 'Mediator between God and Man.' Through communion with him in his sacrifice, man, (who partook of this god), has an assurance of immortality, for by that sacrament he obtains union with his divinity."[306:3]

The ancient Egyptians—as we have seen—annually celebrated the Resurrection of their God and Saviour Osiris, at which time they commemorated his death by the Eucharist, eating the sacred cake, or wafer, after it had been consecrated by the priest, and become veritable flesh of his flesh.[306:4] The bread, after sacerdotal rites, became mystically the body of Osiris, and, in such a manner, they ate their god.[306:5] Bread and wine were brought to the temples by the worshipers, as offerings.[306:6]

The Therapeutes or Essenes, whom we believe to be of Buddhist origin, and who lived in large numbers in Egypt, also had the ceremony of the sacrament among them.[306:7] Most of them, however, being temperate, substituted water for wine, while others drank a mixture of water and wine.

Pythagoras, the celebrated Grecian philosopher, who was born about the year 570 B. C., performed this ceremony of the sacrament.[306:8] He is supposed to have visited Egypt, and there availed himself of all such mysterious lore as the priests could be induced to impart. He and his followers practiced asceticism, and peculiarities of diet and clothing, similar to the Essenes, which has led some scholars to believe that he instituted the order, but this is evidently not the case.

The Kenite "King of Righteousness," Melchizedek, "a priest of the Most High God," brought out BREAD and WINE as a sign or symbol of worship; as the mystic elements of Divine presence. In the visible symbol of bread and wine they worshiped the invisible presence of the Creator of heaven and earth.[307:1]

To account for this, Christian divines have been much puzzled. The Rev. Dr. Milner says, in speaking of this passage:

"It was in offering up a sacrifice of bread and wine, instead of slaughtered animals, that Melchizedek's sacrifice differed from the generality of those in the old law, and that he prefigured the sacrifice which Christ was to institute in the new law from the same elements. No other sense than this can be elicited from the Scripture as to this matter; and accordingly the holy fathers unanimously adhere to this meaning."[307:2]

This style of reasoning is in accord with the TYPE theory concerning the Virgin-born, Crucified and Resurrected Saviours, but it is not altogether satisfactory. If it had been said that the religion of Melchizedek, and the religion of the Persians, were the same, there would be no difficulty in explaining the passage.

Not only were bread and wine brought forth by Melchizedek when he blessed Abraham, but it was offered to God and eaten before him by Jethro and the elders of Israel, and some, at least, of the mourning Israelites broke bread and drank "the cup of consolation," in remembrance of the departed, "to comfort them for the dead."[307:3]

It is in the ancient religion of Persia—the religion of Mithra, the Mediator, the Redeemer and Saviour—that we find the nearest resemblance to the sacrament of the Christians, and from which it was evidently borrowed. Those who were initiated into the mysteries of Mithra, or became members, took the sacrament of bread and wine.[307:4]

"It had its mysterious meetings: its chapels, which bore a strong resemblance to little churches. It forged a very lasting bond of brotherhood between its initiates: it had a Eucharist, a Supper so like the Christian Mysteries, that good Justin Martyr, the Apologist, can find only one explanation of the apparent identity, namely, that Satan, in order to deceive the human race, determined to imitate the Christian ceremonies, and so stole them."[307:5]

"The apostles, in the commentaries written by themselves, which we call Gospels, have delivered down to us how that Jesus thus commanded them: He having taken bread, after he had given thanks,[308:1] said, Do this in commemoration of me; this is my body. And having taken a cup, and returned thanks, he said: This is my blood, and delivered it to them alone. Which thing indeed the evil spirits have taught to be done out of mimicry in the Mysteries and Initiatory rites of Mithra.

"For you either know, or can know, that bread and a cup of water (or wine) are given out, with certain incantations, in the consecration of the person who is being initiated in the Mysteries of Mithra."[308:2]

This food they called the Eucharist, of which no one was allowed to partake but the persons who believed that the things they taught were true, and who had been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sin.[308:3] Tertullian, who flourished from 193 to 220 A. D., also speaks of the Mithraic devotees celebrating the Eucharist.[308:4]

The Eucharist of the Lord and Saviour, as the Magi called Mithra, the second person in their Trinity, or their Eucharistic sacrifice, was always made exactly and in every respect the same as that of the orthodox Christians, for both sometimes used water instead of wine, or a mixture of the two.[308:5]

The Christian Fathers often liken their rites to those of the Therapeuts (Essenes) and worshipers of Mithra. Here is Justin Martyr's account of Christian initiation:

"But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and assented to our teachings, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and the illuminated person. Having ended our prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water. When the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those that are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water."[308:6]

In the service of Edward the Sixth of England, water is directed to be mixed with the wine.[309:1] This is a union of the two; not a half measure, but a double one. If it be correct to take it with wine, then they were right; if with water, they still were right; as they took both, they could not be wrong.

The bread, used in these Pagan Mysteries, was carried in baskets, which practice was also adopted by the Christians. St. Jerome, speaking of it, says:

The Persian Magi introduced the worship of Mithra into Rome, and his mysteries were solemnized in a cave. In the process of initiation there, candidates were also administered the sacrament of bread and wine, and were marked on the forehead with the sign of the cross.[309:3]

The ancient Greeks also had their "Mysteries," wherein they celebrated the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Rev. Robert Taylor, speaking of this, says:

"The Eleusinian Mysteries, or, Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, was the most august of all the Pagan ceremonies celebrated, more especially by the Athenians, every fifth year,[309:4] in honor of Ceres, the goddess of corn, who, in allegorical language, had given us her flesh to eat; as Bacchus, the god of wine, in like sense, had given us his blood to drink. . . .

"From these ceremonies is derived the very name attached to our Christian sacrament of the Lord's Supper,—'those holy Mysteries;'—and not one or two, but absolutely all and every one of the observances used in our Christian solemnity. Very many of our forms of expression in that solemnity are precisely the same as those that appertained to the Pagan rite."[309:5]

Prodicus (a Greek sophist of the 5th century B. C.) says that, the ancients worshiped bread as Demeter (Ceres) and wine as Dionysos (Bacchus);[309:6] therefore, when they ate the bread, and drank the wine, after it had been consecrated, they were doing as the Romanists claim to do at the present day, i. e., eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god.[309:7]

"The profound respect that was paid to the Greek and Roman Mysteries, and the extraordinary sanctity that was attributed to them, induced the Christians of the second century, to give their religion a mystic air, in order to put it upon an equal footing in point of dignity, with that of the Pagans. For this purpose they gave the name of Mysteries to the institutions of the Gospels, and decorated particularly the 'Holy Sacrament' with that title; they used the very terms employed in the Heathen Mysteries, and adopted some of the rites and ceremonies of which those renowned mysteries consisted. This imitation began in the eastern provinces; but, after the time of Adrian, who first introduced the mysteries among the Latins, it was followed by the Christians who dwelt in the western part of the empire. A great part, therefore, of the service of the Church in this—the second—century, had a certain air of the Heathen Mysteries, and resembled them considerably in many particulars."[310:1]

These Eleusinian Mysteries were accompanied with various rites, expressive of the purity and self-denial of the worshiper, and were therefore considered to be an expiation of past sins, and to place the initiated under the special protection of the awful and potent goddess who presided over them.[310:8]

These mysteries were, as we have said, also celebrated in honor of Bacchus as well as Ceres. A consecrated cup of wine was handed around after supper, called the "Cup of the Agathodaemon"—the Good Divinity.[311:1] Throughout the whole ceremony, the name of the Lord was many times repeated, and his brightness or glory not only exhibited to the eye by the rays which surrounded his name (or his monogram, I. H. S.), but was made the peculiar theme or subject of their triumphant exultation.[311:2]

The mystical wine and bread were used during the Mysteries of Adonis, the Lord and Saviour.[311:3] In fact, the communion of bread and wine was used in the worship of nearly every important deity.[311:4]

The rites of Bacchus were celebrated in the British Islands in heathen times,[311:5] and so were those of Mithra, which were spread over Gaul and Great Britain.[311:6] We therefore find that the ancient Druids offered the sacrament of bread and wine, during which ceremony they were dressed in white robes,[311:7] just as the Egyptian priests of Isis were in the habit of dressing, and as the priests of many Christian sects dress at the present day.

Among some negro tribes in Africa there is a belief that "on eating and drinking consecrated food they eat and drink the god himself."[311:8]

The ancient Mexicans celebrated the mysterious sacrament of the Eucharist, called the "most holy supper," during which they ate the flesh of their god. The bread used at their Eucharist was made of corn meal, which they mixed with blood, instead of wine. This was consecrated by the priest, and given to the people, who ate it with humility and penitence, as the flesh of their god.[311:9]

Lord Kingsborough, in his "Mexican Antiquities," speaks of the ancient Mexicans as performing this sacrament; when they made a cake, which they called Tzoalia. The high priest blessed it in his manner, after which he broke it into pieces, and put it into certain very clean vessels. He then took a thorn of maguery, which resembles a thick needle, with which he took up with the utmost reverence single morsels, which he put into the mouth of each individual, after the manner of a communion.[311:10]

The writer of the "Explanation of Plates of the Codex Vaticanus,"—which are copies of Mexican hieroglyphics—says:

1. "But as the benefit of Initiation was great, such as were convicted of witchcraft, murder, even though unintentional, or any other heinous crimes, were debarred from those mysteries."[310:2]		1. "For as the benefit is great, if, with a true penitent heart and lively faith, we receive that holy sacrament, &c., if any be an open and notorious evil-liver, or hath done wrong to his neighbor, &c., that he presume not to come to the Lord's table."[310:3]
2. "At their entrance, purifying themselves, by washing their hands in holy water, they were at the same time admonished to present themselves with pure minds, without which the external cleanness of the body would by no means be accepted."[310:4]		2. See the fonts of holy water at the entrance of every Catholic chapel in Christendom for the same purpose. "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."[310:5]
3. "The priests who officiated in these sacred solemnities, were called Hierophants, or 'revealers of holy things.'"[310:6]		3. The priests who officiate at these Christian solemnities are supposed to be 'revealers of holy things.'
4. The Pagan Priest dismissed their congregation with these words: "The Lord be with you."[310:7]		4. The Christian priests dismiss their congregation with these words: "The Lord be with you."

CHAPTER XXX.

THE EUCHARIST OR LORD'S SUPPER.