|
16. "Who, then, has caused that this star lights the day, warms
man at
his work and vivifies the seeds sown in the ground?"
17. "The
eternal Spirit is the soul of everything animate, and you
commit a great sin
in dividing Him into the Spirit of Evil and the
Spirit of Good, for there is
no God other than the God of Good.
18. "And He, like to the father of a
family, does only good to His
children, to whom He forgives their
transgressions if they repent of
them.
19. "And the Spirit of Evil
dwells upon earth, in the hearts of those
who turn the children of God away
from the right path.
20. "Therefore, I say unto you; Fear the day of
judgment, for God will
inflict a terrible chastisement upon all those who
have led His
children astray and beguiled them with superstitions and
errors;
21. "Upon those who have blinded them who saw; who have
brought
contagion to the well; who have taught the worship of those things
which
God made to be subject to man, or to aid him in his works.
22.
"Your doctrine is the fruit of your error in seeking to bring near
to you the
God of Truth, by creating for yourselves false gods."
23. When the Magi
heard these words, they feared to themselves do him
harm, but at night, when
the whole city slept, they brought him outside
the walls and left him on the
highway, in the hope that he would not
fail to become the prey of wild
beasts.
24. But, protected by the Lord our God, Saint Issa continued on
his way,
without accident.
IX.
1. Issa--whom the Creator
had selected to recall to the worship of the
true God, men sunk in sin--was
twenty-nine years old when he arrived in
the land of Israel.
2. Since
the departure therefrom of Issa, the Pagans had caused the
Israelites to
endure more atrocious sufferings than before, and they
were filled with
despair.
3. Many among them had begun to neglect the laws of their God
and those
of Mossa, in the hope of winning the favor of their brutal
conquerors.
4. But Issa, notwithstanding their unhappy condition,
exhorted his
countrymen not to despair, because the day of their redemption
from the
yoke of sin was near, and he himself, by his example, confirmed
their
faith in the God of their fathers.
5. "Children, yield not
yourselves to despair," said the celestial
Father to them, through the mouth
of Issa, "for I have heard your
lamentations, and your cries have reached my
ears.
6. "Weep not, oh, my beloved sons! for your griefs have touched
the
heart of your Father and He has forgiven you, as He forgave
your
ancestors.
7. "Forsake not your families to plunge into
debauchery; stain not the
nobility of your souls; adore not idols which
cannot but remain deaf to
your supplications.
8. "Fill my temple with
your hope and your patience, and do not adjure
the religion of your
forefathers, for I have guided them and bestowed
upon them of my
beneficence.
9. "Lift up those who are fallen; feed the hungry and help
the sick,
that ye may be altogether pure and just in the day of the last
judgment
which I prepare for you."
10. The Israelites came in
multitudes to listen to Issa's words; and
they asked him where they should
thank their Heavenly Father, since
their enemies had demolished their temples
and robbed them of their
sacred vessels.
11. Issa told them that God
cared not for temples erected by human
hands, but that human hearts were the
true temples of God.
12. "Enter into your temple, into your heart;
illuminate it with good
thoughts, with patience and the unshakeable faith
which you owe to your
Father.
13. "And your sacred vessels! they are
your hands and your eyes. Look to
do that which is agreeable to God, for in
doing good to your fellow men,
you perform a ceremony that embellishes the
temple wherein abideth Him
who has created you.
14. "For God has
created you in His own image, innocent, with pure
souls, and hearts filled
with kindness and not made for the planning of
evil, but to be the
sanctuaries of love and justice.
15. "Therefore, I say unto you, soil not
your hearts with evil, for in
them the eternal Being abides.
16. "When
ye do works of devotion and love, let them be with full
hearts, and see that
the motives of your actions be not hopes of gain or
self-interest;
17.
"For actions, so impelled, will not bring you nearer to salvation,
but lead
to a state of moral degradation wherein theft, lying and murder
pass for
generous deeds."
X.
1. Issa went from one city to another,
strengthening by the word of God
the courage of the Israelites, who were near
to succumbing under their
weight of woe, and thousands of the people followed
him to hear his
teachings.
2. But the chiefs of the cities were afraid
of him and they informed the
principal governor, residing in Jerusalem, that
a man called Issa had
arrived in the country, who by his sermons had arrayed
the people
against the authorities, and that multitudes, listening
assiduously to
him, neglected their labor; and, they added, he said that in a
short
time they would be free of their invader rulers.
3. Then Pilate,
the Governor of Jerusalem, gave orders that they should
lay hold of the
preacher Issa and bring him before the judges. In order,
however, not to
excite the anger of the populace, Pilate directed that
he should be judged by
the priests and scribes, the Hebrew elders, in
their temple.
4.
Meanwhile, Issa, continuing his preaching, arrived at Jerusalem, and
the
people, who already knew his fame, having learned of his coming,
went out to
meet him.
5. They greeted him respectfully and opened to him the doors of
their
temple, to hear from his mouth what he had said in other cities
of
Israel.
6. And Issa said to them: "The human race perishes, because
of the lack
of faith; for the darkness and the tempest have caused the flock
to go
astray and they have lost their shepherds.
7. "But the tempests
do not rage forever and the darkness will not hide
the light eternally; soon
the sky will become serene, the celestial
light will again overspread the
earth, and the strayed flock will
reunite around their shepherd.
8.
"Wander not in the darkness, seeking the way, lest ye fall into the
ditch;
but gather together, sustain one another, put your faith in your
God and wait
for the first glimmer of light to reappear.
9. "He who sustains his
neighbor, sustains himself; and he who protects
his family, protects all his
people and his country.
10. "For, be assured that the day is near when
you will be delivered
from the darkness; you will be reunited into one family
and your enemy
will tremble with fear, he who is ignorant of the favor of the
great
God."
11. The priests and the elders who heard him, filled with
admiration for
his language, asked him if it was true that he had sought to
raise the
people against the authorities of the country, as had been reported
to
the governor Pilate.
12. "Can one raise against estrayed men, to
whom darkness has hidden
their road and their door?" answered Issa. "I have
but forewarned the
unhappy, as I do here in this temple, that they should no
longer advance
on the dark road, for an abyss opens before their
feet.
13. "The power of this earth is not of long duration and is subject
to
numberless changes. It would be of no avail for a man to rise
in
revolution against it, for one phase of it always succeeds another,
and
it is thus that it will go on until the extinction of human
life.
14. "But do you not see that the powerful, and the rich, sow among
the
children of Israel a spirit of rebellion against the eternal power
of
Heaven?"
15. Then the elders asked him: "Who art thou, and from
what country hast
thou come to us? We have not formerly heard thee spoken of
and do not
even know thy name!"
16. "I am an Israelite," answered
Issa; "and on the day of my birth have
seen the walls of Jerusalem, and have
heard the sobs of my brothers
reduced to slavery, and the lamentations of my
sisters carried away by
the Pagans;
17. "And my soul was afflicted
when I saw that my brethren had forgotten
the true God. When a child I left
my father's house to go and settle
among other people.
18. "But,
having heard it said that my brethren suffered even greater
miseries now, I
have come back to the land of my fathers, to recall my
brethren to the faith
of their ancestors, which teaches us patience upon
earth in order to attain
the perfect and supreme bliss above."
19. Then the wise old men put to
him again this question: "We are told
that thou disownest the laws of Mossa,
and that thou teachest the people
to forsake the temple of God?"
20.
Whereupon Issa: "One does not demolish that which has been given by
our
Heavenly Father, and which has been destroyed by sinners. I have but
enjoined
the people to purify the heart of all stains, for it is the
veritable temple
of God.
21. "As regards the laws of Mossa, I have endeavored to
reestablish them
in the hearts of men; and I say unto you that ye ignore
their true
meaning, for it is not vengeance but pardon which they teach.
Their
sense has been perverted."
XI.
1. When the priests
and the elders heard Issa, they decided among
themselves not to give judgment
against him, for he had done no harm to
any one, and, presenting themselves
before Pilate--who was made Governor
of Jerusalem by the Pagan king of the
country of Romeles--they spake to
him thus:
2. "We have seen the man
whom thou chargest with inciting our people to
revolt; we have heard his
discourses and know that he is our countryman;
3. "But the chiefs of the
cities have made to you false reports, for he
is a just man, who teaches the
people the word of God. After
interrogating him, we have allowed him to go in
peace."
4. The governor thereupon became very angry, and sent his
disguised
spies to keep watch upon Issa and report to the authorities the
least
word he addressed to the people.
5. In the meantime, the holy
Issa continued to visit the neighboring
cities and preach the true way of the
Lord, enjoining the Hebrews'
patience and promising them speedy
deliverance.
6. And all the time great numbers of the people followed him
wherever he
went, and many did not leave him at all, but attached themselves
to him
and served him.
7. And Issa said: "Put not your faith in
miracles performed by the hands
of men, for He who rules nature is alone
capable of doing supernatural
things, while man is impotent to arrest the
wrath of the winds or cause
the rain to fall.
8. "One miracle,
however, is within the power of man to accomplish. It
is, when his heart is
filled with sincere faith, he resolves to root out
from his mind all evil
promptings and desires, and when, in order to
attain this end, he ceases to
walk the path of iniquity.
9. "All the things done without God are only
gross errors, illusions and
seductions, serving but to show how much the
heart of the doer is full
of presumption, falsehood and impurity.
10.
"Put not your faith in oracles. God alone knows the future. He who
has
recourse to the diviners soils the temple of his heart and shows his
lack of
faith in his Creator.
11. "Belief in the diviners and their miracles
destroys the innate
simplicity of man and his childlike purity. An infernal
power takes hold
of him who so errs, and forces him to commit various sins
and give
himself to the worship of idols.
12. "But the Lord our God,
to whom none can be equalled, is one
omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent;
He alone possesses all wisdom
and all light.
13. "To Him ye must
address yourselves, to be comforted in your
afflictions, aided in your works,
healed in your sickness and whoso asks
of Him, shall not ask in
vain.
14. "The secrets of nature are in the hands of God, for the whole
world,
before it was made manifest, existed in the bosom of the divine
thought,
and has become material and visible by the will of the Most
High.
15. "When ye pray to him, become again like little children, for ye
know
neither the past, nor the present, nor the future, and God is the
Lord
of Time."
XII.
1. "Just man," said to him the
disguised spies of the Governor of
Jerusalem, "tell us if we must continue to
do the will of Cæsar, or
expect our near deliverance?"
2. And Issa,
who recognized the questioners as the apostate spies sent
to follow him,
replied to them: "I have not told you that you would be
delivered from Cæsar;
it is the soul sunk in error which will gain its
deliverance.
3.
"There cannot be a family without a head, and there cannot be order
in a
people without a Cæsar, whom ye should implicitly obey, as he will
be held to
answer for his acts before the Supreme Tribunal."
4. "Does Cæsar possess
a divine right?" the spies asked him again; "and
is he the best of
mortals?"
5. "There is no one 'the best' among human beings; but there
are many
bad, who--even as the sick need physicians--require the care of
those
chosen for that mission, in which must be used the means given by
the
sacred law of our Heavenly Father;
6. "Mercy and justice are the
high prerogatives of Cæsar, and his name
will be illustrious if he exercises
them.
7. "But he who acts otherwise, who transcends the limits of power
he has
over those under his rule, and even goes so far as to put their lives
in
danger, offends the great Judge and derogates from his own dignity
in
the eyes of men."
8. Upon this, an old woman who had approached the
group, to better hear
Issa, was pushed aside by one of the disguised men, who
placed himself
before her.
9. Then said Issa: "It is not good for a
son to push away his mother,
that he may occupy the place which belongs to
her. Whoso doth not
respect his mother--the most sacred being after his
God--is unworthy of
the name of son.
10. "Hearken to what I say to
you: Respect woman; for in her we see the
mother of the universe, and all the
truth of divine creation is to come
through her.
11. "She is the fount
of everything good and beautiful, as she is also
the germ of life and death.
Upon her man depends in all his existence,
for she is his moral and natural
support in his labors.
12. "In pain and suffering she brings you forth;
in the sweat of her
brow she watches over your growth, and until her death
you cause her
greatest anxieties. Bless her and adore her, for she is your
only friend
and support on earth.
13. "Respect her; defend her. In so
doing you will gain for yourself her
love; you will find favor before God,
and for her sake many sins will be
remitted to you.
14. "Love your
wives and respect them, for they will be the mothers of
tomorrow and later
the grandmothers of a whole nation.
15. "Be submissive to the wife; her
love ennobles man, softens his
hardened heart, tames the wild beast in him
and changes it to a lamb.
16. "Wife and mother are the priceless
treasures which God has given to
you. They are the most beautiful ornaments
of the universe, and from
them will be born all who will inhabit the
world.
17. "Even as the Lord of Hosts separated the light from the
darkness,
and the dry land from the waters, so does woman possess the divine
gift
of calling forth out of man's evil nature all the good that is in
him.
18. "Therefore I say unto you, after God, to woman must belong your
best
thoughts, for she is the divine temple where you will most easily
obtain
perfect happiness.
19. "Draw from this temple your moral force.
There you will forget your
sorrows and your failures, and recover the love
necessary to aid your
fellow men.
20. "Suffer her not to be
humiliated, for by humiliating her you
humiliate yourselves, and lose the
sentiment of love, without which
nothing can exist here on earth.
21.
"Protect your wife, that she may protect you--you and all your
household. All
that you do for your mothers, your wives, for a widow,
or for any other woman
in distress, you will do for your God."
XIII.
1. Thus Saint
Issa taught the people of Israel for three years, in every
city and every
village, on the highways and in the fields, and all he
said came to
pass.
2. All this time the disguised spies of the governor Pilate
observed him
closely, but heard nothing to sustain the accusations formerly
made
against Issa by the chiefs of the cities.
3. But Saint Issa's
growing popularity did not allow Pilate to rest. He
feared that Issa would be
instrumental in bringing about a revolution
culminating in his elevation to
the sovereignty, and, therefore, ordered
the spies to make charges against
him.
4. Then soldiers were sent to arrest him, and they cast him into
a
subterranean dungeon, where he was subjected to all kinds of
tortures,
to compel him to accuse himself, so that he might be put to
death.
5. The Saint, thinking only of the perfect bliss of his
brethren,
endured all those torments with resignation to the will of the
Creator.
6. The servants of Pilate continued to torture him, and he was
reduced
to a state of extreme weakness; but God was with him and did not
permit
him to die at their hands.
7. When the principal priests and
wise elders learned of the sufferings
which their Saint endured, they went to
Pilate, begging him to liberate
Issa, so that he might attend the great
festival which was near at hand.
8. But this the governor refused. Then
they asked him that Issa should
be brought before the elders' council, so
that he might be condemned,
or acquitted, before the festival, and to this
Pilate agreed.
9. On the following day the governor assembled the
principal chiefs,
priests, elders and judges, for the purpose of judging
Issa.
10. The Saint was brought from his prison. They made him sit before
the
governor, between two robbers, who were to be judged at the same
time
with Issa, so as to show the people he was not the only one to
be
condemned.
11. And Pilate, addressing himself to Issa, said, "Is it
true, Oh! Man;
that thou incitest the populace against the authorities, with
the
purpose of thyself becoming King of Israel?"
12. Issa replied,
"One does not become king by one's own purpose
thereto. They have told you an
untruth when you were informed that I was
inciting the people to revolution.
I have only preached of the King of
Heaven, and it was Him whom I told the
people to worship.
13. "For the sons of Israel have lost their original
innocence and
unless they return to worship the true God they will be
sacrificed and
their temple will fall in ruins.
14. "The worldly power
upholds order in the land; I told them not to
forget this. I said to them,
'Live in conformity with your situation and
refrain from disturbing public
order;' and, at the same time, I exhorted
them to remember that disorder
reigned in their own hearts and spirits.
15. "Therefore, the King of
Heaven has punished them, and has destroyed
their nationality and taken from
them their national kings, 'but,' I
added, 'if you will be resigned to your
fate, as a reward the Kingdom of
Heaven will be yours.'"
16. At this
moment the witnesses were introduced; one of whom deposed
thus: "Thou hast
said to the people that in comparison with the power of
the king who would
soon liberate the Israelites from the yoke of the
heathen, the worldly
authorities amounted to nothing."
17. "Blessings upon thee!" said Issa.
"For thou hast spoken the truth!
The King of Heaven is greater and more
powerful than the laws of man and
His kingdom surpasses the kingdoms of this
earth.
18. "And the time is not far off, when Israel, obedient to the
will of
God, will throw off its yoke of sin; for it has been written that
a
forerunner would appear to announce the deliverance of the people,
and
that he would reunite them in one family."
19. Thereupon the
governor said to the judges: "Have you heard this? The
Israelite Issa
acknowledges the crime of which he is accused. Judge him,
then, according to
your laws and pass upon him condemnation to death."
20. "We cannot
condemn him," replied the priests and the ancients. "As
thou hast heard, he
spoke of the King of Heaven, and he has preached
nothing which constitutes
insubordination against the law."
21. Thereupon the governor called a
witness who had been bribed by his
master, Pilate, to betray Issa, and this
man said to Issa: "Is it not
true that thou hast represented thyself as a
King of Israel, when thou
didst say that He who reigns in Heaven sent thee to
prepare His people?"
22. But Issa blessed the man and answered: "Thou
wilt find mercy, for
what thou hast said did not come out from thine own
heart." Then,
turning to the governor he said: "Why dost thou lower thy
dignity and
teach thy inferiors to tell falsehood, when, without doing so, it
is in
thy power to condemn an innocent man?"
23. When Pilate heard his
words, he became greatly enraged and ordered
that Issa be condemned to death,
and that the two robbers should be
declared guiltless.
24. The judges,
after consulting among themselves, said to Pilate: "We
cannot consent to take
this great sin upon us,--to condemn an innocent
man and liberate malefactors.
It would be against our laws.
25. "Act thyself, then, as thou seest fit."
Thereupon the priests and
elders walked out, and washed their hands in a
sacred vessel, and said:
"We are innocent of the blood of this righteous
man."
XIV.
1. By order of the governor, the soldiers seized
Issa and the two
robbers, and led them to the place of execution, where they
were nailed
upon the crosses erected for them.
2. All day long the
bodies of Issa and the two robbers hung upon the
crosses, bleeding, guarded
by the soldiers. The people stood all around
and the relatives of the
executed prayed and wept.
3. When the sun went down, Issa's tortures
ended. He lost consciousness
and his soul disengaged itself from the body, to
reunite with God.
4. Thus ended the terrestrial existence of the
reflection of the eternal
Spirit under the form of a man who had saved
hardened sinners and
comforted the afflicted.
5. Meanwhile, Pilate was
afraid for what he had done, and ordered the
body of the Saint to be given to
his relatives, who put it in a tomb
near to the place of execution. Great
numbers of persons came to visit
the tomb, and the air was filled with their
wailings and lamentations.
6. Three days later, the governor sent his
soldiers to remove Issa's
body and bury it in some other place, for he feared
a rebellion among
the people.
7. The next day, when the people came to
the tomb, they found it open
and empty, the body of Issa being gone.
Thereupon, the rumor spread that
the Supreme Judge had sent His angels from
Heaven, to remove the mortal
remains of the saint in whom part of the divine
Spirit had lived on
earth.
8. When Pilate learned of this rumor, he
grew angry and prohibited,
under penalty of death, the naming of Issa, or
praying for him to the
Lord.
9. But the people, nevertheless,
continued to weep over Issa's death and
to glorify their master; wherefore,
many were carried into captivity,
subjected to torture and put to
death.
10. And the disciples of Saint Issa departed from the land of
Israel and
went in all directions, to the heathen, preaching that they
should
abandon their gross errors, think of the salvation of their souls
and
earn the perfect bliss which awaits human beings in the
immaterial
world, full of glory, where the great Creator abides in all
his
immaculate and perfect majesty.
11. The heathen, their kings, and
their warriors, listened to the
preachers, abandoned their erroneous beliefs
and forsook their priests
and their idols, to celebrate the praises of the
most wise Creator of
the Universe, the King of Kings, whose heart is filled
with infinite
mercy.
_Resume_
In reading the
account of the life of Issa (Jesus Christ), one is
struck, on the one hand by
the resemblance of certain principal passages
to accounts in the Old and New
Testaments; and, on the other, by the not
less remarkable contradictions
which occasionally occur between the
Buddhistic version and Hebraic and
Christian records.
To explain this, it is necessary to remember the
epochs when the facts
were consigned to writing.
We have been taught,
from our childhood, that the Pentateuch was written
by Moses himself, but the
careful researches of modern scholars have
demonstrated conclusively, that at
the time of Moses, and even much
later, there existed in the country bathed
by the Mediterranean, no
other writing than the hieroglyphics in Egypt and
the cuniform
inscriptions, found nowadays in the excavations of Babylon. We
know,
however, that the alphabet and parchment were known in China and
India
long before Moses.
Let me cite a few proofs of this statement.
We learn from the sacred
books of "the religion of the wise" that the
alphabet was invented in
China in 2800 by Fou-si, who was the first emperor
of China to embrace
this religion, the ritual and exterior forms of which he
himself
arranged. Yao, the fourth of the Chinese emperors, who is said to
have
belonged to this faith, published moral and civil laws, and, in
2228,
compiled a penal code. The fifth emperor, Soune, proclaimed in the
year
of his accession to the throne that "the religion of the wise"
should
thenceforth be the recognized religion of the State, and, in
2282,
compiled new penal laws. His laws, modified by the
Emperor
Vou-vange,--founder of the dynasty of the Tcheou in 1122,--are those
in
existence today, and known under the name of "Changements."
We also
know that the doctrine of the Buddha Fo, whose true name was
Sakya-Muni was
written upon parchment. Foism began to spread in China
about 260 years before
Jesus Christ. In 206, an emperor of the Tsine
dynasty, who was anxious to
learn Buddhism, sent to India for a Buddhist
by the name of Silifan, and the
Emperor Ming-Ti, of the Hagne dynasty,
sent, a year before Christ's birth, to
India for the sacred books
written by the Buddha Sakya-Muni--the founder of
the Buddhistic
doctrine, who lived about 1200 before Christ.
The
doctrine of the Buddha Gauthama or Gothama, who lived 600 years
before Jesus
Christ, was written in the Pali language upon parchment. At
that epoch there
existed already in India about 84,000 Buddhistic
manuscripts, the compilation
of which required a considerable number of
years.
At the time when the
Chinese and the Hindus possessed already a very
rich written literature, the
less fortunate or more ignorant peoples who
had no alphabet, transmitted
their histories from mouth to mouth, and
from generation to generation. Owing
to the unreliability of human
memory, historical facts, embellished by
Oriental imagination, soon
degenerated into fabulous legends, which, in the
course of time, were
collected, and by the unknown compilers entitled "The
Five Books of
Moses." As these legends ascribe to the Hebrew legislator
extraordinary
divine powers which enabled him to perform miracles in the
presence of
Pharaoh, the claim that he was an Israelite may as well have
been
legendary rather than historical.
The Hindu chroniclers, on the
contrary, owing to their knowledge of an
alphabet, were enabled to commit
carefully to writing, not mere legends,
but the recitals of recently occurred
facts within their own knowledge,
or the accounts brought to them by
merchants who came from foreign
countries.
It must be remembered, in
this connection, that--in antiquity as in our
own days--the whole public life
of the Orient was concentrated in the
bazaars. There the news of foreign
events was brought by the
merchant-caravans and sought by the dervishes, who
found, in their
recitals in the temples and public places, a means of
subsistence. When
the merchants returned home from a journey, they generally
related fully
during the first days after their arrival, all they had seen or
heard
abroad. Such have been the customs of the Orient, from time
immemorial,
and are today.
The commerce of India with Egypt and,
later, with Europe, was carried on
by way of Jerusalem, where, as far back as
the time of King Solomon, the
Hindu caravans brought precious metals and
other materials for the
construction of the temple. From Europe, merchandise
was brought to
Jerusalem by sea, and there unloaded in a port, which is now
occupied by
the city of Jaffa. The chronicles in question were compiled
before,
during and after the time of Jesus Christ.
During his sojourn
in India, in the quality of a simple student come to
learn the Brahminical
and Buddhistic laws, no special attention whatever
was paid to his life.
When, however, a little later, the first accounts
of the events in Israel
reached India, the chroniclers, after committing
to writing that which they
were told about the prophet, Issa,--_viz._,
that he had for his following a
whole people, weary of the yoke of their
masters, and that he was crucified
by order of Pilate, remembered that
this same Issa had only recently
sojourned in their midst, and that, an
Israelite by birth, he had come to
study among them, after which he had
returned to his country. They conceived
a lively interest for the man
who had grown so rapidly under their eyes, and
began to investigate his
birth, his past and all the details concerning his
existence.
The two manuscripts, from which the lama of the convent Himis
read to me
all that had a bearing upon Jesus, are compilations from divers
copies
written in the Thibetan language, translations of scrolls belonging
to
the library of Lhassa and brought, about two hundred years after
Christ,
from India, Nepaul and Maghada, to a convent on Mount Marbour, near
the
city of Lhassa, now the residence of the Dalai-Lama.
These scrolls
were written in Pali, which certain lamas study even now,
so as to be able to
translate it into the Thibetan.
The chroniclers were Buddhists belonging
to the sect of the Buddha
Gothama.
The details concerning Jesus, given
in the chronicles, are disconnected
and mingled with accounts of other
contemporaneous events to which they
bear no relation.
The manuscripts
relate to us, first of all,--according to the accounts
given by merchants
arriving from Judea in the same year when the death
of Jesus occurred--that a
just man by the name of Issa, an Israelite,
in spite of his being acquitted
twice by the judges as being a man of
God, was nevertheless put to death by
the order of the Pagan governor,
Pilate, who feared that he might take
advantage of his great popularity
to reestablish the kingdom of Israel and
expel from the country its
conquerors.
Then follow rather incoherent
communications regarding the preachings of
Jesus among the Guebers and other
heathens. They seem to have been
written during the first years following the
death of Jesus, in whose
career a lively and growing interest is
shown.
One of these accounts, communicated by a merchant, refers to the
origin
of Jesus and his family; another tells of the expulsion of his
partisans
and the persecutions they had to suffer.
Only at the end of
the second volume is found the first categorical
affirmation of the
chronicler. He says there that Issa was a man blessed
by God and the best of
all; that it was he in whom the great Brahma had
elected to incarnate when,
at a period fixed by destiny, his spirit was
required to, for a time,
separate from the Supreme Being.
After telling that Issa descended from
poor Israelite parents, the
chronicler makes a little digression, for the
purpose of explaining,
according to ancient accounts, who were those sons of
Israel.
I have arranged all the fragments concerning the life of Issa
in
chronological order and have taken pains to impress upon them
the
character of unity, in which they were absolutely lacking.
I leave
it to the _savans_, the philosophers and the theologians to
search into the
causes for the contradictions which may be found between
the "Life of Issa"
which I lay before the public and the accounts of the
Gospels. But I trust
that everybody will agree with me in assuming that
the version which I
present to the public, one compiled three or four
years after the death of
Jesus, from the accounts of eyewitnesses and
contemporaries, has much more
probability of being in conformity with
truth than the accounts of the
Gospels, the composition of which was
effected at different epochs and at
periods much posterior to the
occurrence of the events.
Before
speaking of the life of Jesus, I must say a few words on the
history of
Moses, who, according to the so-far most accredited legend,
was an Israelite.
In this respect the legend is contradicted by the
Buddhists. We learn from
the outset that Moses was an Egyptian prince,
the son of a Pharaoh, and that
he only was taught by learned Israelites.
I believe that if this important
point is carefully examined, it must be
admitted that the Buddhist author may
be right.
It is not my intent to argue against the Biblical legend
concerning the
origin of Moses, but I think everyone reading it must share
my
conviction that Moses could not have been a simple Israelite.
His
education was rather that of a king's son, and it is difficult
to
believe that a child introduced by chance into the palace should
have
been made an equal with the son of the sovereign. The rigor with
which
the Egyptians treated their slaves by no means attests the mildness
of
their character. A foundling certainly would not have been made
the
companion of the sons of a Pharaoh, but would be placed among
his
servants. Add to this the caste spirit so strictly observed in
ancient
Egypt, a most salient point, which is certainly calculated to
raise
doubts as to the truth of the Scriptural story.
And it is
difficult to suppose that Moses had not received a complete
education. How
otherwise could his great legislative work, his broad
views, his high
administrative qualities be satisfactorily explained?
And now comes
another question: Why should he, a prince, have attached
himself to the
Israelites? The answer seems to me very simple. It is
known that in ancient,
as well as in modern times, discussions were
often raised as to which of two
brothers should succeed to the father's
throne. Why not admit this
hypothesis, _viz._, that Mossa, or Moses,
having an elder brother whose
existence forbade him to think of
occupying the throne of Egypt, contemplated
founding a distinct kingdom.
It might very well be that, in view of this
end, he tried to attach
himself to the Israelites, whose firmness of faith as
well as physical
strength he had occasion to admire. We know, indeed, that
the Israelites
of Egypt had no resemblance whatever to their descendants as
regards
physical constitution. The granite blocks which were handled by them
in
building the palaces and pyramids are still in place to testify to
this
fact. In the same way I explain to myself the history of the
miracles
which he is said to have performed before Pharaoh.
Although
there are no definite arguments for denying the miracles which
Moses might
have performed in the name of God before Pharaoh, I think it
is not difficult
to realize that the Buddhistic statement sounds more
probable than the
Scriptural gloss. The pestilence, the smallpox or the
cholera must, indeed,
have caused enormous ravages among the dense
population of Egypt, at an epoch
when there existed yet but very
rudimentary ideas about hygiene and where,
consequently, such diseases
must have rapidly assumed frightful
virulence.
In view of Pharaoh's fright at the disasters which befell
Egypt, Moses'
keen wit might well have suggested to him to explain the
strange and
terrifying occurrences, to his father, by the intervention of the
God of
Israel in behalf of his chosen people.
Moses was here afforded
an excellent opportunity to deliver the
Israelites from their slavery and
have them pass under his own
domination.
In obedience to Pharaoh's
will--according to the Buddhistic
version--Moses led the Israelites outside
the walls of the city; but,
instead of building a new city within reach of
the capital, as he was
ordered, he left with them the Egyptian territory.
Pharaoh's indignation
on learning of this infringement of his commands by
Moses, can easily be
imagined. And so he gave the order to his soldiers to
pursue the
fugitives. The geographical disposition of the region suggests at
once
that Moses during his flight must have moved by the side of
the
mountains and entered Arabia by the way over the Isthmus which is
now
cut by the Suez Canal.
Pharaoh, on the contrary, pursued, with his
troops, a straight line to
the Red Sea; then, in order to overtake the
Israelites, who had already
gained the opposite shore, he sought to take
advantage of the ebb of the
sea in the Gulf, which is formed by the coast and
the Isthmus, and
caused his soldiers to wade through the ford. But the length
of the
passage proved much greater than he had expected; so that the flood
tide
set in when the Egyptian host was halfway across, and, of the army
thus
overwhelmed by the returning waves, none escaped death.
This
fact, so simple in itself, has in the course of the centuries
been
transformed by the Israelites into a religious legend, they seeing in
it
a divine intervention in their behalf and a punishment which their
God
inflicted on their persecutors. There is, moreover, reason to
believe
that Moses himself saw the occurrence in this light. This, however,
is a
thesis which I shall try to develop in a forthcoming work.
The
Buddhistic chronicle then describes the grandeur and the downfall of
the
kingdom of Israel, and its conquest by the foreign nations who
reduced the
inhabitants to slavery.
The calamities which befell the Israelites, and
the afflictions that
thenceforth embittered their days were, according to the
chronicler,
more than sufficient reasons that God, pitying his people and
desirous
of coming to their aid, should descend on earth in the person of
a
prophet, in order to lead them back to the path of
righteousness.
Thus the state of things in that epoch justified the
belief that the
coming of Jesus was signalized, imminent,
necessary.
This explains why the Buddhistic traditions could maintain
that the
eternal Spirit separated from the eternal Being and incarnated in
the
child of a pious and once illustrious family.
Doubtless the
Buddhists, in common with the Evangelists, meant to convey
by this that the
child belonged to the royal house of David; but the
text in the Gospels,
according to which "the child was born from the
Holy Spirit," admits of two
interpretations, while according to Buddha's
doctrine, which is more in
conformity with the laws of nature, the
spirit has but incarnated in a child
already born, whom God blessed and
chose for the accomplishment of His
mission on earth.
The birth of Jesus is followed by a long gap in the
traditions of the
Evangelists, who either from ignorance or neglect, fail to
tell us
anything definite about his childhood, youth or education. They
commence
the history of Jesus with his first sermon, _i.e._, at the epoch,
when
thirty years of age, he returns to his country.
All the
Evangelists tell us concerning the infancy of Jesus is marked by
the lack of
precision: "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,
filled with
wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him," says one of the
sacred authors
(Luke 2, 40), and another: "And the child grew, and waxed
strong in spirit,
and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel." (Luke 1, 80.) |
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