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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The Jews were the first in the field; and the earliest Western legends which made their way to the East are taken from the Old Testament. Josephus has told us that the Semites were settled on the Kabul River by the first century a.d.; they may have been there still earlier; and there is an ancient tradition that Jews penetrated about this time into China—a thing not improbable in itself, if it could be authenticated. Now in the year a.d. 75 a Chinese general (Keng) Kong was besieged by the Hiungnu somewhere in the neighbourhood of Kashgar. The Hiungnu cut off the water supply; and the Chinese dug a well 150 feet deep, but found no water. They were reduced to the last extremities by thirst. Kong, lifting up his eyes to Heaven, cried: “I have heard that in olden time the Erh-Shih general drew his sword, and pierced the rock, and straightway a rushing stream gushed out.” Thereupon Kong put on his garments of state, and prostrating himself beside the waterless well, prayed for the army and for himself. Presently the well brimmed over with water.
page 469 note 1 Josephus, , Antiq. I, 6, para. 4.Google Scholar
page 469 note 2 Babylonian and Oriental Record, v, pp. 131–2.Google Scholar The inscription of Kai-fang-fu, , dated a.d. 1489Google Scholar, says that they came from Tien-tcuh or India. They settled in West Szetchuen, and tradition makes them come there in the reign of Ming-ti, a.d. 58–76. In that case they must have accompanied the Buddhist missionaries who entered Western China at this very time. The story I have quoted makes the tradition highly probable. Glover will not admit that there were Jews in China before the fifth century (B. and O.R., v, p. 138); but he was evidently ignorant of the story of Kong, and the features of later Judaism among the Chinese Jews, on which he relies to prove his case, must be ascribed to subsequent comers. Tradition is an excellent guide, provided it be genuine. If there is any lesson which the archæological discoveries of the last half-century have taught us, it is to follow tradition, and to distrust the scepticism born of ignorance in which our predecessors gloried. A translation of the Kai-fang-fu inscriptions is given in vol. v of the B. and O. R.; and the short tablet inscriptions in Hebrew and Chinese are dealt with in vol. vi, pp. 209 and 288, by Glover and Gaster.
page 470 note 1 Chavannes, E., T-oung-pao, sér. II, vol. viii, No. 2, p. 227.Google ScholarHeou-Han-chou, , c. xlix, p. 6.Google ScholarBiographie de Keng Kong: “(Keng) Kong levales yeux au ciel et s'écria en soupirant: ‘J'ai entendu dire qu'autrefois le général de Eul-che tira son épée et en perça le rocher; aussitôt une source jaillissante sortit.’” The history of the Êrh shih general and of the war with Ta-yuan (Ferghanah) is given in the History of the Early Han (Tseen Han-shu), translated by Wylie, , Journ. Anthrop. Soc., vol. x, 1881Google Scholar, and vol. xi, 1882. Eul-che is the French and Êrh-shih the English transliteration of the Chinese. Wylie has not translated, I think, the biography of Li-Kuang-li given in the Han-shu, but Mr. Giles tells me that it contains no mention of the miracle.
page 470 note 2 For later notices of Li-Kuang-li's miracle, and the subsequent history of the spring, see Giles, , “Tun Huang lu,” JRAS. 1914, pp. 705–6.Google Scholar The spring ceased to overflow because a Chinese general fell dead beside it.
page 470 note 3 Jātaka 546. In the Indian version the actors are the human mother and a female goblin. The mother leaves the babe on the ground while she bathes at the tank. The fiend picks it up, gives it suck, and runs off with it. The mother pursues. The child and the women are brought before the sage, who directs the mother to take the infant by the legs, while the goblin takes the arms. Both pull, the child screams, and the mother gives way. The goblin is known by her unwinking fiery eyes, and by the fact that her body casts no shadow, Garbe, , op. cit., pp. 27–8Google Scholar, decides for the priority of the Hebrew version, partly on the ground of the date ascribed to the Book of Kings, partly on account of the barbarous inhumanity, truly Semitic (barbarische echt semitische Rohheit), of the test proposed. Whether it be worse to be cut in two or torn in two, I cannot say, although the latter was a punishment not unknown in Europe in the eighteenth century. But an appeal to racial “frightfulness” is surely a somewhat dubious, not to say a suggestive, test.
page 471 note 1 Macgowau, , History of China, p. 118.Google Scholar
page 472 note 1 JRAS. 1912, pp. 981 ff.Google Scholar
page 472 note 2 Hippolytus, , Philosophumena, ix, 13 (Cruice, p. 447).Google Scholar A certain Alcibiades, a native of Apamea, in Syria, came to Rome Φρων ββλον τιν, Φσκων τατην п Σηρ
ν τ
ς Пαρθας пαρειληΦναι τιν ἄνδρα δκαιον Ήλχασαί, ἤν пαρδωκ τινι λεγομνῳ Σοβιαί, χρηματισθε
σαν ὑп γγλου, and then follow the details as to height, etc. Sobiai, according to Brandt, is the Greek rendering of the Aramaic sbī'aiyā, meaning “the washed” or “the baptized”. No particular sect called itself Elkesaite, but his revelation was accepted by certain semi-Jewish, semi-pagan sects mentioned by Epiphanius, the Essenes, the Ebionites, and the Sampsæans (Epiph. Hœr. xixGoogle Scholar, xxx, 17, and liii, 1 and 2). Origen in Euseb. H. E. vi, 28, also briefly mentions certain of their doctrines. Salmon, in Dictionary of Christian BiographyGoogle Scholar, and Brandt, in Hastings, ' Dictionary of Rdigion and EthicsGoogle Scholar, devote long articles to Elkesai and the Elkesaites, but Brandt often seems to me rather ingenious than sound. With regard to most of tho questions which they discuss the present argument has no concern.
page 472 note 3 Compare the size of the footprints of Vishnu, Brahma, Buddha, Adam, Mahomet, etc. The Adam Ḳadmōn of the Kabbalists and the primeval man of Mani owe much to the Gnostics. It would be curious if we could trace the gigantic size ascribed to them to this Elkesaite phantasm, and through Elkesai to the Mahāyānist Buddhas.
page 473 note 1 Epiph. Hœr, liii, 1.Google Scholar
page 473 note 2 Both Salmon and Brandt admit the historical existence of Elkesai and the antiquity of his book. Salmon rejects the date a.d. 100; he says that if we reject the revelation we must reject the date. No one credits the revelation, but that does not seem to me a reason for rejecting Elkesai's claim to have received it at that time. Brandt thinks the statement regarding the Seres was added by Alcibiades, or some other, and no pirt of the original story. The only ground for his opinion is that Epiphanius omits it when he gives the size of the two figures. But it was a detail immaterial to the purpose of Epiphanius' argument, and moreover a detail not in the least likely to have been invented. Epiphanius has preserved the measurement by schoinoi, and with it the foreign character of the whole.
page 474 note 1 Flugel, , Mani, p. 305, n. 231.Google Scholar
page 475 note 1 The Acta Archelai, e. 51–3Google Scholar, and Epíph, . Hœr. lxvi, 2–4Google Scholar, are our authorities for this history. There is a translation of the Acta in the Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xx. All the writers on Manichæism discuss the story; some regard Scythianus and Terebinthus as real persons; others do not, although they seldom assign any grounds for their scepticism. It is admitted on all hands that the Acta contain genuine Manichæan matter, whether this famous disputation took place or no. The existence of Archelaus himself is often doubted, but that question is in no wise connected with the existence of Scythianus. The Acta say (c. 55) that the doctrines of Scythianus remained in obscurity until Mani took them up. In other words, Buddhism was confined to Babylonia, and made no impression on the Roman world.
page 476 note 1 Quoted by Neander, , Church History, ii, p. 198 (Clarke's ed.).Google Scholar
page 477 note 1 Albīrūnī, , Chronology of Ancient Nations, trs. Sachau, p. 190.Google Scholar For his account of the Sabians and Būdhāsaf, v. pp. 186–9.
page 477 note 2 A good summary of Baur's and Neander's views will be found in Neander, 's Church History, ii, pp. 197 ff.Google Scholar (Clarke's edition of the Eng. trans.). Baur has expounded his view in his work Das Manichäische Religionssystem, pp. 433–51.Google Scholar
page 478 note 1 Rochat, , Mani, p. 191.Google Scholar
page 478 note 2 Flügel, , Mani, p. 361Google Scholar, n. 317, says that there must have been some special connexion between Mani and the school of Bardaisan. According to the Fihrist Mani devoted several chapters in his Book of Mysteries to his controversy with the tenets of Bardaisan; and Bardaisan's followers were reckoned an offshoot of the Valentinians.
page 478 note 3 Of. Spinoza, Ethice, ii, prop. 1: “Cogitatio attributum Dei est, sive Deus est res cogitans.” Prop. 2: “Extensio attributum Dei est, sive Deus est res extensa.”
page 479 note 1 This is also Mr. Legge's conclusion. His chapter on the Manichæans in the second volume of the Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity contains all the latest information on the subject.
page 480 note 1 Dio Chrysos. Orat. xxxv.
page 480 note 2 Quoted by Jacobs in his Introduction to Aeliani, De natura Animalium, p. xliii n.Google Scholar
page 480 note 3 Aelian wrote a lost work De Providentia, (пερ пρονοας), full of marvellous deliverances, providential interferences, miraculous cures, and the like. The famous story of the cock with one leg that led the song of the morning choir in the temple of Aesculapius has been preserved by Suidas. In his Natural History, xi, 31Google Scholar, he tells the story of the horse whose right eye was injured, and cured by Serapis.
page 481 note 1 One tale which goes back through Pseudo-Callisthenes to Nearchus has furnished Milton with a magnificent simile.
“That sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream,
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.”
Paradise Lost, i, 200–8.Google Scholar
page 481 note 2 JRAS. 1902, pp. 377 ff.Google Scholar Mr. Tawney and others have pointed out that the ideas of Basilides are rather Indian than specifically Buddhist. I am inclined to agree with this criticism; but these ideas must have reached Basilides through a Buddhist medium, and they contain nothing which is not also Buddhist. Buddhism was most popular with Indian merchants, and these are the men with whom Basilides would naturally come in contact.
page 482 note 1 Our knowledge of Bardaisan's work is derived from Porphyry, , De Abstinentia, iv, 17–18Google Scholar, and Stobæus, , Physica, i, 56.Google Scholar Both passages are translated by McCrindle, , Ancient India, pp. 169–74.Google Scholar The text of the Barlaam and Joasaph legend enables us to settle the name of Bardaisan's informant. Among the personages mentioned in the legend is a certain Zandani according to the Georgian text, or Ζαρδν according to the Greek. Kuhn identifies Zandant and Ζαρδν with Buddha's charioteer Channa or (Skt.) Chanda[ka]. Sandanes was therefore the proper name of Bardaisan's informant; he must have been a Buddhist sent officially with the embassy by a Buddhist king. We can therefore understand how Bardaisan came to distinguish between Brāhmans and Buddhists. For Zandani and Ζαρδν see Kuhn, , Barlaam u. Joasaph, pp. 35, 36.Google Scholar
page 482 note 2 I have quoted it in JRAS. 1907, p. 958.Google Scholar Elsewhere he mentions Brachmanes and Samanaioi as using mantras or spells (c. Cels, i, 24).Google Scholar
page 483 note 1 Here is a list of Clemens' references: Strom, , i, 15, para. 68 (335 P.)Google Scholar: Wise men (σοφο) were honoured by many barbarian races, for instance by all the Brahmans, the Getæ, Egyptians, Chaldæans, etc. Ibid, i, 15, para. 70 (358 P.): Pythagoras learnt from the Galatæ, the Brahmans, etc. Ibid, i, 15, para. 71 (359 P.): Philosophy was cultivated by the barbarians long before the Greeks, e.g. by the Chaldæans, Druids, the Σαμαναοι Βκτρων, etc. Among others the Indian gymnosophists. Of these there are two kinds, the Brāhmans and the Sarmanai. Some of the Sarmanai, those called the Hylobii (Allobii), neither live in cities nor under a roof, but they clothe themselves with the bark of trees, feed on nuts, and drink water out of their hands. Like the Encratites of the present day, they know not marriage nor the procreation of children. Some, too, of the Indians obey the precepts of Boutta, whom, on account of his extraordinary sanctity, they have raised to the rank of a god. Ibid, i, 15, para. 72 (361 P.): A quotation from Megasthenes. The Brāhmans of India and the Jews in Syria had already said all that the Greeks had to say about nature. Ibid, iii, 7, para. 60 (539 P.): Alexander Polyhistor says that the Brāhmans neither eat flesh nor drink wine; some fast for three days. They despise death, believe in rebirth, and worship Herakles and Pan. The σεμνο go about naked, practise truthfulness, foretell the future, and worship a pyramid under which the bones of some god are concealed. Ibid, iv, 4, para. 17 (571 P.): Some who share our name but are not of our body give themselves to the flames, like the Indian gymnosophists, but neither they (the heretics) nor the gymnosophists have tho martyr's reward. Ibid, iv, 7, para. 51 (586 P.): The Indian philosophers told Alexander that he might transfer their bodies where he pleased, but their souls were stedfast. Ibid, vi, 4, para. 38 (758–9 P.): Alexander and the ten gymnosophists. This legendary conversation is first recorded by Plutarch, , Vita Alex., c. 64Google Scholar (translated by McCrindle, , The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, pp. 313–14)Google Scholar. It was repeated by Clemens and Pseudo-Callisthenes with variations, and continued to be in vogue throughout the early Middle Ages. Palladius' tract, De Gentibus Indiœ et Bragmanibus, and Pseudo-Ambrosius, , De Moribus BragmanorumGoogle Scholar, borrow from it. In his edition of the Alexander romance Ausfeld says that the story appears to have arisen from the fusion of three separate occurrences, mentioned respectively by Plutarch, , op. cit., c. 65Google Scholar, Arrian, , Anabasis, vii, 2Google Scholar, and Strabo, , xv, p. 714Google Scholar. The earliest form of the story according to Ausfeld arose out of Alexander's campaign against the Oxydrakai. The Brāhmaus had persuaded the king, whom Plutarch calls Sabbas (Sambus), to revolt, and they sent Alexander a letter, not unlike the letter ascribed by Philo (in his Quod omnis probus liber, c. 14) to Kalanos. The Oxydrakai came in Philostratus and in the Romance to be a synonym for sages. Ausfeld, , Der griech. Alexander-roman, pp. 174–7.Google Scholar
page 484 note 1 Hippolytus, , Philosophumena, i, c. 21Google Scholar. The passage is so curious that I give Cruice's text. Ο
τοι τν θεν φς ε
ναι λγουσιν, οὐχ пον τις ρ
, οὐδ΄ ο
ον ἥλιος κα п
ρ, λλ στιν αὐτος Θες λγος, οὐχ ἔναρθρος, λλ τς γνώσεως, δἰ ο
τ κρυпτ τς Φσεως μυστρια ρ
ται σοφος. τοτο δ τ Φς, ὅ Φασι λγον τν θεν, αὐτοὺς μνους εἰδναι Βραχμνας λγουσι, δι τ пορρ ψαι μνους τν κενοδοξαν, ὅς στι χιτὼν τς ψυχς ἔσχατος. (Cruice quotes from Athenæus, Deipn., ix, a sentence of Plato: ἔΦησεν ἔσχατον τν τς δξης Χιτνα ψυχ пφυκεν пοτθεσθαι.)
page 484 note 2 Τοτον δ τν λγον, ὂν Θεν νομζουσι, ωματικν εναι, пερικεμενν τε σμα ἔξωθεν αυτο, καθпερ εἴ τις τ κ τν пροβτων ἔνδυμα φορε, пεκδυσμενον δ τ σμα, ὃ пερκειται, φθαλμοφανς φανεσθαι. The meaning of this last sentence is very obscure; it is supposed to be corrupt For attempts to amend it v. Cruice's note in loco. It may refer to the contrast between the gross material body and the subtle covering of the soul.
page 486 note 1 For Zarmanochegas, or Zarmaros (Zarmanos) as Dio Cassius calls him, v. Strabo, , xv, 686 and 719–20Google Scholar; also Cass, Dio. iv, 9Google Scholar. The Kushan Huvishka was the Porus who sent this famous embassy to Augustus at Samog in 19 b.c.; that is, if Dr. Fleet's theory of the date of Kanishka, the correct one in my opinion, be accepted.
page 487 note 1 Lucian, , De morte Peregrini, c. 11Google Scholar: Ὅτεπερ κα τν θανμαστν σοφαν τν Χριστιανν ξμαθε περ τν Παλαιστνην, τος ἱερεσι κα γραμματεσιν αὐτν ξυγγενμενος—ν βραχε παδας αὐτοὺς πφηνε, προφτης κα θιασρχης κα ξυναγεγὺς κα πντα μνος αὐτς ν. Synagogue was the word in common use for the meeting-houses of Palestinian Christians and Marcionites. There still exists an inscription pf one such meeting-house in a village three miles from Damascus: Συναγωγη των Μαρκωνιστων κωμης Λεβαβων (Harnack, , Expansion of Christianity, ii, 275, Eng. trans.)Google Scholar. Egyptian churches also got the name of synagogues, a proof of the close connexion which existed between the Palestinian and the Egyptian Christians. Other indications point in the same direction. For instance, the presbyteral constitution of the church, or churches, in Alexandria differed greatly from the episcopal organization which prevailed in Asia Minor and the West. Apollos of Alexandria probably learnt of the Baptism of John in his native city. In the opinion of some scholars the Babylon from which St. Peter addresses his first Epistle was the Babylon opposite to Memphis on the right bank of the Nile. Through St. Mark the Alexandrian Church derived its lineage from the Apostle of the Circumcision; and Basilides, who taught in Alexandria and the Delta, claimed to be a disciple of Glaucias, St. Peter's interpreter. The Gospel according to the Egyptians and the Gospel according to the Hebrews were both known in Egypt. The close connexion of Palestinian and Egyptian Christians would be a continuation of the former, and anticipate the later connexion between Syria and Egypt, and may be responsible in part for the dearth of our information regarding the history of early Egyptian Christianity. “The most grievous blank in our knowledge of early Church history is our total ignorance of the history of Christianity in Alexandria and Egypt up till a.d. 180.” So says Harnack, and he sums up all that is known in three pages (Harnack, , op. cit., ii, 305–8, Eng. trans.).Google Scholar
page 487 note 2 I once had a man brought before me who, having been born a Rajput, became a Christian, and finally turned Mohammadan. His religious speculations, however, did not end in making him a philosopher but a burglar, and he was taken up for robbing his late fellow-Christians. Lord George Gordon and Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu's son are examples of half-crazy men who, like our friend Peregrinus, indulged in religious vagaries.
page 488 note 1 αΔμονες μητρ
οι κα πατροι δξασθ με εὐμενες(Lucian, , op. cit., 36).Google Scholar
page 488 note 2 Peregrinus gave out that he would become a night-wandering spirit, guardian of the night (Lucian, , op. cit., 27).Google Scholar
page 488 note 3 Οἱ Βραχμνες κενοις γρ αὐτν ἠξου Θεαγνης εἰκζειν (Lucian, , op. Cit., 25).Google Scholar
page 489 note 1 Ὁ παρ τος πολλος ᾀδμενος αὐτς κενος Τυανεὺς Ἀπολλώνιος (Euseb., Prœ. Evang., iv, 150a)Google Scholar. In later times Apollonius performed some of the offices of a mediaeval saint. He protected Constantinople, as Virgil did Naples, from flies. At Edessa this was the business ot St. Thomas. During his festival of forty days not a fly settled on the meat, or infected the water. Thus the occupation of Baal-zebub, lord of flies and of Ekron, was passed on to his successors. Trajan's army, marching through the waterless desert between Babylonia and Osroene, sadly needed some such protector, for according to Cassius, Dio, lxviii, 31Google Scholar, it suffered greatly from a plague of flies. Our soldiers in these plains have had a somewhat similar experience.
page 490 note 1 Sometimes the saint ended his life in the air. “Rising up into the air, he exhibited spiritual transformations, and at last he was consumed by fire, and his bones fell to the ground” (Beal, , Buddhist Records of the Western World, ii, 306).Google Scholar
page 490 note 2 Philostratus (or Apollonius) can never have seen an Indian. He describes the Indo-Aryans of the Panjāb (ii, 22) as having a “flat nose, curled locks, prominent cheeks, and a certain fire about the eyes”. He confounds them with the Ethiopians. He happens to be right about their height, but many Greeks had remarked on this.
page 490 note 3 The end of Simon Magus is described by Philaster and by Epiphanius, , Hœr. xxi, 5Google Scholar. For Scythianus, and Terebinthus, , Hœr. lxvi, 3.Google Scholar
page 490 note 4 Marcellinus, Ammianus, xxxi, 1.Google Scholar
page 490 note 5 A friend tells me that St. Catherine of Sienna was said to rise on the wings of prayer.
page 491 note 1 Philostratus, , Vit. Apoll., ii, 23, 40.Google Scholar
page 491 note 2 Πς δ πστολος ρχμενος πρς ὑμς δεχθτω ὡς Κριο
οὐ μενε δ μραν μα
ν δ Χρεα, κα τν ἄλλη τρες δ ν μενῃ, ψενδοδοπροφτης στν (Didache, c. 11).
page 491 note 3 Harnack, , Expansion of Christianity, i, pp. 33–7Google Scholar, Eng. trans., summarizes all the principal subjects of speculation with which this “Oriental philosophy” dealt.
page 492 note 1 Garbe has devoted some pages (op. cit., pp. 61–7) to stories from the Physiologus The Physiologus is a little manual of natural history popular in the Middle Ages; it circulated also in a Syriac translation (Wright, , Syriac Literature, p. 133)Google Scholar. I do not know the book, and I have nob thought it necessary to look it up. First, the analogies pointed out by Garbe are too far-fetched to form the basis of any argument; and, second, the ascription of the work to Christian influences in Alexandria in the first quarter of the second century a.d. can scarcely be meant to be seriously taken. But it contains a legend interesting in itself, and of frequent recurrence in the Middle Ages. It is that “the lion's whelps were born dead, and first roused to life on the third day by the roar of their sire”; thus also was Christ raised from the dead.
“Voce Patris excitatus
Surgit Christus, laureatus
Immortali gloria.”
Origen, (Hom, xvii in Gen. xlix, 9)Google Scholar alludes to the legend; so it goes a long way back. Another very interesting legend, which, however, does not enter into this discussion, is that “the lion slept with its eyes open; these open eyes being an emblem of that divine life of Christ which ran uninterrupted through the three days' sleep of His body in the grave” (Trench, , Sacred Latin Poetry, pp. 68, 170).Google Scholar
page 493 note 1 The Palestine Exploration Fund Annual, 1914–15, pp. 29–30, gives a vivid picture of Syria under early Byzantine rule. “In the Byzantine period a deep and sudden change came over the whole aspect of Syria. The disappearance of the petty states and the peace enjoyed by the inhabitants led to a great state of prosperity. “The country was covered with paved roads; streams were budged; and rest and guard houses erected along the routes. Towns sprang up on the Koman model with shaded porticoes and colonnades, markets, temples, and sumptuous private houses. Hamlets arose in the desert. There was a motley crowd of Jews, Phœnicians, Persians, Armenians, Arabs, in their brilliant national costumes. From the Euphrates to the Red Sea the ruins of this period transcend those of the earlier times, and bear witness to a population more numerous and more wealthy than those the land has seen before or since. Brunnow & Domaszewski's magnificently illustrated work, Die Provincia Arabia, gives a very detailed account of the Hauran and Arabia Petræa.
page 493 note 2 Marcellinus, Ammianus, xiv, 3Google Scholar: “Batne municipium in Anthemusia flonditum Macedonum manu priscorum ab Euphrate flumine brevi spatio disparatur, refertum mercatoribus opulentis; ubi annua sollemnitate prope Septembris initium mensis ad nundinas magna promiscuæ fortunæ convenit multitude ad commercanda quae Indi mittunt et Seres.”
page 494 note 1 Brunnow, , etc., op. cit., i, p. 191Google Scholar. The coins and the building came to a sudden end under Alexander Severus; Brünnow and his colleague think it may have been due to an attack by the Sassanians, who wished to divert the traffic to the Persian Gulf. I notice, however, that the inscriptions in the temple of Isis go on to a later date, and Epiphanius, quoted by Brunnow (I have failed to trace the passage in my Epiphanius) says that the Arabians continued to hold an annual festival there in honour of Dusares and Charabou, who was the παρθνος or κρη, in other words Allat, and as Allat not only παρθνος but also μτηρ θεν.
page 494 note 2 Bouchier, , Syria, as a Roman Province, pp. 180 ff.Google Scholar, gives a good and convenient account of Syria under the Byzantines.
page 494 note 3 Hirth, & Rockhill, , Chau Ju-kua, pp. 7–8Google Scholar. “… dynastic histories covering the period from the fourth to the beginning of the seventh centuries, in which we find all the products of Indo-China, Ceylon, India, Arabia, and the east coast of Africa classed as ‘products of Persia (Po-ssi)’, the country of the majoiity of the traders who brought their goods to China.”
page 495 note 1 Indicopleustes, Cosmas, ii, p. 49Google Scholar of McCrindle's trans.
page 495 note 2 Bouchier, , op. cit., p. 180.Google Scholar
page 495 note 3 Sachau, , JRAS. (n.s.), 1870, iv, pp. 230 ff.Google Scholar
page 496 note 1 Sewell, R., JRAS. 1904, pp. 608 ff.Google Scholar; Cunningham, , Coins of the Indo-Scythians, pt. i, p. 61Google Scholar (reprint from the Num. Chronicle, ser, III, viii, pp. 199–248)Google Scholar. The only evidences of Egyptian trade with India in the third century a.d. are, I think, the visit of a Roman sea-captain (Ts'in-lun) to the court of the Emperor Sun-ch'uan in a.d. 226 (he travelled from Tongking, , v. Hirth & Rockhill, op. cit., p. 5)Google Scholar; a small find of coins of Gallienus in Southern India; and a statement in the Historia Augusta regarding Firmus, the ally of Zenobia, , xxix, 3Google Scholar: “idem et cum Blemmyis societatem maximam tenuit et cum Saracenis. Naves quoque ad Indos negotiatorias saepe misit.”
page 496 note 2 For all the authorities regarding Metrodorus, Meropius, and Frumentius v. an excellent article by Reynolds on the Ethiopian Church on Dict, Christ. Biog. Rufinus, , Hist. Eccles., i, 9Google Scholar, our earliest authority, got the story of these journeys from Ædesius. McCrindle, , Ancient India, p. 185Google Scholar, gives extracts from Rufinus and Kedrenus regarding Metrodorua. He is also mentioned in Jerome's Chronicon. Kedrenus says he was a Persian by birth.
page 497 note 1 Some idea of the history of Alexandria and of Egypt during the third century a.d. may be gathered from Milne, , History of Egypt under Roman Rule, pp. 71–83Google Scholar. For the plague at Alexandria c. a.d. 259 see Euseb. H.E. vii, 22.Google Scholar
page 497 note 2 Eusebius, , de vita Constantini, iv, 7, 50Google Scholar. Chapter iv, 50 is translated by McCrindle, , Ancient India, p. 214Google Scholar. The embassy came in the last year of Constantine's reign, a.d. 336–7.
page 497 note 3 Marcellinus, Ammianus, xxii, 7Google Scholar, and Maiala, Joannes, p. 477Google Scholar. McCrindle, , op. cit., p. 213.Google Scholar
page 498 note 1 I have given the passage in full, JRAS. 1907, p. 956.Google Scholar
page 498 note 2 Cosmas, , iii, p. 119, and xi, p. 365Google Scholar (McCrindle's trans. ) Persians must have abounded, as we have seen from the notices of the Chinese, on the west coast of India and in Ceylon, and there must have been many Christians among them. They had a bishop and presbyters from Persia in Cosmas' day, and these cannot have been recent settlements, although we have no previous mention of them. But neither have we any prior mention of the Persian settlers.
page 498 note 3 Weber, , History of Indian Literature, pp. 253–4.Google Scholar
page 499 note 1 I.A. 1873, p. 146Google Scholar. That distinguished scholar, Dr. Fleet, whose death is a loss to learning and to friendship, used to ask himself how and where Indian astronomers learnt to commence their year with the spring equinox. The Seleucidan, the Coptic, and most of the calendars in vogue in the Levant begin their reckoning with the autumn equinox. Only the Roman calendar and the year of Nabonidus reckon from the spring. Dr. Fleet thought that Brahmans must have visited Rome. Perhaps so; but it is more probable, I think, that they took the spring equinox for their starting-point from the year of Nabonidus. When the Alexandrian astronomers reformed their calendar in the reign of Diocletian, they based their reform upon the Nabonidus era; and these astronomers were the teachers of the Indians.
page 499 note 2 Cosmas, , ii, p. 48Google Scholar, McCrindle's trans.
page 500 note 1 Bunbury, , History of Ancient Geography, i, p. 627.Google Scholar
page 500 note 2 Strabo, , ii, c. 5, para. 14, p. 118 (Bohn's trans.).Google Scholar
page 500 note 3 Bunbury, , op. cit., ii, p. 596.Google Scholar
page 500 note 4 In the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth, Sohnoudi, most fanatical of Egyptian ascetics, with his monks stormed the town of Akhmīm while the Greeks were at the theatre, where the “Birds of Aristophanes” was being acted. These Greeks “aimaient le theatre avec passion” (Amélineau, , Vie de Schnoudi, p. 302).Google Scholar
page 501 note 1 Beai, , Buddhist Records of the Western World, ii, p. 279.Google Scholar
page 501 note 2 I should like to invite the attention of students of bhakti, and more particularly of Sir G. Grierson, the coryphaeus in this study, to the position faith (πστις) occupies in the later Neo-Platonism. Proclus is said to regard it not only as equivalent to certainty, but “he opposes it to knowledge, and regards it as a mystical introduction to a divine illumination. By it man is made to indwell in the unknowable and hidden unity, wherein every motion and energy of the soul arrives at rest” (Ritter, , History of Ancient Philosophy, Eng. trans., iv, p. 644)Google Scholar. My knowledge of Proclus is entirely second-hand. Six volumes of his works stand on the topmost shelves of my library; their study is reserved for some future migration.
page 501 note 3 “The Pancha-tantra, analysed by Mr. Wilson in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, was translated into Persian (Pahlavi) by Barsuyah, the physician of Nushirvan, under the name of the Fables of Bidpai. It was translated into Arabic by Abdalla Ibn Mokaffa, under the name of Kalila and Dimnah. From the Arabic it passed into the European languages” (Milman's note on Gibbon, Decline, etc., c. xlii). Gibbon says he had seen three copies—one in Greek translated from the Arabic c. a.d. 1100, a translation into Latin from the Greeks, and a French version translated from the Turkish.
page 502 note 1 Macdonell, , History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 417Google Scholar. The Pahlavi text has been lost; the Sanskrit, Syriac, and Arabic survive.
page 502 note 2 Wright, , Syriac Literature, pp. 123–4.Google Scholar
page 502 note 3 Wright, who discovered the Syriac version of the Pancha-tantra, says that 'Abdallāh ibn al-Mukaffa translated not from the Syriac but from the Pahlavi (Wright, , op. cit., p. 239)Google Scholar. Another work translated about the same time from, the Pahlavi into Arabic was the book of Sindibādh (op. cit., p. 241).Google Scholar
page 502 note 4 Gibbon, (op. cit., c. xlii)Google Scholar: “In their present form, the peculiar character, the manners, and religion of the Hindoos are completely obliterated; and the intrinsic merit of the fables of Pilpai is far inferior to the concise elegance of Phaedrus, and the native graces of La Fontaine. Fifteen moral and political sentences are illustrated in a series of apologues; but the composition is intricate, the narrative prolix, and the precept obvious and barren.”
page 502 note 5 Kuhn, , Barlaam u. Joasaph, Munich, 1894Google Scholar. Berry gives a convenient resumé of the story in an appendix to his Christianity and Buddhism, pp. 136–93.Google Scholar
page 503 note 1 Kuhn, , Barlaam u. Joasaph, pp. 35–9Google Scholar. “Es waren somit nördliche Buddhisten, denen die Uebermittelung des Stoffes zu danken ist, und diese Tatsache erweist uns als Heimat des Joasaph-Romans das östliche Iran mit seiner nördlichen Nachbarschaft” (p. 36).
page 503 note 2 Rhys Davids gives the story of Gotamī, Kisā; in his Buddhism, p. 133Google Scholar, under the title of the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Garbe omits all notice of this story, one of the most famous in mediaeval literature.
page 504 note 1 Budge, , Life, etc., of Alexander the Great, Introd., p. xxiGoogle Scholar, quoting Noldeke. “Nöldeke has shown from an examination of the language, and especially the forms of the proper names, that the Syriae must be a translation from the Pahlavi, and almost certainly not later than the seventh century” (Wright, , op. cit., p. 140).Google Scholar
page 504 note 2 It is told in_a slightly altered form in the story-book compiled for the edification of the inmates of the Anglican convent of Little Gidding, which John Inglesant has made famous. If I remember aright, the story is told of a young gentleman who falls sick of a mortal illness at Naples, and wishes to prepare his mother in Rome for the news of his approaching death. He bids her send him a shirt sewn by a woman who has never suffered any loss.
page 505 note 1 The legend of St. Eustachius in no way conforms to the canon I have laid down for my inquiry at the commencement of this essay, and I admit it only in deference to the judgment of so experienced a folklorist as my friend Dr. Gaster, who was the first to point out the Buddhist parallels (JRAS. 1893, pp. 869–71, and 1894, pp. 335–40)Google Scholar. Garbe deals with the legend at length, op. cit., pp. 86–101. I do not know Speyer's contribution which he quotes, nor have I studied the Vita. Maury, , Légendes pieuses du Moyen-Age, pp. 169–76Google Scholar, gives much information regarding the employment of the deer in Christian legend and symbolism. The legend of St. Eustachius was attributed also to St. Hubert, St. Julian, and St. Felix of Valois. Maury thinks the story had its origin in the not uncommon identification of the stag with the unicorn, and the belief that the Thau, the sign of the cross, was imprinted on the forehead of the latter animal (p. 174). In the old French version of the Legenda aurea quoted by Maury, , p. 172Google Scholar, the story runs thus: “Il [Placidus] veit entre les cornes de celluy cerf la forme d'une croix resplendissante plus que le soleil, et l'image de Jésus-Christ, qui par la bouche du cerf, ainsi comme jadis par la bouche de l'asne à Baslaam, parlant à celluy disant: Placidas, pourquoi me poursuis-tu ? Je suis Jésus-Christ que tu honores ignorament; tes aumones sont montées jusqu'à moy au ciel; pour ce, Placidas, je viens à toy; si que par ce cerf que tu chasses, je te preigne.” In this version there is no identification of our Lord with the deer.
page 506 note 1 In the Quarterly Review, 07, 1906, pp. 79 ff.Google Scholar, R. Dunlop maintains that the civilization and art and much of the religion of Ireland came from Egypt and Syria. “Bréhier has shown how in the first eight centuries the West was overflooded by Orientals, including Armenians; and how next to merchants and monks, artists were the chief propagators of the movement.” The Arab conquest quickened the migration westwards. “After this event the best Christian element emigrated to the Frankish Empire,” says Strzygowski. Dunlop ascribes “the Hellenistic art of the Mediterranean area and the vigorous impulse given by the Orient to Christianity” to theie Syrian fugitives. The litany of Ængus the Culdee furnishes “evidence of the presence in Ireland of crowds of Orientals, including seven Egyptian monks buried at Disert Ulidh”. The beehive cells, the round towers, the illustrations of the Book of Kells, Cormac's chapel at Cashel, the learning of Scotus Erigena, alike bear witness to this Oriental, and more especially this Syrian, influence; Gregory of Tours, and Le Blanc, , Inscriptions Chrétiennes, etc.Google Scholar, furnish examples of the Oriental influence in France.
page 506 note 2 Medlycott, , India and the Apostle Thomas, p. 81Google Scholar, quoting the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
page 507 note 1 Even Harnack admits this, and it is self-evident from the Christian literature of these two centuries. These Christians repudiated everything which savoured of paganism.
page 508 note 1 Tea years ago I said that although the number of coincidences between the Lolita Vistara and the Christian sources was striking, the legends were worked out in Indian fashion, and I did not see any proof that they had been borrowed from Christianity (JRAS. 1907, p. 982, n. 2)Google Scholar. The Lalita Vistara did not concern my argument at the time, my acquaintance with it was slight, and the remark was a passing one expressed in a footnote, while I was content to follow the opinions of great scholars like the late M. Barth and others, my masters in these studies. I had not then paid much attention to the subject. A wider knowledge of the history of the relations between India and its neighbours has entirely altered my opinion.
page 509 note 1 Postel first gave it this title in 1552; but his text with his Latin interpretation was not published until twelve years later.
page 509 note 2 In my account of these Gospels I have merely summarized the Prolegomena to Tischendorf, 's Evangelia Apocrypha. Vol. xviGoogle Scholar of the Ante-Nicene Library has a translation of these Gospels in English, which I have used freely. For the age and composition of the Protevangelium see Tischendorf, , op. cit., pp. xiii and xxxvii, n., 1Google Scholar. For Ps.-Thomas, , pp. xxxix–xlGoogle Scholar; for the Gospel of the Infancy, pp. xxv–xxvii.
page 509 note 3 Cf. Euseb. H.E. iii, 3, 2, and 25, 6Google Scholar. In this last passage Eusebius says that the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthew were in use among the Gnostics.
page 509 note 4 “Scio evangelium quod appellatur secundum Thomam, et juxta Matthiam, et alia plura legimus.”
page 509 note 5 Hippolytus, , Philosoph., v, c. 7, p. 148 (Cruice).Google Scholar
page 510 note 1 Although representations of the Virgin are common from the fourth century a.d. downwards, and even from an earlier age, the scenes are seldom taken from the Apocryphal Gospels in early Christian art, and the influence of these Gospels is traceable chiefly in the accessories, such as the well in the background of the angelic salutations (Schultze, , Archaoloyie der altchristlichen Kunst, pp. 358–61)Google Scholar. These Gospels first came to their own in the lives of the Virgin by the Italian painters, beginning with Giotto's frescoes in the Cappella dell'Arena at Padua, unsurpassed in their reverent and simple beauty. After this lives of the Virgin became a favourite subject for artists. Ghirlandaio's frescoes in St. Maria Novella and Andrea del Sarto's in the St. Annunziata at Florence are probably the most famous, while north of the Alps Albert Dürer's wood engravings are often full of homely poetry, although his realism sometimes degenerates into sheer ugliness, relieved only by its quaintness. Witness the birth of the Virgin where the midwife is asleep with her head on the bed, the gossips sit drinking beer out of a mug, and a maid tubs the infant. An angel, whom no one heeds, swings a censer at the top of the steps leading down to the Stube, to show that it is a solemn occasion.
page 510 note 2 Blass, , Philology of the. Gospels, p. 165.Google Scholar
page 510 note 3 Justin, M.Dial. c. Tryph., c. 78Google Scholar (ed. Otto, , vol. i, pt. ii, p. 268).Google Scholar
page 510 note 4 Origen, , adv. Cels., i, 51Google Scholar. δεκνυται τ ν Βεθλεμ σπλαιον ἔνθα γεννθη. Jerome, in one of his letters, if I remember aright, mentions the visit of certain Indians to it, probably Christian Indians from the south coast of Arabia.
page 511 note 1 Tischendorf, , op. cit., xxxviii, n. 1.Google Scholar
page 511 note 2 Robinson, Armitage, The Gospel according to Peter, p. 32Google Scholar, puts it before a.d. 160. The Apocalypse of Peter goes back “almost to the end of the first century of our era” (p. 13).
page 511 note 3 Tischendorf, , op. cit., p. xxxviii.Google Scholar
page 511 note 4 Ibid., op. cit., pp. xxv-vi. In the MSS. it is usually called Liber de ortu Beatœ Mariœ et infantia Salvatoris.
page 512 note 1 La Vallée Poussin calls the language of the Gāthās “a peculiar jargon”: Hastings, , Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, s.v. “Mahāvastu”, p. 330.Google Scholar
page 512 note 2 The quotation is from Rhys Davids' article in Hastings, ' Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, s.v. “Hīnayāna”, p. 685Google Scholar. I have taken my account of the Lalita Vistara chiefly from the Professor's articles on Buddha in Dictionary of Christian Biography, pp. 341 ff.Google Scholar, the article on “Hinayana” above mentioned, and his admirable little work on Buddhism, p. 11, etc.Google Scholar
page 512 note 3 Nanjio, 's Catalogue of the TripitakaGoogle Scholar (No. 160) gives the date of one Chinese translation in a.d. 308, and of another (No. 159) in a.d. 683.
The dates given by Foucaux and Professor Rhys Davids differ slightly. The translation of a.d. 683 is said to agree with the Tibetan. Two other translations into Chinese are said to be missing: one made under the Later Han of the three kingdoms, a.d. 221–63, the other made under the Sung dynasty a.d. 420–79. The number of translations suggests the frequent changes or additions which the text has undergone. I have to thank Dr. Thomas for drawing my attention to Nanjio, as well as for information on some other points.
page 513 note 1 The references are to Foucaux's translation of the Lolita Vistara, vol. iGoogle Scholar, in the Annales du Musée Guimet. The texts in Sanskrit and Pali which bear on Buddha's pre-existence and birth, and the marvels which accompanied it, are very fully discussed in Windisch's learned and judicious monograph Buddha's Geburt, 1908Google Scholar, a work which I am sorry not to have consulted earlier. Windisch tries to explain the evolution on purely Indian grounds. In c. xii he discusses the question of reciprocal Christian and Buddhist influences.
page 514 note 1 Foucher has identified the scene in his article on “The Eastern Gate of Sānchi”. Dr. Thomas drew my attention to this identification.
page 515 note 1 Davids, Rhys, Buddhism, pp. 26–9. Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v. “Buddha”.Google Scholar
page 515 note 2 “A woman in travail … ought rather to be honoured in consideration of that peril, or to be held sacred in respect of [the mystery of] nature.” Addressing Marcion, he says: “Of course you are horrified also at the infant. This reverend course of nature, you, O Marcion, [are pleased to] spit upon.” De Carne Christi, c. 4 (Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xv, p. 170). Cf. Anti-Marc, iv, c, 21Google Scholar, and De Anima, c. 27.
page 516 note 1 The mediaeval Manichsaans in France and Northern Italy held that Eve was the fruit Adam was forbidden to touch; he plucked it and he fell. “Conjunctio Adæ cum Heva, ut dicunt, fuit pomum vetitum” (Gieseler, 's Ecc. Hist., Eng. trans., iii, p. 409, n. 32)Google Scholar. Milton has adopted the same idea—a blot in the glorious jewel-work of the Paradise Lost.
page 516 note 2 Dittenberger, , Orientis Greed inscrip. selectœ, ii, p. 306Google Scholar, inscr. No. 610, and n. 1. Theandrites was replaced by St. George.
page 516 note 3 Tischendorf, , op. cit., Proleg., p. xiii.Google Scholar
page 517 note 1 Κα επεν Σαλώμη Ζ
κριος δ θες μου, ν μ βαλ τν δκτυλν μου κα ρευνσω τν øσιν αὐτς, οὐ μ πιστεσω ὅτι παρθνος γννησεν. κα εἰσλθεν μαα κα επε τ Μαριμ Σχμτισον σεαυτν οὐ γρ μικρς γὼν περκειται περ σο. κα ἔβαλε Σαλώμη τν δκτυλον αὐτς εἰς τν φσιν αὐτς, κα ἠλλαξε κα επεν Οὐα τ νομạ μου κα τ πιστạ μου, ὅτι ξεπ ερασ α θεν ζντα, κα ἰδοὺ χερ μου πυρ ποππτεται π᾽ μο (Protev, ., c. 19, 20).Google Scholar
page 517 note 2 Ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἔοικεν τος πολλος κα μΧρι νν δοκε Μαριμ λεχὼ εναι δι τν το παιδου γννησιν, οὐκ οσα λεχώ κα γρ μετ τ τεκεν αὐτν μαιωθεσν Φασ τινες παρθνον εὑρεθναι (Clemens, , Strom., vii, c. 16, p. 889 P.)Google Scholar- Clemens goes on: “Now such to us are the Scriptures of the Lord, which give birth to the truth, and continue virgin in the concealment of the mysteries of the truth.”
page 517 note 3 Without any general significance except for the Buddha. It is introduced, like the miraculous conception, in order to exalt the purity of the Buddha. The expressions which the Bhagavat uses regarding the period of uterine gestation (Lal. Vist., tr. Foucaux, , e. vii, p. 81)Google Scholar are almost word for word the same as those which Tertullian puts into the mouth of Marcion (De Anima, c. 27). But whereas in Syria the sentiment extended to all nativities, in India it is confined to this solitary instance.
page 518 note 1 St. Cyprian remonstrates with some African presbyters who refused to baptize infants under seven days old on the ground that they were too impure to receive the kiss of peace: “Nam et quod vestigium infantis in primis partus sui diebus constituti mundum non esse dixisti, quod unusquisque nostrum adhuc horreat exosculari, nee hoc putamus ad caelestem gratiam dandam impedimento esse oportere. Scriptum est enim: omnia munda sunt mundis” (Ep. lviii). How different is the mediaeval and the modern spirit! In the Middle Ages St. Nicholas of Bari was the model baby. When he was born, he stood up and thanked God for having brought him safely into the world. On Wednesdays and Fridays he refused nourishment. Every visitor to the Vatican will remember the charming fresco by Fra Angelico of the little Nicholas standing in his tub with his baby hands clasped before him in prayer. Sir G. Grierson tells me of one of Rāmānanda's disciples who displayed equal piety at his birth. In a previous life he had been a Brāhman, but having the misfortune to be reborn in the family of a Chamar, he refused to partake of his mother's milk until Rāmānanda came and whispered the initiatory formula, or mantra, in his ear.
page 518 note 2 The virtue of virginity never appealed greatly to the Buddhists. The Lalita Vistara does not represent Māyādevī as a virgin, although Suddhodana had nothing to do with the conception of Buddha (Lal. Vist., c. viGoogle Scholar, tr. Foucaux, , p. 56)Google Scholar. Māyādevī's virginity was therefore somewhat like Mme. Blavatsky's; she was a virgin only for the nonce. Geden says: “The story of the virginity of Māyā, the mother of the Buddha, is late, and owes its inspiration, it can hardly be doubted, to Christian sources. According to L. de la Vallée Poussin, the doctrine is asserted in the Mahāvastu, but not elsewhere” (Hastings, , Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, s.v. “Buddha”, p. 881, n.)Google Scholar. Cf. Poussin, La Vallée, s.v. “Bodhisattva”, p. 741, nGoogle Scholar. The latter author says that sins of the flesh were considered venial, while sins of hatred were deadly. But it was fixed doctrine that a Bodhisattva “becomes incarnate by his own wish, and without the ordinary laws of conception” (op. cit., s.v. “Bodhisattva”, p. 741, n.). One school, the school of the Lokottaravādin Mahāsānghikas, went further. They held that not only were the Buddhas “produced by their own powers”, but that they, their mothers, and their wives, were virgins; and that “if they came forth from their mother's right side without injuring her, it is because their form (rūpa), i.e. their body, is entirely spiritual” (op. cit., s. v.“Bodhisattva”, p. 742). Pure docetism.Google Scholar
page 519 note 1 Τυøνα, μ καιρ
μηδ κατ χώραν, λλ᾽ ναρρξαντα πληγ δι τς πλευρς ξαλσθαι. Typhonem, non suo tempore et loco, sed latere ictu perrupto, exsiluisse. (Plutarch, , de Isid. et Osir., c. 12.)Google Scholar
page 519 note 2 For these coins v. Gutschmid, , Geschichte Irans, p. 157 (Persis)Google Scholar, and Cunningham, , Gains of the Kushans, p. 67Google Scholar (Num. Chronicle, ser. in, vol. xii, pp. 98–159).Google Scholar
page 519 note 3 Plutarch, , di lsid, et Osir., c. 15–16.Google Scholar
page 519 note 4 Even the right side is a novelty. At Bharhut and Sānchī, Māyā lies asleep on her right side, and presents her left flank to the white elephant which is descending from the sky to be incarnate in Buddha. In the later sculptures of Gāndhāra and Amarāvatī the position is reversed. Windisch, , Buddha's Geburt, p. 7, quoting Poucher.Google Scholar
page 520 note 1 We have seen that it was made a test of orthodoxy. “Le Bodhisattva était né sans que le côté droit du sein de sa mère fut blessé ni brisé” (Lal. Vist., c. 7, tr. Foucaux, , p. 87).Google Scholar
page 520 note 2 Hieron, , adv. Jovianum, i, 42Google Scholar, quoted by Davids, Rhys in Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v. “Buddha”, p. 341Google Scholar, and more fully by Windisch, , op. cit., p. 20.Google Scholar
page 520 note 3 Davids, Rhys, Hastings' Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, s.v. “Hīnayāna”, p. 686Google Scholar. “The Lalita Vistara is believed to be founded on the text of an older biography of the Buddha current in this school.”
page 520 note 4 The Indians were sufficiently numerous to give their name to a town, Indiko-mordana, in Sogdiana (Ptolemy, , Geog., vi, c. 12, p. 5).Google Scholar
page 521 note 1 The palm-tree was transported to Paradise, one of the many trees which grow there (Ps.-Matt., c. 27).
page 521 note 2 Philostratus, , Vit. Apollon., iv, 20, and vi, 10.Google Scholar
page 522 note 1 Irenæus, , adv. Hœr., i, 20, 1Google Scholar. Cf. i, 16, 1, 2, where Irenæus discusses the Gnostic interpretation of the numerical values of the letters. Thus the ēta and the episēmon (c. 5) constituted an ogdoad, and as the values of the letters from alpha to ēta made up thirty, the Ogdoad was the mother of the thirty Æons. One constantly finds combinations of three or nine alphas, omegas, etc., in Gnostic formulæ. The Manichæans used an alphabet of their own invention to conceal their mystic teaihing. The copyists of Ps.-Thomas and of the Evang. Infant, misunderstood the meaning of the story, and as the translator in the Ante-Nicene Library remarks, the text is unintelligible and corrupt.
page 522 note 2 Davids, Rhys, Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v. “Buddha”, p. 343.Google Scholar
page 522 note 3 Garbe, , op. cit., p. 74.Google Scholar
page 523 note 1 “Dans un temps à venir, plusieurs Religieux—ignorants, inhabiles, extrêmement fiers, orgueilleux, arrogants, sans frein—ayant beaucoup de doutes, sans foi,—qui ne croiront pas qu'une pareille descente de Bodhisattva dans le sein de sa mère est parfaitement pure. Ils tomberont dans l'Avitchī, le grand enfer” (Lal. Vist., c. vii, tr. Foucaux, , pp. 81–2).Google Scholar
page 524 note 1 Garbe, , op. cit., pp. 48–50.Google Scholar
page 524 note 2 Lal. Vist., tr. Foucaux, , c. vii, pp. 103 ff.Google Scholar
page 525 note 1 SBE., vol. x, pt. ii, No. 11Google Scholar, Nālakasutta, pp. 125 ff.Google Scholar
page 525 note 2 I have quoted the version in the SBE. Garbe quotes Edmunds' version which accentuates the parallelism.
page 526 note 1 SBE., vol. x, pt. ii, p. xiGoogle Scholar. In the Preface to this edition of the Pali text published by the Pali Text Society, p. iv, the Danish scholar apparently modifies this opinion somewhat so far as the Mahāvagga is concerned, and on p. v he says that among other things “the frightfully corrupted state of the metre in so many verses goes far to prove that in the course of time considerable changes have taken place in the text of the Suttanipāta. I am not even sure that in its present shape it is anterior to the time of Christ”.
page 526 note 2 Ibid., Preface to the Pali text, p. vi.
page 526 note 3 Davids, Rhys, Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v. “Buddha”.Google Scholar
page 526 note 4 Macdonell, , History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 307.Google Scholar
page 526 note 5 Davids, Rhys, Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v. “Buddha”, p. 346.Google Scholar
page 526 note 6 de la Vallée Poussin, L., Hastings' Dictionary of Religion and, Ethics, s.v. “Mahāyāna”, p. 336Google Scholar. De la Vallée Poussin, however, apparently holds that there was no plagiarism; the Lalita Vistara and the Pali scriptures both embodied the traditional teaching more or less textually. The legends, of course, were no part of that teaching.
page 527 note 1 Davids, Rhys, Buddhism, p. 10.Google Scholar
page 527 note 2 The story of Asita ends with verse 20 of the Nālaka Sutta, and after it comes the colophon, “the Vatthugāthās are ended.” The Nālaka Sutta then begins, and ends after verse 45 with the words “the Nālaka Sutta is ended”.
page 527 note 3 For Garbe's discussion of the Asita visit, see Garbe, , op. cit., pp. 48–50.Google Scholar
page 527 note 4 Garbe, , op. cit., pp. 50–61Google Scholar. Garbe originally denied all connexion between the N.T. and Buddhist works. His first impressions in this case were, me judice, the best; but Edmunds seems to have persuaded him to change his opinion.
page 528 note 1 For the Jātakas see Cowe Il's Introduction to the translation of the Jātakaa edited by him, vol. i; Davids, Rhys, Buddhist India, pp. 189 ff.Google Scholar; Winternitz, s.v. “Jātaka” in Hastings' Dictionary of Religion and Ethics; Thomas, , Jātaka TalesGoogle Scholar. A critic reviewing this last work in the Times Literary Supplement for March 22, 1917, says: “Most of the verse, it would seem, is not older than the third century b.c., and much of the prose must date from early in our era.”
page 528 note 2 Garbe, , op. cit., p. 57.Google Scholar
page 529 note 1 Jātaka No. 78.
page 530 note 1 Garbe, , op. cit., p. 50Google Scholar, supports his opinion by saying that while bodily devils are frequently met with in the Buddhist canonical works, they never occur in the Bible except in the history of our Lord's temptation. The latter part of Garbe's argument rests on two very dubious assertions: first, that the devil took a personal shape in the temptation of our Lord; and second, that corporeal devils were unknown to the Jews. First. I take down Alford's Greek Testament, and I read his commentary on Matt, iv, 1–11: “Had Luke's been our only account, we might have supposed what took place to have been done in a vision; bat the two other expressions (in S. Matth. and S. Mark) entirely preclude this. It is undetermined by the letter of the sacred text whether the Tempter appeared in a bodily shape.” “There is not a word in any one of the three narratives of the temptation of Christ which would warrant the belief that the devil came personally visible to Christ. Indeed, one of the temptations, and perhaps the keenest and deadliest of the three, must have been visionary and subjective” (Barrett, B., The Temptation of Christ, p. 54)Google Scholar. Plutarch says that Socrates paid no attention to stories of supernatural appearances, but he listened attentively if any one spoke of hearing words uttered by an unseen speaker. Such was the demon of Socrates. But the whole subject is one I must decline to discuss. Second. I cannot profess to have made any study of Jewish demonology, but, to take the two first instances which occur to me, I have always supposed that the incubi of Genesis vi who begat children with the daughters of men had some corporeal substance; the Book of Enoch certainly represents them as corporeal beings. And I imagine that Isaiah's satyrs who danced amid the ruins of Babylon were pictured as visible bodily forms.
page 531 note 1 JRAS. 1907, pp. 951 ff.Google Scholar, “The child Krishna, Christianity, and the Gujars.”
page 531 note 2 Macdonell, , Sanskrit Literature, p. 287.Google Scholar
page 532 note 1 “Der Name Govinda allein, im Vārtika, beweist nichts dafür” (Weber, , Indische Streifen, iii, p. 429).Google Scholar
page 532 note 2 Hopkins, , The Religions of India, p. 427.Google Scholar
page 532 note 3 Bhakti has almost as wide a range of meaning as the Christian doctrine of Faith; and as La Vallée Poussin says, “the Indian schools of devotion (bhakti) are often not strict as regards morality and discipline” (Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, s.v. “Mahāyāna”, p. 332)Google Scholar. The Gita calls it the “less troublesome way” (Hopkins, , The Great Epic of India, p. 188)Google Scholar. Bhakti was one of the many doctrines the Buddhists evolved pari passu with the Hindus, or which they borrowed from them. “The belief in the providence of Amitābha and of Avalokita, the belief in their saving grace, has very little in common with ancient Buddhism, but is excellent Krishnaism” (Poussin, La Vallée, op. cit., p. 335)Google Scholar. The whole subject of bhakti has attracted much attention of late; v. various articles in the JRAS. 1907–11. On the Continent Professor Garbe is, I believe, the chief exponent. Barth, , The, Religions of India, pp. 218–19Google Scholar, has some brief but excellent remarks on the subject. “All antiquity had in the end resolved religion into matter of knowledge, either rational, intuitive, or revealed. It is bhakti which enlightens the soul, which alone can render the exercises of meditation and asceticism productive of fruit. Or rather it dispenses with these; for to him who possesses it, all the rest is given over and above. It addresses itself, not to the God of the learned and the philosophers, but to the manifestation of God that is most accessible, most at hand; among the Vishnuites, for instance, not to Vishnu or to Paramātman, but to Krishna, to God made man, who makes answer by his grace, or who has rather made answer beforehand, when, condescending to close his ineffable and inconceivable majesty in a sensible form, he thus permitted the humblest to love him, and to give himself to him, even before knowing him. That was a new idea” (Barth, , The Religions of India, p. 218)Google Scholar. Barth rejects the idea that bhakti was a direct importation from Christianity. “Bhakti appears to us to be the necessary complement of a religion that has reached a certain stage of monotheismé (p. 220). The influence of Christianity on the modern developments of the doctrine is undoubted. On these modern developments Sir G. Grierson is the chief authority; whoso wishes to study modern bhakti and does not study his writings, sua, disïanza vuoi volar senz'ali. On the teaching of the great epic with regard to it see Hopkins, , op. cit., pp. 188–200Google Scholar; and on the traces of Buddhism in the later epic see his Religions of India, p. 428.Google Scholar
page 534 note 1 JRAS. 1908, p. 173.Google Scholar
page 534 note 2 Garbe, , op. cit., p. 223.Google Scholar
page 535 note 1 Weber, , Indische Streifen, iii, p. 428.Google Scholar
page 535 note 2 Jacobi has a notable article on the evolution of Krishna in Hastings' Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, s.v. “Incarnation” (Indian), pp. 193 ff.Google Scholar; but he takes no account of the child-god. Garbe has treated the history of Krishna at considerable length (op. cit., pp. 209–71); but one may suspect that his euhemerism is influenced by his desire to extract a bhakti Upanishad from the Bhagavad Gītā; nor do I find any serious attempt to reconcile the various Krishnas, or if one prefers, the various aspects of Krishna.
page 537 note 1 The pages refer to Wilson's translation of the Vishnu Purāna and Langlois' of the Harivaṃsa.
page 538 note 1 One might also compare the infant Christ in the manger, the ox and ass standing by, with the infant Krishna and Balarāma crawling in the cow-pens; but so far as there is any coincidence, it may be natural and unintentional.
page 538 note 2 “Vasudeva spoke to him (Nanda) kindly, and congratulated him on having a son in his old age” (Vish. Pur., v, c. 5, Wilson tr., p. 506)Google Scholar. Both this and the matter of the tribute are omitted in the Harivaṃsa, which represents Nanda as a hind living near Mathurā, while his fellow cowherds live in Braj. Rohinī is confined in Braj, not in Mathurā; and Vasudeva merely commends Balarāma to the care of Nanda,; he does not actually hand him over, as in the Vishnu Purāna. The Harivaṃsa also says nothing of the massacre of the innocents. It represents a slightly variant and not quite so Christian a version of the tale as the Vishnu Purāna.
page 539 note 1 At least in the Gangetic Doāb. East of the Ganges Oudh and Bihar are Rāma country, and in Rājputāna the epic hero takes the first place. Such at least is my personal impression.