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University of Michigan.
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CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS,


CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS:
2* yº ** * 1: Y- 3.
4. ... . . . * * * * S -
AN HISTORICAL INQUIRYº, or tº 3:
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INTO SOME OF St. ÇHSITY (; ; *... .
`--~~~~~~ -
THE CHIEF PARALLELISMS AND CONTRASTS
BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY
AND THE
RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.
Öğith special reference to prºbailing gifficulties am Óbjections.
BY
CHARLES HARDWICK, M.A.
LATE ARCHDEACON OF ELY, AND CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
SECOND EDITION.
WOL. I.
“Are not Abama and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean' So he
turned, and went away in a rage.”–2 KINGS V, 12.
£ombon amb (ſambriège.
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1863. -
‘I have laid it down as an invariable maxim constantly to
follow historical tradition, and to hold fast by that clue, even
when many things, in the testimony and declarations of tradition,
appear strange and almost inexplicable, or at least enigmatical;
for so soon as in the investigation of ancient history we let slip
that thread of Ariadne, we can find no outlet from the labyrinth
of fanciful theories, and the chaos of clashing opinions.”—F. von
Schlegel, Phil, of Hist, p. 81, Lond, 1847.
PRERATORY MEMOIR TO SECOND
EDITION.
THE present work contains the four Essays published by the
late Archdeacon Hardwick in the years in which he held the
office of ‘Christian Advocate’ in the University of Cambridge.
It is simply a reprint of the first edition, with the introduction
of a few notes from the author's manuscript.
The central point, around which his whole argument is
constructed, is the exhibition of the real position and relation
of Christianity in the presence of the other religions, which
have had, and still have, the allegiance of So great a part of
mankind. It was his intention, in a concluding volume, to
discuss these religions as one great whole, and to “determine
the place of the present argument among our Christian defences
and evidences; and to analyse more minutely the causes which
rendered heathen systems so ineffective, and which led in so
many instances to their rapid deterioration. He felt, however,
that this was too much to undertake in one year. His publication
therefore for the fifth and concluding year of his office as the
last “Christian Advocate’ was intended to be a discussion of
the genuineness of the Second Epistle of St. Peter, which
had formed the subject of a Latin Thesis composed for his
B.D. degree; and a few pages of this treatise was in type,
vi Prefatory Memoir.
when it, and the conclusion of the present elaborate work, and
whatever else was occupying his ever-active mind, was cut
short by a death regretted not only by a circle of private friends,
but by all admirers of a sound and reasonable churchmanship.
To those who were acquainted with the Author in the
University, his character of patient labour must be well known.
To reckon simply the years, from 1845, when he was elected
to a Fellowship, to the year of his death, 1859, and to com-
pare this period with the number of books written and edited
in the interval, will satisfy any one that there could have
been but few idle days. But a more intimate acquaintance
with his early life causes the greater wonder at the learning
which produced these works. A slip of paper written during
his undergraduateship, gives the particulars of his previous
educational course, which would be hardly credited, if the
story rested upon accounts picked up from hearsay evidence.
CHARLEs HARDWICK was born September 22, 1821, at
Slingsby, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He received the
first rudiments of English, writing and arithmetic, under Mr.
Chapman, the schoolmaster in his native village, who survived
his pupil by a few weeks. He was taught also the Latin
Grammar by the Rev. Wm. Walker, at that time the Curate,
and who afterwards held the Rectory of Slingsby. At the age
of twelve, in 1833, he was sent to a school at Malton, kept by
Mr. P. Corcoran, a Socinian minister, who is described as being
a clever man. Here he began Greek: he did not, however,
remain long under his teaching, but was sent to the Grammar
School at Sheffield, where some relatives resided. Here
again he only remained for one year: weak health compelled
his removal home, and kept him there for six or eight months
—Studying : entering upon a course of Self-education: preparing
to obtain learning in the only way that seemed open to him,
Prefatory Memoir. vii
*
by assisting in teaching others. At the age of fifteen he was
taken by Mr. Irving, on the recommendation of his friend
Mr. Walker, as pupil and assistant in the Thornton Grammar
School near Pickering; and he was there for eighteen months.
In the summer of 1838, while not yet seventeen, he removed
to the academy at Malton, where he was assistant classical tutor
under Mr. Marshall. Here he remained for eighteen months.
While in this situation, he delivered two lectures at the
Mechanics' Institute; and some of his youthful essays in Poetry
were published in the Poet's Corner of the York Courant.
A longer specimen of his talents in this department, in the
shape of a sacred drama, was sent to Lord Carlisle through
Mr. Walker, his lordship's chaplain; and this brought the youth
a sovereign, and a word of encouragement. He continued
to write poetry—somnets and longer pieces—in his next situ-
ation; when he was engaged as assistant by the Rev. H.
Barlow, who took pupils at Shirland Rectory, in Derbyshire.
Here he enjoyed a salary of £40. a-year. But it does not
appear that he was there for a full year—at all events not more
than a year. He brought home a half-year's stipend, which
enabled him to pay his Caution money.
In July 1840, he was entered for a sizarship at St. John's,
but was unsuccessful at the examination in October. He then
entered as a pensioner at Catharine Hall, and obtained a small
Scholarship after the College examination in the Easter Term
in 1841.
The remainder of his undergraduate course is soon told. The
hardworking youth was chiefly maintained by his scholarship,
with helps that are obtainable in the University, and for which
So steady a student could be safely recommended by Professor
Corrie, the tutor of the College. He had also an exhibition
(Lady Lumley's) of £15. for three years, from the Thornton
viii Prefatory Memoir.
Grammar School. This fact intimates that he was at that
School as a scholar; or if he united the positions of teacher and
scholar, he was sufficiently recognised in the latter capacity
to be considered a member of the School. -
In the examination at the end of his second year (1842)
he was Prizeman in Divinity, 1st in Classics, and 2nd in
Mathematics. At the B.A. examination, in January 1844, he
stood first Senior Optime.
Self-maintenance and self-improvement were still the rules
of his working life. By the assistance of Professor Corrie,
he soon became tutor in the family of Sir Joseph Radcliffe,
then residing at Brussels. Here he used the opportunities open
to him, and made himself master of French and German. He
was unsuccessful in an examination for a Yorkshire Fellowship
in the October Term of 1844: but nothing daunted, he con-
tinued his work with his pupils, and improved himself so far
that he was elected in 1845.
Be was now free to choose his own line of reading. His
Fellowship giving him a title for orders, he was ordained Teacon
in 1846, and Priest in 1847, in which year he proceeded to
his M.A. degree. - t
In September, 1846, he received the thanks of the parishioners
of All Saints, Cambridge, for duty done during the absence of the
Vicar, the Rev. George Maddison. During this year, 1846,
he was engaged, under Professor Corrie, upon the new edition
of Sir Roger Twysden's Historical Vindication of the Church
of England in point of Schism, as it stands separated from the
Roman, and was reformed 1° Elizabeth; and found the additional
matter introduced into this edition, in Twysden's autograph, in
an interleaved copy in the Library of the British Museum.
As a Supplement to this work, he was induced to edit Arch-
deacon Fullwood's Roma Ruit, or the Pillars of Rome broken :
Prefatory Memoir. ix
Cambridge, 1847. He also completed, for the University
Press, the edition of the Saxon and Northumbrian versions of
St. Matthew's Gospel (1848), commenced by the late Mr.
John M. Kemble. w
His next work was an edition, for the Percy Society, of
A Poem on the Times of Edward II. (1849), followed by an
Anglo-Saxon Passion of St. George (1850): undertaken while
engaged on the Catalogue of MSS. in the Cambridge University
Library, of which Mr. Hardwick was appointed to be editor
in chief, and to which he contributed the descriptions of the
volumes of. Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Early English
literature. In 1849, also, he read before the Cambridge Anti-
quarian Society, An Historical Enquiry touching St. Catharine
of Alexandria; which was printed with the addition of a Semi-
Savon Legend, and Glossary: Cambridge, 1849.
In 1850, he assisted in preparing an edition of the Book
of Homilies for the University Press, under the supervision of
Professor Corrie, who fairly ‘thanks his friend and former pupil
for verifying a large proportion of the quotations from Scripture
and ecclesiastical writers, and for his valuable aid in correcting
the press and supplying an index.’
In December of this year, he preached a course of sermons at
Great St. Mary's, on the Connection of the Old and New
Testaments. r
In March of the year 1851, he was appointed by the Bishop
of London (C. J. Blomfield) to be the Cambridge preacher at
the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. He had at this time just com-
pleted his History of the Articles of Religion. An American
edition of this work, of course without the author's Sanction,
was printed at Philadelphia in 1852.
In March 1853, at the conclusion of his Preachership at
Whitehall, he became Professor of Divinity in Queens' College,
IX Prefatory Memoir.
Birmingham, an office, however, which he held only for a few
months. Church History was occupying his attention. He
printed a selection from his Whitehall sermons, under the title
of Twenty Sermons for Town Congregations; and also the History
of the Christian Church during the Middle Ages.
In 1855 he was appointed Lecturer in Divinity in King's
College, Cambridge; and Christian Advocate, which office caused
the composition of the Ist part of the present work. In 1856
he was elected a member of the Council of the Senate, and
re-elected in 1858. Early in 1856 he published the 2nd volume
of his History of the Christian Church, embracing the Reformation
Period; and before the end of the year Part II. of this work.
The IIIrd Part in 1857. In 1858, he edited, in the Series
of Chronicles and Memorials, &c., Historia Monasterú S. Au-
gustini Cantuariensis, and published Part IV. of Christ and
other Masters.
In 1859 he carried through the press a second edition of
the History of the Articles, much of the work being rewritten.
No notice is taken in this survey of articles contributed to
Reviews, or smaller papers read before the Antiquarian Society.
Apart also from the works edited by Mr. Hardwick, which
involved an amount of labour which a conscientious editor
only can appreciate, the original works—the History of the
Articles—the two volumes of Church. History—and the four
Parts of Christ and other Masters—have made him a name among
the Writers of the English Church, which will not soon be
forgotten. -
FRANCIS PROCTER.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
MANY of the subjects I am here attempting to discuss
have, in one shape or other, occupied the thoughts
of previous writers, both at home and on the continent.
To some of their productions, as the references annexed
will testify, the present work has been indebted for
valuable suggestions: and even where I am not con-
scious of appropriating the materials, or adopting the
results of others, it can hardly be expected that my
observations are always original, or my researches in-
dependent. The only recent treatise which professes
to grapple with exactly the same class of difficulties,
is a volume published in 1848, by Mr. F. D. Maurice,
with the title The Religions of the World, and their
relations to Christianity. Like other writings of that
gifted author, it has naturally attracted a large circle
of admirers, offering as it does some very choice re-
flections on the spirit that pervaded the religious systems
of antiquity, Muhammedanism included. Still it seems
xii Preface.
to me, at least, that Mr. Maurice's treatment of the
subject would have proved far more successful, had his
method been more rigorously historical. He rather
helps us to philosophize on what may possibly have
been the attributes of those religions, as viewed by the
more elevated minds of heathendom, than to determine
the precise complexion of the popular belief, and its
true relation to the doctrines of the Gospel. I feel,
moreover, that the growth and permanence of such
systems are always traceable quite as much to their
accordance with the lower and depraved tastes of
humanity, as to supernatural influences exerted on
their constitution by the ever-present Logos, or to
fragments of primeval truth they are supposed to have
retained.
The work itself will shew the animus with which
objections have been met and answered. I hope that
no assailant of Revealed Religion, with whom it is
my duty to contend, will ever find his arguments mis-
represented: and if in any case I manifest what seems
to him a needless warmth of feeling, my apology must
be the strong conviction which I entertain as to the
sacredness of Christianity, and the exceeding blindness
of those persons, who, having once embraced it, turn
away from all its central doctrines with irreverence,
coldness, or contempt. ‘A politic man,’ observes Lord
Preface. xiii
Bacon,' ‘may write from his brain, without touch and
sense of his heart, as in a speculation that appertaineth
not unto him ; but a feeling Christian will express in
his words a character of zeal or love. The latter of
which, as I could wish rather embraced, being more
proper for these times, yet is the former warranted
also by great examples.’
One word of comment on the startling verdict of
the Royal Commissioners” with reference to the office
which it is my privilege to fill. ‘Objections,’ they
remark, ‘have justly been made both to the name and
to the office of Christian Advocate: for if the Christian
religion requires defence, such defence should be a
spontaneous act, not a hired service.’
This criticism, I would submit, is no less adverse
to all kinds of religious endowments. Every one who
enters into holy orders does so with the understanding
that he has been called to preach, expound, and ad-
vocate, a definite system of belief; and every one
who afterwards accepts ecclesiastical preferment, is con-
verted by that step into a “hired' defender of his
principles. In what respect foundations like those of
Hulse, Boyle, and Bampton, are peculiarly obnoxious
to the charge of fostering a sordid spirit in the persons
* Of Church Controversies, Works, III. 135, Lond, 1765.
* Report of the Commissioners for the University of Cambridge, p. 69.
xiv. Preface.
who have been entrusted with the functions they pre-
scribe, it is not easy to determine. But while urging
this, I would by no means be understood to argue, that
such endowments have been uniformly applied in the
best manner possible.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
PART I.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE RELIGIOUs TENDENCIES of THE PRESENT AGE .
CHAPTER II.
ON THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE
SECTION 1. Scriptural Proof
2. Psychological Proof
3. Physiological Proof
4. Philological Proof
CHAPTER III.
ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF RELIGION UNDER THE OLD
TESTAMENT
SECTION 1. The Law
- 2. The Promise
APPENDIX I. The Absolute Religion .
PA G JE
47
52
55
62
67
80
86
121
157
xvi Contents.
|PART II.
RELIGIONS OF INDIA.
CHAPTER I.
WARIETIES of RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AMONG THE HINDUS
SECTION 1. Védaism
2. Bráhmanism & º g ſº g
3. Schools of Philosophy, including Buddhism
CHAPTER II.
APPARENT CorresponDENCIES BETWEEN HINDüISM AND
REVEALED RELIGION .
SECTION 1. Hindú monotheism & tº
2. Hindú trinities, or triads . tº ſº
3. Hindú avatāras, or incarnations, especially
that of Krishjia
CHAPTER III.
REAL Correspond BNCIES BETWEEN HINDüISM AND RE-
VEALED RELIGION tº • •
SECTION 1. The primitive state of Man
2. The Fall of Man & tº ſº
3. The Hindú version of the Deluge
4. The Hindú rite of Sacrifige
5. The Hindú hope of restoration .
CHAPTER IV.
CoNTRASTS IN THE GENERAL DEVELOPMENT OF HINDü.
ISM AND REVEALED RELIGION
APPENDIX I. The non-A'ryan Tribes of Hindústán .
APPENDIX II. Coincidences between Lamaism and Me-
dia,wal Christianity
FAGE
165
171
190
206
247
258
271
277
294,
297
303
311
320
327
33] .
369
378
PART I.
INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
CELARTER, I.
On the Religious Tendencies of the Present Age.
'Avalréutrel juás éirl év6éas (Ös Aéyé) troumrås ical aroqois ical
(pl.A006 povs.—Origen, contra Celsum, Lib. VII. p. 359 (ed. Spencer).
THERE is no more striking aspect in the history of CHAP. I.
religion than the correspondencies which it from periodie
time to time exhibits in remote and disconnected ..."
quarters of the world. The scholar who investigates moral
the laws of thought in almost any period, not con- world.
fining his inquiries to a single people or one group of
cognate tribes, is sure to be impressed with a belief
that mighty and mysterious agencies do verily exist
in the recesses of our spiritual nature, and that HE
who regulates their action so as to produce phenomena
which men are equally unable to create or to inter-
pret, is not human but Divine.
Conjunctures of this kind will often furnish the
historian with his resting-points, or epochs. After
traversing, it may be, centuries of stagnant uniformity,
where all things promised to continue as they were,
his thoughts are suddenly aroused by indications of
a tempest, and the growth of some gigantic revolution.
A new spirit, whence it came he cannot tell, begins
to work at many different points below the surface of
4
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. T.
Eacamples
of these
agitations :
(1) Sixth
century be-
fore Christ,
society, projecting a new order of ideas, stimulating
sluggish faculties, and calling into active exercise
another cycle of emotions. Many a problem which
the former age abandoned as insipid, or intractable,
begins to be discussed with fresh alacrity. The
nature of God Himself, His attributes, and His re-
lation to the visible world; the origin, and future
destiny of man,—are all regarded as it seems through
other media: and these changes, propagated simul-
taneously, in countries where no outward currents of
communication are detected, and in countries linked
together by the ties of blood, of language, and of
commerce, constitute a different phase of civilisation,
if they do not actually commence an era in the
fortunes of the human race.
Some faint analogy may be perceived in the
occasional convulsions of the physical world; for in-
stance, in great earthquakes, such as that of 1755.
The shock that buried Lisbon never ceased to vibrate
till it reached the wilds of Scotland, and the vine-
yards of Madeira. It was felt among the islands of
the Grecian Archipelago; it changed the level of the
solitary lakes that sleep beneath the shadows of the
Noric Alps.
On turning to the annals of mankind we ascertain
that few, if any, centuries have been more pregnant
with events of universal moment than the sixth before
the Christian era. While the members of the
Hebrew commonwealth, honoured with the special
custody of Holy Writ, were drooping in the grasp of
Babylonic despotism, their sanctuary profaned, their
liturgy suspended, and Jerusalem a heap of stones;–
while they, alone in that desert of the nations, were
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
5
conversing face to face with God, and learning more CHAP. I.
and more the perfect unity and spirituality of His
essence, what a change was wrought meanwhile in
other regions of the earth ! In Greece, for instance,
we behold a young and ardent people rising day by
day to eminence in arts, in letters, and in arms. The
founders of Hellenic speculation had but recently
commenced their struggles for the disenthralment of
the human spirit. Colonies like that which had been
planted at Marseilles were widening the horizon of
men's thoughts, and drawing Western Europe into
union with the East; while swarms of Orphic
brotherhoods, the fresh creations either of Thrace,
of Egypt, or of Phrygia, were diffusing in all quarters
the keen thirst they felt for reconciliation with the
God of heaven, and an objective revelation of His
will. In China a successful movement issued in the
rehabilitating of the ancient state-religion. Almost
every village of Persia was the theatre of changes
more decisive and profound. A consciousness of
some incurable antagonism among the elements of
our moral being had there prompted Zoroaster to con-
struct his theory of two rival principles. And, last
of all, the birth of Götama Buddha in ‘the world of
men' was made a pretext for dethroning the religious
system of his forefathers, replacing the mythology of
the Bráhman by the cold and blank negations, which,
in spite of all their dreariness, are still exerting a dis-
astrous witchery on the teeming millions of the East.
Or glance we at a later stage of universal history, (2) Fif.
teenth and
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries after Christ; and
we shall find a second cluster of these wonderful centuries
te tº º & (l,
analogies. The day-star of religious liberty was ºff.
6 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. rising in the north of Europe. As the multitude
woke up from the protracted slumber of the Middle
Ages, dreams that once bewildered them were fading
from the mind. The old traditions, social, civil, and
ecclesiastical, were shaken to their roots, and lost
their hold in every quarter. God was meanwhile
felt to be peculiarly near to us, the living God, the
moral Ruler of the Universe, the righteous Lord not
only of the Church collective, and of Christian
commonwealths, but also of the human family at
large, and every human conscience. It was mainly
by the force of this conviction that the Saxon friar
was impelled to lift his voice with such tremendous
emphasis against the schoolmen and the Roman
pontiffs, and enabled to attract so vast an audience
from all parts of western Christendom. Yet, strange
to say, the mighty movement which he headed found
some parallels in still more distant regions. A new
incarnation of the Lama of Thibet effected permanent
changes in one branch of Buddhism ; while Bába
Nánuk of Lahore, the Luther of the Panjāb, felt
himself constrained to reassert the absolute unity of
God, and on the basis of that doctrine laboured to
promote the fusion of the Bráhman and the Muslim
in one religious confraternity.
The present Now persons are not wanting who affirm that
:* agitations of our day betoken the approach, if not
"ſºrs, the actual presence, of some corresponding crisis in
the history of man. I do not here allude to the
momentous war, in which our statesmen have em-
barked,—a war, that after slaying thousands of our
fellow-Christians, and disorganizing the political ma-
chinery of Europe, threatens to extend itself indefin-
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 7
itely among the Asiatic nations, and involve them CHAP. I.
also in the struggle. Subjects of this kind might T
fairly, it is true, engage the notice of a Christian
advocate, who, conscious that the world is God's, and
that His arm is ever visible in guiding or confounding
human projects, had been urged to combat what is
termed the ‘positive’ philosophy of Comte and other
sociologists: for nothing could have more discredited
their baseless theories, than the combinations we have
recently been called to witness and the perils that
beset the future course of western civilisation. But
such is not my purpose now. I rather wish to ask
what are the spiritual characteristics of the age in
which we live, and whether any of the fermentations
in the moral and intellectual world have given birth
to tendencies peculiarly detrimental to the interests
of Christian truth.
That our own lot has been really cast within The mental
a period of extraordinary mental vigour and activity º: of
it is impossible to deny. The closer study of the
human constitution, physical and psychological; the
victories achieved by modern sciences inspiring an
idea that every difficulty in nature may ere long be
mastered by the progress of invention; the astonish-
ing facilities of intercourse among ourselyes and other
members of the family of nations; the establishment
of truer canons both in verbal and historic criticism;
profound researches into the structure and affinities of
language; the more copious inductions of ethnology,
elucidating the condition of the ancient world, and
helping us to track the pre-historic wanderings of
influential tribes; a broader, and, in many cases,
juster view of heathendom, the character of its divini-
8
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. ties and its relation to the Church of God; a quick
perception of the vastness of the rational creation,
and the higher value we have learned to place on
individual souls, these all have, in a greater or less
degree, assisted in the modification of established
theories, in opening new veins of thought, and in
exciting yearnings that were scarcely ever felt by
earlier ages of the world. And, as we might have
easily foreseen, the great enlargement of our sphere of
knowledge, and our deeper sympathies with every-
thing that bears the impress of humanity, have been
combined in certain quarters with a feverish love of
speculation, and an irrepressible desire of change.
First principles are now more freely called in ques-
tion, sifted with a bold and microscopic criticism, and
not unfrequently rejected with an utter disregard of
ancient prepossessions, maxims and authorities. Here
also it appears that the portentous agitation is not
limited to Christian countries, nor to those of them
who as distinguished for their intellectual prowess
have been commonly esteemed the champions of the
right of free inquiry. It has even roused the Jew
himself from his supineness: it has taught him to
interpret and defend his sacred books as he had never
done before.
Of course, the epoch is not absolutely singular:
there have been many like it, where the human mind
was similarly quickened, and gave similar indications
In what
respects
peculiar.
1 “Judaism, roused from her
lethargy by the mighty upheav-
ings of the age, has at length
arisen and steps forth out of her
long obscurity into the broad Sun-
light of general consciousness.’
Philippsohn, Development of the
Ireligious Idea, p. 3, Lond. 1855.
This able work, written by a Jew,
who speaks of the Old Testament
almost in the style of Maurer
and De Wette, is itself a sign of
the times.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 9
of the fevers that possessed it. Still the present CHAP. I.
generation has peculiar characteristics, and is often T
penetrated by a spirit of its own. I do not say that
gifted individuals now reflect more deeply on parti-
cular questions, or have grown more clearly conscious
of the difficulties by which those questions are en-
compassed. Who, for instance, ever looked the
hardest problems of humanity more fully in the face
than Origen or St. Augustine, Anselm or Aquinas 2
Who, so long as we continue in the present stage
of our existence, will approximate more closely to the
right solution of them than such men as Bacon,
Butler, Pascal, and Leibnitz? But granting this,
it must be also granted, first, that there has been
of late a marvellous increase in the area of the field
of speculation; and, secondly, that the number of
speculative minds is multiplied almost indefinitely.
What hosts of questions that had once been canvassed
only in the narrow circle of divines and schoolmen
and philosophers, are now dispersed among the mass
of the community, and agitated far and near ! The
ever-teeming press exposes them to universal criti-
cism; and thus attempts are making to resolve—to
handle, weigh, and measure, one might say—the
mysteries of God and man, of life, of death, and of
eternity, alike in the saloons of opulence, the crowded
halls of science, and the workshop of the rudest
artisan. On every side we recognise the same de-
termination to know more about the real ground of
men's convictions, an impatience of restraint, a fear-
less self-assertion, and a fixed resolve to push what-
ever principle they may embrace to its remotest con-
sequence, with small regard to other inferences no
10
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. I.
Different
effects of
this activity
less legitimate, by which the former should in reason
have been traversed and controlled.
1. If our thoughts are concentrated on the single
province of religion, we shall see, as might have been
on religious anticipated, that the spirit of the age has there left
tnquiries.
very deep impressions of its power. One class, in-
deed, of educated Englishmen have never drifted far
from the positions of the previous generation. They
continue to look down unmoved on all the tossings of
their neighbours. Nor can theirs be termed the
silence of misgiving or the self-possession of indiffe-
rence; it is rather the tranquillity of deep and living
faith. For in their ranks are many of the brightest
luminaries both of Scholarship and science,”—minds
of a gigantic stature; minds, moreover, that are gifted
with the finest critical acumen, and that never hesitate
to exercise it in determining religious questions, such
as in their judgment man may fairly hope to master.
Subject to this limitation they are advocates of pro-
gress; and, accordingly, we hear them welcome every
species of research that may contribute to the stores
of sacred knowledge. They are foremost in acquiring
and comparing languages, in tracing the descent of
nations, and in disinterring such materials as are
calculated to supply the blanks that we deplore in
First
variety of
Onodern
thought.
* One of the highest types of See his Christian Advocate's Pub-
this school was the late Regius
Professor of Hebrew at Cam-
bridge, the lamented Dr. Mill,
who, in the vastness of his erudi-
tion, in the grasp and clearness
of his reasoning faculties, in his
scientific attainments, and his un-
swerving orthodoxy, was more
than a match for the apostles of
modern scepticism and unbelief.
lications, passim. Few scholars
ever knew so much, and fewer
still when they have reached the
utmost verge of human know-
ledge are animated by his reve-
rential spirit.
‘Nescire velle, quae Magister Op-
timus
Docere non vult, erudita inscitia
est.’
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
11
Jewish or in Christian history. On men like these, CHAP. I.
however, the effect of modern progress and discovery
is to strengthen their belief in the announcements of
the Bible. Whichever way they turn, its truthful-
ness is more completely vindicated, and their hold
upon its mysteries proportionally confirmed." They
are most conscious, it is true, that in the kingdoms
both of grace and nature, in the volume of God's
works and in the volume of His word, a thousand
difficulties remain which they are utterly unable to
decipher; depths of thought they never hope to
fathom, discords which they cannot harmonize, and
elevations which they cannot climb. Such problems
as the origin and growth of evil, that profound
enigma into which so many others are eventually
resolved; such principles of the Divine Ceconomy as
that of sacrifice or mediation, though they recognise
its perfect fitness, and embrace it on their knees,
are felt to be immeasurably above their present com-
prehension; yet so numerous and convergent are the
testimonies which commend the doctrines of the
Gospel to their inmost heart,” that all the arrows of
the Tempter fall innocuous, blunted by the shield of
* ‘Magis magisque mihi con-
firmabatur omnes versutarum ca-
lumniarum nodos, quos illi de-
ceptores nostri adversus divinos
Librosinnectebant, posse dissolvi.”
S. August. Confess., lib. VI. c. 3.
‘Titubabit autem fides, si divi-
narum Scripturarum vacillat auc-
toritas.” De Doctr. Christ., lib. I.
c. xxxvii.
* After dwelling on the import-
ance of criteria by which to se-
parate the true religion from the
false, Leibnitz (Théodicée, CEuvres,
II, 42, Paris, 1842) does not fear
to add: ‘Cependant la foi divine
elle-même, quand elle est allumée
dans l’âme, est quelque chose de
plus qu'une opinion, et ne dépend
pas des occasions ou des motifs
qui l’ont fait maître : elle va au
delà de l'entendement, et s'em-
pare de la Volonté et du coeur,
pour nous faire agir avec chaleur
et avec plaisir, comme la loi de
Dieu le commande, sans qu'on ait
plus besoin de penser aux raisons,
ni de s'arrêter aux difficultés de
raisonnement que l'esprit peut en-
visager.’
12
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. I.
Second
variety of
70dérº,
thought.
faith. A man of this kind knows in what he has
believed; and though he still sees darkly, communing
with adumbrations of the truth, and not with truth
itself, he waits in patience till that veil which sepa-
rates the present from the future has been finally
withdrawn, till Christianity has been divested of the
earthly symbols under which it is presented to his
faith, and he beholds it as it is. What happens in the
physical world as the reward of patient observation,
will, he is persuaded, happen also in the moral world.
The seeming incongruities will form at last a con-
cordissima dissonantia, and the riddles that now test
and try us, will be then converted into proofs of
harmony and vehicles of love.
2. But there is a powerful class of minds in
England as in other parts of Europe, who are differ-
ently affected in their estimate of sacred topics by the
fluctuations of the present day. The widening of
their field of vision and the light that has been
thrown on many of their favourite studies, so far
from adding vigour to the principle of faith, has
rather tended to disturb their intellectual balance,
and induced a state of feeling which approaches, here
and there at least, to very serious misbelief. The
causes more immediately at work in the production
of the change will doubtless vary with the tone and
texture of the individual mind; but all whom I in-
clude in this division are alike dissatisfied with what
they style ‘the popular religion,’ or the views of
Christianity now current in different branches of the
Church. Devoted in some cases to the study of the
mechanism of nature, these persons form the habit
of regarding the Almighty rather as a God of law
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
13
and Order, ‘a great Mechanician, who has, once for CHAP. I.
all, impressed upon His works the tendencies which
they are bound to follow, than as ever present with
the sacred family and as ever active in the govern-
ment of all things. Hence a disposition to reduce
the supernatural elements of Christianity within the
Smallest possible compass, and in many cases to
escape from the consideration of barely physical
miracles, without, however, any conscious wish to
call in question the abstract possibility of a miracu-
lous intervention. The nature, method, limits, and
effects of prophecy, and generally of that mysterious
influence exercised upon the mind and spirit of the
sacred writers which is termed their inspiration, have
on similar grounds provoked the criticism of this
school of theologians. In their eyes the evidence of
Christianity, the single ground on which it ever must
depend, is the inherent fitness of its central doctrines
to appease their moral and emotional wants. But
this position, where exclusively asserted, has involved
them in the maintenance of others less consistent
with the ‘popular theology.’ They contend for the
importance, not to say necessity, of discriminating
between the form of a religion and its essence; or,
in other words, require us to abstract the kernel of
the truth from what is merely husk and shell, and so
determine what portions of the Holy Scriptures are
divine, and really entitled to the designation “Word
of God.” Their chief criterion in conducting such
a process they derive from what are called ‘the pure
instincts’ of our spiritual nature, which it is affirmed
enable us to call in question and correct some repre-
sentations of the sacred writers, more especially of
14
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP, I, the Old Testament; the letter of which is held to be
deficient in moral dignity, and even said to violate in
some respects the perfect law of conscience. “How
inscrutable also, it is whispered, “are the views there
furnished of the character of God Himself! How
stern the aspects under which He is presented in His
dealings with the world at large How awful and
repulsive the idea that beings gifted with such scanty
opportunities of knowledge should have power to
make themselves incorrigible in the present life, and
so consign themselves to hopeless misery in the next!
How terribly mysterious the arrangement in virtue
of which an inconsiderable fraction of the human
family has ever been elected from the guilty mass;
while others are abandoned to their own devices, or
have only faint and flickering lights to guide them
in their searchings after God.' Allusions to these
topics have exposed their authors to the charge of
striving to disparage the Supremacy of Christianity,
by placing it in the same line with philosophical
systems of the heathen world, and recognising also
in such systems a prophetic office and a genuine
revelation. It is not my purpose to determine how
far the charge has been substantiated. I notice it
in order to bring out more clearly the supposed con-
nexion of these modes of thought with others that
will be discussed hereafter. But candour, in the
meantime, urges me to add that wild as may have
been the intellectual aberrations of the former class,
they are not consciously opposed to Christianity it-
self. Their reverence for the Person of our blessed
Lord is warm and constant; their devotion to His
service is indisputable.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
15
We understand them, in so far at least as their CHAP. I.
opinions are connected with the present subject, by Tº parºd
reverting to the mental struggles of the early Church in the .
at Alexandria. As soon as ever Christian truth had ſº
come in contact with the speculative yearnings that
prevailed in heathendom, its own adherents were
divided into schools of thought considerably diverg-
ing from each other. One of these predominated in
the West, the second in the East, especially in what
was then a kind of philosophical exchange for all the
various theorizers of the age, the schools of Alex-
andria. Origen and others whom he represented,
after weighing and contrasting the claims of Christ-
ianity with those of the prevailing heathen systems,
occupied a somewhat new position." They had list-
ened to the pleas of Gnosticism; they saw it ramify-
ing in all quarters and assuming everywhere the
most grotesque expression; yet instead of treating it
as an utter falsification of Christianity, they sym-
pathised with it so far as to allow that real mental
wants had given birth to many of its theories. They
1 Mr. R. W. Mackay (Rise and
Progress of Christianity, p. 193)
will not, however, concede the
name of philosophy to the Alex-
andrian speculations, because “a
philosophy tied to dogmatic au-
thority is a manifest self-contra-
diction.’ His meaning probably
is that philosophy in his peculiar
acceptation of the term cannot
coexist with an objective revela-
tion; and yet the phenomena of
nature which are the subject of
all matural philosophy are as truly
such a revelation as the Holy
Scriptures profess to be. ‘The
chief distinction,’ he continues
(p. 194), ‘of the so-called philo-
sophy seems to have been an en-
larged and more liberal compre-
hension of former systems; the
admission, against dogged ignor-
ance, of the general claims of
heathem wisdom as well as Jew-
ish, as part of a universal revela-
tion ; and on the other hand the
assertion, against the onesidedness
of heretical Gnosis, of the plain
doctrines of Christianity.’ A more
exact account of the principles
and tendencies of this school is
furnished by Guerike, De Schola
qua Aleasandria, floruit, etc.
16
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. I. strove accordingly to satisfy the cravings of the
pseudo-Gnosis by the substitution of a Gnosis pro-
perly so-called. They granted that the faith of ordi-
nary Christians (Tiatus) was in many points a popular
adaptation rather than a scientific expression of the
truth; and that beneath the terminology of the
Church there lay a richer vein of doctrines which
philosophers, and they alone, could thoroughly ap-
preciate. Such thoughts would necessarily colour
all the stream of Alexandrine theology, and especially
the views of Clement, Origen, and their disciples,
with regard to the position of the heathen world.
No absolute boundary was drawn between the Christ-
ian Church and it; philosophy standing in the same
relation to the one as did the law of Moses to the
other, and serving as a kind of pedagogue to bring
men unto Christ." They raised the Gospel, it is
true, indefinitely above all previous systems, and re-
garded it as superseding and completing them; but
a profound anxiety to place it on a broader basis and
in more intelligible connexion with ancient history as
well as with the literary and artistic culture of man-
kind at large, impelled them to approximate as closely
1 See, for instance, the remark-
able passage in Clemens Alexand.
Stromata, lib. I, c. 5. (p. 531, ed.
Potter), and others in Mr.Trench's
JTulsean Lectures (1846), p. 157,
note. It should, however, be re-
membered that the eulogies of
the Greek Fathers were generally
limited to Platonism, a system
which had doubtless acted here
and there as a positive preparation
for the Gospel. Many Platonists
were numbered among the early
converts, and some appear to have
retained their scholastic mantle,
esteeming what they had em-
braced the true philosophy: see
Justin's Dialog. c. 3, c. 8, and
Eusebius IV. 26, § 4. Their main
positions were (1) that the Logos
(ào apicos or a treppatticós) had con-
stantly communicated to men the
seeds of Divine truth, so that the
doctrines of Plato were in many
cases not essentially different from
those of Christ : (2) that portions
of the truth as taught by Plato
were derived directly from the
Hebrew Scriptures: Gieseler, Eccl.
IIist. I. I63, n. 5, Edinb. 1846.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
17
as the nature of the case allowed to the position of CHAP. I.
the pseudo-Gnostics. On the other hand, the Latin
fathers, and especially their sternest type, Tertullian,"
as uniformly laboured to repel those foreign elements
which Gnosticism would fain have mingled and in-
corporated with the primitive belief. The barrier
which they raised between the old and new convic-
tions was impassable. The pagan world to them
was anti-Christian in its very core; and even if it
could be proved that correspondencies to any rites or
dogmas of the Church were manifest in heathen
systems, Tertullian and his school evaded the objec-
tions drawn from such phenomena, by urging that
the whole of Gentilism was only a distorted copy of
primordial truth, or else was actually derived from
a perusal of the Old Testament Scriptures.” The
traces left by both these parties on the current litera-
ture of the Church it is Superfluous to point out.
1 In his De Anima, c. 23, he
calls Plato “omnium haereticorum
condimentarius;' but a more com-
plete specimen of his modes of
thought is furnished in the De
Praescriptione Habréticorum, c. 7
and c. 8: ‘Quid ergo Athenis et
Hierosolymis Quid academiae
et Ecclesiae 2 Quid haereticis et
Christianis? Nostra institutio de
porticu Salomonis est: quiet igse
tradiderat, Dominum in simplici-
tate cordis esse quaerendum. Wi-
derint qui Stoicum et Platonicum
et dialecticum Christianismum
protulerunt. Nobis curiositate
opus non est post Christum Jesum,
nec inquisitione post Evangelium.
Cum credimus, nihil desideramus
ultra credere:’ cf. Adv. Hermo-
genen, c. VIII, and Hippolytus,
Philosoph. v. 6, Oxon. 1851.
WOL. I.
* Thus he asks in his Apolog.
c. x.LVII: “Unde haec, oro vos,
philosophis aut poetis tam consi-
milia nonnisi de nostris sacra-
mentis: side nostris Sacramentis,
ut de prioribus, ergo fideliora sunt
nostra magisque credenda, quorum
Żmagines quoque fidem inveniunt.”
The Latin Fathers in the age of
St. Augustine had considerably
modified their tone in treating of
these subjects. Thus in the De
Civitate Dei, lib. VIII, c. 11, we
read: ‘Mirantur autem quidam
nobis in Christi gratia sociati,
Cum audiunt Vel legunt Platonem
de Deo ista sensisse, quae multum
congruere veritati nostrae religi-
onis agnoscunt.” He explains the
affinity by urging that Plato bor-
rowed from the Hebrews. In his
Confessiones, lib. VII, c. 20, he
r)
-*
18
Christ and offer Masters.
3. But then, as now, there was a third variety
of sentiment with reference to the claims of Christ-
ianity and its relation to the heathen world. I can-
not tell how far the members of this third school
draw their tenets from the writings of the Alexan-
drines, or have been affected by the speculations of
their modern representatives. The path was wery
short and slippery from the standing-ground of ortho-
dox Gnosticism to that of Marcion or Carpocrates.
Nor can it be disputed that a like transition has been
simplified in recent times by treatises of Christian
philosophers, who themselves are checked in their
descent to scepticism and disbelief. If men like
Coleridge have indulged invehementand indiscriminate
charges of “bibliolatry,’ intending by that phrase all
deference to the letter of our sacred books as abso-
lutely true; if they have openly repudiated what they
term the popular theology as destitute of Christian
life and spirit, and have even represented some of its
foremost doctrines as no better than a species of
‘devil-worship,'—one need hardly marvel if a second
generation of reformers claim the right of drawing
bolder inferences from such ideas, and resolve to free
themselves entirely from the irksome fetters of tradi-
tion. If it be again contended, that all branches of
the human family possess the same kind of inspira-
tions, owing to the universal presence of the Word of
CHAP. I.
Thº'd
variety of
modern
/hought.
also alludes to the preparatory remember that he had to deal
effect produced on his own mind
by the writings of the Platonists,
but is careful to point out the in-
sufficiency of everything short of
the Holy Scriptures to teach the
way to heaven. IIis cautious
language is explained When We
with Christian Platonists, “Qui
dicere ausi Sunt omnes Domini
nostri Jesu Christi sententias,
quas mirari et praedicare coguntur,
de Platonis libris eum didicisse:’
º JDoctrina Christiana, lib. II,
c. 28.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
19
God within them; if the Holy Ghost be rather sent
to waken up a slumbering consciousness of Christian-
ity already planted in the soul than to infuse the
elements of supernatural life, and bring the fallen
spirit back to fellowship with Christ, a door is opened
for the broad and specious theory, that the Gospel
is at best a higher stage of natural religion, or, it
may be, one of numerous forms, in which the spiritual
instincts of humanity have found an utterance for
themselves. -
With this remark on what appears to be at least
a possible affinity between the second and third vari-
eties of modern thought, I pass to an examination of
the principles enunciated in the latter school. And
first, it is observable that when a similar class of
questions were discussed some years ago, the dress
which they assumed was very different. What is
known as the ‘sensational’ philosophy was then in
the ascendant, or was not so commonly abandoned as
it now is ; and the fashion, therefore, was to ransack
all the chambers and the tombs of history in quest of
some objective bases for explaining the resemblances
between the heathen systems and that founded by
our blessed Lord. It was usual to suppose that
certain general truths had been communicated in the
infancy of the human race, by means of ‘a primeval
preternatural revelation,” and that Christianity may
therefore have preserved at least Some fragments of
1. Such, for example, was the
solution adopted by the Unitarian
author, Mr. Belsham; but Mr.
W. J. Fox, originally of the same
sect (Religious Ideas, p. 66, Lond.
1849), corrects his predecessor.
‘That early revelation,' he urges,
“is better looked for in the source
of all revelations, in that with
which all revelations must be iden-
tified to be genuine,—the moral
constitution of human nature, the
human mind and heart.”
CHAP. I
JEvančna-
tion of its
principles.
20
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. T.
IIow ºnodi-
fied by the
Idealistic
Philosophy.
such revelation, like the other extant creeds. They
all, it was contended, were ultimately reducible to the
same level; yet as none of them was altogether
earthly in its origin, or merely a projection from
the spiritual consciousness of man, the hope was
entertained that in proportion to the growth of criti-
cism, the aboriginal form of true religion might be
rescued from accretions under which it lay concealed.
During the last twenty years, however, there has
been a mighty change in the character of the estab-
lished philosophy, and that change has gradually in-
fluenced the complexion of assaults on Christianity
itself. A species of idealism is now the favourite
system. The invisible world is recognised as one
province of creation; a belief in what is spiritual and
supersensuous has returned. Men's thoughts have
been directed inward, so that speculators are impelled
to search amid the silent depths of their own being,
for the oracle that is to satisfy their cravings and to
disentangle their perplexities. The primitive idea of
God, it is maintained, by a spontaneous process of
self-evolution leads directly upward to the purest and
noblest conceptions of His nature, prompts the various
“races' of mankind to fashion their theologies in
harmony with the instincts of the human spirit, and
thus determines the religious character of every age
and people. While the former generation struggled
by the aid of criticism to weaken and destroy the
credibility of Holy Scripture, or evacuated and ethe-
rialised the special doctrines of Christianity where
these could not be utterly expunged, the new school
commonly admit that some such doctrines were an-
nounced by Christ or His immediate successors, but
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
21
profess to treat them as so many natural products of
the ordinary human mind, as self-devised expedients
for appeasing a peculiar class of human wants and
aspirations, or as forms assumed by the ideas of God
in one peculiar stage of their development. Religions
generally, and the Gospel as one member of the class,
are therefore mere expressions of the fundamental
beliefs inherent in our spiritual nature. These writers
commonly refuse to be indebted for their guidance to
a sacred book or any kind of outward revelation."
We no longer hear of Christ importing into Palestine
the precious lore which had been gathered from the
lips or volumes of the Eastern sages. We have not
to answer the objection that His doctrines and pre-
cepts may be traced to this or that enlightened
Hebrew, or were simply modern adaptations of
maxims and traditions which had long been current
in some Jewish sect. Objections of this kind have
broken down, or balanced and destroyed each other.
Of course the general resemblance of Christ's teaching
to the teaching of His predecessors is affirmed, but
such resemblance is attributed by spiritualists to the
unaided operation of the religious sentiment in man,
awakened and directed by peculiar circumstances.
Nor can these be termed the speculations of a
band of ignorant or dreamy mystics. They are
entertained by men of learning; who profess more-
1 In this respect the system of
the Mormons, which in other fea-
tures is not unlike the Absolute
shews extreme indulgence to idol-
aters. Yet in sifting all other
Creeds, which it professes to have
Religion, occupies a very different
place. It allows that revelations
of God's will have been made to
all the world, so that there is no
people who have not some portions
of the truth among them. It even
done, (Gunnison, The Mormons,
pp. 60, 61, Philadelphia, 1852) it
makes use of what is held to be
the genuine book-revelation, and
does not appeal to mere instincts
of humanity.
CHAP. T.
Univer-
sality of its
sympathies.
22
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. over a peculiar interest in the progress of civilisation,
and who labour to advance what they believe to be
the disenthralment of the human spirit. They affirm
that something higher, deeper, heavenlier, is reserved
for us; that growth must be expected and promoted
not only in our apprehension of religious truth, but
in the orb of truth itself; that their peculiar mission
is to hasten this result by shewing man his real
dignity and destiny, by sounding all the depths of
human consciousness, and calling to their aid the
newest facts of history and the last discoveries of
science. They do not, indeed, contemn the worthies
of antiquity. The statues of Confucius, Moses, and
Pythagoras; of Socrates and Zoroaster; of Buddha,
Christ, and Apollonius; of Máni and Muhammad,
are all elevated side by side in the Walhalla of
spiritualism. These all in different measures are
applauded as the Saints, the prophets, the apostles of
their age; yet, notwithstanding the enormous latitude
of his belief, the spiritualist is not content with any
of the forms in which religion has hitherto appeared
on earth. However well adapted to peculiar countries
or to transitory phases of the human mind, they are
unequal to the wants and the capacities of the present
century. He would not himself have worshipped
either with his “swarthy Indian who bowed down to
wood and stone, or with his ‘grim-faced Calmuck,”
or his ‘Grecian peasant,' or his ‘Savage,’ whose hands
were “smeared all over with human sacrifice;' but
rather aims, by analysing the principles of heathenism
and cultivating a deeper sympathy with what is
termed the “great pagan world,’ to organise a new
system which he calls the Absolute Religion, the
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
* *-
23
Religion of Humanity, the Religion of the Future. CHAP. I.
From it all special dogmas are to be eliminated;
sentiments which every one may clothe according to
his fancy, are to occupy the place of facts; the light
of a spontaneous Gospel is to supersede the clumsy
artifice of teaching by the aid of a historical revela-
tion. Thus, while the promoters of this scheme affect
the greatest reverence for the wisdom and the so-
called “inspirations' of the past, they aim to soar in-
definitely above it. Nearly all the doctrines of ancient
systems are abandoned or explained away,’ as things
which really have no stronger claim upon us than the
cycle of luxuriant mythes that captivated Greek ima-
ginations in the pre-historic period. The Christ and
Christianity of the Bible are thus virtually denied:
‘superior intellects' are bidden to advance still higher,
to cast off as worthless or ill-fitting the old garments
of the Church, to join the standard of the Absolute
Religion, and so march forward to ‘the promised
land.’ Mr. Theodore Parker, one of their chief
oracles, shall tell us what it is that we are summoned
to believe; or, rather (for his system cannot boast of
its constructiveness) what points they are that we are
urged to throw away. After dwelling on the article
of his faith—belief in what is called an ‘Infinite God’
—he thus proceeds, with painful flippancy of manner
far too common in the schools of ‘spiritualism':
“Of course I do not believe in a devil, eternal torment, nor
in a particle of absolute evil in God’s world or in God. I do
not believe that there ever was a miracle, or ever will be; every-
where I find law, the constant mode of operation of the Infinite
* “Religion,’ says Mr. F. W. afterwards to be pruned and chas-
Newman, was created by the in- tened by the sceptical understand-
ward instincts of the soul: it had ing.' Phases of Faith, p. 232.
FIow
affected
towards
Christi-
antity.
24
Christ and offer Masſers.
God. I do not believe in the miraculous inspiration of the Old
Testament or the New Testament. I do not believe that the
Old Testament was God’s first word, nor the New Testament
his last. The Scriptures are no finality to me. Inspiration
is a perpetual fact. Prophets and Apostles did not monopolize
the Father : He inspires men to-day as much as heretofore.
In mature, also, God speaks for ever. . . . . I do not believe in
the miraculous origin of the Hebrew Church, or the Buddhist
Church, or the Christian Church; nor the miraculous character
of Jesus. I take not the Bible for my master, nor yet the
Church; nor even Jesus of Nazareth for my master. . . . . I try
all things by the human faculties. . . . . But at the same time,
I reverence the Christian Church for the great good it has done
to mankind; I reverence the Mahometan Church for the good
it has done,—a far less good.”
Such is one example of the creed commended as
a substitute for Christianity. We are to hold the
doctrine of one Infinite God, and then are left at
liberty to disbelieve whatever else we please. Nor
is the process of negations even here exhausted. The
principles of spiritualism have carried many of their
owners, by a course of fearless logic, into a denial of
the Personal God Himself; and more who join the
movement, who inscribe the name of freedom on their
banners and talk loudly of the progress and perfect-
ibility of man, are drifting in the very same direction,
—to that vortex in which faith and morals also will
be finally engulfed. For all the tendencies of this
belief, whatever its apostles may affirm, are absolutely
Tetrogressive, it is carrying men afresh to paganism.”
CHAP. I.
The tend-
ency retro-
gressive:
* Theism, Atheism, and the servations on this tendency of
J’opular Theology, pp. 263, 264.
Other extracts, serving to eluci-
date the principles of this School,
are added in Appendix I.
* Philippsohn, the Jewish writer
above cited, has some striking ob-
modern thought, tracing it into
its inevitable effects on morals as
Well as theology. One section of
the anti-Talmudic Jews appears
to be influenced by it. ‘The
Human Idea,” he concludes, p.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
25
In spite of all its claims to a superior illumination, Char I.
it leaves its votary with no intelligible object of
worship but himself: it does not solve one mystery of
his being ; nay, it cannot even guarantee the immort-
ality of his soul.
Mr. Parker, it is true, with small regard to the
coherence of his principles, contends for the idea of
God, which he has borrowed from the Bible, as
‘ different in kind from what is called the Universe,
as self-subsisting and unchangeable.” He also, it
must be acknowledged, is impressed with the reality
and universality of the ‘religious sentiment,’ which
he deems “the strongest and deepest element in human
nature;’ and some other writers of his school are
doubtless under the influence of like convictions.
Still it is indisputable that for the last twenty years leading
or more the monstrous form of pantheism has threat-
ened to devour a host of minor infidelities. The
young Hegelians of Germany” are pantheists to a
253, “ever produces its own reso- * One of Neander’s latest warn-
lution into its various successive
phases; each of these phases
abrogates that which it followed,
till it reaches its ultimate stage,
the virtual disavowal of its own
system. Such was its course in
the religions of antiquity; in the
philosophemes of the Greeks; in
the later philosophemes of Des
Cartes and Spinosa as in that of
EIegelism. It is a circle that ever
terminates in itself, the serpent that
holds its own, tail in its mouth.’
The Pantheism of many Jewish
speculators in the Middle Ages
has been noticed by Van Mildert,
Iłoyle Lectures, I, 258 sq.
* Theism, Atheism, and the
Popular Théology, pp. IoS Sq,
ings referred to the gigantic pro-
gress of this evil: “Die eigent-
liche und alles verschlingende
Gefahr Wahrhaft liegt in dem sich
mâherndenentscheidendenl&ampfe
für das wahre Dasein des Christen-
thººms Selbst, des Sittengesetzes, des
Glauberºs an einen personlichen
Gott, ein Kampf, gegen welchen
ganz unbedeutend erscheinen
missen alle Streitigkeiten zwi-
Schen verschiedemen christlichen
Gemeinschaftem, und wogegen
Zurücktreten müssen die unter-
geordneten Gegensätze zwischen
Katholicismus und Protestantis-
mus.” Deutsche Zeitschrift, for
May, 1850, p. 163.
Pantheism.
26
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
JMačº
features of
Pantheism.
man; and even the eclectic philosophy of M. Cousin'
is not easily vindicated from the charge of fostering
the same delusion.
I shall not here dwell upon the ravings of ‘ma-
terial' pantheists, a minor class of speculators who
rejoice to think with Comte that the religious senti-
ment in man is always necessarily weakened in pro-
portion to his intellectual development, and who ac-
cordingly have joined the clamour for some “Nouveau
Grand-Étre;’ that is, for no God at all. But dis-
regarding such, we find that even the more ‘spiritual'
section of the pantheists adopt the same ideas re-
specting Christianity as those already censured. The
universe is in their system deified, or transubstantiated
into God, its laws and processes are all identified
with Him; humanity at large becomes a necessary
manifestation of the Absolute. He is the ocean, we
the waves. The various forms of human thought are
all therefore equally inevitable and equally legitimate;
evil is itself phenomenal, and nothing more, the
point of departure to a second moral state, which men
distinguish by the name of good ; while error is no
more than uncompleted truth, or truth at some inferior
stage of its development.
Religions, in like manner,
! See Morell’s Hist, of Phil. II,
512, 513, Maret's Essai Sur le
Panthéisme dans les Sociétés Mo-
dernes, 3me ed., Paris, 1845,-a
work of great ability, but now
and then one-sided, especially
when it tries to shew that ortho-
dox ‘Protestañtism' may be con-
victed of Pantheistic tendencies.
The learned author ought to have
reflected that Romanism is far
more open to the charge of
denying ‘une vérité absolue et
immuable' and of advocating ‘la
notion d’une vérité progressive et
mobile’ (p. 24). Thus a Romanist
writer in the Revue des Deua.
Mondes, 1854, Tome VIII, p. 1097,
contends: “Le catholique prenant
le dogme tel que le temps l’a fait
est, en un Sens, bien plus près de
la grande philosophie que le pro-
testant, qui cherche à revenir sans
cesse à une prétendue formule
primitive du Christianisme.’
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 27
being based on what is termed ‘the spontaneity of the CHAP. T.
human reason, or the natural inspirations flowing
from the breasts of seers and sages who resign them-
selves entirely to the guidance of the light within
them, are equally fatuitous, and vary with the age
and people in the midst of which they flourish. They
can never hope to rise above the spiritual level of
their authors; yet they all are to be viewed as true,
because the genuine products of humanity, and adapted
to the ends they are intended to subserve."
It will be shewn hereafter how the same denial
of the Personality of God pervaded nearly all the
heathen systems of the ancient world, and every-
where produced the same results in ethics and theo-
logy. At present I shall only draw attention to the Antiquity
e * * * © tº § tº . º tº of this class
periodical recurrence of a similar spirit in the times #.
posterior to the promulgation of Christianity. This tons.
course will serve a twofold purpose: it will render us
familiar with the parentage of the objections which
are levelled at the Gospel by our modern adversaries;
1 This plea for universal “tole-
ration' has, doubtless, commended
the philosophical Pantheism of
the day to one class of English
minds: yet even Mr. F. W. New-
man (Hebrew Monarchy, p. 26,
2nd ed.) is compelled to admit
that in early times ‘the pure
monotheistic faiths' could not have
been preserved except by what he
calls ‘intolerance,’ i. e. want of
sympathy with error. Heathen-
ism in our own age is still most
lenient in its estimate of ‘colla-
teral polytheistic systems.” M.
Huc's Travels furnish several in-
stances of this, and the following
extract shews that the Brähmans
are actuated by the same spirit:
‘Although stedfast in his faith,
the Hindoo is not fanatical: he
never seeks to make proselytes.
If the Creator of the world, he
says, had given the preference to
a certain religion, this alone would
have prevailed upon the earth;
but as there are many religions,
this proves the approbation of
them by the Most High. Men
of an enlightened understanding,
says the Brähman, well know
that the Supreme has imparted to
each nation the doctrine most
suitable for it, and He therefore
beholds with satisfaction the va-
rious ways in which He is wor-
shipped." Björnstjerna, Theogony
of the Hindoos, p. 67, Lond, 1844.
28
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. it will indicate how deep is the vitality of truth, how
The Cle-
onentimes.
constant its resistance, and how sure its final triumph.
For if adversaries, starting up on every side, and
armed with every species of objection, sought in vain
to strangle Christianity at its birth; if they were
baffled when the fashion was to scoff it down as the
religion ‘of weavers, shoemakers, and slaves; if they
retired before it till the symbol of the cross surmount-
ing the conquered dragon was impressed on the im–
perial coinage, and till heathenism itself became “the
faith of peasants' (paganismus); if they won no credit
even as supported by the zeal, the learning, and the
power of Julian; if they furbish the old weapons
only to be once again repulsed, when Julian's taunt-
ing prophecy has been for centuries confuted by ex-
perience, when those very nations which he deemed
impervious to the Gospel rank among its foremost
champions, and send forth the missionary in whose
hands it is transplanted fresh at the antipodes, we
may assuredly discover in this growth the evidence
of supernatural life, the auguries of better things to
COI)] (2. -
When Christianity was first announced in the
great theatres of Oriental speculation it was forced
at once into collision with those very systems out of
which its modern enemies would fain extract it; and
the struggle that ensued elicited in every case an
opposition similar to that which it encounters now
from persons who are studying to malign it or betray
it with a kiss. Among the first assailants of the
Pentateuch,' we find a writer who disparaged the
* Cf. Neander, Ch. Hist, I. 490, pp. 193—199, Hamburg, 1844.
and Schliemann, Die Clementinen
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
29
idea of all objective revelation, such as Christians
entertained from the beginning. In the room of this
it was proposed to substitute the inward revelation
of the heart. An early race of Gnostics in like
manner drew their inspirations altogether from within.
Their composite system, borrowed partly from the
Gospel, partly from the ancient creeds of Asia, was
designed for the ‘superior intellects' of the day, whom
intuition (so they urged) exalted far above the sphere
of faith, and liberated from the bondage of original
Christianity. Hence they gloried in the name of
‘spiritualists,” and called ‘the man of the Church’
by a contemptuous title, intimating that he was still
in subjection to the grosser elements of his nature.
For a time the flattering speculations of this school
obtained extensive currency; it put out branches in
all quarters; it attracted multitudes of proselytes;
and yet we search in vain for any of those noble fruits
brought forth by Christianity. The system of the
early Gnostic would not work; and therefore it has
been extinct for centuries, unless perchance some
trace of it is still discernible among the Druses of
Mount Lebanon, whose doctrines here and there re-
mind one of the creed of Basilides.”
* See the Clementine Homilies,
ed. Dressel, XVIII, 6: 'AtrolcáAv-
lºſs éart to év táorals capëtats
ãv0pótov &toppita's Icefuevov ice-
ka?\vpplévov, &vev povăs Tī; ai too
[sc. viot.j BovXfi &Tokańvirtópºevov.
* See Irenaeus Contra IHares.
lib. III, c. XV, 2. The follow-
ing passage is significant: “Plu-
rimi autem et contemtores facti,
quasijam perfecti, sine reverentia
et in contemtu viventes, Semet-
ipsos spiritales vocant, et Se nosse
jam dicunt eum, qui sit intra Ple-
roma ipsorum, refrigerii locum.’
The Montanists in like manner
boasted that they were Tveupdatuicof
as being in possession of the last
developments of truth; while ord-
inary Christians were only puzi-
icoſ : Gieseler, I, 148, and cf.
Stieren’s note on Irenaeus, Lib.
III, c. XI, § 9. -
3 Other remnants of the early
Gnostics may possibly be disco-
verable among the ‘Yezidis,” or
‘Devil-worshippers' of Armenia:
see von Haxthausen’s Transcatt-
casia, p. 263. Lond. I 854.
CHAP. I.
The first
race of
spiritual-
Žsts.
30
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
Celsus and
his cavils.
Again, it was by weapons such as those which
had been wielded in the school of ‘spiritualism,'
though weapons of a coarser edge, that Celsus under-
took to stem the progress of the early Church. “He,’
says Neander,’ ‘is the original representative of a
class of intellects which, in the various attacks on
Christianity, has over and over again presented itself
to our notice: wit and acumen, without earnestness
of purpose or depth of research ; a worldly under-
standing that looks at things merely on the surface,
and delights in hunting up difficulties and contradic-
tions.” Celsus was, moreover, an avowed spiritualist.
He taunts the Christian as belonging to an abject
and a sense-bound race,” insists upon the duty of
turning from all outward things to gain a deeper in-
tuition of God through the perceptions of the mind,
and more especially denounces the idea of all particu-
lar revelations to a single people, on the ground that
they induce contracted and unworthy notions of the
Supreme Being. Yet this champion of a purer creed
than Christianity, this propagator of more lofty
thoughts, which he affected to support by what he
terms the “inspirations' of the heathen writers, does
not scruple to decry ‘the jealous monotheism of the
Christians,” apologising even for the worship of the
‘daemons,' or divine agencies in nature. He treats
the history of Christ Himself in a profane spirit,
sneers at Christian humility as a debased and stupid
misconception of the Platonic sentiment, has no idea
of sin except that it is either necessary or unreal, and
1 Ch. Hist, I, 227. * See the confession of one of
* AetAov ſcal pix004patov yé- his more recent admirers, Mr.
vos. Origen, cont. Celsum, Lib. Mackay, Rise and Progress of
v1.1, p. 357, ed. Spencer. Christianity, p. 159.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 31
is therefore at a loss to understand the meaning of CHAP. I.
redemption." - ---
But the supernatural character of the Christian Neo-Pla-
faith was meanwhile threatened by a more insidious to???.S"??.
adversary. On the confines of the Church appeared
a number of inquiring spirits who were anxious to
escape from the prevailing nature-worship, and sus-
tain, if possible, the tottering cause of heathenism by
giving to it a more spiritual constitution; and from
them originated the idea of fusing Christianity with
their eclectic system. Affecting to guide mankind
into a knowledge of the Absolute, it took the name
of Neo-Platonism; and as the founder of it was ac-
quainted with the Gospel, which he once indeed pro-
fessed,” Some precious elements of Christian truth
were blended with the empty legends and philoso-
phisings out of which it was compounded. Christ,
however, was admitted there as only one of many
creatures who had taken rank with the immortals.
Pythagoras was to stand on nearly the same level,
being honoured by the Neo-Platonist professors as an
incarnation of the Deity, who was ‘sent to bring
down the light of happiness and philosophy for the
salvation of the human race.” Some of them as-
serted also that the genuine teaching of our Lord
* Cf. Neander, as above, pp. VI, 19. Here, however, as in
23 I SQL.
* It is curious to notice how
Porphyry, himself a Neo-Platonist
opponent of the Gospel, speaks of
Ammonius Saccas becoming “a
thinker:’’Aupidºvios uév y&p Xplo-
Tuavos év Xplottavots &vatpabels
Toſs yovedoru, &re Toi qpovetv ſcal
Tās (pixogo.ptas #paro, eú09s Tpos
Thy catá včuous troAttélav plete-
BáAero: in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl.
most other cases where a search
after the Absolute was undertaken
independently of revelation, it
issued in Pantheism; since the
Absolute and the Personal, the
Finite and the Infinite, are only
reconciled in Christ: cf. Maret,
as before, pp. 145 sq.
* Such was the language of
Iamblichus, one of his biogra-
phers: Mackay, p. 161.
32
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. I. Himself had harmonised with theirs; but was cor-
rupted by His followers.” Yet they all evinced the
heathen bias of their system by repudiating the mo–
notheism of Christianity, by consenting to adapt their
doctrines to the grossest forms of popular superstition,
and by teaching that all nations had their own
peculiar “ daemons, whom it was the duty of the
masses to propitiate and adore. So plausible were
many of the arguments alleged in aid of this religious
syncretism that emperors for a while embraced it;
and had Christianity assented to the compromise, the
rage of persecution might have ceased. We read
that in the private oratory of Severus, Abraham was
now associated with Orpheus, and Apollonius of
Tyana with our blessed Lord Himself; and Hadrian,
captivated by a similar class of speculations, was
anxious at one period to enthrone the Founder of
Christianity among the gods of the metropolis, de-
sisting only after he had calculated the profound and
sweeping changes which this measure would have
certainly produced.” -
1 ‘Ita enim volunt et insum
credi, nescio quid aliud Scripsisse,
quod diligunt, nihilºtte sensisse
contra deos suos, Sed eos potius
magico ritu coluisse; et discipulos
ejus non solum de illo fuisse men-
titos, dicendo illum Deum, per
quem facta sint omnia, cum aliud
nihil quam homo fuerit, quamvis
excellentissimae Sapientia ; Verum
etiam de diis eorum non hoc do-
cuisse, quod ab illo didicissent.’
S. Augustin. de Consensº Evange-
listarum, Lib. I, § 52, ed. Bened.
2 * Matutinis horis in larario
suo, in quo et divos principes,
sed optimos, electOS, et animas
sanctiones, in queis et Apollonium,
et, quantum scriptor Suorum tem-
porum dicit, Christum, Abraham
et Orpheum, et hujusmodicaeteros
habebat, ac majorum effigies, rem
divinam faciebat.” Lampridius,
in Vit. Sever, Alec, c. 29.
* Ibid. c. 43. Speaking of the
early Christian centuries Mr. Max
Müller remarks (Bunsen’s Univ.
JHist. I, I 19): “It was a period of
religious and metaphysical deli-
rium, when everything became
everything, when Māyā and So-
phia, Mitra and Christ, Viräf and
Isaiah, Belus, Zarvan, and Kronos
were mixed up in one jumbled
system of inane speculation, from
which at last the East was de-
livered by the positive doctrines
of Mohammed, the West by the
pure Christianity of the Teutonic
nations.” --
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 33
And now the Christian, whose uncompromising CHAP. I.
temper had survived the calumnies and scoffs, the
torture and the flame, of Western heathenism, was
called to meet another class of adversaries, one that
brought to the encounter not only the familiar mythes Manisha-
of pagan Greece and Rome, but tortuous subleties *
and huge abstractions, which had long engaged the
pensive and ascetic spirits of the East. The pure
and lofty Theism of the Church already, it is true,
had vanquished many forms of eastern speculation,
when the earliest race of Gnostics had been driven
from the field of controversy. Still another and more
formidable series of attacks, all aiming to confound
the Gospel with the old religions of Asia, date their
rise from the appearance of the Persian Mäni, who
flourished at the opening of the fourth century. His
main position' is, that on comparing the systems of
Zoroaster and Buddha with that of Jesus Christ, the
same divine ingredients are observable in all, though
under various shades and modifications. Hence it
was proposed to bring about a reconciliation of the
three systems, or rather to incorporate the older creeds
with what had been more recently revealed in Christ-
ianity. Mámi was himself to be the organ of God
(the ‘Paraclete') for carrying on this fresh develop-
ment, and one of his chief duties was to purify the
intellects of men in order that they might be rescued
from all servile bondage to the past, and more par-
ticularly from what was held to be a special artifice
of the evil principle, the Old Testament ceconomy.
To promote this separation he affirmed that inspira-
tions granted to himself enabled him to point out what
1 Cf. Neander, Ch. Hist. II, 157 sq.
WOL. I. 3
34.
Christ and other Masters.
was merely human, transitory, or accommodated to the
prejudices of the Jewish people, in the records of the
New Testament; his dictum being pressed on all as
absolutely infallible, because it was affirmed that he
in his own person represented the last progress in the
knowledge of religious truth. But Máni, though he
struggled hard and was supported by a train of
emergetic followers, could not shake the constancy of
the more earnest Christians. They perceived that
his religion was erected on a fundamental misconcep-
tion, and was utterly antagonistic to their own. He
started with ideas of God and His relation to the
world, which if not absolutely pantheistic bordered
very closely upon pantheism, and must result in it
eventually. His Ahriman they felt was not the
Satan of the Bible. But they saw still more dis-
tinctly that if his principles were true, they would
produce an utter severance of the Old and New
Testaments. These they had been taught to recog-
mise as equally Divine, as so indissolubly bound to-
gether and so mutually interpenetrating that to rob
them of the first would be to tear the second into
shreds and tatters.
We occasionally encounter the descendants of such
misbelievers even during the inertness of the Medi-
aeval period. As many tenets of the Neo-Platonist
were re-adopted in the ninth century by John Scotus
Erigena, so the errors of the Manichaean” found a
CHAP. T.
Persistency
of like
objections.
1 See a recent article in the
North British Review, No. XLV.
pp. 121, sq. The writer shews,
however, that Scotus “never lost
his faith entirely either in the
personality of God or in the
Supernatural teaching of the
Bible.”
* The following extract from a
Formula Receptionis Mamichaeorum
belonging to the period, shews
that Buddha, Máni, Zoroaster,
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 35
simultaneous echo in the pulpits of Paulicians, Cathari, CHAP. I.
and Albigenses. Other instances might be collected T
from the annals of the following period; but as soon
as the study of the pagan poets and philosophers
revived, the general tendency of thought was some-
what different. Oriental speculations were less known,
and writers like Boccaccio" prove their heathenish
turn of mind, by using heathen phraseology to desig-
nate the highest mysteries of Holy Writ, and other-
wise promoting the amalgamation of the two religions.
Prayers are offered in the most offensive spirit to
Jupiter, to Juno, and to Venus. The incarnation of
‘the son of Jupiter' is mentioned; he is said to have
visited the earth, that he might forward its redemption.
Other scholars” of this stamp proceed yet further;
they place our blessed Lord in juxtaposition with
Socrates and Plato, identify the Persons of the Holy
Trinity with heathen deities, and under the patronage
of the Medici at Florence threaten to obliterate the
characteristic doctrines of the Gospel, or confound
them with the theories of Greek philosophy.”
With the Reformation of the sixteenth century, The spi.
levelling as it did so many of the ancient boundaries º
onation?
period.
Christ and the Sun, were then
treated as different manifestations
of the same power: 'Avaðepart (a,
Toys Töv Zapdèav Ical Bovööv kal
Töv Xptortov Ical Töv Mavixalov,
Ical Töv #Xtov, Šva ical Tov airtov
eival Aéyovras. Tollius, Itiner.
Italic. p. 134. Traject. 1696.
1 This may be seen especially
in the Filocolo (al. Filocopo), where,
as Sismondi §: of Southern
Europe, I. 3oo) has remarked,
Boccaccio ‘seems determined to
confound the two religions, and
to prove that they are in fact the
same worship, under different
names.’
* Roscoe's Life of Leo X., II.
87, 88. Hence the frightful
growth of infidelity at Rome it-
self immediately before the Re-
formation: See, for instance, Eras-
mus, Epist, lib. XXVI. ep. 34, ed.
Le Clerc.
3 Cf. the determinations of the
Council of Lateran, Labbe, XIV,
I88.
36
Chrisã and offer Masſers.
of human thought, and breaking off so many time-
worn fetters, came a signal for the reappearance of
free-thinkers still more cognate with misguided zealots
of the present day. Servetus and the rest of the
“Illuminati’ were, in fact, precursors of the English
spiritualists." They all opposed themselves to the
idea of an objective revelation, often substituting for
the Holy Scriptures the distempered products of their
own imaginations, and claiming the infallible guidance
of the Holy Spirit, whom, in cases where the plea
was more convenient, they represented as superior in
authority even to the Lord Himself. Their utter
subjectivity involved them also in the absolute denial
of the cardinal doctrines promulgated by the Church,
impelled them to devise eccentric institutions, and
assert that “every man shall be saved by the law or
sect which he professeth.” It was not, however, till
the following century that men of learning and in-
stelligence were seriously possessed by the desire of
founding what is called an Absolute Religion. Lord
Herbert of Cherbury was the first in England who
approximated closely to the ground of Mr. Parker.
Grievously perplexed by the phenomena of heathen-
ism, he entered on the task of sifting the peculiarities
of all religions. Out of the residuum he attempted
CHAP. I.
Lord
JHerbert.
! See the evidence collected in
Mr. Riddle's Bampton Lectures,
(1852) pp. 394 sq. The error
there noted of Castellio, who
“separated Scripture from the
Spirit,” has been very common
both before and since the Reform-
ation. Thus Milton hinted (Prose
Works Iv. 449, Bohn's ed.) that
‘the Spirit which is given us is
a more certain guide than Scrip-
ture, whom, therefore, it is our
duty to follow.’
* Art. xvi II. of the xxxix. The
Scottish Confession of 1560 speaks
in like manner, “of those that
affirm, that men quhilk live ac-
cording to equitie and justice,
shall be saved, what religioun so-
ever they have professed,’ in
Knox's Works, II. Io9, ed. Taing.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 37
to compile a creed, consisting of five simple articles, CHAP. I.
which all the world, he ventured to predict, would
recognise as true, and deem sufficient as a term of
communion and a warrant of Salvation.
Many of his followers in that century and the º /
& * %26ſ, ſº)" f
next proceeded to far greater lengths.” In Tindal, º...”
Collins, Blount, Chubb, Woolston, and Bolingbroke
at home; and in Dupuis, Voltaire, and D'Alembert
on the continent, we find a class of writers who re-
Solved at every hazard, and with confidence” propor-
tioned to their daring, to destroy the credibility of
Holy Writ, to pour contempt on all external revela-
tions, and conduct us back if possible to heathenism,
* After announcing his own tion of the law of nature in the
five articles, he adds: ‘quos non hearts of all mankind,’ &c. Tindal
nostri tantum sed universi Orbis was a veritable forerunner of the
coetus pro veris indubitatisque spiritualists. ‘He sometimes
habere debent.’ JDe Religione speaks as if he thought the deists
Gentilium, p. 2, Amstel. 1663. were infallibly guided, in making
This treatise, together with its use of the reason God hath given,
companion De Veritate published to distinguish religion from super-
as early as 1624, has been ex- stition, so that they are sure not
amined at length by Leland, in his to run into any errors of moment,’
useful View of the Principal Deis- (p. 128). Other persons who were
tical Writers (XVIIth and xv.111th in favour of an external revela.
cent.) 5th ed. 1798. See also on tion he called ‘Demonists.”
the general question of modern 3 Thus, when Dupuis published
Deism, the sketch given by Wan his Origine da tous les Cultes, the
Mildert in his Boyle Lectures volume on Christianity started
(18oz–1805), Lect. IX. —Lect.
YII.
* In speaking of Tindal, whose
Christianity as old as the Creation
first appeared in 1730, Leland re-
marks (I. 127) : “Others have
attacked particular parts of the
Christian scheme, or of its proofs.
with the boast, ‘qui doit faire une
révolution dans lemondereligieux
et dans le culte de plusieurs
grandes nations,” (ed. Auguis, v.
1). He tells us immediately after,
‘Christ Sera pour nous ce qu'ont
été Hercule, Osiris, Adonis, Bac-
chus. Il partagera en commun
But this writer has endeavouffed avec eux le culte que tous les
to subvert the very foundations peuples de tous les pays et de
of it, by shewing that there tous les siècles ont rendu ä la
neither is nor can be any external Nature universelle et à ses agens
revelation at all, distinct from principaux.’
what he calls the internal revela-
38
Christ and other, Masters.
CHAP. I. or ‘the religion of nature.”
But in vain; the
truth of God was still victorious. Notwithstand-
ing the depressed condition of theology, and not-
withstanding the corrupted spirit and materialistic
temper of the age, the flood of intellectual licence was
again rolled back. The Ark still rode in conscious
majesty upon the bosom of the surging waters; while
many rival systems, fabricated in compliance with
‘the instincts of humanity,' and directed by “the light
of nature,' perished in the storm they had provoked.
It is remarkable that not a few of the objections
ventilated at this period by the English “Deists,’
found their way across the channel, and in Germany
communicated a fresh impulse to the Rationalistic
movement.” They are now returning home, etheria-
! “The present unbelievers,”
writes Waterland, (‘Wisdom of
the Ancients,’ Works, v. 4) ‘are
setting up what they call natural
religion, to rival Supernatural:
human reason in the heart of man,
in opposition to Divine reason
laid down in the Word of God;
or to say all in short, Pagan dark-
ness in opposition to Scripture
light.” The kind of worship which
these heralds of the Absolute Re-
ligion would fain establish in the
room of what they found among
the Christians of their times, may
be gathered from An Apology for
professing the Religion of Nature
*n the Eighteenth Century of the
Christian AFra, (Twelve Letters
addressed to Bishop Watson),
1789. The author then adds A
Liturgy on the Principles of Theism
‘in which philosophers might join
without insulting their under-
standings or corrupting their
hearts.”
The ‘First Service’ commences
thus:
“Powerful Ruler of the Uni-
verse ! whatever thou art—whe-
ther Nature necessarily existing;
or the animating spirit of mortals,
—we adore Thee, who by impe-
Inetrable methods conductest all
things to Thy purposes.’....
The “First Service' ends:—
‘Despotic government has not
produced a tyrant; human nature
has not generated a monster, so
cruel, so revengeful, so wicked
as the odious phantom to which
superstition is devoted P
In the ‘Second Service,” (p.
195) the pantheism is avowed.
‘IIow shall we speak of Na-
ture, or of Nature's God! Every-
thing tends to convince us, we
should not, for we cannot seek
the Deity out of Nature. Every-
thing to us is impossible which is
not produced by its laws.’
* Tholuck has drawn attention
to this fact in his Glaubwilrdigkeit
der evangel. Gesch. : cf. also Mr.
Riddle's Bampton Lectures, p. 397.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
39
lised indeed, and moulded into more fantastic shapes, CHAP. I.
although substantially the same objections as before.
England once the master has become the ardent, apt,
and credulous disciple; and when numbers of our
brethren on the continent are just emerging from the
fogs of scepticism and welcoming the earliest dawn of
better days, it seems as though the English were re-
Solved to venture out again into the same dreary
regions,—only to be taught again the utter fruitless-
ness of all endeavours to resolve the arduous problems
of humanity without the aid of Holy Writ.
Impelled by the necessity of coping with these Different
wild and retrogressive tendencies, the Christian advo-
cate has never shrunk from the encounter, and has
seldom found his labours altogether unsuccessful.
He may not indeed be always guided by a sound
discretion; he may fail to understand the nature of
the malady in certain cases, and in others may
suggest an antidote that does not work its cure; but
still his consciousness of the profound importance of
the issue has been ever visible. He feels that to
reduce our blessed Lord into the category of human
seers is practically to dethrone Him. Christianity
will tolerate no rival. They who wish to raise a
tabernacle for some other master, be it even for the
greatest worthies of the old Oeconomy, a Moses
or Elias, must be warned that Christ, and Christ
alone, is to be worshipped : they must hear Höm.
The Eastern Church, as we have seen, appeared
at first to use less emphasis in their assertion of this
truth than the contemporary Latin writers; or rather
by evincing a disposition to multiply the points of
contact between Christianity and other systems, and
these
attacks.
modes of
'resisting
40
Christ and other Masters.
Char. I, so recognising a prophetic element in Gentilism, they
gave a handle to the laxer party who had little or no
reverence even for the character of Christ. But all
such tenderness for the religions of the heathen world
was everywhere forgotten in the Middle Ages." They
who issued forth to plant the cross among the northern
and eastern nations, had to deal with men who were
not absolutely hostile to the Saviour, but who recog-
nised in Him no more than a pre-eminently gracious
Being to be added to the number of their dark di-
vinities,” or else esteemed the Gospel only one mani-
festation of the Absolute akin to their own religions:*
and hence the ardent missionary, full of zeal, though
sometimes wanting in intelligence, was tempted to
commence his exhortations by decrying all their gods
as evil spirits, and exaggerating the guilt of their
departed ancestors. A milder tone, however, grew
more common at the period of the Reformation.
Many rose to advocate the salvability of the nobler
class of heathen, gloried to have found sublimer
thoughts in their philosophers, or more tender precepts
in their poets, and even went so far as to maintain,
that some of them had access to the highest truths,
* When Bede was pressed with
the objection that many heathen
philosophers had evinced a large
amount of moral sensibility, he
answered that none who were
ignorant of Christ, the virtue of
God and the wisdom of God, could
have either true virtue or true
wisdom. Yet he adds: “In quan-
tum vero vel gustum aliquem Sa-
pientiae cujuslibet vel virtutis
imaginem habebant, totum hoc
desuper acceperunt, non Solum
munere primae conditionis, verum
etiam quotidiana ejus gratia, qui
Creaturam Suam nec se deseren-
tem deserens, dona Sua, prout
ipse judicaverit, hominibus et
magna, magnis et parva largitur
parvis.' Expositio in Cant. Canti-
corum ; Opp. IX. 197, ed. Giles.
* See an example in Neander,
V. 397.
* See the striking testimony of
a Franciscan missionary in Ray-
nald. Annal. Eccl. ad an. 1326,
§ 31.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
41
and were instructed by the Word of God unwritten. CHAP. I.
A most zealous Swiss reformer' on the one side and
a learned bibliothecarius” of the Roman pontiff on the
other, represented this new phase of thought. The
latter even did not hesitate to urge that the philosophy
of the ancients was a kind of ‘tacit Christianity,’ and
that the promulgation of the Gospel only took away
the inmost veil and brought us into full communica-
tion with the source of supernatural truth. Since
then the records of the ancient world have been re-
peatedly examined in order to obtain fresh light for
the determination of these questions.
Theophilus
| Walter (Gualther) was under
the necessity of defending Zwingli
on account of the freedom with
which he had praised the heathen
poets and philosophers, which ex-
posed him to the charge of rank-
ing idolaters and Epicureans with
the Christian saints. The apolo-
gist then proceeds: “Cum vero.'
illud [i. e. Verbum Dei] non-va-
cuum redire, nec fructu suo carere
dicat Dominus, nemo opinor ne-
gabit plures ex gentibus quoque
ad salutem pervenisse, si nimi-
rum eos Dei verbo vel eacterno vel
ºnterno aliquo modo instructos
fuisse demonstraverimus,' etc.
Pref. to Zwingli's Works, ed. 1545,
sign. e., 4. Cf. Browne, On the
Articles, II. 75. Erasmus and
others used similarlanguage: Hey,
Lectures, II. 360.
* The De Perenni Philosophia
of Augustinus Steuchus Eugubi-
nus, titular bishop of Kisamos,
was published at Basle in 1542.
His principles may be gathered
from Lib. X. c. 23: ‘Claret igitur
post multa secula missam diuinitus
Theologiam, nihil aliud fuisse
quam priscorum seculorum cali-
gantis iam et obscurae, quam ani-
mis hominum impresserat Deus,
et uOce Sua in creatione, post in
secuto tempore per nuncios tradi-
derat, scientiae revelationem. Ne-
que enim fieri potest, quod postea
coelitus est apertum, quodgue per-
fecte declaraturus uenite coelo in
terras Deus, ante aduentum eius
alia ratione celebre fuisse quam
eadem ipsa quod diuinitus esset
traditum.” In 1548 appeared the
Historia de diis gentilibus of Greg.
Sylv. Gyraldus; in allusion to
which Eckermann, Religionsges-
chichte und Mythologie, I. 12
(Halle, 1848), remarks: ‘Schon
Seit dem Anfange des sechszehn-
ten Jahrhunderts hatte man be-
Sonders in Italien angefangen, die
Theologie und die Mythologie des
heidnischen Alterthums in man-
nigfaltige nähere Beziehung zu
Setzen. Man fing an zwischen
den Mythen des Heidenthums
und den Sagen des Alten Testa-
ments Wergleichungen anzustel-
len, und gründete namentlich
die Ansicht, dass sämmtliche poly-
theistische Religionen nur als
Abartungen aus, Oder Abfalle von
42
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. Gale endeavoured to establish,” “that the proud soph-
ists of Greece, esteemed the eye of the world for
wisdom,’ were “fain to come and light their candles
at the sacred fire, which was lodged in the Jewish
Church.' While Cudworth, ‘anxious to satisfy those
amongst us who boggle so much at the Trinity, and
look upon it as the choke-pear of Christianity,” em-
ployed his deep and ponderous erudition in maintain-
ing that a similar doctrine was known among the
Platonists; this being, in fact, one only out of many
consequences that resulted from the co-existence of a
true philosophy external to the sphere of revelation.
But with Cudworth it should be remembered, such
a view in no wise tended to discredit the Old Testa-
ment, or to excite the faintest prejudice against it.
In the present day the same investigation is actively
proceeding; and now that every corner of the heathen
world has been explored, a somewhat different ex-
planation of the correspondencies between the Gentile
and Christian systems has been generally adopted, at
least by all those writers
reverence for the Bible.
wish among the Orthodox
who preserve the ancient
There is now no general
to trace such parallelisms
dem Eſebräischen Monotheismus
anzusehen seien, und war emsig
bemüht, dieselbe auf gelehrte
Weise zu begründen.’
* Court of the Gentiles, “Adver-
tisements to the Reader.’
* Intellectual System, Pref. p.
xliii., cf. II. 428 sq. But in mak-
ing out as good a case as possible
for the heathen, whose polytheism
he appears to have considered as
little more than a monotheism in
disguise, this great Writer con-
founded the religion of ancient
nations with the theological opin-
ions of the leading poets and phi-
losophers: see Mosheim’s note, in
Wol. II. p. 251. Coleridge was
nearer to the truth, when he
wrote as follows: “Across the
night of Paganism, philosophy
flitted on, like the lantern-fly of
the Tropics, a light to itself, and
an ornament, but alas! no more
than an ornament of the surround-
ing darkness. Christianity re-
versed the order.' Aids to Réftec-
tion, I. I.46, Pickering's ed.
Religious Tendencies of the present Age.
43
eåclusively to the diffusion of the Hebrew Scriptures.” CHAP. I.
There is even less occasion to suspect that any critical
pressure will be used for bringing the philosophy
of heathenism into more perfect unison with the dis-
tinctive doctrines of the Church. Yet on the other
hand the features of resemblance, few and dim and
fragmentary though they be, are welcomed as so
many testimonies to the truth of revelation—as “un-
conscious prophecies of heathendom,’ or else as por-
tions of that spiritual heritage which men and tribes
bore with them from the cradle of the human race.
A living writer” has observed, that ‘the noblest and
most effectual way of defending Christianity is not to
condemn everything which preceded it, to turn all
the virtues of distinguished heathens into splendid
vices, but rather to make them testify in its favour.”
Such is also my conviction; and with kindred Plan and
feelings I now purpose to reopen the investigation of
* The evidence that can be
urged in favour of this view, has
been recently collected in Mr.
Tomkins's Hulsean Prize B'ssay,
(1849).
2 Schaff, Ch. Hist. I. 168. It
is gratifying to remark that Creu-
zer in his elaborate Symbolik,
though he manifests no very de-
cided prepossessions in favour of
Christianity, is not influenced by
any famatical dislike of it, and
that the French scholar (M. Guig-
niaut) who translated and enlarged
the work of Creuzer is of the
same mind. For example, he
echoes the following sentiment:
“Pour moi,” dit M. Creuzer, “la
meilleure religion est celle qui
conserve avec la plus grande
pureté le caractère moral et pre-
Scrit aux peuples la régle des
moeurs la plus Sévère. Je suis
loin de penser, toutefois, que dans
la morale réside toute l'essence de
la religion; je sais au contraire
que les plus nobles àmes, et les
peuples les plus mémorables des
temps anciens et modernes, Ont
demandé à cette dernière des lu-
mières plus hautes sur le mystère
de notre existence et sur nos fu-
tures destinées. Entre toutes les
religions connues, le christianisme
me parait avoir le mieux satisfait
à ce double besoin de l’homme:
mais, soit dans sa doctrine, Soit
dans les formes de son culte, il
avait été et avait dii étre préparé
par les religions antérieures.’ Ite-
ligions de l’Antiquité, “Avertisse-
ment, p. 7.
purpose of
e e º the present
those leading facts and the analysis of those ideas of work.
44
Chris # and other Masters.
CHAP. I. heathenism which the opponents of Christianity have
been accustomed to adduce as parallel to what is
found in the sacred volume, and as, therefore, placing
Gentile systems on a level with the Church of God.
Such points of correspondency, where they in truth
exist, I hold to be explainable without in any way
diminishing the lustre of the Gospel or detracting in
the least degree from the Supremacy which it enjoys
in the affections of the Christian world.
The order I propose to follow in discussing the
religious systems where minute comparison has been
thought desirable," is this:—
The Religions that arose and still prevail in
Hindústán and some adjoining countries.
The Religions of Meacico, of China, and the
Southern Seas. *
Both these groups appear to have always been
entirely external to the sphere of Hebrew influence.
The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Persia.”
These, it is alleged, have both at different periods
actually modified the development of thought among
the Hebrews; the first, during their long residence
in Egypt; the second, during the Babylonish cap-
tivity. 3-
The Religions of Ancient Greece and Rome.
With these the planters of Christianity were
brought into immediate contact at the very opening
of their work, and over these they won a triumph in
the first five centuries of the present era.
Part II.
IPart III.
Part IV.
Part v.
1 If it be asked why Muham- in the Studien und Kritiken, 1855,
madanism is not included in the 2tes Heft, p. 295, calls it “eine
series, my reply is, that I consi– miedere Abart oder, wenn man
der it a debased form of revealed will, Abklatsch der Offenbarungs-
religion,-a Christian, or more religion.’
properly, a Jewish heresy. Paret,
Religious Tendencies of the present Age. 45
The Religions of the Saa.on, Scandinavian, and CHAP. I.
Slavonic tribes. - •º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º:
Among these tribes the principles of heathenism
appear to have been strongest; and some of them in
fact were not converted to Christianity for a thousand
years after its promulgation.
Part VI.
But before proceeding to determine the character-
istics of these several groups, on each of which I
purpose to bestow a separate investigation, it is ne-
cessary to my argument that certain other points
should be established. These will be comprised in
two preliminary chapters.
One of them has reference to the question touching Chapter II.
the unity of the human race—a question intimately
bound up with my present subject. For if it be in
any measure probable that all varieties of men origin-
ated in a single pair, I shall be pro tanto justified in
urging this important fact,
* Objections have been urged
against this arrangement on the
ground that it does not recognise
‘the great watersheds of thought
and language which divide the
principal families of the human
race' (Col. Ch. Chr. March, 1858,
p. is: The plan proposed by
one reviewer is to take the three-
fold division of the human race,
the Semitic, the Aryan, and the
Turánian, and assuming that the
spheres of language and religion
are generally conterminous, to
arrange all the religions of which
we have any authentic informa-
tion under these three different
heads. “There is the Semitic
family with its spiritual mono-
theism, the Aryan family with its
worship of nature, and the Chinese
as one medium of account-
and Turánian races with their
vague belief in a Divine Being,
neither spiritual nor natural, but
hovering in its ghostly unreality
between heaven and earth, filling
the human heart with fear and
superstition, but unable to inspire
its votaries with the joy and con-
fidence of the Aryan suppliant, or
the awe and reverence of the
Semitic worshipper.’
But this criticism, even if the
counter-theory could be estab-
lished, seems to emanate from a
misconception of the work on
which I am now occupied. I am
not writing a history of all reli-
gions, but am comparing the chief
religions of heathendom with
Christianity or Revealed Religion,
That is my centre.
46
Christ and offer Masſers.
Char. I. ing for traditions which were afterwards diffused
Chapter
III.
through all the human family.
The second point concerns what may be called the
characteristic features of the Old Testament religion,
and its vital coherence with the system founded in
and by our blessed Lord. For if this close connexion
be established, I am able to point out the ancient
germ and nucleus of which Christianity became the
true development; and if the principles pervading
both the stages of Revealed Religion be fundamentally
the same, a standard will have been erected in the
ancient world whereby to estimate the real character
and tendencies of those contemporary religions, which,
as we shall see hereafter, sprang up wild in different
soils of paganism.
CEIAPTER II.
On the Unity of the Human Race.
* Quanquam in hoc ipso non mediocriter peccent quod non
hominis causa dicunt, sed hominum, Unius enim singularis appellatio
totum comprehendit humanum genus. Sed hoc ideo, quia ignorant
unum hominem a Deo esse formatum, putantgue homines in omnibus
terris et agris, tanquam fungos, esse generatos.” LACTANTIUs, Divin.
Instit. lib, VII. c. 4.
THE object of this chapter is to indicate, as briefly as
may be, the general nature of the evidence producible
in favour of the oneness of the human species, or the
derivation of the various tribes of man from one
common stock.' I cannot hope to enter far into the
details of so vast a question; nor indeed will it be
necessary. For the main conditions of the argument
are satisfied, if I can prove that modern sciences, so
far from damaging in this respect the credibility of
the sacred record, are all tending to establish and
confirm it. In other words, I shall be content with
shewing that researches of the present age conspire to
warrant a belief in the original unity of men, and
1 Any comparative view of
rational creatures with the same
the religions of the world would
Divine Being who is over all.
be valueless, indeed philosophi-
cally impossible, unless we may
regard them as all concerned with
one subject-matter; contemplate
them as phenomena of the spirit-
ual relations of the same class of
Hence the questions of the unity
of the human race and the unity
of God, as vindicated in the Old
Testament, are preliminary to our
main investigation.
CHAP. II.
48
Chrisſ and offer Masters.
CHAP. II.
Impugners
of the unity
of the
hºma!,
7°0.00.
therefore serve to justify the expectation, that tradi-
tions current in the various tribes and peoples of an-
tiquity had very much in common, having emanated
from the same primordial source.
During the last century, when scepticism of every
kind was rampant, and when France was in particular
embarking on her infidel crusade against all noble
theories of man, of God, and of the universe, the
fashion was to scoff at this idea of consanguinity among
the different nations of the globe. Language was re-
garded as a mere conventional apparatus gradually
devised by the untutored Savage: “positive religions'
were decried as engines of a crafty priesthood, or as
“heresies’ of what was called ‘the religion of nature:’
while man himself had been reduced to little more
than one of the varieties of animal life.
The same degrading motions led the French En-
cyclopédists to deny not only the objectivity of human
nature, but the common origin of men. It will be
found that all intelligent belief in the unity of the
human race, is naturally associated with belief in
God’s own unity and paternity, with real conscious-
ness of sin, with ardent longings for redemption, and
particularly with a recognition of the fact, that Christ
and the apostles planted a religious system which
provides for men of every age and climate, and is
capable of indefinite expansion. These truths the
unbelievers of the last century assailed with blasphe-
mous vituperation: and, therefore, we are not sur-
prised to hear them advocating the hypothesis of
independent human species. According to Voltaire,
none but a blind man can doubt, that the whites,
negroes, Albinos, Hottentots, Laplanders, Chinese and
Unity of the human Race.
&_F
4
C.
Americans, are entirely distinct races. Since that CHAP. II.
time, however, there has been a vast reaction in the
mind of European scholars. It is true, assailants are
not wanting who repeat among ourselves the oft-
exploded cavils of the French Encyclopédists. The
most cultivated nations are still said to have been
formed in the very lowest grade of Savage life, and to
have struggled year by year into their present stage
of moral, social, and religious elevation; passing from
the grossest Fetishism to a refined and flexible Poly-
theism, and so upwards, till they were at last enabled,
by some means or other, to evolve the true idea of
God.”
ment are entertained, their authors do not speak so
positively as the sceptics of the former age, against
the oneness of the human family;” while others who
refuse on different grounds to acquiesce in the scrip-
tural account of man's origin, have, notwithstanding,
been constrained by philosophical reasons to postpone
* So think M. Comte, Mr. race,’ which refers, however, to
F. W. Newman, and many others,
regardless of the fact, conceded
even by Mr. W. J. Fox (Religious
Ideas, p. 65), that in the very
oldest records, “we often find
symptoms of a more distinct con-
ception of Divine grandeur and
infinity than prevailed in later
ages.” Alex. von Humboldt (Cos-
70s, II. I 13) seems to shrink from
expressing any positive opinion
either way; and yet instances of
tribes relapsing into a savage and
almost brutal state are not un-
frequent; e.g. the Bushmen of
Southern Africa.
* Thus Mr. Theodore Parker
(Discourse, &c., p. 75) acknow-
ledges ‘the identity of the human
WOL. I.
ideas and sentiments common to
mankind, without implying, in
his opinion, the doctrine of a
common Origin.
that the view in favour of several
Originating pairs is equally with-
out any direct historical proof.
It is afterwards added: “No one
can determine what was the
primitive state of the human race,
or when, or where, or how man-
kind, at the command of God,
came into existence. Here our
conclusions can be only negative,’
(p. 76): i. e. after we have re-
jected the evidence of the Bible
and extinguished the traditions of
the ancient world, we find our-
Selves in utter darkness.
4
He also admits.
of these
assaults.
But even where these principles of develop- İſtigation
50
Christ and offer Masters.
Chap. II. their judgment on the subject.' Modern science has
in fact materially contributed, in this case also, to
revive the lustre and to vindicate the truth of revela-
tion. She has wrested from the grasp of unbelief
a number of its choicest weapons, and has wielded
them against itself with irresistible effect.
In the first place, Cuvier,” by a series of historical
and geological researches, proved that man has not
been very long an occupant of the earth; that none
of the existing varieties can trace their origin beyond
the point at which the Bible seems to place the intro-
duction of the human species; and, therefore, that
the modern theory of ‘creative laws,’ acting by
‘myriads of ages,’ is adverse to the facts of history
and the phenomena of science. Mr. Lyellº rendered
similar service to the cause of Christian truth, when
he demolished the analogous theory of Lamarck,
which represented man as one of numerous links in
a graduated chain of beings, successively developed
into higher stages; his bodily organism being a
modification of the ape, and his mental prerogatives
Ireasons
of the
change.
not be considered as a revelation.’
1 Niebuhr, for example, (Lect.
William von Humboldt seems to
on Ancient History, I. 6, Lond.
1852) evades the consideration of
the main problem in the follow-
ing passage: “Whether all na-
tions were originally of different
origin and belonged to different
races, or whether their original
identity were changed in form
and language by a series of mira-
cles, these are questions which do
not belong to ancient history; and
we must leave to others to discuss
them. Without a direct and
minute revelation from God, we
cannot arrive at any certain results
on these points, and in reference
to them the Book of Genesis can-
have hesitated in like manner to
the very close of his life (see
Chev. Bunsen's Outlines of the
Philosophy of Universal History,
I. 59, 60, Lond. I 854); but his
illustrious brother, the author of
Cosmos, obviously inclines to the
hypothesis of unity: see I. 351,
Sabine's edition.
* Essay on the Theory of the
Barth, ed. Jameson, $$ 30 sq.
* Principles of Geology, III. 4
sq. 6th ed.: cf. Prof. Sedgwick's
Discourse on the Studies of the
University of Cambridge, Pref. pp.
xviii. Sq. 5th, ed.
Unity of the human Race.
51
no more than the expanded form of faculties which car II.
he enjoys in common with the brute creation. But
what has tended most of all perhaps to silence the
objections of the anti-christian ‘philosophers,’ are the
strange affinities which have been brought to light
by the investigations of comparative philology.
When India fell into the hands of Britain, and a
class of enterprising scholars, headed by Sir William
Jones, began to work the precious mines of history
which that conquest opened to the western world; it
was established that the ‘Aryan’ race beyond the
Indus spoke a language fundamentally akin to that
of Germany and England. Other languages in which
affinity had hitherto been unsuspected, were also
found to range themselves within the same group; an
Aryan, or Indo-European, family was constituted;
and as the new principles of classification were ex-
tended into wider regions, it grew obvious that all
known varieties of human language, once a dreary,
chaos, were reducible into a small number of harmo-
nious groups; while in these groups themselves, some
evidence was thought to be detected of a radical con-
nexion, such as leads to the belief that all are only
modifications of an older and more general type.
Meanwhile a different process had been leading
to the same result. Comparative physiology was
moving hand in hand with comparative philology.
The skill and industry of Blumenbach’ in that de-
partment, served to shew that in respect of their
physical structure and the laws of their animal
* His great work is entitled amination and comparison of
De Generis Humani varietate ma- skulls proceeded until 1828.
tiva, Gotting. 1775; but his ex-
52
Christ and other - Masters.
CHAP. II. oeconomy, the varieties of the human race are in like
Objections.
manner all reducible to a very few groups; and
Prichard,” by a happy combination of these sciences,
was able to push forward the great problem, and, as
some imagined, went so far as to establish the original
oneness of the human family.
Several lines of proof must, therefore, be regarded
as converging to the point in question:—(1) the
Scriptural, (2) the Psychological, (3) the Physio-
logical, (4) the Philological.
1. Scriptural Proof.
I should have judged it quite superfluous to insist
upon this head in dealing with avowed assailants of
dogmatic Christianity; but there is reason to believe
that several persons who revere the Bible as in some
degree a supernatural record, strenuously deny the
derivation of the human family from one single pair.
Thus, when Professor Agassiz is reminded of St.
Paul's assertion, that ‘God hath made of one blood”
all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the
earth’ (Acts xvii. 26), his answer is, that this ‘figu-
rative expression applies to the higher unity of man-
kind, and not to their supposed genital connexion by
natural descent.’ He also argues that the Book of
Genesis, to which allusion is here made by the apostle,
‘must be considered as relating chiefly to the history
of the white race, with special reference to the history
of the Jews.’
1 See his Researches into the
JPhysical History of Mankind, 3rd
ed. .
2 See his contribution to the
Christian Evaminer (American),
July, 1850, pp. 135–137. This
periodical is an organ of the
Boston Unitarians.
* A second reading, adopted by
Lachmann, omits oftuatos altoge-
ther.
Unity of the human Race.
53
Now both these statements seem to me most arbi- CHAP. II.
trary and evasive. (1) Until it has been shewn that
such expressions as ‘made of blood’ are used to
signify any species of relation or descent, save that
of natural generation, we are scarcely justified in
seeking for a figurative import. St. Paul there told
the men of Athens, among whom polytheism had grown
into a sort of passion, that God was really one, the
single Lord, the absolute Creator of the universe.
He next proceeded to announce the great correlative
truth, that God has left an image of His own oneness
in the oneness of humanity; and that this fact was
certified by the production of the human species from
one common stock.” All nations were declared to be
His offspring; since they all were sons of Adam,
‘which was the son of God’ (Luke iii. 38).
(2) The second argument is equally unfounded,
inconsistent with the general tenour of the sacred
narrative, the statements of particular texts, and all
the varied prophecies of redemption. Who in read-
ing the Book of Genesis, without a theory in his eye,
is likely to suspect that he is tracing out the origin
and early fortunes of one section of the human race?
Answers.
1 The only ‘higher unity’ con-
necting men together, is the Spi-
ritual nature they derive in com-
mon by regeneration from Christ,
the New Head of humanity: but
this birth is most expressly said
to be ‘not of blood (aiuáTov),
John i. 13. Neither, as St. Paul
instructs us elsewhere, could it
be predicated of all men indiscri-
minately; for according to him
the unconverted Gentiles (Eph.
iv. 17, 18) are still “alienated from
the life of God through the igno-
rance that is in them.’
2 See Neander's excellent para-
phrase (Planting, I. 192, Lond.
1851). “In the polytheistic stand-
ing-point,’ he adds (note), ‘a
knowledge of the unity of human
nature is wanting, because it is
closely connected with a know-
ledge of the unity of God:” and
when it is remembered how the
Athenians boasted that they were
aúróx00wes, the drift of St. Paul’s
observation is still more obvious.
Cf. on the whole of this wonderful
speech Baumgarten, Acts of the
Apostles, II. I57 sq. Edinb. 1854.
54
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II. Our first mother was herself called Eve, because (the
sacred penman has been careful to inform us) “she
was the mothér of all living' (Gen. iii. 20): and
whenever it was subsequently foretold how the dis-
asters that had overwhelmed her progeny should ter-
minate on the appearance of some Great Deliverer,
every nation from the rising of the Sun to the going
down thereof, all tribes, wherever scattered and how-
ever brutalised, are said to be the objects whom He
comes to bless and rescue, to exalt and reunite. And
with this view the writings of the New Testament
entirely correspond. Adam is there represented as
a ‘caput gentis,' whose descendants constitute the
Self-same race that has been reconstructed in the
second Adam.” “As by the disobedience of the one
(Toi, Švos), the many (oi ToMAol) were made sinners,
so by the obedience of the one shall the many be
made righteous” (Rom. v. 19). “As in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive' (1 Cor. xv.
l When Mr. F. W. Newman
calls in question the Oneness of
the human family, and asks what
in that case ‘becomes of St. Paul’s
parallel between the first and
second Adam, and the doctrine of
headship and atonement founded
on it;’ a writer in the Quarterly
Ičeview (No. CXC. p. 474, note)
attempts to meet the difficulty by
replying that, “even if mankind
had not descended from a single
pair, the truths laid down by St.
Paul in the passage referred to
would be untouched; for when
he speaks of all men as dead in
Adam, he is speaking of Adam as
the representative of human nature
in its natural and fallen state.’
But such interpretation of St.
Paul's language seems to me un-
justifiable. Adam is affirmed to
be the origin of death to all men,
just as strictly as our blessed Lord
is the origin of life (I Cor. xv. 21,
22); and unless it be contended
that in St. Paul's teaching Christ
is only the representative of re-
deemed humanity, and not the
actual bringer-in of the redemp-
tion, Adam must be also far more
than a representative; see Rom.
v. 19, where the parallelism is
most remarkable. I ought to add,
however, that the Quarterly Re-
wiewer does not admit the truth of
Mr. Newman's hypothesis. He
holds that scientific research has
established ‘the extreme proba-
bility’ of a single origin for all
the human family.
Unity of the human Race.
55
22). In Him the course of degradation that com-CHAP. II.
menced with Adam, and was tending to dissever man
from man, and one community from another, is ar-
rested and reversed. Humanity has found a second
Head, a nobler Representative: it is generically born
again in Christ; and, therefore, all the individual
members of the species, Jew or Greek, barbarian,
Scythian, bond or free, are made susceptible of Christ-
ian influences. “Go ye,’ was the charge of Him,
who is the ‘Second Man,’ ‘the Lord from Heaven,”
(Mark xvi. 15,) “Go ye into all the world, and preach
the Gospel to every creature' (Trào n Tà kTioret); ‘for
we know,' writes the Apostle (Rom. viii. 22,) ‘that
the whole creation (Táoo. 7 cTiats) groaneth and tra-
vaileth in pain together until now.’
2. Psychological Proof.
This argument depends entirely on the fact that,
notwithstanding every minor variation in feeling or
capacity, in taste or temperament, by which we are
enabled to distinguish one people from another, there
are certain moral, spiritual, and mental elements, in-
herent in humanity itself, and underlying all the
national types and local characteristics. At first in-
deed, when our attention is directed to the subject, a
picture meets us not of unity but of diversity. We
everywhere encounter groups of human beings, each
betraying some peculiar tendencies, with manners as
dissimilar as their physical conformation; with intel-
lectual habits, indicating all degrees of power and
culture; with sentiments, in one case, harsh and bar-
barous, in a second, gentle, tender, and refined:—a
56
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. II.
Mental
and moral
properties
commºno72 to
}}20%,
class of variations warranting, as we might judge, the
Supposition that each separate group is radically in-
dependent, and has always formed an independent
species. But more thoughtful observation leads us
to abandon this hypothesis as crude and superficial.
It enables us to see that very many of these wide
diversities exist at present, and have long existed in
the same country, being multiplied in homogeneous
populations, or at least in populations where the race
of men has been comparatively unaffected by foreign
admixtures. Some diversity, therefore, is not utterly
incompatible with unity of origin; and thus we are
admonished to carry our analysis still deeper, in the
hope of separating what is merely special in the mind
of man or accidental in the phases of society, from
broader and more fundamental characteristics. To
the latter class we shall, most reasonably assign what-
ever has been held in common by the various families
of nations, be their state of culture what it may ;
those great specific properties of mankind, the aspira-
tions, faculties, and sentiments, which have in every
period been distinguishing the human from the brute
creation. -
Men are like each other, and unlike the rest of
animated mature, not only as endowed with similar
feelings and affections, or impelled by similar appe-
tencies and aversions, but as speaking, reasoning, and
reflecting creatures. Wheresoever man is, there we
find these marks of his superior dignity. No depths
of barbarism have yet been able to obliterate them,
however much their brilliance may at times be
clouded, or their sphere of action circumscribed. Or
look at man as a progressive being, when he differs
Unity of the human Race.
57
toto colo from the lower animals. The progress has CHAP. II.
indeed been slow in certain cases where the soil was
uncongenial, or the civilising agents inefficient: but
experience teaches us that some advance is uniformly
possible; that in the breasts of all men there are
latent and mysterious faculties; that all are capable
of passing gradually into the higher stages of ex-
istence, and readily adapting themselves to novel cir-
cumstances and conditions. If we grant that in so
far as our domestic instincts are concerned, a parallel
is found among the other orders of creation, it is no
less obvious, that wherever such exist in man, their
character is uniform, their operation is identical: while
in that loftier province of his being, where he is
immediately connected with the ‘God of the spirits
of all flesh,’ the traces of a common nature are pecu-
liarly discernible. It is a fact that all varieties of
men exhibit the same kind of spiritual perceptions,
much as these may vary both in sensibility and clear-
ness: all are actuated by sentiments of awe and
deference to superior genii, blunted though these be,
alike in savage and in civilised communities: all are
able to appreciate high and noble deeds, and are
susceptible of generous impulses: while all are gifted
with the faculty of rising out of their subjection to
the influence of the senses, and believe in some here-
after. Even where the human type is lowest, where
it reaches the extreme of degradation, bordering al-
most on brutality, as, for example, in the natives of
Australia; the philanthropist is, notwithstanding,
cheered by frequent glimpses of the same distinctive
nature, and enabled to detect at least the groundwork
of a desecrated temple.
58
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. II.
Universal
7'esponse to
the appeals
of Christi-
a???ty.
And if this general correspondency of mind and
heart is tending to establish that all members of the
human species constitute but one great family, much
more is such connexion vindicated by presentiments
which all of them alike evince in favour of the Christ-
ian faith. Wherever it has penetrated, the Good
Shepherd's voice is heard, and wakes an echo in the
consciences of men; and what in every case attracts
them to His fold, is also that which makes them truly
conscious of the universal brotherhood subsisting in
all nations. With the sole exception of Muhamma-
danism, a heresy that drew its dogmas and its very
life-blood from Revealed Religion,--we shall find
that all the systems of the ancient world were limited
in their design and local in their range. They were
the images of separate nationalities; they issued from
within; they represented special modes of thought
and harmonised with states of feeling and imagination
that prevailed in certain districts: but with Christian-
ity the case was altogether different. It came fresh
from God: it rested on a series of objective revela-
tions: it was active and diffusive as the light, and
all-embracing as the firmament of heaven: it dealt
with man as man, and never faltered in its claim to
be regarded as a veritable ‘world-religion.’
Obstacles it doubtless met with in appealing to
the various tribes and nations whom it struggled to
convert; yet few if any of these obstacles can fairly
be ascribed to idiosyncrasies arising from diversity of
race. The Hebrews, among whom the Gospel was
indigenous, became ere long its most implacable op-
ponents; and at present when it is accepted by the
bulk of the Germanic nations, other members of the
Unity of the human Race.
9
J
*
Indo-European family have manifested no peculiar CHAP. II.
warmth in their appreciation of its offer. It knows,
in truth, of no distinctions in the pedigree of human
souls, because it is the one religion, the religion of
mankind. Accordingly it reaps in every soil a
harvest of conversions. Heralds of the doctrine of
the cross had scarcely issued from their lowly birth-
place in Judaea, when they found a welcome in the
neighbouring states, and even in the capitals of pagan
Greece and Rome. They taught both intellectual
and imperial masters of the age to bow before the
simple majesty of evangelic truth. They civilised
the rude but manly nations of the north. They
penetrated far into the plains of Central Asia.
They discoursed as freely and effectively in tents of
wandering tribes, as in the schools and temples of
the land of Egypt. And though century after century
expired, the Gospel shewed no symptom of decay or
imbecility; it was adapted, as at first, to the necessi-
ties of every climate, to the temperament of every
“race,’ and all the varied phases of society.
Nor at the present day are we without examples
of this universal fitness. The families of Western
Africa, including that which some have deemed a
Separate and originally lower type of man, are daily
proved to be convertible, are folded in the Christian
Church, and are invested with the Christian character.
The warlike tribe of the Zulus in Southern Africa,
the crouching Dyaks on the coasts of Borneo, multi-
tudes of South-sea islanders, who form together an
assemblage of the greatest physical variations, are all
yielding to the same appeals; while in New Zealand,
where but thirty years ago the natives were ferocious
60
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. II. cannibals, the scourge of neighbouring islands, and
the terror of the British seaman who was driven to
their shores, we now behold a population almost as
generally Christian as our own. The chiefs and
people vie together in their zeal for the advancement
of religion, and exhibit all that catalogue of virtues
which distinguish the regenerate nature, ‘love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek-
mess, temperance.”
But in urging facts like these to prove the radia-
tion of the human family from one common point, we
meet with some objections:
(1) It is said, for instance, that identity of dispo-
sition may exist without implying an identity of
Origin." Thus in the large group of cats, including
the leopard, tiger, lion, and other species, the same
general temperament and habits are everywhere ob-
servable, and yet it is alleged such animals were
originally made to constitute distinct varieties. To
this it is sufficient to reply that man, as we may
gather from the faculties of speech and reason, from
his moral susceptibilities, his spiritual nature, and his
vast capacity of progress, must be treated as a being
sui generis; or, at least, that where differences like
these exist we are not justified in reasoning so com-
pletely to his case from that of the inferior animals.
It is not of course denied that with regard to what
are called the animal appetencies and aversions of his
nature, and even to one class of sensuous habits, such
analogy may be adduced with justice, and pursued
into its consequences. But in doing this, we must
Objections
answered.
* This argument is also urged p. 118.
by l’rofessor Agassiz, as above,
Unity of the human Race.
61
not overlook the fact that all varieties of men are far CHAP. II.
more intimately related than the class of animals in
question. The various species of the feline genus
either intermingle very seldom, or evince a strong
repugnance to such union. If hybrids be occasionally
produced, and if they threaten by their propagation,
to commence an intermediate or degenerate race of
animals, the wayward tendency is soon arrested by
their absolute sterility; and thus the species do not
lose their original characteristics. On the other hand,
such intermixtures are both possible and permanent
among the different families of man. The “races'
which are thought to be peculiarly distinct from each
other (the ‘Caucasian' and the negro), are most ordin-
ary examples of this law; alliances between them
issuing in a fruitful progeny, and what is specially
worthy of remark, the nobler type ere long predomi-
nating and absorbing the degraded."
(2) It has also been contended that even were we
at liberty to assume that the genus homo has only
one species, i. e. to assume that no specific variety
exists among the different tribes of man, this fact
would never justify us in determining the derivation
of all mankind from one single pair; for ‘similar
causes, it is urged, ‘operating on two or more points
of the globe under similar circumstances would ne-
cessarily produce similar results.” But surely it is
far more philosophical to
prefer the simpler of two
1 Chev, Bunsen, Phil. of Uni-
versal History, II. IoS, where the
writer adds: “Nature always tends
towards perfection, and the image
of God, hidden under deviations
from the perfect type, returns,
..jure postliminii, as soon as out-
ward impediments are removed.”
* This argument, which has
become very current, is so stated
in Mr. Blackwell’s edition of
Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p.
25.
62
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. II. hypotheses, where it will adequately explain the
various phenomena of any given question ; in other
words, it is unworthy of a thoughtful mind to ad-
vocate the notion of ‘similar causes' and ‘similar cir-
cumstances,’ when the facts before us do not call for
such plurality. The spread of population and the
present variations in the human species can be per-
fectly interpreted without this multiplying of pro-
ductive centres. “Nothing short of necessity,’ to
quote a modern writer,' whom we shall not readily
convict of superstitious deference to the letter of the
Old Testament, “should induce us to seek for an
autochthony in different parts of the globe, which
would break the ties of blood-relationship that bind
all men together; and so far are we from being able
to point out any necessity in this case, that all the
attainable evidence clearly points in the opposite
direction.’ -
3. The Physiological Proof.
The axiom I have just advanced respecting the
preference always due to simple hypotheses, will
equally apply to this division of the argument. The
chief authorities for conducting it are Blumenbach
and Prichard, whose laborious researches into the
physical history of man will ever be esteemed* among
| Dr. Donaldson, New Cratylus,
2nd ed., p. Ioo.
* See for instance, Dr. Wise-
man's Lectures on the Commercion
between Science and Revealed Re-
digion, Lect. III, IV. Lond. 1836,
and Carpenter's Principles of Hit-
man Physiology, pp. 55 sq. Lond.
1846. ‘Up to the present mo-
ment,’ adds the Chevalier Bunsen,
in speaking also of Prichard’s
great Work, ‘there exists no book
which treats that question with
equal depth and candour;' as
above, I. 48. Some additional
facts have been more recently
collected in Smyth's Unity of the
JHuman Races, New York, 1850.
Unity of the human Race. 63
the richest contributions to the study of our present CHAP. II.
subject. They have shewn that animals acknowledged
to form one species will, under the adventitious in- flººr
fluences of domestication, climate, and the like, divide physiolo-
into a number of subordinate varieties; and thus ºut.
establish a presumption that at least in respect of all
the functions of his animal oeconomy, man will under-
go a similar modification. They have shewn that
distinctions in the families of men are not so strongly
marked, so uniform or permanent as exist in any
given tribe of animals. They have shewn that all di-
versities insensibly pass into each other by graduated
shades of difference, and what is still more remark-
able, that hardly any specimen can be adduced in
which the actual transition is not capable of historical
proof. Examples have been multiplied to shew that
with regard to human skeletons and crania in parti-
cular, the conformation is substantially the same in
all types of man; while deviations from the nobler
types all range themselves within comparatively
narrow limits, and present so many intermediate
forms as to render the transition very gradual from
one case to another. Similar results have flowed
from investigations into the varieties of human colour
and the texture of the human hair, which had been
formerly regarded as the most abiding characteristics
of a race, and are at present vaunted by the friends
of slavery and the adversaries of Revealed Religion.
Colour is now proved to vary in a great degree with
the peculiarities of climate; while ‘woolly' hair is
only one extreme gradation in a large scale of varie-
ties, and is no longer to be treated as the necessary
concomitant of a black skin and negro features."
* Cosmos, I. 352.
64
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
by various artifices.
These statements, however, have not been suffered
to pass on without a challenge. Prichard's work is
far from popular in some districts of America; and
two zealous writers, bent as it would seem on proving
at all hazards that the negro type of man is radically
distinct from others, have been labouring hard for
years to undermine the truth of man's original unity
While the great majority of
thoughtful Germans are at length persuaded that
‘the unity of the ‘human species is a fact established
as firmly as the unity of any other animal species,”
that conclusion is repudiated in the strongest terms
by Messrs. Nott and Gliddon.
(1) One of their objections which they urge in
common with Agassiz is, that the analogy between
the human and other animated species, requires us
to assign to the varieties of men as well as to the
different animals an origin according with their
present geographical distribution.
But to this it may be answered, that even if we
should allow that different species of animals were all
created each within some Zoological district of its own
Objection I.
Answer.
1 Both these gentlemen have
long distinguished themselves by
the emphasis with which they
speak and write on this subject
(see Smyth, p. 1 Io), but their
chief work has not been long
before the public. Its title is:
“Ethnological Researches, based
upon the Ancient Monuments,
Painting, Sculptures, and Crania
of Races, and upon their Natural,
Geographical, Philosophical, and
Biblical History, &c... by J. C.
Nott, M.D., and George R. Glid-
don, &c. Philadelphia, 1854.’ A
large portion of it is devoted to at-
tacks on what is called the Mosaic
chronology. The authors also
dwelſ upon some recent ‘facts'
supplied as they maintain by geo-
logy and palaeontology, especially
the discovery of human fossils in
the peninsula of Florida. These
they urge are fatal to received
ideas respecting the date of man’s
creation. But neither of the latter
topics falls within the scope of
the present chapter. See an ex-
amination of the authors' state-
ments in the British Quarterly,
No. XLIII. pp. I sq.
* In Bunsen, as above, I. 352.
Unity of the human Race.
65
—a point which those who make the statement can-
not prove, it would by no means follow of necessity
that men were also first of all located in the regions
which they now inhabit. This argument again is
guilty of neglecting all the higher properties of man :
it deals with him as nothing more than a variety of
animal life. Besides, the facts of history are them-
CHAP. II.
selves irreconcilable with the supposed analogy. The
tribes of man are found to emigrate, and, after some
few generations, flourish equally in very different
climates. For example, the aborigines of the American
continent itself, comprising tribes of very different
grades of civilisation, from the Esquimaux of the
polar regions to the Aztecs of Mexico, are now ac-
knowledged, even by the opponents of our theory, to
be strictly homogeneous, i. e. Scions of one parent
stock. Of course, it is conceivable that adaptations
do exist and have existed always in the human
organisation, fitting this or that variety of man for
some peculiar province. It is also possible that like
beneficent arrangements were already in process of
formation and development anterior to the date of the
earliest emigrations. Such marks of fitness every
true philosopher is always ready to examine and
appreciate; but he nevertheless demurs to the as-
sumption that the human species had no power of
self-accommodation to diversities of climate, and no
buoyancy enabling men to rise almost indefinitely
beyond the limits of their primitive condition.
(2) It is alleged against one of Prichard's main
positions, that the principal types of the human
species have not been variable, but that, on the
contrary, as far as records will enable us to go, the
WOL. I. 5
Olyection II.
66
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II. broader characteristics of man's physical organisation
Answer.
have been absolutely fixed and inelastic.
A favourite illustration of this argument is bor-
rowed from Egyptian excavations, where monuments
are said to prove that in the very earliest dawn of
history the great distinctions that exist between the
negro and the white man are quite as strongly marked
as at the present day." Unfortunately, so long as the
enigmas of Egyptian chronology remain unsolved,
we have no hope of ascertaining the precise dates of
the inscriptions here referred to. Some are placed
as early as the older Pharaohs, and one is cited as
belonging to a most remote antiquity.”
If we are
justified in drawing any inference from these remains”
1 See Morton's Crania Egypt-
iaca, p. 66; Smyth, Unity of the
JHuman Races, p. 40.
* The authority for this state-
ment is a communication made to
Mr. Gliddon by Lepsius, in whose
opinion negroes are mentioned at
Sakkara by the name of KeSH, on
monuments of the sixth dynasty,
B.C. 3ooo: see Hamilton, The
I’entateuch and its Assailants, p.
277, and “postScript,” p. 338 :
Edinb. 1852.
* Hamilton, as above, p. 315,
note; cf. Prichard, II. 346 sq.;
Wiseman, I. 153 sq. See Pri-
chard, III. 227 sq. : from the evi-
dence cited it must be concluded
that ‘the subjects of the Pharaohs
had something in their physical
character approximating to that
of the negro' (p. 230). Still con-
siderable diversity existed, as to
figure and complexion, among the
old Egyptians. One was plexay-
xpºs, another plexixpos. In
Smith's JDict. of Gr. and Rom.
Geogr., art. ZEGYPTUS (p. 38) it is
contended that, notwithstanding
the dark hue of the Egyptians,
they “were not a negro race,—a
Supposition contradicted alike by
Osteology, and by monumental
paintings, where negroes often
appear, but always either as tri-
butaries or captives..... . The
Egyptians may be said to be in-
termediate between the Syro-Ara-
bian and Ethiopic type; and as
at this day the Copt is at once re-
cognised in Syria by his dark
hue, the duskier complexion—
brown, with a tinge of red—of
the ancient Egyptians may be as-
cribed solely to their climate, and
to those modifying causes which,
in the course of generations, affect
both the Osteology and the physi-
ology of long-settled races.’ ‘Im.
Grossen und Ganzen,” says Knobel
(pp. 277, 278), ‘gehörten die
Aegypter Zur dunkelfarbigen
Abtheilung der Erdbevölkerung.’
Yet he continues, ‘Diese Angaben
machen jedoch die Aegypter noch
nicht zu rabenschwarzen und
Wollhaarigen Negern.”
Unity of the human Race.
67
it is in favour of the clear distinctness of the negro CHAP. II.
and the old Egyptian families at a very early period.
Yet no evidence whatever is furnished by this fact
against the doctrine of their common Origin. How
soon the various types of man had been developed,
whether variations did not actually exist to some
degree among the sons of Noah, is a question wrapt,
and likely to continue wrapt, in utter mystery.
Science freely grants that she has no ability to solve
it; and the Christian therefore may repose in his
belief that men are really one species, till the scrip-
tural narrative has been discredited by arguments
more cogent and conclusive than the advocates of
slavery have as yet extracted from Egyptian hiero-
glyphics.
4. The Philological Proof.
By following out his principles of classification,
Blumenbach concluded that the human species is
* This supposition may perhaps
receive encouragement from the
fact that two at least of the sons
of Noah bear names expressing a
distinctive colour. Thus Ham, of
which the root is found alike in
the Semitic (pron) and the Coptic
(chame), signifies “hot,” “sun-
burnt,’ ‘black,” Japhet (nº from
rº) in like manner signifies
‘beauty' referring more especially
to fairness of complexion; cf.
IGnobel, Die Volkertafel der Gen-
esis, Giessen, 1850, pp. 239, 22,
13. It is further probable that
any original difference of type in
the family of Noah would be very
rapidly developed : for as Dr.
Carpenter observes (Principles of
JHuman Physiology, p. 53, Lond.
1846), ‘there would be a greater
tendency to the perpetuation of
these varieties, in other words, to
the origination of distinct races,
during the earlier ages of the
history of the race, than at the
present time, when in fact, by
the increasing admixture of races
which have long been isolated,
there is a tendency to the fusion
of all these varieties, and to a
return to a common type.”
* See the language of the great
anatomist, Johannes Müller, in
Humboldt's Cosmos, I. 352, 353;
and cf. Mr. Parker's admission,
above, p. 49, n. 2.
(38
Christ and offer Masters.
Citap. II. divisible into three primary and two secondary vari-
eties (Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and
Malay). Prichard distributed them afresh into seven
classes (Irānian, Turánian, American, Hottentots,
Negroes, Papuas, and Alfourous); while others have
since raised the number as high as eleven, conceiving
that there is no middle ground between this classifi-
cation and the reduction of them all to one. But as
the question was more fully canvassed, thoughtful
writers found it quite impossible even from a physio-
logical point of view, “to recognise in the groups thus
formed any true typical distinction, any general and
consistent natural principle.” They all were felt to
be conventional, vague, and artificial; tending thus
in no small measure to enforce the supposition that
all human forms were only modifications of a single
species. And the same results are flowing from the
generalisations of philology. The two inquiries
should indeed be kept as independent as possible,
because we are not warranted in affirming that the
classification of language will ever strictly coincide
with the classification of physiology. The variations
in the structure of the human frame may not have
taken place concurrently with the confusion and
disruption of human language; and, therefore, we
are unable to predict that all who carried with them
kindred elements of speech would be distinguished
by the same varieties of physical organisation. Still
the labours of philology, by disentangling the per-
plexities in which the subject is involved, all point
us to a few grand sources, out of which the various
languages of man may have originally welled.
1 Cosmos, I. 353.
Unity of the human Race. 69
According to Bopp's arrangement, which he CHAP. II.
based on purely philological considerations, the divi- cºnce
sion ought to be tripartite: (1) Languages with tion of
tº gº tº , tº human lan-
monosyllabic roots, but incapable of composition, and .
therefore without grammar or organisation; (2) Lan-
guages with monosyllabic roots which are susceptible
of composition, and in which the grammar and orga-
nisation depend entirely on this; (3) Languages which
consist of dissyllabic verbal roots, and require three
consonants in the vehicles of their fundamental sig–
nification. The second and third of these classes are
known to scholars as the Aryan, or Indo-European,
and the Aramaic, or Semitic. From the circumstance
that persons speaking these languages have always
occupied a high position in the history of mankind,
our knowledge of them is considerable, and nearly
all their properties are fully analysed in works of
modern scholars.
Such, however, cannot be affirmed of members of
the group which Bopp arranges first in his classifica-
tion. ' That group is meant to comprehend all other
languages of man,—those, namely, in Europe, Asia,
and Africa, which are not included in the second and
third groups, together with the various aboriginal
dialects of America. As a first approximation to
more systematic treatment, Mr. Max Müller” has
proposed to form a separate class, which he entitles
the Turánian, making it to comprehend all European,
Asiatic, and Polynesian languages, that do not har-
monise either with the Aryan or Semitic type. Of
* See Comparative Grammar, I. respecting the Non-Irānian and
Io2, Io: ; Lond. 1856. Non-Semitic Languages of Asia
* See his able report on the or Europe,” in Bunsen, as above,
“Last results of the Researches I. 263—486.
P-
Christ and other Masters.
ſ
()
CHAP. II. this Turánian group the principal branches are Tun-
gusic, Mongolic, Turkic, and Finnic in the north,
Taic, Malaic, Bhotiya, and Tamilic in the south ; it
being confessed, however, that they cannot offer such
distinctive traits of family-likeness, as we find among
the members of the other groups. They are rather
like so many ‘radii diverging from a common centre,’
than ‘ children of a common parent.”
But supposing such affinities to be established,
supposing that we are not under the necessity of
admitting different independent beginnings in struc-
ture and lexicography for the elements of the Turá-
nian, as we certainly are not for those of the Semitic
and Aryan branches, what is to be said of the sporadic
languages in Africa and America, which have not
hitherto been definitely placed in any of these groups?
Are they spontaneous products of the several regions
where they flourish 2 or are they really connected
with the languages of Europe and Asia, though the
links of union be now lost? The latter supposition
is not only more probable on ethnological and tradi-
tional grounds, but has received distinct corroboration
from researches of the present day.” The native
languages of North-America, it is stated, are not only
uniform in their grammatical type, as had been long
1 Mr. Max Müller's ‘Last Re- of the Chevalier Bunsen ‘the lin-
sults of the Researches, &c.', as
before, I, 478.
2 The Government of the Uni-
ted States are now printing, under
the editorship of Mr. Schoolcraft,
a series of volumes containing
Iſistorical, and Statistical Inform-
ation respecting the History, Con-
dition, and Prospects of the Indian
Tribes. According to the report
guistic data before us, combined
with the traditions and customs,
and particularly, with the system
of pictorial or mnemonic writing
(first revealed in this work), en-
able me to say, that the Asiatic
Origin of all these tribes is as
fully proved as the unity of family
among themselves:’ as before, II.
I I 2. -
Unity of the human Race.
71
acknowledged, but exhibit many clear analogies to CHAP. II.
the Turánian forms of Northern Asia; thus according
with a supposition, which is rendered probable on
other grounds, that the elements of American popul-
ation were all transported from that quarter. Many
interesting results have also been obtained from recent
investigations into the languages of Africa, the
general tendency of which suggests the grouping of
them with Semitic and Turánian idioms, and connects
the spread of population over that continent, partly
with the northern states that border on Abyssinia,
and partly with the southern tribes in which the
Káfir dialects prevail.
The arduous question now remaining for philo-Are these
logers is this: to ascertain if, when the individual
three
groºps
languages have been arranged in groups, the groups reducible
themselves be also capable of reduction under one
primordial group; or rather to establish, if not the
absolute confluence of all languages to one common
source, at least the possibility of their original diver-
gence from one common center. Those of which we
are best able to affirm the nature and affinities all
indicate the table-land of Upper Asia” as the birth-
1 Bunsen, II. I 15 sq. The same subject. After expressing his be-
writer draws attention (p. 114)
to the fact established by William
von Humboldt that most of the
Polynesian languages are con-
nected with the Malay, i. e. are
capable of being classed with the
Turánian group. But whether
the remark can be extended to
the Papua languages spoken in
Australia, New Guinea, &c., is
not yet ascertained.
* I would here draw attention
to the confidence with which Sir
William Jones pronounces on this
lief in the more than human origin
of the Mosaic narrative, he adds:
‘It is no longer probable only,
but it is absolutely certain, that
the whole race of man proceeded
from Irān, as from a centre,
whence they migrated at first in
three great colonies; and that
those three branches grew from
a common stock which had been
miraculously preserved in a gene-
ral convulsion and inundation of
this globe:’ Works, I. 137. Lond.
1799. Cf. A. Fr. Gfrörer, Urge-
to one 2
72
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II. place of the civilisation they were instrumental in
communicating to other districts. Starting therefore
from this point we may perhaps divine the general
course of man's migrations into Europe and Asia,
and the nature of the process by which tribes were
gradually separated from each other in the various
provinces of the earth. The earliest emigrants may
have proceeded eastward into China, since the lan-
guage of that country is least of all organic in its
structure and the least developed of Turánian tongues.
But as like impulses were constantly at work, new
colonies would be continually projected till a layer
of population had been actually expanded over many
parts of Europe and Asia." It is also easy to con-
schichte des menschlichen Gesch-
lechts, Schaffhausen, 1855, who
also recognises the truthfulness of
the Hebrew narrative respecting
the dispersion ofthehuman family.
The same may be affirméd of
I(nobel’s learned work Die Völk-
ertafel der Genesis, cited above
for although he favours what is
called the document-hypothesis,
professing to ascribe the Ioth
chapter of Genesis to the older
(or ‘Elohistic') hand, he is no
less persuaded of its vast import-
ance in all questions of ethno-
graphy. “Die Stammväter’ (he
Writes, p. 9) “sind mythische Per-
Sonen, wahrend die von ihnen
abgeleiteten Völker geschichtlich
sind.”
1 Rawlinson, Early Hist. of
Babylonia (Journal of the Royal
As. Soc. xv. 232) has recently
made the following suggestions
with respect to the course of the
Scythic (Hamitic or Turánian)
races:—‘Leaving it, therefore,
still a matter of speculation whe-
ther the prehistoric period may be
more correctly estimated at two
thousand or four thousand years;
I will only remark, that it must
have been during this interval
that nationalities were first estab-
lished; and that the aboriginal
Scyths or Hamites appear to have
been the principal movers in the
great work of social organisation.
They would seem, indeed, simul-
taneously or progressively to have
passed in one direction by south-
ern Persia into India; in another,
through southern Arabia to AEthi-
opia, Egypt, and Numidia. They
must have spread themselves at
the same time over Syria and
Asia Minor, sending out colonies
from one country to Mauritania,
Sicily, and Iberia; from the other,
to the Southern coasts of Greece
and Italy. They further, proba-
bly, occupied the whole area of
modern Persia, and thence pro-
ceeding to the north by Chalcis
and the Caucasus, they penetrated
to the extreme northern point of
the European and Asiatic conti-
nents.’ He adds that “indepen-
Unity of the human Race. 73
jecture how the isolation of each tribe, and other dis- Chap. II.
uniting agencies, promoted the rapid growth of T
different dialects, and how the progress of confusion
would be expedited by the introduction of secondary
formations, tending to obscure the old affinities and
hide the verbal roots which all may have imported
from the mother-country. But many of the early
settlers appear to have been subsequently overflowed,
pushed forward, or exterminated by fresh waves of
population, issuing from the districts whére the Aryan
and Semitic idioms had been planted; since the
former of these grew predominant in the north of
India, and in nearly all the European continent, while
the latter flourished far and wide in western Asia,
and diffused itself, as some conjecture, under certain
modifications, into Egypt and the north of Africa.
Such, I say, was probably the course and order of
these primitive migrations; yet, even had we evidence
to justify us in pronouncing definitely on the subject,
it would never by itself explain the vast varieties of
human speech. Three families of man, or rather
three original groups, in which the several members
of each group possessed the means of intercommuni-
cation in the same mother-tongue, may have been
either simultaneously, or in succession, parted from
each other, and propelled across the continents and
islands of the globe; but how these groups them-
selves originated is a more recondite question. In Philology
truth, as physiology, though it establish the identity ºr
- Swered the
of the human species, can of itself determine nothing question.
dently of all reference to the Shinar, as the focus from which
Scriptural record, we should still the various lines had radiated.’
be able to fix on the plains of
p-
Chrisł and offer Masters.
(
4
CHAP. II. as to the precise condition and the actual birth-place
of the aborigines, so are the oracles of philology all
silent touching what occurred before the founding of
the primitive types of human speech. The question,
therefore, in so far as these two sciences extend, is left
enveloped in uncertainty. Among our English scholars,
for example, there are many, who although persuaded
that the principles which led to the formation of Indo-
European and Semitic families are incontrovertible,
despair of bridging over the great gulf that lies
between them, so as to establish their correspondence
either in organisation, in grammatical structure, or in
vocabulary; and when it is further urged that both
these families may be scientifically connected with
the more sporadic forms of language which we call
“Turánian,’ such philologers declaim against the gross
injustice of the torture, and deny that the generic
unity of man is demonstrable by this process. Others,
on the contrary, are no less confident that the identi-
fication will be ultimately established. As the
science of philology advances, they predict that more
and more traces of family-likeness will be generally
recognised; that radicals, which, under various changes
and disguises, have survived in all these different
groups of language ever since the first migrations,
will be more and more readily detected; and that,
while it is most unphilosophical to derive any one of
these groups from the other, they will all at last be
proved to have been emanations from Some great prim-
ordial tongue, the leading elements of which were
either broken in the lapse of time, or buried in some
vast catastrophe.
Now, whatever be the issue of those learned la-
Unity of the human Race. 75
bours, and whatever be the fate of these dissuasives CHAP. II.
on the one hand, or these confident predictions on the ſº
other, they give rise to a reflection of the utmost on the
& e & . . truthful-
value to all Christians. The veracity of Holy Scrip-jºo
ture, far from being weakened by them, is considerably *
enhanced. The Book of Genesis afforded by antici-
pation the best medium for explaining such linguistic
phenomena. It tells us that there was in early times
a great divulsion in the elements of human language,
that whereas the whole earth was formerly ‘of one
lip’ (Gen. xi. 1), the unity of speech was broken on
the plain of Shimar, and the human family dispersed
from thence “upon the face of all the earth.' And
as the sacred narrative does not specify the nature
nor degree of this ‘confusion,’ it is equally recon-
cilable with either of the current theories of philo-
logy: it will hold its ground unshaken, whether we
are led eventually to the hypothesis that the primitive
language is entirely lost, or whether portions of the
tangled threads survive in various languages, thus
serving to connect us with the earliest fathers of
mankind.
What then is the general inference to be gathered
from this chapter in elucidation of our main inquiry?
We may sum it up as follows:—Man is a religious
being. The ideas of God, of sacrifice, of prayer,
have been inwoven with his spiritual constitution,
and have, therefore, always struggled for expression
in his personal and social life. Approach him where
you will, in England, in the tropics, or at the anti-
podes, and he exhibits this unfailing proof of his
76
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
Gradual
formation
of heathen
theologies.
humanity, especially in all the sober moments, when
he communes most profoundly with himself, in trouble,
sorrow and perplexity, in solitude, in sickness, or
when verging close upon the grave. Exactly, there-
fore, in proportion as we have established the unity
of his origin, we have established also a presumption
that the various families of man inherited from age
to age a stock of sacred knowledge, and conveyed
it with them in their wanderings from the cradle of
the human race.
But it is obvious that in beings ever liable to fall,
and ever prone to substitute their speculations for the
holy will of God, this great substratum of religion
might in course of time be overgrown and buried;
just as primitive forms of speech would disappear
beneath a crop of secondary formations. The effect
of individual character, of isolation, of climate, the
phenomena of nature, and a host of adventitious
agencies would soon be visible in the altered aspects
of traditions; while a corresponding modification of
the forms of social life would gradually affect the
tone and sensibility of the human spirit. Where the
tribe, or people, sank in moral culture, the idea of
God would also be enfeebled and debased.* The
* The following confession of
A. W. von Schlegel is the more
remarkable, because its author was
entirely influenced by the force
of historical truth, and not by
theological prepossessions. Here
at length he was of one accord
with his distinguished brother.
‘Je mehr ich in der alten Welt-
geschichte forsche, um so mehr
iiberzeuge ich mich, dass die ge-
sitteten Völker von einer reinern
Verehrung des hôchsten Wesens
ausgegangen sind; dass die ma-
gische Gewalt der Natur tiber die
Einbildungskraft des damaligen
Menschengeschlechts erst später
die Wielgótterei hervorrief, und
endlich in dem Volksglauben die
geistigen Religionsbegriffe ganz
verdunkelte, während die Weisen
allein im Heiligthume das uralte
Geheimniss bewahrten.’ Worrede
to the German translation of Pri-
chard's Egyptian Mythology, p.
XVI.
Unity of the human Race.
77
worshipper whose heart was shrinking from the pre-CHAP. II.
sence of the High and Holy One, would speedily
betake himself to more congenial objects. He would
look no higher than the earth, and finding, as he grew
more selfish and irreverent, that some powers of
nature with which he stood connected were antagon-
istic to him, and opposed the gratification of his
wishes, he would chiefly strive to overcome them,
or would struggle to disarm their vengeance, by re-
sorting to a multitude of exorcisms and other like
devices. All his worship would eventually be nature-
worship; all his prayers would take the abject form
of deprecation. Or in different regions, where ex-
ternal nature was more joyous and propitious, and
where man himself, by the development of his re-
flective and imaginative faculties, had gained a higher
measure of intelligence; the creed of paganism would
also be considerably idealised, it would become more
sentimental and poetic. Its mythes would be far
loftier in conception, and would all be cast in gentler
moulds. The pagan worshipper might still, indeed,
address his homage to the good or evil energies of
nature, but no longer to a formless power or an im-
personal divineness: he would fashion for himself
a group of new divinities, to whom he could attribute
human shapes and human properties; and thus the
highest effort of this class of heathen was to bring
about the deification of humanity.
But as in every case the drapery of imagination Their
with which they clothed their gods was the spon-
taneous product of their own locality, the cycle of
religious mythes would be indefinitely enlarged.
Each town and village would give birth to fresh
78
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
Tºwth and
unity in the
Church.
divinities, until at length it grew almost impossible
in any part of heathendom to recognise the purer
doctrine of the earliest ages, to distinguish even
broken echoes of the first traditions, or to disentangle
the few elements of primitive truth from an interm-
inable mass of aftergrowths, which had corrupted
and concealed it. So hopeless seemed the task of
restoration, so remote from men's perceptions the idea
of one all-ruling, all-embracing Gód, that, in the
fourth century of the present era, when Julian and
his pagan followers laboured to disparage Christianity,
on the ground that it was far too modern and ex-
clusive, they were driven to avow that a plurality
of religions is inevitable, nay, is actually demanded
by the diverse forms of human thought, and by the
multiplicity of “human races.” And the same con-
victions still prevail, as we have seen, in England
and elsewhere among the heralds of the Absolute
Religion.
Yet, in spite of every wayward tendency of human
nature, disuniting men from God, and substituting
for the steadier light of old traditions, the capricious
glimmerings of their own imagination ; there was
ever on the earth one ark of refuge, and one beacon
planted on a hill. The Church of God, the keeper
and the witness of the true religion, rested on a sure
and stable basis, so that while the heathen were
Cf. Neander, Ch. Hist. III.
135 sq. After some general re-
marks on the question of man’s
origin, Julian himself proceeds as
follows: 'Ev'raúða 6é àpicéoret Too-
oùrov eitreſy, Ös é, évôs pièv Ical
puās offortv, otte Tows vópous eicos
éirl Togoûtov trapaxAáčai' otºre
&AAws thv yńv Šp évôs épirAmor-
67val Tão av . . . . IIavtaxoſ, 6&
&6póws, vevgäutov 0eóv, Švitep
Tpétrov ć eis, oùto 8& ſcal of
TAetous TpoãA0ov &v6patrol, To?s
'ye večpxa is 0 e oſs & Toka m pay-
0éutes: Opp. ed. Spanheim, I.
292.
Unity of the human Race.
79
abandoned to themselves to test the systems of their CHAP. II.
own devising, and were “given over to a reprobate
mind; its inmates had continual access to the oracles
of God, the children of Israel had light in their
dwellings. There, in what is verily the moral center
of the world, midway between the principal seats of
ancient civilisation, God exemplified upon a single
people' the restoring and exalting process, under
which humanity at large, when ready for the great
experiment, should be cured of all its guilty wander-
ings and infatuations, and made one again in Christ.
1 Cf. Theodoret. De Providen- 'Iapa?,A Trávta Tê š0um, T & Thy
tia, Orat. x: Opp. IV. 454, Paris, aith v šxovt a púa iv, eis Thu
1642: Offra, St Vos éðvovs Toi Tàs eige6etas icolvøvíav ćicăAet.
CHAP. III.
CELATPTER TIT.
On the Characteristics of Religion under the
Old Testament.
Oü6è yöp 6tà 'Iovöatows uávous 6 vágos ºv, où6é Öt airobs
wóvovs of Tpopâral étréatrouto, &AA& Tpos Iovöatovs why réutouto,
kal Tapā 'Iovöaſov č6tókovro Trá0 ms à Tâs oilcoupévms forav Štěaq-
káAtov iépôv Tās repl Osot yuágeos, kal Täs Icar& pvºv troAireſas.
S. Athanasius, contra Gentes, cap. xii. (p. 57, ed. Benedict.)
HAVING now in some measure cleared a way to our
investigation, first, by pointing out the special tend-
encies of modern disbelief, and secondly, by under-
mining one of the more plausible positions which its
advocates have sought to occupy, I shall proceed to
ascertain the leading traits by which Revealed Re-
ligion was distinguishable in all the earlier stages of
its progress. For since Christianity professes to
reach backward into periods long anterior to the
human lifetime of its Founder; since it claims to be
most vitally connected with the Old-Testament ceco-
nomy, and since the roots from which it sprang are
there; we see not only the importance, but necessity,
of analysing the ideas embodied in the Hebrew in-
stitutions, of reverting to the Solemn ordinances of
the Law, and studying the Oracular voices of the
Prophets.
On the Characteristies of Religion, &c. 81
We shall thus be able to compare the aspects CHAP. III.
of religious thought and feeling as displayed in T
members of the sacred commonwealth with contem-
porary systems of the heathen world. If Hebraism
resemble these in such a manner as to justify the
inference that it was derived from any or from all of
them, then Christianity, in turn, professing to have
grown directly out of it, is ultimately resolvable into
heathen elements. Or, if again the principles alike
of Heathenism and Hebraism be nothing more than
natural projections of religious instincts, mere expe-
dients of the human understanding to escape from
what is felt to be a burden and a paradox, then
Christianity may also be subjective in its origin,
a fresh development of that which having issued from
the human breast in ruder times, was afterwards re-
modelled in accordance with the riper judgments of
humanity in the Augustan period.
Now the two great principles of Hebraism, the
poles, one might affirm, on which the system abso-
lutely turned, were (1) the LAW, and (2) the PROMISE;
that designed to keep alive the elementary idea of
God, and superintend the education of the human
spirit during the comparative infancy of the race;
while this was occupied in opening out a brighter
and more blissful future, where the limits of the
Church of God would be indefinitely widened, and
the happiness of all its members inexpressibly en-
hanced.
For that Hebraism was never meant to be an The non-
ultimate stage in the unfolding of the true religion, %|
is apparent from confessions and arrangements of its
own sacred books. They frequently proclaim its
WOL. I. 6
82
Christ and offer Masters.
preceding.
CHAP. III, non-finality.' The prophets, keeping pace with the
spiritual development of the nation, carry on men's
thoughts beyond a merely ritual service, and lay
greater stress on the obedience of the heart; and in
the age of the Captivity, when the observance of the
Law was made to some degree impossible, ‘a new
covenant’ is placed in actual contrast with the old,
and dignity assigned to it which is denied to the
Yet the kernel of that ancient system,
—the profound relations it exhibited between Jehovah
and His people, the principles that underlay its
sacrifices and that breathed through all its symbols,
—was imperishable. The Law was not to sink
without the prospect of some glorious sublimation;
it did not expire without transfusing its own life
into the heart of a successor. Christianity is the
legitimate offspring of the elder dispensation, because,
according even to De Wette, the Old Testament ‘is
a great prophecy, a great type of Him who was to
come and has come;” because the Law in all its
breadth and depth is tributary to the Gospel, and
* If no other text existed, minds to receive the second form,
Jerem. xxxi. 31 sq. as compared
with Heb. viii. Would be sufficient
to establish this position. On the
attempts of Jewish writers to
evade the force of it, see Schött-
gen's Horſe Hebraica, I. 969,
Dresdae, 1733. Yet one at least
of the later Rabbis (Albo) dis-
tinctly recognises the temporary
character of the Mosaic institute:
‘When God, who is highly to be
extolled, gave the Law, He knew
that this form of education was
sufficient for a certain period,
which His wisdom had fixed, that
it was sufficient to prepare those
who received it, and incline their
although God has revealed this to
mo man; but when the time shall
come, God will reveal that second
form to men:’ quoted in Tholuck,
On the Ep. to the Hebrews, I. 294.
* See Bähr, Symbolik des Mo-
saischen Cultus, I. 16, note, Heid-
elberg, 1837. “Das s Christen-
thum,’ writes Wuttke (Gesch. des
Heidenthums, 1, 18, Breslau, 1852)
‘im weltgeschichtlichen Sinne
beginnt nicht erst mit dem Auf-
treten Jesu Christi, sondern Christ-
us ist der Mittelpunkt des Christ-
enthums, und mit ihm bricht die
Schon lange vörhandene Knospe
Zu vollen Blüthe auf.”
0^ fhe Charaeferís fíes of Relígíon, &e. 83
because the Saviour came not to destroy, but to CHAP. III.
transfigure and complete. - - - - - - -
This thought, however, of substantial identity Progressive
between the old and new oeconomies, has frequently %'j"°'
|beem miscomceived, or overstated, im the popular aconomy.
teaching of divines. Persuaded that the Church of
God was not Without `her * Acts amd Monuments
before Christ incarnate,'* Zealous above all things
to maimtain the unity amd fixity of truth, and to
anmounce those glorious principles that give coherence
to the history of redemptiom, they have seemed to
speak of the Old Testament as though it were an
absolute and perfect revelation, and have therefore
laboured to evolve from it the special doctrines of
the Gospel.*
1 The title of Bp. Montague's
Work, published in I642.
2 The true distinctiom Was,
however, clearly seem evem during
the period whem there. Was a
strong tendency to judaize, and
reduce the Gospel into a kind of
* NeW ILaW.' Thus We fimd a
writer ofthe 12th century express-
img himself as follows: “ Primus
gradus est cognitionis fidei quo
nihil minus unquam fides habere
potuit : credere videlicet Deum
esse et eum Salvatorem et Re-
muneratorem expectare. * EIæc
cognitio fidei simplicibus ante in-
carnationem Verbi ad salutem
sufficere potuit, videlicet ut et
Deum crederent, et Salvatorem
expectarent: quamvis ejusdem
salvationis suæ modum et tempus
non cognoscerent. Duo enim in
homine tantum sunt, matura et
culpa : et Creator ad naturam re-
fertur, Salvator ad culpam. Sub
lege autem scripta crevit cognitio,
quamdo jam de persona Redemp-
They consult it with the eyes of
toris manifeste agi cœpit, et Sal-
vatOr per legem promitti, et post
promissiomem expectari. Sub
gratia autem adhuc amplius ex-
crevit cognitio, cum ipse jam Sal-
vator, non ut prius a multis puta-
batur solum homo, sed et Deus
verus manifestatus est. Et ipse
redemptionis modus nOm im terre-
mæ culmine potestatis, sed in
Imorte probatus est constare Sal-
vatoris.' EI. de S. Victore, Eru-
dit. Theolog. ea; Miscellan. Lib. I.
Tit. XVIII. 0pp. III. 73. Mogunt.
I 617.
The same Writer (De Sacramen-
tis, lib. I. pars X. c. VI.) discusses
the questiom, * am secumdum mu-
tationes temporum mutata sit
fides,' (0pp. III. 412 sq.) and com-
cludes in the following passage:
—* Crevit itaque per tempora fides
in omnibus, ut major esset, sed
mutata nom est, ut alia esset.
Ante legem, Deus creator crede-
batur, et ab eo salus et redemptio
expectabatur ; per quem vero et
84
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. Christians rather than of Hebrews, and neglecting to
shade off the full illumination which our Lord and
the apostles turned upon it, feel themselves at liberty
to urge that what is now made clear to us, must
have been also luminous from the beginning. And
a like forgetfulness to vary the point of view from
which we contemplate the records of the Elder
Church, has often issued in a disregard of those great
laws of sequence and progression that characterise its
general history. God, who in the Son spake once
and absolutely, had communicated only parcels of
the truth (Toxvpepós), and these at various seasons,
by the ministry of the prophets (Heb. i. 1). His
communications then, as ever, were adapted to the
exigencies of the age, and were proportioned to the
receptivity of the people. For in the training of the
sacred corporation, as in that of individuals under
discipline, there was a gradual exercise and evolution
of the spiritual powers of man,—a growth from the
half-consciousness of childhood to the larger views,
the deeper reasonings, the accumulated wisdom of
maturity; and, therefore, it is easy to observe how,
quomodo eadem salus implenda et
perficienda foret, exceptis paucis
quibus hoc scire singulariter in
munere datum erat, a Caeteris
etiam fidelibus non cognoscebatur.
Sub lege autem persona Redemp-
toris mittenda prædicebatur, et
ventura expectabatur. Quae autem
ipse persona haec foret homo an
angelus, an Deus, nondum mani-
festabatur, Soli hoc cognoverunt,
qui per Spiritum singulariter ad
hoc illuminati fuerunt. Sub gratia
autem manifeste omnibus, jam et
praedicatur et creditur, et modus
redemptionis et qualitas personae
Redemptoris.’ And similar prin-
ciples were inculcated on the En-
glish nuns at the beginning of the
next century: “Nime’ god 3eme;
mine leoue Sustren, uor hyi we
ouh Him to luuien. Erest, ase
a mon pet wowe’—ase a King
pet luuede one lefdi of feorreme
londe, and Sende hire His sondes-
men biforen, pet weren be patri-
arkes and be prophetes of be Olde
Testament, mid lettres isealed. A
last He com Him suluen, and
brouhte pet gospel ase lettres
topened, and wrot mid His owune
blode saluz to His leofmon.’
Andren Riwle (ed. Camden Soc.
1853), p. 388.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 85
corresponding with this growth in the capacity of CHAP. III.
the subject, the illumination granted from on high TT
had also passed through different stages in a mea-
surable progress. Clearer insight into some of the
great mysteries of the Cross was only the reward of
patient waiting, or the fruit of tedious and (as many
deem) circuitous probation;' while of other truths
that constitute the household words of Christianity,
the prophet and the Saint alike were ignorant; they
were left to “inquire and search diligently’ (1 Pet.
i. 10), until the Pedagogue was superseded by the
heavenly Teacher,” and ‘the fulness of the times' had
come.
1 The objection based upon the
length of interval that elapsed be-
tween the fall of man and his re-
demption, is as old as Celsus and
Porphyry. Leo the Great repels
it in the following passage, ra-
diant with the light of true philo-
sophy: “Cessent igitur illorum
querelaº, qui impio murmure di-
vinisdispensationibus obloquentes,
de Dominica nativitatis tarditate
causantur, tanquam praeteritis
temporibus non sit impensum,
quod in ultima mundi &tate est
gestum. Verbi incarnatio hac
contulit facienda (?), quae facta (?)
et sacramentum salutis humana)
in nulla unquam antiquitate ces-
savit. Quod praedicaverunt apo-
stoli, hoc annunciaverunt prophe-
tae; mec sero est impletum, quod
semper est creditum. Sapientia
vero et benignitas Dei hac Saluti-
feri operis mora capaciores 770s Sºſa,
vocationis effecit; ut quod multis
signis, multis vocibus, multisque
mysteriis per tot fuerat Secula
praenunciatum, in his diebus Evan-
gelii mon esset ambiguum ; et na-
tivitas, quae omnia miracula, om-
nemque intelligentiae erat exces-
Sura mensuram, tanto constanti-
orem in nobis gigneret fidem,
quanto praedicatio ejus et anti-
quior praecessisset et crebrior.
Non itaque novo consilio Deus
rebus humanis, nec sera misera-
tione consuluit; sed a constitu-
tione unam eandemque omnibus
causam salutis instituit. Gratia
autem Dei, qua semper est uni-
versitas justificata sanctorum,
aucta est Christo nascente mon
capta.’ Sermo III. de Nativitate :
Opp. p. 16, Col. I, B, Paris, 1639.
* Gal. iii. 24. This metaphor
of St. Paul is most expressive,
pointing out the true relation of
the Law to the Gospel, and vin-
dicating its claim to be regarded
as an agent (though but elemen-
tary and subordinate) in the moral
education of the Church. St.
Chrysostom (in loc.) expands the
Same idea with great clearness:—
‘O 8& trauðaywyös oil, évavriotitat
T$ 616aolcáAq., &AA& kal orvpatrpat-
tel, trgo m's kakſas &traXAátrov tou
véov, Ical uerò, tdoºms oxoxis T&
p.a6%pata trapö. Tod StöaoricóAov
ôéxeo-0al trapaakeväſav' &AA’ &rav
év část yeum Tal, &ptoratat Aottröy
6 trauða'yayyás.
S6
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. III.
Importance
of just
ideas re-
specting
God.
With this conviction clearly present to the mind,
I now purpose to examine the character of the Law,
and some of the peculiar functions it was destined to
perform in the continuous training of the Hebrews;
not of course excluding from our survey what is
termed the patriarchal dispensation, since in all its
leading characteristics (those of prayer and sacrifice,
for instance) it is one with the Mosaic system.
§ 1. The Law.
The moral force and grandeur of religions are in
every case to be determined by the worthiness of
their ideas of God, His nature and His attributes.
It has been frequently remarked, that ‘as man is,
so, is the divinity he worships;' but the converse is
more rigorously correct: what God is, such His
worshipper becomes. If the sacred institutes of any
people manifest a disposition to obscure the unity of
God, to tamper with His holiness, to waver in their
statements touching His essential independence of
the properties of matter or of man, that system has
been incapacitated in the same proportion for direct-
ing and exalting the religious life of the community.
If God be represented as no more than the stupendous
aggregate of all created spirits; if divinity be ascribed
to Nature as a whole, to this or that energy of na-
ture, and to this or that ideal representative of men,
no standing-ground is left for urging the intrinsic
excellence of virtue: faith, love, justice, purity, and
liberty itself, have no intelligible basis; they become
the mere subjective forms of human sentiment and
the conventionalities of human law. Or if again,
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 87
while the Creator is not actually confounded with CHAP. III.
the laws and operations of the universe, His power T
be notwithstanding liable to any species of constraint
or limitation; if He be thwarted by some other sub-
stance, fate, or time, or matter, or chaos, or evil, it
must also follow that the moral consciousness of the
worshipper is wounded and distracted; he abandons
the resistance he was offering to the downward tend-
encies of his mature; he drifts away to the conclusion,
either that sin is absolutely inevitable, or that right-
eousness is for the present banished from the earth.
1. Now all the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures The He-
on these points is far above suspicion. They announce. º
at every turn, and under every kind of illustration, God:
the cardinal doctrine of One, Living, Personal God,
the Maker and the moral Governor of all things.
They draw the broadest possible line of demarcation
between humanity and Divinity. They make the
consciousness of the Creator essentially distinct from
that of each and all created beings. They demand
for Him the worship of the human spirit, because He
is a God of unapproachable perfection, self-existent,
absolutely free, and altogether righteous. Such, in-
deed, appears to be the foremost object of the old
oeconomy. Destined as it was for the instruction
of an age that was peculiarly exposed to fascinations
of polytheism on one side and of dualism on the
other, it pointed with especial frequency to what
alone was able to supply a refuge from these deso-
lating errors, to the doctrine of the monarchy of
God." While subjects which might possibly have
1 ‘To understand the nature of begin with this truth, to which
the Jewish oeconomy, we must every page of the five books of
SS
Christ and other Masters.
interfered with it in minds incapable of deep reflection
are passed over, or left standing in the background,
# is ever prominent in place and definite in expres-
sion. Instances there doubtless are in which both
ancient and modern spiritualists have been offended
by expressions that ascribe to God the organs, facul-
ties, and passions of mankind. Those thinkers do
not recognise the clear necessity of such expressions
for communicating any definite ideas of God and His
relations to the creature; but treat them as mere
relics of primeval barbarism, exhorting us to Soar at
length above all human images, and gain a true con-
ception of the Infinite and All-pervading. Yet, in
spite of numerous cavils rising out of these anthropo-
morphisms, it is generally acknowledged that the
Hebrew creed, for some cause or other, was pre-emin-
ently pure and monotheistic,+a concession which,
one might have fancied, also proves at least the
possibility of worthy thoughts of God existing with
and under figurative representations.” “This must
be confessed,’ writes Mr. Parker,” “that under the
guidance of divine Providence, the great and beau-
tiful doctrine of one God seems quite early embraced
by the great Jewish lawgiver, incorporated with his
national legislation, defended with rigorous enact-
ments, and slowly communicated to the world.” How
deeply, for example, is this truth inscribed on the
CHAP. III.
its peculiar
sublimity.
Moses is ready to bear witness,
That the separation of the Israel-
ites was in order to preserve the
doctrine of the Unity, amidst an
idolatrous and polytheistic world.’
Warburton, Divine Legation, II.
419, Lond. 1846.
! “The humanity of God,” says
Elengstenberg, “ had its corrective
in the doctrine of His true
Divinity, by which it was indefin-
itely exalted above all heathen-
ism.’ Dissertations on the Genu-
ôneness of the Pentateuch, II, 369,
Edinb. 1847.
* Discourse, &c. pp. 65, 66.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 89
While the heathen Citap. III.
Mosaic record of creation 1
systems, we shall see at large hereafter, had so aban-
doned the true idea of God as to acknowledge the
co-eternity of matter and to represent the highest
object of man's worship fettered more or less by the
conditions of the transitory and the limits of the
mundane, it was very different with the Hebrews.
God was there confessed not merely as the animating
principle of all things, but the sole and absolute
Creator.” He spake and it was done. His fiat
! It is here granted that iso-
1ated declarations do exist in
heathem writers, affirming the es-
sential independence of the Divine
Being (cf. Archbp. Summer's Re-
cords of Creation, &c. t. 123 sq.,
185 sq. Lond. 1816, and Mosheim’s
Dissert. in Cudworth, III. I.40 sq.
Lond, 1845); yet as Baumgarten
justly adds (Acts of the Apostles,
II. 193), these declarations are no
more than ‘abstract ideas which
do indeed convey an inkling of
the truth, but possess no vital
energy. The general popular no-
tion of the gods and of their nature
was stamped on their mythes,
their hymns and religious cere-
monies; and this view [the limit-
ation of the Divine Being] held
its way undisturbed by all the
philosophical thoughts and well-
meaning words that went on
alongside of it.’ The same re-
mark is even more applicable to
the doctrine of the Unity of God,
which as 'Mr. Mackay urges (Pro-
gress of the Intellect, I. 133, Lond.
1850), was never entirely lost
sight of, even by those who were
in act polytheists. The truth is,
it was so far in the background
as to exercise very little practical
influence; cf. Weisse, Philosoph.
Dogmatik, I. 670 sq. Leipzig, 1855,
* Many writers (e.g. Milton,
Prose Works, Iv. 176) have stoutly
denied that God, even according
to the Scriptural cosmogony,
created the world out of nothing :
and whether the fact of such
creation be deducible from the
language of Gen. I, I, may very
fairly be disputed (see Bp. Pear-
son, On the Creed, pp. 76–84,
Lond. 1842, Witsius, Evereita-
tiones Sacra’, ‘De Creatione,’
Amst. 1697; and Håvernick, In-
tºod. to the Pentateuch, p. 94, note,
Idinb. 1850). Other texts, how-
ever, insist with great emphasis
on the absolute sovereignty of
God in the world of matter, and
Some of these appear totally in-
consistent with the laxer theory
of creation, e.g. Heb. xi. 3, IIfortel
vootjuev katºpt forðat Tobs aidovas
Éhuatl Oeoû, eis to pº Šk paivo-
uévov to 8Aetéuevov yeyovéval,
where Bengel aptly remarks: ‘Ut
creatio fundamentum et specimen
est Omnis Oeconomiae divinae, sic
fides creationis est fundamentum
et specimen omnis fidei.” The
tradition of the Jews to the same
effect is preserved in 2 Maccab.
vii. 28 : 'Aétó ore, Tékvov, &va-
9Aébavra eis Tov oëpavöv kal thy
'yfiv, kal to €v airtois irdvra.
iöövta, Yvāvat Šti é; oëk Švrov
90
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. quickened all the pulses of the universe, and as
material laws that govern it are only indications of
His presence and expressions of His legislative will,
So in the world at large He ever acts as on a theatre
objective to Him, regulating the destinies alike of the
community and of the individual spirit. And the
Subsequent disclosures of the Bible are in perfect
harmony with what is thus recorded in the earliest
pages of it. They are one continuous attestation
of the unity, the personality, the righteousness of
God, revealed in mandates or in prohibitions, and
reiterated by the “fiery law, or a succession of stu-
pendous acts. To look no further than the earliest
crisis in the national history of the Hebrew race, the
exodus itself was nothing but a grand religious tri-
umph; where the majesty of God was vindicated in
the presence of a people foremost in the rank of
civilisation, yet peculiarly besotted by their worship
of the various energies of nature. There it was that
Israel also had defiled themselves with the idols of
Egypt (Ezek. xx. 7); they were on the point of
losing the traditions that connected them with Abra-
ham and with the Evangelic promise; they were
melting fast away into the mass of heathemism by
which they were encircled, when the Lord Himself
came forward to their rescue. He asserted the un-
rivalled greatness of His sovereignty. “Against all
JHow illus-
trated by
the
Jºacodus :
étroſ morev air& 6 Oebs, ſcal to Tów
&v0pétrov yévos oito's yeyévmtat.
‘Diese Aegyptische Kosmogonie
hat viele Aehnlichkeit mit der mo-
saischen, die ohne Zweifelausihr
hervorgegangen; es findet sich in
derselben Nichts von einem un-
geordneten Chaos, wie bei Grie-
chem und Römern; auch bei den
Aegypterm ist die Welt aus Nichts
geschaffen, Alles Vorhandene aus
der allmächtigen Hand der schaf-
fenden Gottheil Osiris hervorge-
gangen.’ Uhlemann, Thoth. pp.
27, 28. Göttingen, 1855.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 91
the gods of Egypt* I will execute judgment: I am CHAP. III.
the Lord’ (Ex. xii. 12). The influences of nature T
He employed as agents of His mighty purpose, now
restraining them with a miraculous discrimination,
and now wielding them with a terrific aim for the
confusion of the adversary, till ere long the ransomed
multitude could chant in concert with their noble
captain, ‘I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath
triumphed gloriously . . . Who is like unto Thee,
O Lord, among the gods?. Who is like Thee, glorious
in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? . . .
Thou in Thy mercy leadest forth Thy people which
Thou hast redeemed; Thou guidest them in Thy
strength unto Thy holy habitation’ (Ex. xv. 1, 11, 13).
And the same magnificent spectacle recurs at and in the
every stage of Hebrew history. Who has not re-É.
marked amid the grandeur of the choral hymns and
other lyrics of the Israelites, how the idea of God
as the one Lord of all things is ever present to the
writer's mind, and how the varied forms of nature
are but living testimonies to the personality of their
Creator | Had there been a single germ of pantheism
1 Cf. Ex. xviii. 11, xx. 23, Spirits, and so ascribed a person-
Numb. xxxiii. 4, Ezek. xx. 7, 8,
which justify the authorized ver-
sion of bºnsp ribsºn) ( =
T.KX. kal év Trägi toſs 9eois Tów
Aiyvirtſov). When Mr. Newman
infers from texts like these (Ho-
brew Monarchy, p. 26, 2nd ed.),
that ‘the Hebrew creed was not
monotheistic in the sense of deny-
ing the eacistence of other gods,”
his language is in one respect ad-
missible, viz, if it be taken to
mean that the Hebrews looked
upon idolatry as the work of evil
ality to the false object of wor-
ship. But that this idea of super-
human intelligences was never
suffered to trench upon the doc-
trine of the Divine Unity and
Omnipotence, is clear from nume-
rous texts like Deut. iv. 39 : ‘the
Lord he is God in heaven above
and upon the earth beneath: there
is none else.” In other passages
where the thoughts of the writer
are exclusively confined to the
visible idol, he speaks of heathen
gods as actually non-existent.
See Is, xxxvii. 19.
92
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. lurking in the Hebrew system it would doubtless
have shewn itself in this class of writings, as we may
infer especially from the complexion of the Védas
and the hymns of ancient Greece. Yet, on the
contrary, the sacred writer, notwithstanding the pe-
culiar sensibility which he displays in picturing the
rich and glowing beauties of the universe, is never
tempted to invest it with the attributes of God. His
poetry is ‘a reflex of monotheism:’ and nature comes
before us ‘not as self-subsisting, or glorious in her
own beauty, but ever in relation to a higher, an
overruling, a spiritual Power.”
But the God of the Old Testament is not only
the most powerful Being in the universe; He is
not only the Absolute, the Undefined, the Infinite,
who having called the creatures out of nothing, rules
them as the grand Proprietor, and doeth whatsoever
pleaseth Him. This thought of God is there associ-
ated with a second. He is indeed the ELOHIM and
EL SHADDAI, but He is JEHOVAH also.” His attri-
butes are moral, and not merely physical. He is
raised as to His essence indefinitely above the sphere
of things created, yet Hemingles with them as their
Governor, as the Rewarder of the upright, the
This
doctrine
essentially
77.07'al.
* Humboldt's Cosmos, II, 44.
This author instances the civth
Psalm. “Nature is conceived as
having the ground of its existence
in another,-as something posited,
created; and this idea, that God
is the Lord and Creator of Nature,
leads men to regard God as the
Exalted One, while the whole of
Nature is only His robe of glory,
and is expended in His service.”
Hegel, Phil. of Hist, p. 204, Lond.
1857.
* I am here following Dr.
Hengstenberg, who in his Disser-
tations on the Pentateuch, II. 213—
393, has investigated the Names
of God, as they occur in the
Books of Moses, with singular
felicity. The plural form of
Dºri §, he suggests, may intimate
that the true God possesses in
Himself what men were disposed
to divide among a plurality.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 93
Avenger of the wronged, “long-suffering, abundant CHAP. III.
in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, --
but not always pardoning the guilty.” Thus the
monarchy of God is ever based on righteousness;
and after the selection of the Hebrew family to con-
stitute the visible kingdom of Jehovah, and to act
as conservators of the true religion in the midst of
Gentilism, it is continually proclaimed that they are
Israelites indeed who labour to be God-like; that
such alone are properly the subjects of the Lord of
hosts, and are entitled to approach the seat of His
peculiar presence.”
It is not easy to recal a passage of the Bible Example
where these statements are more fully verified than º
in the prayer and benedictions uttered by king Solomon's
Solomon at the dedication of the temple just com-"
pleted on Mount Zion (1 Kings viii.). Where, it
might be urged, are we more likely to encounter
gross conceptions of the nature of God's presence,
or those narrow and unspiritual views of worship,
which opponents of the Old Testament are in the
habit of ascribing to all branches of the legal insti-
of an argument for purity and
1 See Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7, a passage
reverence in the Hebrew wor-
which develops the great 'truths
implied in the name JEHOVAH.
The clause HP), sº HP) is va-
riously interpreted, but the ren-
dering here adopted seems most
in harmony with the remainder
of ver. 7: cf. Nah. i. 3.
* See especially Psalm xxiv,
where the transition from One
view of the God of Israel to the
other is very remarkable. The
thought of Him as the great Pro-
prietor of the world and all that
dwell therein, is made the basis
shipper, to whom He was pleased
to reveal Himself in a peculiarly
near relation. “With other gods
there may be an animal love and
a favouritism for their own wor-
shippers, without regard to their
hearts and lives; but the God of
Israel, who is God in the true
sense of the word, cannot without
absurdity be spoken of as having
connexion with any except such
as are of a pure heart.” Heng-
stenberg, On the Psalms, I. 417.
Iºdinb. 1846.
94 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III, tute? And yet there is no lack of testimony that
T the Hebrews were most truly conscious of the spirit-
uality and universal empire of Jehovah, as well as
of their own exalted mission in respect of other
nations. Solomon, it is true, was penetrated by the
thought that God was very near to Israel; that they
were His inheritance; that He had separated them
from all the people of the earth (ver. 53); that He
had borne them up on eagles' wings, and brought
them to Himself (Ex. xix. 4). He was no less
certain that the Lord of Israel would be present with
His choicest gifts and blessings to the worshippers
who bent their knees and made their offerings in the
precincts of the sanctuary. Yet he felt that such
a national limitation was compatible with universal
sovereignty: that God as to His essence was infinite
and incomprehensible; that ‘the heaven and heaven
of heavens could not contain Him' (ver. 27); that if
we ascribe to Him a special dwelling-place it is
exalted far above the limits of the seen and transitory
(ver. 30); that the earthly temple was symbolical of
something higher, of a truer and more blissful pre-
sence; and that even the election of the Israelites
itself had reference to a glorious future in the progress
of the sacred family, when all the people of the earth
should know, as Israel knew already, that ‘ the Lord
is God, and that there is none else' (vers. 43, 60).
Contrast. From such conceptions of the God of Israel,
*:::::: the apprehended not in later periods of the Hebrew
%. * commonwealth, but as early as the first consolidation
heology, of their empire, let us turn aside and glance at the
theology of a neighbouring state, whose ruler was
on terms of special amity with Solomon. The Phoe-
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 95
nicians had been long the merchants and the leading CHAP. III.
colonisers of the district. Commerce tended to evolve T
their intellectual powers, and gave them such prepond-
erance among the nations of the East, as had enabled
them in numerous instances to propagate their civil-
isation and religious system,” and even it would seem
to captivate the mind of Solomon himself.” Nor was
the intercourse then subsisting between the courts of
Sidon and Jerusalem the oldest bond of union which
connected the two peoples. They were, in fact,
descended from the same ancestors; the languages
they spoke were dialects of the same mother-tongue;
and as early as the residence in Egypt the Israelites
had been acquainted with Phoenician modes of thought,
1 Movers, Die Religion wºnd die
Gottheiten der Phönizier, pp. 12
sq. Bonn, 1841. The aggressive
spirit of their system is illustrated
in the history of Jezebel, herself
a princess of the court of Sidon.
* See I Kings xi. 5. The wor-
ship of Ashtoreth (Astarte) thus
tolerated at Jerusalem was not
altogether abolished till the reign
of Josiah : 2 Kings xxiii. 13. An
adventurous school of modern
critics have indeed laboured to
convince us that what they call
the “Reformation of Jehovism’ in
the reign of Josiah was the sub-
stitution of the worship of a Su-
preme God for that of the Phoe-
nician divinities, which had till
then been ‘the established reli-
gion' even in the kingdom of
Judah: see Mr. Mackay's Progress
of the Intellect, II. 442. In other
words, they are pleased to repre-
sent what holy Scripture tells
them of the frequent lapses of the
Hebrews into the idolatrous wor-
ship of their neighbours, as a
proof that such apostasy was not
occasional or partial, but the
normal state of the nation. The
unfairness of this mode of pro-
cedure is most flagrant. The
Bible gives a perfectly candid and
consistent, not to say a highly
probable account, when it con-
fesses that the Israelites notwith-
standing the emphatic warnings
of their Lawgiver (Lev. xviii. 21)
did forget that Jehovah was the
true God and relapsed into for-
bidden worship (e.g. Judges ii.
II ; iii. 7 ; x. 6; I Kings xvi. 31).
That account ought therefore to
be either accepted or rejected as
a whole. If we reject it, Hebrew
history is so far a blank, and
there is no material left for theo-
rising: if we accept it, the con-
clusion is inevitable that the He-
brews from the very earliest period
were in possession of religious
principles incapable of all amal-
gamation with those of the adja-
cent countries.
96
Christ and other Masters.
Char. III, the Hyksos, who were then the masters of the throne
Phoenician
divinities.
of Egypt and their patrons, being also of Phoenician
origin. . Everything is therefore tending to beget the
expectation, that if the general form of men's religious
principles depend upon locality, or race, or on the
influence of a dominant and proselytising neighbour,
the theology and worship of the Hebrew church will
bear considerable resemblance to those of which Phoe-
nicia has supplied the clearest and the boldest type.
We ask accordingly what were the views there current
with respect to that which is the fundamental charac-
teristic of religious systems, the doctrine of God?
‘The religion of the Phoenicians,’ to quote from
Movers, one of the most critical and impartial writers
on the subject, ‘was like that of the kindred Semitic
tribes and of the ancient Asiatics in general,—essen-
tially a nature-religion, i. e. a deification of the ener-
gies and laws of nature, an adoration of the objects
in which those emergies were thought to be present,
and by which they became active and efficient. In
this cycle of religions the Godhead is not a Power
distinct from nature and ruling it without restraint,
as in the religion of the Hebrews ; but it is the secret
energy in nature herself, as she is manifested accord-
ing to fixed laws, now shaping, animating, sustain-
ing, now again destroying her own works, whom
man is therefore wont to supplicate with different
kinds of homage, according to her various operations.”
This writer acknowledges indeed that in the earliest
period of Phoenician history, the object of their
1. Cf. Kurtz's chapter ‘Die Berlin, 1855.
Hyksos und, die Israeliten,’ in his * Movers, die Religion and die
, Gesch, des alten Bundes, II. 173 sq. Gottheiten der Phönizier, p. 148.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 97
worship was identical with that of Israel:” and the CHAP. III.
notice of Melchisedec may also lead us to conjecture T
that the true idea of God still lingered here and
there among the circumjacent tribes; yet long before
the age of Solomon it is certain that some mighty
changes had been wrought in their religious system,
and that both in creed and morals the Phoenicians
had grown frightfully corrupt. Belief in God, the
Holy One, the personal Creator, was supplanted by
luxuriant forms of nature-worship, in which carnage
alternated with licentiousness, and groans of abject
terror with the frantic songs of revelry. In strict
accordance with human analogies the Godhead was
now apprehended by them as male and female, and
those special energies of nature were attributed to
each that seemed to correspond most aptly to the
functions of the different sexes.” Baal was the male-
1 ‘Wenn sie [the Phoenician tilgt hat:” p. 168. In pp. 312
religion] von Alters her uns als
Wergötterung der Natur, , ihrer
IGräfte und Gesetze erscheint, so
sind wir doch weit entfernt, sie,
und damit alle Religionen des
Semitismus, für Naturreligion
von Haus aus zu erklären. Dies
war die phómizische ebensowenig
wrsprünglich wie die hebräische.
Wir werden an Seinem Orte den
Spuren nachgehem, die sich ma-
mentlich in dem Entwicklungs-
gange der Ideen vom Baal Oder
Elbedeutsam herwordrängen, und
es wird sich zeigen, dass der Gott
des monotheistischen Hebraismus
der höchste Gott auch aller tibri-
gen Stämme der Semitem War
und blieb, dassjedoch der Natur-
dienst die reinere Gottesidee einer
ältern Religionsstufe allmählich
verdunkelt, aber nie auch in der
phônizischen Religion völlig ver-
VOL. I.
Sq, it is contended that the El of
the Phoenicians was identical with
the God of the Hebrew patri-
archs, but was afterwards con-
founded with Moloch, the old fire-
god of the Chaldaic-Assyrian my-
thology. - *
* Movers, pp. 149 sq. It is
also plain, however, that this ten-
dency of thought was commonly
associated by the Phoenicians with
a disposition to find peculiar syn-
bols of their gods among the
heavenly bodies. Thus Baal, as
Gesenius shews, was often identi-
fied not only with the sum, but
with the planet Jupiter, stella
Jovis, as the guardian or giver
of good fortune: and Astarte
(nºnºv F. 3,9- star) in
like manner sometimes repre-
sented the moon, but more es-
7
98
Christ and other Masſers.
Citar. III, divinity, a personification of the active or generative
FIebrew
doctrine
of man,
power in mature, the giver and withholder of that life
which circulates through all the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, and the ruler of their destinies. Ashtoreth
was the female-divinity, a personification of the
passive or maternal principle in nature, the Aphrodite
of Semitic tribes, enkindling the desire of sensual
gratification, and enlisting all the grosser passions of
her votaries. The fundamental unity of both these
powers was also represented in Phoenicia by trans-
ferring to the masculine divinity the attributes of the
feminine, so as to produce another God, in whom the
forms and properties of male and female are exhibited
in mystic combination."
I leave the reader to determine if a system such
as this, whose gods were nothing more than the
personifications of external nature, and reflections of
corrupt humanity, had aught in common with the
lofty and severely moral theism of the Hebrews. I
ask him also to consider if the mere existence of their
pure and elevating creed upon the borders of a domi-
nant form of nature-worship be not calculated to
supply additional proofs that they were guardians of
a supernatural revelation, and that God was dealing
with no other people as He dealt with them.
2. But the doctrine of one, personal, holy God,
was not the only truth on which the Law insisted,
and to which its institutions were designed to draw
the thoughts of every Hebrew. It unfolded also the
true doctrine of man: his dignity and wretchedness.
pecially the planet Venus; cf. was carried by the Phoenicians to
Movers, pp. 601 sq. On the dual- Cyprus and other regions: Movers,
ism of China, see Wuttke, II, 12. p. 149.
* The story of Hermaphroditus
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 99
It urged not one of these great verities, but both : CHAP. III.
for only where the origin and grandeur of the human T
species are fully apprehended, can we hope to under- ºr , º,
stand the turpitude of moral evil and the real nature 4 × . . . .
of the fall of man. The Bible tells us that there sº :. . . . " -
is in him a high and God-like element, that instead ºr es
of being fashioned on the lower model of the brute
creation, he came forth into the world erect in stature
and impressed with the Divine similitude; that in
virtue of this kinship human life is sacred (Gen. ix. 6),
and that human spirits, on the dissolution of the
body, will return to God who gave them! (Eccles.
xii. 7).
The leading property in which the high original
1 I shall not enter far into the
question why the doctrine of pro-
longed existence after death was
rather hinted than explicitly
affirmed in all the earlier writings
of the Old Testament. It may
be that the prevalence of a false
doctrine of immortality, especially
in Egypt, tended to unfit the
ancient Hebrews for receiving
more specific communications on
this subject (Hengstenberg, Dis-
Sert. on the Pentateuch, II. 473).
It may be that the thought of
individual immortality was often
suffered to merge itself in that of
the indestructibility of the He-
brew nation (cf. Jerem, xxxi. 16,
17; Ezek. xxxvii. II—I4).
Hegel, Phil, of Hist, p. 205:
“The individual never comes to
the consciousness of independence;
on that account we do not find
among the Jews any belief in
the immortality of the soul.” But
the principal reason for the si-
lence, or at least reserve, of the
Old Testament is traceable to the
fact that so long as the future
world was merely an indefinite
expanse, untrodden by human
footsteps and devoid of human
imagery, an appeal to it for mo-
tives in aid of the legal institute
must have proved inoperative.
The character of the whole dis-
pensation was visible and earthly,
and with these peculiarities the
faint allusions to the world of the
invisible entirely responded. See
a very thoughtful article on this
subject in the Christian Remem-
brancer, 1849, I. 164 sq. Mean-
while the pious Jew, as it is there
observed, would find his ground
of confidence in the doctrine of
one supreme God. ‘Fixed upon
that spiritual basis of life, as upon
a rock, he felt himself secure,
come what might. Amid all the
changes and decay of nature, con-
stant and enduring, he placed his
future in Almighty love, and re-
posed with a Serene content upon
an indefinite eternity. . . prepared
in God to go he knew not and he
asked not whither.’

100
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. III. of man has ever been distinctly traceable is the
freedom of his will, his power of self-determination.
Here lay his greatest dignity and here his greatest
peril. He is never represented by the sacred writer
as the victim of some stern necessity, or some irrevo-
cable fate, like that which the Muhammadans im-
ported into their religion from the heathen creeds of
western Asia. He is made in the image of God;
and the pre-eminence thus awarded to him is that
which helps us to conceive the possibility of the first
deflection from the path of rectitude, and to define
the character of sin in general.
Sin is the effect of self-complacency. It springs
entirely from beneath.” It is a voluntary surrender
Character
of sin.
1 Philippsohn, Religious Idea,
. 4 O. 4.I.
pp #. of course, is not the
same as if I wrote, ‘entirely from
within.” Such language would
exclude the doctrine of a personal
Tempter, and therefore would im-
pugn both intimations of the Old
Testament, and direct assertions
of the New. Attempts, however,
have been made of late, and that
by members of the Church of
Ingland, to resolve the Fall into
an outbreak of Sexual concupis-
cence, or inharmonious action of
the lower elements in man's own
nature. The violence of these at-
tempts may be estimated from the
specimens contained in A Vindi-
cation of Protestant Principles, by
Phileleutherus Anglicanus, Lond.
1847, and in Dr. Donaldson's re-
cent speculations on the Book of
Jashar, pp. 65 sq. In both works,
the existence of any Order of in-
telligences higher than the human
is positively denied; and with re-
gard to the language of our bless-
cd ſºft and, the 4pºstles on the
subject of a personal Tempter,
these authors either contend that
they felt themselves obliged ‘to
carry on what had become, and
in the opinion of some persons
still is, a necessary illusion’ (Vin-
dication, p. 77); or else maintain
that passages alleged in proof of
Such external solicitations to evil
ought really to be construed in
a different sense, so as to make
Satan only a personification of
moral evil inherent in humanity.
Now the former statement is en-
tirely at variance with the general
character of our Saviour's teach-
ing. Did EIe not shew Himself
the fearless adversary of all lax
interpretations and ‘traditions'
which the Superstitious Jews had
grafted on the genuine revelation?
And is it likely therefore that
Such a Teacher would have winked
at Serious ‘errors,'—errors which,
in the opinion of our modern
Critic, are so vital as to trench
upon the unity and absolute su-
premacy of God? To answer the
Second argument, I would ask the
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 101
to external tempters, or a self-induced disturbance CHAP. III.
in the equilibrium of man's will. It is a perverted T
quality of the creature, by which he is impelled into
antagonism with the Creator, refuses to continue in
the attitude of worship and dependence, and claims
to be his own divinity. When the narration of the
Fall is once regarded as a veritable history, and as
originally designed for the instruction alike of peasant
and philosopher in every age, it furnishes the most
intelligible guide within our reach for the elucidation
both of ancient records and of moral parodoxes in our
own experience. Man knows that he is ever drawn
in opposite directions, that when he would do good,
evil is present with him. He is no longer what he
was designed to be, nor what he feels he might
become. Apart from revelation he is sadly conscious The malig-
of his malady; the Bible, therefore, tells him of its jº
origin, its depth and its malignity; and to impress asserted.
and foster this belief the legal institute was more
especially directed. It dealt with man as with a
wretched and degraded, yet recoverable, creature. It
exhibited at every turn the perfect majesty and holi-
ness of God, and through that exhibition deepened
man's conviction of his littleness, depravity, and
ruin. By the Law was the knowledge of sin. This
function it especially came forward to discharge. The
reader to examine for himself the of such passages as utterly unte-
principal texts in question, and nable, and then adds: ‘from
try if the idea of an internal which consequently wenustinfer,
struggle will fairly satisfy the by the strictest rules of reasoning,
language of the sacred penman, either the personality of the
This is Dr. C. J. Vaughan's sug- Tempter, or (I speak as a man)
gestion (Personality of the Tempter, the error, and therefore the im-
&c. p. 20, Lond. 1851), who re- posture, of Christ.’
pudiates the proposed explanation
102
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. clouds of wrath indeed are ever fringed with hope:
a prospect of some glorious restoration is unfolded in
the distant background: intimations of God's love
and placability accompany the most terrific manifest-
ations of His anger; or, in other words, the sternest
tokens of the truth that sin and holiness are incom-
patible, nay, absolutely antagonistic, are allied with
frequent hints that God and man have found a place
of meeting and of reconciliation. Still the ordinary
and habitual operation of the Law was to excite the
conscience of the Hebrew worshipper, to make him
clear and sensitive as to the grand distinctions of
morality, to waken longings which it could not satisfy,
to preach divisions in the heart of man which it could
neither remedy nor relieve. Its author knew that to
improve the quality of human actions it is necessary
to command the will, and regulate the wishes, nay,
that such a course is an essential precondition to the
fuller understanding of the truth. He knew, more-
over, that until these elementary principles of religion
are worked, or drilled, as I might say, into the human
heart, there is no basis for ulterior training, no found-
ation for that superstructure, which it was the purpose
of Jehovah to erect at some future period. ' -
Accordingly, the office of the old oconomy re-
garded merely on the legal side is that of a school-
master; its tone is stern, severe, and peremptory.
God is, for the most part, represented rather as the
Ring, the Judge, and the Avenger of iniquity, than
as the Pardoner and Redeemer. A whirling, wasting
flame, the symbol of His purity, the proof that evil
cannot ‘ dwell with Him,” is visible upon the confines
of that spot, which had originally formed an earnest
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 103
to the human family of their Maker's love and near-CHAP. III.
ness;' and like images of awe and terror are associated T
in all future periods with His more immediate pre-
sence. Man is driven to confess at every step, that
sin is a profound reality; and that by sinning he
becomes an alien and an exile, at enmity with God,
creation, and his proper self.
It would be easy to adduce examples where the Effects
Hebrew shewed a strong conviction of the force and #,
fitness of these verities: but such examples are not
wanted in the present stage of our inquiry. The
moral sensibility of the whole Hebrew nation, as
compared with that of the adjoining states, is com-
monly admitted, even by a section of those writers
who deny that it was due in any measure to a super-
natural revelation. While Greece is recognised as
their instructress in the principles of beauty and of
science; while Rome is the great fountain of their
knowledge with respect to jurisprudence and muni-
cipal rights, they are content to be indebted to the
Jew for clear conceptions of ‘the holiness of God,
and of His sympathy with His servants.” *
3. But another portion of the legal institute 9.jections
awakens very different feelings in this class of specu- :*
&T "T" ſº ** { 7 •; { branches
lators. ‘What, they ask triumphantly, ‘can you of the Law.
* Yet the very banishment from
Eden, and the planting of the
Sword-like flame upon its con-
fines, were not altogether unre-
lieved by intimations of God's
mercy. I have shewn elsewhere
(Sermons, p. 49) that the cherubim
Were emblems, or rather one com-
pounded emblem, of the highest
forms of creature-life, especially
the human; and that their ap-
pearance was a pledge to man of
his continued interest in the seat
from which he was expelled: cf.
Bähr, Symbolik des Mosaischen
Cultus, I. 3 II sq.; Fairbairn, Ty-
pology of Scripture, I. 22 I sq., 2nd
CC1.
* Newman's Hebr. Monarchy,
p. 332, 2nd ed.: cf. Phases of
Faith, pp. 188, 231.
104. Christ and other Masters.
Citar. III. allege in vindication of the ritualism and Sacrificial
- cultus of the Hebrews? Is it worthy of a place in
the religious system, which you argue sprang from
heaven, and which we too acknowledge inculcates
the purest and most spiritual views of God? Must
at not rather be an artifice of Satan, or, as Satan is
a mere nonentity, of Jewish priests, a spurious
after-growth that rooted itself in the dark ages, or
possibly amid the last convulsions of the Hebrew
monarchy 2"
Indeed, the ceremonial law, as it is called, has
proved itself a stumbling-block to every form of
spiritualism. The school of Philo made it tolerable
only by concealing it beneath a multitude of alle-
gorical interpretations. The Alexandrines, in like
manner, were perplexed by not a few of its provi-
sions, and in reference to the main principles on
which it was constructed, viewed it chiefly as a con-
descension to the weakness of the carnal mind;" while
many Deists of the last century, and some of their
descendants in the present, have not hesitated to
denounce the ceremonial law in terms of obloquy,
abhorrence, or contempt.” Their opposition is, I
* It is remarkable that Spinosa
in like manner (Tractatus Theolo-
gico-Politici, cap. ii. p. 27, Ham-
burgi, 1670) places Solomon higher
than the Law by reason of his in-
tollectual cminence : ‘nam ea is
tantum tradita est, qui ratione et
naturalis intellcctus documentis
carent.’
* Won Bohlen's language on
this subject (Jºinleitung, p. 175) is
merely a reiteration of De Wetto's
earlier views: but the author
neglects to tell us that Do Wette
afterwards modifica them very
considerably in his Biblische Dog-
'malik, Ś 54. See Hengstenberg,
JOissert. On the Pentaleuch, II. 504.
According to another class of
writers (e. g. Bunsen, Jörche der
Zukunft, p. 77) the whole of the
Levitical system was “introduced
in God’s angor,” and therefore
only interposed new obstacles be-
tween Him and His creatures.
This was also the view of Spi-
nosa: see Hegel, Phil. of Hist.
p. 205, Lond. 1857. The single
text that furnishes a plea in
favour of this theory is Ezek. xx.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c.
105
think, attributable partly to mistaken views respect-CHAP. III.
ing the nature and effects of ritualism in general, but
still more to want of insight into the condition of the
ancient world and the capacity of its inhabitants.
Till we have placed ourselves, as far as possible,
upon the standing-ground of those for whom the Law
of Moses was designed ; till we have tried to look
upon it with their eyes, and think afresh the thoughts
which burnt and struggled in their bosoms, we shall
fail to understand the drift of very many of its ordi-
mances, we shall be incompetent judges of the way
in which a system such as that was calculated to
excite, instruct, and edify the members of the Elder
Church.
The Hebrew was in race and temperament a Peculiar
western Asiatic. The very genius of his native lan-
tempera-
ment and
guage, corresponding there as always to the bent and position
constitution of the human mind, bore witness to his
general inaptitude for deep and abstract thought or
metaphysical inquiries." He was, accordingly, far
more dependent than the cultivated nations of the
present day on the ideas derived from outward action.
He lived far more than they in the impressions made
upon the senses;” and on
passing into the province
25, 26, where God declares that
after the defection of the Israelites
He gave them “statutes that were
not good, and judgments whereby
they should not live.' But it is
obvious from the order in which
this punishment occurs, that the
prophet did not mean the laws
and institutions of tho Mosaic
covenant, all of which were in
fact promulgated soon after the
cxodus from Egypt. He was, on
the contrary, referring to cruel
and licentious customs of the
neighbouring heathen, to which
the Lord declares that IIe aban.
doned the Israelites for their un-
faithfulness to EIim and to the
Taw cf. 2 Thess. ii. I I, and
Fairbairn's Ezekiel, pp. 176, 177,
Iºdinb. 1851.
| Sco Wiseman's Lectures on
the Conneacion between Science and
Jeevealed Religion, I. 139.
2 Cf. O. Müller, as quoted in
IIongstonberg, Dissert. II. 513.
IIebrews.
106
Chrisł and other Masters.
CHAP. III. of religion manifested an especial quickness in appre-
ciating representations of the truth that had been cast
into a concrete shape and carried their appeal directly
to the ear and eyesight. Hence for men like him
the language of symbolic action might be aptly sub-
stituted, here and there at least, for that of speech
and writing, on the ground that it would be more
urgent, scenic, and expressive. It accorded with the
mental habits of the period; it fell in completely
with the prevalent modes of thought. An emblem
borrowed from the outer world, an institution clad
in picturesque and vivid imagery was to him the
most efficient sign and best interpreter of things in-
visible; for although the popular mind of antiquity
when labouring to give utterance to a supersensuous
truth, might be impelled by some internal necessity
to use symbolic language, there is no reason to infer
that it must always have apprehended such truths
exactly in the form assumed in their expression, or
could never have been able to detach the thing com-
municated from its vehicle and outer covering.
The Hebrew was, moreover, as to the degree of
his religious knowledge and his capability of reflection
in the childhood of his being. As such his character
was marked by childlike simplicity. A stranger to
all deep and long-sustained abstraction, he was most
accessible to teaching that approached him through
the channel of the senses, that spoke to him in ritual
acts, in the arrangements of a solemn and imposing
liturgy, that fetched its motives from external and
1 Bähr, Symbolik, I. 24, 25. mony on the subject from the
Tholuck (Ep. to the Hebrews, I. Persian philosopher Mahmūd.
107) quotes a remarkable testi-
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 107
immediate objects, from rewards that followed close CHAP. III.
upon obedience, or from penalties that touched his - -
body, and were ever ‘lying at the door.” Jehovah
‘led him by the hand’ in matters of religion, rescued
him from the seductions of heathen worship, by pro-
viding forms adapted to his temperament and his
capacity, yet making all such forms the vehicles of
pure ideas and noble aspirations, and thus gradually
prepared him for the time when his religion would
be less outsided and more spiritual, when ‘ the true
worshippers' would ‘worship the Father in spirit and
in truth’ (John iv. 23).
For these and other reasons it was most expedient Symbolic
to clothe some revelations of the Old Testament in º º
figurative drapery, to employ symbolic and prophetic
action” as an ordinary means of teaching spiritual
truths and leading men to an approximate acquaint-
ance with transcendant mysteries, which some ulterior
revelation would more perfectly unveil. The forms
of Hebrew worship in particular were meant to be
a sort of acted parable, precluding, it may be, the
fullest measure of religious knowledge, and as when
the Saviour spoke in parables, implying man's un-
1. Cf. Bp. Law's Considerations
on the Theory of Religion, p. 152,
7th ed., and Chandler's Bampton
Lectures, pp. 49, 5o. Irenaeus
had already expressed himself to
the same effect: ‘Os of v ii ºv
pºſitimp Stuatai TéAetov trapaoxetv
Tć 6péqet to èu£popa, to 5& #rt
&övvare? Thu aitot, trpeggvrépau
6éčao'0at Tpoq’ív: oita's ſcal 6
Oeos airbs uév oiós re ºv trapa-
oxeiv &T' &px?is Tó &v0p6trø to
TéNetov, 6 Sé &v6patros &öövaros
Aafteſv airó' vitrios yöp fiv. Lib.
IV. c. 37, § I.
* Witsius, De Prophetia et Pro-
phétis, devotes a chapter (Lib. I.
c. xii.) to this mode of instruction.
Jºzekiel himself (xxiv. 24) told
the Jews distinctly that he was
on one occasion ‘a sign' (sis
Tépas) to them: “according to all
that he hathjdone shall ye do ;
and when this cometh, ye shall
know that I am the Lord God.”
108
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III.
worthiness and his imperfect receptivity;" yet, mean-
while, bringing to the eyes of docile and inquiring
spirits many a truth which they might otherwise
have failed to apprehend. We should, moreover,
bear in mind that symbolic actions were not the only
media then employed in the communication of Sacred
knowledge. The emblems of the legal institute were
something more than hieroglyphics, which the future
ages of the world might possibly decipher. In many
cases where they did not speak emphatically to the
warm imagination of the oriental, they would doubt-
less be explained by Moses, or the line of prophets
who succeeded in his room, and thus would borrow
fresh significance from naked and explicit forms of
teaching by which they were accompanied. The
initiatory rite of circumcision will supply us with an
instance of the truth of this remark. Its own sug-
gestive character is assumed in, admonitions of the
Hebrew legislator, as though it were intelligible to
all classes of his subjects; yet the moral duty which
it indicates is, notwithstanding, forcibly repeated both
by him and by the prophet Jeremiah.”
I am here expressing no opinion as to the degree
of insight which the Israelite enjoyed into the corre-
spondency between the ritual service of the Law and
the events of Christianity, i.e. respecting the didactic
office of the legal institute regarded as a series of
prophetic types. Such correspondency,” I doubt not,
J)istinction
between
types and
symbols.
1 Some interesting reflections
on this analogy will be found in
Mr. Isaac Williams's Study of the
Gospels, Part II. § 3.
2 Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6; Jerem.
iv. 4. That many of the later
Jews were still in the habit of
assigning spiritual meanings to
the symbols of the temple-service
is shewn by Tholuck, Ep. to the
Fiebrews, II. 18, 19. -
* The great points of corre-
spondency, as noticed in the writ-
ings of the New Testament, are
On the Characteristies of Religion, &c.
was intended, and is now distinctly traceable: but CHAP. III,
whether it was seen by worthies of the old occonomy
is a very different question.
They who pondered the
suggestive emblems of the sanctuary, who prayed for
fresh illumination to ‘behold wondrous things out of
the Law’ (Ps. cxix. 18), may doubtless have obtained
in it some passing glimpses of the evangelic Promise:"
investigated with much learning
and sobriety by Mr. Fairbairn,
Typology of Scripture, 2nd ed.
The author is fully conscious of
the distinction I am here en-
deavouring to establish between
the typical and symbolical aspects
of the Law: cf. Bähr, Symboliſ,
des Mosaischen Cultus, I. 15 sq.
* Archbp. Magee appears to
overstate the measure of this in-
sight, when he gathers that ‘the
ancient sacrifices, those prescribed
to the patriarchs, and those en-
joined by the law, were types and
figures, and known to be such, of
that one great sacrifice, which
was, at a future day, to be offered
upon the cross for the sins of the
whole human race.” On the
Atonement, I. 381, 3rd ed. The
authority adduced to justify this
inference is the following passage
of Eusebius, Lemonst. Evangel.
lib. I. c. x. (p. 36, Paris, 1628):
"Ea's pièv obv oi6étra, To kpeºrtov,
où6è to Aéya kal Tipuov, Ical 6eo-
Trpetrès a paylov trapāv &v0pótrous,
Ta’s 6tó (6av 6Vatais Aërpa, Tâs
éautóv Çoſis, kal &vtſºvya, Tâs
oikeſas pāorea's trpoo`micóvros &tro-
6tóóval xpiv Tó Osó, Ös Šč é-
Tpatrov of TáAat 9eoplxeſs, geavów
Ti ſcal 9eoſpixes Ical pºèya ispetov
#ely trote eis &věpáTovs Tó 0et%
Tvetuatl trpoetxmºpótes, to too
Tavros ſcaffdpotov ſcóguov, où ſcal
T& gºpºgoña Téa's étutexeſv airtows
Trpophtas Švras, ſcal to piéâAov
êorea.0al trporvitovuévows. But if
this passage really warranted the
inference that the Hebrews, as a
nation, were so conversant with
all the mysteries of redemption,
it would be impossible to explain
Such texts as I Pet. i. I I, 12, or
indeed to understand the utter
dulness of the first apostles in not
perceiving that He whom they
revered as the Messiah must go
to Jerusalem and be killed, and
must rise again the third day
(Matt. xvi. 22; Luke xviii. 34).
Archbp. Magee himself acknow-
ledges the force of a similar diffi-
culty arising out of what is called
‘the mystical sacrifice of the Phoe-
nicians’ (Euseb. Praepar. Evangel.
lib. I. c. x; I. 9o, ed. Gaisford):
for he there perceives (p. 389),
that if such offering had contained
the typical references assigned to
it by Bryant (Observations on An-
cient History, pp. 286 sq. Camb.
1767), the idolatrous inhabitants
of Canaan would have possessed
“a more exact delineation of the
great future sacrifice’ than was
accorded to the Hebrews at the
same early period. The truth is,
that the “typical' character of the
Sacrifice in question cannot be es-
tablished. The phrase categ-
qāTTouro Sé of Ötöðuevot pivot t-
icós signifies that human victims
were immolated on these occa-
sions “with mystic or secret rites,’
without implying a prophetic re-
ference to some higher Victim.
This consideration also furnishes
110
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. yet others, when they worshipped either in the wilder-
ness or on the sacred hill of Sion, may have gathered
from the multiplicity of public sacrifices no acquaint-
ance with the holy Victim of the Cross. Their own
condition intellectually may have resembled that of
the woman in St. Matthew's Gospel, whose devotion
was accepted and rewarded by the Saviour, but who
knew not that in pouring the ointment on His body,
she had done it for His burial (Matt. xxvi. 12).
Apart, however, from its typical design, the
Hebrew system had been calculated to exert a present
influence on the life and spirit of the worshipper. It
was not only a collection of prophetic types that
should hereafter grow more luminous, explicit and
convincing when the Antitype Himself arose; it was
symbolical of truths already current in the Elder
Church; it was suggestive of ideas that operated
then and there upon the springs of moral action.
The sacrificial cultus, for example, which is properly
esteemed the root and centre of the legal system, was
no empty pageant for exciting a fantastic or appeas-
ing a blood-thirsty populace: it was no mere state-
machinery for keeping Israelites together, or retaining
them in their allegiance to some earthly potentate.
It symbolised a number of profound realities, affecting
man's position in the sight of God, and illustrated on
what terms the spirit of the human suppliant could
approach the glorious Object of his worship. It set
forth, especially, in vivid characters and certified in
blood of Sacrificial victims the great truth, which
an answer to Mr. W. J. Fox (Re- ment in favour of his ‘religion of
ligious Ideas, p. 1 Io), when he humanity,’ from such fancied pa-
General
principles
inculcated
by the
sacrificial
system.
dwells upon the theory of Bryant, rallels between the Christian and
and endeavours to elicit an argu- Phoenician views of expiation.
On the Characteristies of Religion, &c. 111
every nation more or less admitted and deplored, the CHAP. III.
truth that sin and holiness are utterly imcompatible,
and that only by surrendering life can the relations
which iniquity subverts be re-established and re-
newed.
To render this more plain and forcible, I shall Example.
select an instance from the ordinary worshippers of
the time of David, when the ark had come in triumph
to the new metropolis, and when the cycle of the
Hebrew liturgy was celebrated in its fulness. Such
a man would find that he was planted in the midst
of a minute and solemn ritual, its centre in the holy
tabernacle, or rather in the ark of the covenant, where
God, who “rideth upon the heaven of heavens' (Ps.
lxviii. 33), had condescended to approach His fallen
creatures, and dispense His gifts of grace.
The tabernacle itself was curtained from the outer
world, and subdivided into three compartments, each
with its appropriate office in the worship of Jehovah.
The forecourt was a gathering-point for all the con-
gregation of the Israelites: the holy place was des-
tined for a special order, for the members of the
sacerdotal family, whom God, in carrying out His
1 The distinction does not, Christians are also entitled yévos
however, prove the existence of
a sacerdotal caste among the He-
brews. The idea of caste is in-
separably connected with that of
different origines (e.g. the Brāh-
mans, and they alone, are said to
have issued from the head of
Brähma). Besides, it was an-
nounced in early times to all the
Israelites without exception, (Ex.
xix. 5, 6) that if they were true
to God’s covenant, they would be
a special people and a “kingdom
of priests' (cf. I Pet. ii. 9, where
ëlcãektöv, Bao (Metov ispárevua):
in other words, that as contrasted
with Gentile nations, every He-
brew would know God in His re-
vealed character and stand to Him
in a relationship peculiarly near.
And that the Israelites felt them-
Selves thus ‘consecrated as a
whole people,’ so as to become
“priests and prophets for all man-
kind,” is stated by Philo, De Abra-
hamo, Opp. II. I5, ed. Mangey;
De Mose, Ibid. II. Ioa.
112
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. III, purpose, had brought nigh unto Himself: while only
one of these, and he upon a single day of the year,
was authorised to pass beyond a veil suspended at
the extremity of the holy place, that he might offer
incense near the mercy-seat, or covering of the ark
of witness, and so minister in the holiest of all. But
other circumstances urged the Hebrew layman in the
same direction, and constrained him to reflect on the
provisions of the Law. He was most deeply interested
in the multifarious acts of worship ever celebrated in
the mother-city of Judaea. Like his countrymen in
general he was circumcised: he stood in a peculiar
nearness, or in covenant-relations to the God of
Abraham; and in virtue of this connexion prayed to
God as to his own God, and was able to participate
in what is found to be an all-pervading element of
Hebrew worship, the rite of sacrifice.
He felt, moreover, that the system under which
he lived was such as to accuse, convict, and punish
him when he deflected from the course of action it
prescribed. Of these delinquencies one section were
the open violations of the Moral Law which contra-
vened the letter of the Decalogue; the rest were all
transgressions of inferior branches of the legal system,
partly moral, partly positive or ceremonial. Now
the former class embracing all varieties of heinous
sin the worshipper knew would subject him to ex-
communication or else to death itself. The Law was
able to prescribe no remedy for them: it claimed
‘the blood not of a vicarious victim, but of the trans-
gressor.” He was, therefore, either separated, where
the sin was public and notorious, from all intercourse
Different
classes of
t?'4/28-
g?'essions,
Davison, On Sacrifice, p. 80.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 113
&
with other Hebrews, and was driven to confess with CHAP. III.
shame and bitter self-reproaches, ‘Thou desirest not T
sacrifice, else would I give it;' or was sentenced to
die “without mercy, an example of the just severity
of God, a warning to his neighbours. Hope there
might be for such culprits, even at this dark ex-
tremity, but the source from which it sprang was not
distinctly indicated by the ordinances of the Law.
It was, however, different with a second class'
of crimes, where the offence was either purely cere-
monial, or, if moral, one in which the turpitude was
not so glaring nor so utterly devoid of palliating
circumstances. For all these the Law of Moses had
provided means of expiation. An Israelite, for in-
stance, has been sworn as witness, but is guilty of
concealing portions of the truth (Levit. v. 4–6).
He can preserve his standing in the sacred common-
1 Offences for which an atone-
ment was provided may be classed
as follows: 1. Bodily impurity.
2. Ceremonialomissions and trans-
gressions. 3. Sins of ignorance
and inadvertency, or offences un-
wittingly committed (&yvoňuata).
4. Certain specified cases of moral
transgression, knowingly com-
mitted, in favour of which excep-
tions from the general severity of
the Law appear to have been re-
cognised. Davison, Ibid. p. 78.
Still it is quite possible that the
pardon of grosser acts of immor-
ality and even of most deadly
sins may have been symbolised,
and in so far as related to men's
outward position in the théocracy,
may have been really effected, on
the great day of atomerment: for
the confession of the high priest
then extended to ‘all the iniqui-
ties of the children of Israel, and
WOL. I.
all their transgressions in all their
sins,’ i. e. to sins of every kind.
Maimonides (as quoted by Magee,
I. 351), declares that ‘the scape-
goat made atonement for all the
transgressions of the Law, both
the lighter and the more heavy
transgressions,’ provided the sin-
Iner was himself truly penitent:
but this theory of the Jewish
Schoolman rests upon a total mis-
conception of the Levitical sacri-
fices. None of these “could make
him that did the service perfect,
as pertaining to the conscience,’
(Heb. ix. 9, Io; x. 1, 11): they
were in respect of it impotent
and insufficient: they were sym-
bols only of the genuine purifica-
tion that was to be effected by
other agencies, and therefore did
not reach beyond ‘the time of re-
formation.’
114
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III, wealth only by the aid of ‘trespass-offerings”—a
lamb or kid of the goats which must be offered in
his name in strict compliance with the regulations
of the Law. He therefore travels to mount Zion,
to the holy tabernacle of God. He brings his offer-
ing to the altar: his hand is pressed upon the head
of the devoted animal, which he is taught will be
accepted as the means of rescuing the offender from
the outward penalty of his misdeed. The blood, or
vehicle of life, is taken by the priest who sprinkles
part of it upon the altar, and pours the rest upon the
ground. The flesh is then abandoned to the ministers
of the sanctuary, and in cases such as that we are
considering, is consumed by them within the precincts
of the tabernacle: while the offerer is at liberty to
turn his footsteps homeward, reinstated in his old
position as a member of the sacred family, and so far
at peace with God whose laws he had infringed.
Now this was only one of multitudimous rites
that exercised the faith and tested the obedience of
the Hebrew, that constrained him to reflect on the
surpassing majesty and purity of God, that deepened
in his heart the sentiments of fear and reverence, and
that kept alive the consciousness of moral evil. The
operation of his sacrifice was plainly two-fold.” It
Operation
and effects
of the
Levičical
offerings.
1 The words D&S (= TAmugé-
Xela, Sacrificium pro delictis), and
nSi2LT (= &paptía, repl Tăsăuap-
Tſas, sacrificium pro peccatis) are
so interchanged in this passage
(Lev. v. I—I3), that it is well-
nigh impossible to say whether
allusion is really made to the
‘trespass-offering,” or ‘the sin-
offering :’ see Winer, Realworter-
bºok, II, 431 Sq. 3rd ed. I have
adopted that view which seems
more probable on the whole, mak-
ing the trespass-offerings refer to
an offence in which the individual
only is concerned, and the trans-
gression known exclusively to
himself. *
* Cf. above, p. 113, n. 1, and
Mr. Thomson’s Bampton Lectures
(1853), p. 65. Grotius already
insisted strongly on the same dis-
On the Characteristies of Religion, &c. 115
produced a real change in him with reference to the CHAP. III.
outward laws and privileges of the theocracy under T
which he lived: it symbolised and represented, though
it did not actually impart, those better gifts of grace,
affecting his relations to the Searcher of the human
spirit, and promoting the purification of the conscience.
I will here revert a moment to the case before ad-
duced, and indicate the probable emotions and reflec-
tions which the rite of sacrifice was calculated to
excite in ordinary Hebrews of the age of David,
when they worshipped in a pious spirit, such as that
which animates the Book of Psalms. The one lo-
cality at which their offering must be made in order
to secure acceptance would itself contribute to impress
the doctrine of God’s unity." How Sacred also and
how awful was that place How radiant to the eye
of such a worshipper with glorious and profound as-
sociations ! “It is here that Thou, O God, the Un-
approachable, hast condescended to draw nigh and
bless the waiting multitude. Dreadful art Thou, O
Lord, out of Thy sanctuaries, the God of Israel; He
gives might and strength unto His people. Blessed
be God’ (cf. Ps. lxviii. 35). So mused he as he
wound his way along the Sacred slopes of Zion;
or perchance he asked himself with trembling
tinction: ‘Lex vetus dupliciter
spectatur; aut carnaliter, aut Spi-
ritualiter. Carnaliter, qua instru-
mentum fuit troAvtetas, reipublica
Judaica. Spiritualiter, qua arcíav
eixe Táv ueMXóvitov, Mºmbram ha-
bebat futurorum. . . Ex his quae
diximus perspicuum jam est, quo-
modo victimae pro peccato in We-
teri Foedere peccata expiarint;
nimirum Deum movendo, ut poe-
nam carnalem remitteret, iddue
per Satisfactionem quandam etc.’
Defensio Fidei Cathol. de Satisfac-
tione Christi, c. x. Opp. Theolog.
III. 33 I, 333,
! Eis vabs évos @eoû (píAov
'yöp &el travt) to 8plotov. Icolvös
ătăvºrov, Kouvoo Oeoû &Tâvrav.
Joseph, contra Apion, lib. II. § 23:
Opp. II, 485, ed. Havercamp.
116 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. earnestness, ‘Who shall ascend into the hill of the
T Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place?' and
heard the answer of the Psalmist, “He that hath clean
hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his
soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall
receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness
from the God of his salvation’ (Ps. xxiv. 3—5).
Where he enters the tabernacle in this spirit, the
feelings that subdue him as he stoops beneath the
sacred curtain will continue to direct his thoughts in
all his subsequent devotions, and will save him from
presenting ‘the sacrifice of fools.’ He leads his offer-
ing to the altar, and as he is there again reminded
that the victim must be perfect of its kind, without
spot or blemish, in full possession of that life which
constitutes the noblest gift of God, how calculated is
it to suggest and strengthen the conviction that
purity, internal purity, will also be demanded of the
worshipper, that while he brings an offering to the
altar and expresses there his sense of imperfection
and dependence, he must also learn the arduous task
of self-surrender, he must give his soul a living
sacrifice to God." His hand is placed upon the
* Bähr, who has been followed
by some English writers of dis-
tinction, is not satisfied with con-
sidering this as one aspect of the
rite of sacrifice, but argues that
the surrender of the human life
and will to God was at the very
root of the idea. He draws at-
tention, it is true, to the blood
sprinkled on the altar, but only
to blood as the vehicle of life, not
as giving an especial prominence
to the death of the victim. “Der
symbolische Charakter des Opfers
besteht aber nun darin dass das
Dar- oder Nahebringen (nºnpn)
des Nepheschin Opferbluteaufden
Altar, als den Ort der Gegenwart
und Offenbarung Gottes, Symbol
von dem Dar- oder Nahebringen
des Nephesch des Opfernden an
Jehova, den Heiligen ist. Wie
jenes Darbringen des Thierblutes
(Seele) ein Hin- und Aufgeben des
Thierlebens in den Todist, so soll
auch das Seelische d. i. Selbstische
im Gegensatz zu Gott befindliche
Leben des Opfernden hin-und auf-
gegeben Werden d, h, sterben; weil
aber dies Hingeben ein Hingeben
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 117
victim, in whose struggles he beholds the image and CHAP. III.
the representative of punishment which he provoked,”
and he is smitten with a deeper consciousness of his
pollution and demerit; he feels that if Jehovah were
to deal with him according to his works, the penalty
would fall directly, and would overwhelm himself
instead of the vicarious offering. ‘Lo! now,’ his
plea is, “I repent, and am truly sorry for my mis-
deeds; let this victim be my expiation.” Its death
is speedily accomplished, and he finds in that event
another symbol both of the displeasure and the placa-
bility of God. He learns from what is represented
to his eyesight that “without shedding of blood there
is no remission;' yet he reasons that as natural life
is cherished by the agency of food derived from the
inferior animals, the love of God is also manifested in
arrangements which provide that their life shall be
taken as a substitute for his. And therefore when
he gazes on the flame of the completed sacrifice, new
hopes are simultaneously awakened in his bosom.
He feels that God, who has not turned away from
an Jehova, den Heiligen ist, so
ist es kein Aufhären schlechthin,
nicht etwas blos Negatives, son-
dern ein Sterben, Welches eo ipso
zum leben Wird’ u. S. W. II. 2 Io,
According to this theory there is
nothing strictly substitutionary
or vicarious in any sacrifice, and
therefore not in the sacrificial
death of Christ, who merely sur-
rendered His life to God as an
example of perfect self-renuncia-
tion to be imitated spiritually by
all His people. See a full exam-
ination of Båhr's positions in
Kurtz, Das Mosaische Opfer, Mi-
tau, 1842, and cf. Fairbairn's
Typology, Vol. II. Append. B.
1 That the Mosaic sacrifices were
in this sense vicarious, and really
instrumental in releasing the of—
fender from the temporal punish-
ment due to his transgression, is
distinctly affirmed in Levit. i., 4:
‘And he shall put his hand upon
the head of the burnt-offering;
and it shall be accepted for him,
to make atonement for him'
(ºy nº º myº); cf. the
arguments and authorities in
Magee, Vol. I. No. xxxvii.I. No.
XXXIX.
* See this and other traditional
forms in Outram, De Sacrificiis,
Lib. I, c. XV. § Io, II, Lond, 1677.
118
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III, the oblation thus presented in accordance with His
Suggestive
features
of the
Sanctuary.
will, who visibly delivers the offender from the tem-
poral consequence of his transgression, may also be
induced to hear his cry of penitential grief, to purge
the soul with hyssop, and to heal the broken and
the contrite heart (Ps. li. 7, 17).
The internal arrangements of the sanctuary itself
would in like manner serve to generate these deeper
principles of faith, of reverence, of humility. The
earnest worshippers, for instance, uniformly revered
the ark of the covenant as the proper shrine of God,
the Self-Existent One, and therefore as a pledge that
notwithstanding their demerit He was still the ever-
present Guardian of the Israelites, and that His taber-
nacle was with man. The same was vividly sug-
gested by the mercy-seat, or mystic covering of the
Law, where God was pledged to commune with His
people (Ex. xxv.22), and extended to them foretastes
of His reconciling love. Yet different thoughts were
also prompted by this indication of His saving pre-
sence. So long as the most Sacerdotal Hebrews
were excluded from the holiest portion of the taber-
nacle, the truth could scarcely fail to print itself upon
the least reflecting mind among them, that an age of
full and absolute communion with the Holy One was
still to be expected, that the way into the inner
glories of the sanctuary “was not yet made manifest'
(Heb. ix. 8), that veils were interposed between the
human soul and God, and would continue to be there
suspended till a mystery ‘kept secret since the world
began' was finally unveiled at the inauguration of
Some new Oeconomy, and discovered ‘to all nations
for the obedience of faith’ (Rom. xvi. 25, 26).
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 119
Nor does this version of the Law, regarded under CHAP. III.
its symbolic aspect, differ in essential points from the ºn of
deductions which the Christian is enabled to derive the lºw to
tº the Gospel.
from typical arrangements of the old occonomy. On
the contrary, it will be found that the two lines of
thought are strictly parallel. They both exhibit the
same general elements of supernatural truth; they
both are tending to produce the same kind of prin-
ciples and feelings in their subjects, though the last
has reference to far higher platforms, and to modes
of action far more spiritual, heavenly, and profound."
In different words, there is exactly the same kind of
disproportion between the Hebrew and Christian
versions of the Law as that which, from the nature
and necessities of the case, exists between the office
of the pedagogue and the professor. There is a dis-
proportion, but no dissimilitude: the first is element-
ary; it hints, suggests, and shadows forth what is
distinctly inculcated and effected by the second. In
1 Mr. Fairbairn (Typology of
Scripture, I. 58, 59) has embodied
nearly the same idea in the fol-
lowing passage: “In the imme-
diate ends to be accomplished,
and the apparatus provided for
accomplishing them, the two dis-
pensations are as far asunder as
heaven is from the earth: but in
both alike, we see a pure and
holy God, enshrined in the re-
cesses of a glorious sanctuary, un-
approachable by guilty and pol-
luted flesh, but through a medium
of powerful intercession and
cleansing efficacy, yet to those
who so approach, most merciful
and gracious, full of loving-kind-
mess, and plentedus in redemp-
tion: while in every act of sincere
approach on their part, there is
necessarily brought into exercise
the same feelings of contrition
and abasement, self-renunciation,
realising faith, childlike depend-
ence and adoring gratitude. So
that the preparatory and the ulti-
mate dispensations, considered in
their general character and de-
sign, disclosed substantially the
same views of God, and in doing
so awoke the same feelings in the
hearts of His worshippers: but
the former only as the shadow of
the latter, a resemblance but not
the substance, a representation in
outward, earthly, and perishable
materials, and with respect to the
concerns of flesh and time, of the
Spiritualideasandprinciples which
the dispensation of the Gospel em-
bodies in things not made with
hands and with respect to objects
truly heavenly and divine.’
120
Chris% and offer Masters.
CHAP. III, the first, as Moses emblematically veiled his counte-
nance, we have a system veiled, in order that the
plenary light of truth might not be prematurely
manifested, and so dazzle the imperfect vision of the
subject (2 Cor. iii. 13); in the second, when the
fulness of the time had come, the light of the know-
ledge of the glory of God is ready to shine forth into
the heart of every child of Adam from the face of
Jesus Christ (2 Cor. iv. 6). And thus the Law is
found to have been neither silenced, abrogated, nor
subverted by the coming of the Son of God. Its
real character is vindicated; it is shewn to be a lower
form of one and the same religion. It has passed
into the Gospel. Its dim and shadowy outlines are
filled up by the effusion of the Holy Spirit; its
graphic and mnemonic symbols are converted into
quickening and sustaining sacraments; its bloody
sacrifices pointing ever to the spotless Lamb of God,
who taketh away the sins of the world, have been
exchanged" for prayers and hymns, and eucharistic
offerings, where the worshipper presents himself, his
soul and body, a living Sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God, which is our reasonable service (Rom. xii. 1).
Faint and transitory ‘preludes’ of the Incarnation,
granted in the time of Hebraism, were just enough
to indicate that God was placable, and might hereafter
bring Himself into more intimate relations with the
human family. But in the Gospel heaven and earth
1 Oùicojv Ica) 080p.ev Ical bupató-
pley: Totè uèv Thu uviumv too
peyáAov 0%uaros, catá tê Tpos
ayroº trapač00évra uvatāpia èrt-
Texojvres, ſcal thv Štěp oatmpias
juáv eixapuo-Tſav 6t’ eige&v
ăuvov te ſcal eixóv Tó Oeó trpool-
icoptſovres. Totè 8& orgas airobs
&Aq, ſcafflepoovtes airó, ſcal Tó ye
'Apxtepet airoi A6-yº, airó ord-
part ſcal juxā āvakeſpevot. Eu-
sebius, Demonst. Evangel. Lib. I.
c. x. (p. 40, Paris, 1628).
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 121
are reconciled and re-united. God has been “manifest CHAP. III.
in the flesh,’ assuming all our nature, body, soul and T
spirit, into perfect and indissoluble union with divin-
ity. The fulness of the time arrived, and ‘God sent
forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
Law, to redeem them that were under the Law, that
we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Gal. iv. 4, 5).
The Christian, therefore, is not left to raise himself
by means of a symbolic ritual to the full perception
of these blessed facts, and a belief in these trans-
cendant mysteries: before our eyes Jesus Christ hath
been evidently set forth crucified amongst us (Gal.
iii. 1). In his character of the burnt-offering, He
was immolated to replace mankind in their original
subjection to the Godhead: as the peace-offering, He
completed our imperfect vows and our defective
praises: as the sin-offering, He bore in His sinless
body to the tree the concentrated weight of penal
suffering that was due to man's iniquities. He
blotted out the handwriting that was against us,
nailing it to the cross. He died the just for the
unjust that He might bring us back to God. He
passed in triumph from the earth, or outer-court of
the eternal sanctuary, and entered not ‘into the holy
places made with hands, which are the figures of the
true; but into heaven itself, there to appear in the
presence of God for us’ (Heb. ix. 24).
§ 2. The Promise.
The possibility of this reconcilement between God
and His offending creatures was already hinted, as
we saw, in shadowy and symbolic ordinances of the
122
Christ and other Masters.
legal system. But there was another and a more
explicit way in which the future exaltation of man-
kind was intimated to the members of the Hebrew
Church. As early as the time of Abraham, the
evangelic ‘ Promise' had obtained a definite expres–
sion; the Gospel had been ‘preached before’ (Gal.
iii. 8).
I shall not reopen old discussions touching the
amount of hope derivable from the sentence passed
on him who tempted our first parents. Many Christ-
ians have discovered there a kind of ‘Protevangelium,'
or “grand charter of God's mercy after the fall;”
others, the incipient germ which every future promise
only served to ripen and develope;” and St. Paul
appears himself to countenance these expositions when
the victory of Christ is represented as the bruising of
Satan's power beneath the feet of Christians (Rom.
xvi. 20). It may nevertheless be granted that the
language used in Genesis might originally produce
in man no very definite ideas either of the Person, or
the nature of his future Champion. All that our
first parents gathered from it may have been the vast
CHAP. III.
The Prote-
wangelium.
Bp. Sherlock, On Prophecy,
entitled ‘Jashar,’ by Mr. J. J. S.
Disc. III. p. 78.
Perowne, 2nd ed. p. 24. It is how-
* Fairbairn, Typol. of Scripture,
I. 193. This is not the place to
take in hand a critical refutation
of the views propounded in the
recent work of Dr. Donaldson
with reference to the correct in-
terpretation of Gen. iii. 15. As
one of the assailants of those
views most truly urges, the trans-
lation of ‘what is usually con-
sidered as the first Messianic pro-
mise' is ‘so gross that it will not
bear rendering into English.' Re-
marks on Dr. Donaldson's Book,
ever satisfactory to add, that all
Eſebrew scholars with whom Ihave
had an opportunity of conversing
on the subject, strongly reprobate
the exposition there advanced.
They hold that it is philologically
desperate, and could never have
possessed itself of such a mind as
Dr. Donaldson's, had he not found
it useful in the vindication of his
favourite theory, touching the
non-existence of all moral agents
other than the human: cf. above,
p. Ioo, note. ,
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 123
but vague assurance that their forfeited possession, CHAP. III.
with its peace and harmony and innocence, was not T
lost for ever, but would be restored on the discom-
fiture of him whose instigations led to their expulsion.
In that case the how and when would be reserved for
Some ulterior promise.
It is however certain that a root and starting-point The call of
of such explicit revelations had been found in Abra- Abraham.
ham, the friend of God, the father of the faithful;
and after his progeny was elected as the special
vehicle of true religion, and its guardian in a world
fast lapsing from the worship and the fear of God, or
growing vain in their imaginations (Rom. i. 21),
fuller beams of light were thrown continually upon
the future history of his race, and on the hopes and
prospects of mankind in general. ‘From this time
began that line of the divine oracles, which, first
being preserved in his family, and afterwards secured
in record, has never been broken nor lost, but having
successively embraced the Law, the Prophets, and
the Gospel, is now completed, to remain the lasting
and imperishable monument of Revealed Truth in
the world.” Accordingly we ascertain that while the
better and more thoughtful class of heathen were
compelled to seek relief in their embarrassments by
dreaming of some golden age that might eventually
come round afresh, and reinstate them in some lost
inheritance; the Hebrew always proved himself a
man of the future. The genius of his religion was
pre-eminently hopeful. He was ever in the attitude
of expectation,” ever reaching forward to an age of
o
* Davison, Discourses on Pro- * “Expectation then,’ says the
phecy, p. 97, 4th ed. lamented Archer Butler, “is the
124
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III. glory, of enlargement, of deliverance, when his race
Indefinite
form of
the early
Promise.
of the Promise.
would be superlatively blessed, and prove itself the
bearer of unuttered blessings to all tribes and families
of man.
I grant that in its earlier form the prophecy to
which these hopes were clinging with so much of
ardour and tenacity was comparatively dim, inde-
finite and enigmatical; nor could it, under Hebraism,
assume the spiritual aspect which the promises of
God possess when contemplated by ourselves from
Christian points of view. Yet on the other hand we
should remember that such characteristics harmonise
with the prevailing methods, tone and spirit of the
old occonomy. The symbolical and typical versions
of the legal system have their parallel in what may
be esteemed the Hebrew and the Christian versions
Thus, the very first conceptions of
man's rescue from the consequences of the fall may
have been only rude approximations to the great
reality. They may have reached no further than the
thought of some divine interposition which should
mitigate the ills of life, and make the earth a more
congenial habitation. Again, although the wording of
the curse' denounced on men's seducer (Gen. iii. 15),
inward spirit of the Old Testa-
ment, as Fulfilment of the New.
Wonderful itself, its function
clearly is to testify wonders more
august to come. From Moses to
Malachi, these Hebrew Scriptures
are, as it were, one long-drawn
sigh of sorrowful hope.’ Sermons,
1st series, p. 212, 3rd ed.
1 The word VII (properly ‘the
act of sowing,' hence ‘seed' and
‘progeny’ in general) would not
of itself convey the idea of an in-
dividual, but rather of a plurality
of descendants; cf. Rom. xvi. 20,
and below, p. 125, n. I. Accord-
ingly Kurtz (Gesch. des Alten
Bundes, I. 62, 63), although re-
cognising the prophetic character
of the verse, takes the expression
‘seed of the woman,’ as equiva-
lent to all the human race. “Das
ganze Menschengeschlecht (der
Weibessame) soll den Kampf mit
dem Urheber der Sünde kämpfen,
und soll ibn kraft des göttlichen
Willens siegreich kämpfen.”
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 125
would have doubtless made it evident that God was CHAP. III.
on their side, and not on his; the question whether T
a destructive blow then threatened was to be inflicted
by the human species generally, by some peculiar
race of Eve's descendants, or a single champion of
that race, was for the present left unanswered.
Nor am I contending that when Abraham re-
ceived the promise, “In thee (or, in thy seed) shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed,’ the language
was entirely free from corresponding ambiguity." The
patriarch himself would probably discover there allu-
sion to an individual Benefactor of the Abrahamic
TàC6.
He may have also been enabled more and
more, by his own want of territory, and his fuller
1 Gen. xii. 2, 3; Gal. iii. 8.
On a future occasion (Gen. xxii.
18) the phrase ‘in thee' is ex-
plained ‘in thy seed (Tynia),
and in this expanded form the
promise was republished, (I) in
the case of Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 4),
and (2) in that of Jacob (Gen.
xxviii. 14). But the difficulty of
applying the expression yi, to an
individual is apparent even at this
last stage of the promise : for in
the earlier member of the same
verse (v. 14) it is prophesied that
the seed of Jacob (ſynt) shall be
as numerous ‘as the dust of the
earth :’ cf. xxii. 17, 18. On the
other, hand it has been argued
from St. Paul’s distinction be-
tween “seed’ and ‘seeds' (Gal. iii.
16), and his exposition of the
‘one seed’ as prophetic of the
Messiah, that the patriarchs may
have been taught by such expres-
sions as occur in Gen. xxii. 18,
to expect an individual Saviour.
I do not think it unlikely that
they had by some course or other
arrived at this conclusion: the
language of our Lord Himself
implies as much, when He says,
‘Your father Abraham rejoiced
to see my day; and he saw it,
and was glad’ (John viii. 56).
Still it is next to certain that St.
Paul, in the passage above quoted,
did not mean to rest this inference
on the Hebrew equivalent of
‘seed.’ His meaning rather is,
that the promise was not given
to all the airépuata (posterities,
or descendants) of Abraham, but
only to the single line of Isaac,
that, viz. of which ‘Christ' (the
reqaxfi and TAfipapua of all the
Christian body) was the repre-
sentative and consummation: See
ver, 29. The form a Tréppata is
used in this way by Joseph.
Antiq. VIII. 7, 6 (tra’s éic Bao-wu-
icóv oſtreppudºrov): and St. Paul
elsewhere (I Cor. xii. 12) consi-
ders ð Xptorrós as involving mys-
tically the whole spiritual organ-
ism, the Church united with Him:
cf. Tholuck's Appendix to Dis-
sert. I. Jºpist, to the Hebrews, ii.
23O SQ.
126
Christ and other Masters.
neSS to man.
CHAP. III, insight into the mysterious ways of God, to separate
the spiritual from the temporal branches of the Pro-
mise, to see through the earthly blessing more and
more distinctly in proportion as it was deferred, and
so recognise in the Messiah, not only an illustrious
Chieftain who should stretch His sceptre over all the
land of Canaan, but a glorious Agent for disseminat-
ing true religion, and restoring peace and righteous-
Yet even thus the image of the future
Christ was little more than outline. Subsequent dis-
closures were required to fill the outline up, to in-
troduce fresh features, to supply more special charac-
teristics, to combine ideas of death and suffering with
ideas of conquest and of glorification, till the Person-
age who stands before us in the visions of Isaiah”
might hereafter be at once identified with the exalted
Son of Mary, and apostles be enabled to establish
from the ancient Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.”
But the peculiar forms and aspects thus assumed
1 See the reasoning on this
subject in Hebr. xi. 9, Io.
2. “What less have we in the
single book of Isaiah than the
scheme of the Gospel, and the es-
tablishment of it, unfolded ? The
mission of Christ into the world,
his original Divine Nature, his
supernatural birth in his incarna-
tion, his work of mercy and his
kingdom of righteousness; his
humiliation, sufferings, and death;
the sacrifice of atonement for sin
made by his death; the effusion
of the gifts and grace of the Holy
Spirit; the enlarged propagation
of his religion; the persecutions
of it; the moral characters of it;
the blindness and incredulity of
the Jewish people in the rejection
of it; the adoption of the Gentile
world into the Church and people
of God; the peace of the righteous
in death, and the triumph and
victory of God’s mercy, in behalf
of man, over death º' Davison,
Om Prophecy, pp. 272, 273. Even
Mr. F. W. Newman was so affect-
ed by Some of these passages that,
to use his own expressions, “they
were the very last link of my chain
that Snapt.” Phases of Faith, pp.
195, 196. e - tº º
3 See, for instance, Acts iii. 24
sq.; xviii. 28; xxiv. I4; xxvi.
22 sq.; xxviii. 23. This method
they had learned from Him, who,
“beginning at Moses and all the
prophets, expounded unto them
&n all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself:’ see Luke
xxiv. 24–27.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 127
from time to time by Messianic intimations of the CHAP. III.
Old Testament have proved a fruitful source of oºtions
modern scepticism. The evidence of prophecy to to the
which all fathers and apologists of the Early Church rº,
assigned the very greatest prominence," and which in prophecy.
fact secured for Christianity a number of its ablest
champions and its brightest luminaries,” is decried as
shallow, impotent, and inconclusive. A living writer
who described the several steps by which the old
‘religion of the letter' is gradually “renounced,’ in-
forms us that the Christian Church has been crippled
ever since the first century by its acquiescence in the
following proposition, viz. that ‘the Jewish teacher
Jesus fulfilled the conditions requisite to constitute
him the Messiah of the ancient Hebrew prophets.”
Others, who decline to say expressly whether they
have also lost their faith in the Messiahship of Jesus,
manifest the same antipathy to all external evidences,
and more especially to that by which His claims to
1 Thus, Justin Martyr, speak-
ing of the evidence of prophecy,
says, jjirep preyſotm Kal &Amóeo-
Tátm &róðetëts, ſcal juïv, Ös vouſ-
Çouev, pavioretal : Apol. I. c. 30.
St. Augustine has numerous pas-
sages to the same effect: , e.g.
‘Nam de prophetia convincimus
contradicentes paganos. Quid est
Christus? dicit paganus: cui re-
spondemus, Quem praenunciave-
runt prophetae.’ Thractat. XXXV.
&n Johan. § 7, ed. Benedict.
2 Justin Martyr, Clemens Alex-
andrinus, Tertullian, Lactantius,
and Arnobius were all originally
heathen, and all attribute their
conversion to the intimate corre-
spondence between the facts of the
New Testament and the predic-
tions of the Old : Lyall's Pro-
padia Prophetica, p. 88.
* Newman's Phases of Faith,
p. 202. He adds (p. 225) that
the heavy yoke imposed on Christ-
ians of the present day arises from
our claiming ‘Messiahship for
Jesus.’ ‘This,' it is alleged, ‘gave
a premium to crooked logic, in
Order to prove that the prophecies
meant what they did not mean,
and could not mean. This put
the Christian church into an es-
sentially false position, by exclu-
ding from it in the first century
all the men of most powerful and
cultivated understanding among
the Greeks and Romans:’ cf. the
language of an ancient scoffer in
Origen, contra Celsum, Lib, I. p.
39, ed. Spencer.
128
Christ and other Masters.
such an office have been hitherto supported. The
prophets, it is urged, may have in every case had
reference primarily to events and persons of their
own day, or at least so nearly contemporaneous that
the spiritual gift they exercised was rather one of
predication than prediction; and therefore that the
Christian acts unfairly to the Holy Scriptures when
he construes language spoken primarily of Hebrew
kings, or of the sacred family at large, as a direct
and literal prophecy of Christ. Such language, say
our critics, can be honestly adduced in no other way
than as the language of allegory or of general illus-
tration. - .
Now without pausing to remind objectors of this
second class that all their animadversions will extend
far higher even than the Saints and worthies of the
ancient Church, it may suffice to answer that the
strength of such an argument is drawn from consider-
ations neither probable in themselves, nor warranted
by the phenomena of Holy Scripture. For even
were we to admit that all the prophecies are capable
of being referred to circumstances actually or proxi-
mately contemporaneous, an assumption' than which
CHAP, III.
Germinant
accomplish-
ments of
Żyrophecy.
* Take, for instance, one of the
first passages in which both Jews
and Christians of all times have
recognised the promise of a per-
sonal Messiah (Gen. xlix, 8–10).
Whether the true reading (in ver.
Io) be Hºy (retained in the Sa-
maritan), or Hºg (= LXX. T&
âtroſcefueva airó and 6 &tróicel-
tal), between which critics are
divided : and whether, secondly,
we interpret Hºty as the subject
of the verb, ‘Man of Rest,’ ‘the
Rest-bringer,’ corresponding to
‘the Prince of Peace,’ in Is... ix.
5; or with those moderns who
virtually reject the Messianic in-
terpretation, make Hºy the object
of the verb, and translate (1) “un-
til he (Judah) comes to Shiloh’
(the well-known locality in Eph-
raim); or else (2) “until he (Ju-
dah) comes to rest,’ i.e. rest in
the land of Canaan,—the fulfil-
ment of Jacob's language is in
every case removed into a distant
future. The same is equally true
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 129
nothing is more arbitrary and unjustifiable, does it CHAP. III.
necessarily follow that a second Person, standing in T
the same relations, or a second series of analogous
events, may not have been embraced within the scope
of the original prediction ? May not one fulfilment
of a prophecy be leading up men's thoughts and
aspirations to another less immediate but more literal?
May not an imperfect realisation of the prophet's lan-
guage be the pledge and prelude of a second still
more glorious and exhaustive? Is the Bible such
a plain and superficial document that the discovery
of these fresh and deeper meanings should in any
wise offend us? The truth is, that a mind impressed
with reverence for the Holy Scriptures, searching
them with the conviction that Christ is to be found
in every quarter, in the Law of Moses, in the pro-
phets, and in the Psalms, will be prepared for such
phenomena. Whatever they may be to others, they
will constitute for him a portion of that marvellous
fulness and fertility which characterise the works of
the Omnipotent. He sees, for instance, that when
prophets of the age of the Captivity foretell the
of the next important prophecy
mentioned in the Pentateuch
(Numb. xxiv. 17): for whether
the ‘Star out of Jacob’ be an
image of the Israelitish royalty
in general, or of an actual king
like David, or of Christ Himself,
the king of Israel, a mighty in-
terval exists between the date of
the prediction and the earliest ful-
filment of it. Other instances are
the 2nd and 72nd Psalms, the
latter of which Mr. Newman
himself urges ‘was never fulfilled
by any historical king : Phases,
p. I94.
* Bacon suggests that all inter-
WOL. I.
preters should allow ‘that latitude
which is agreeable and familiar
unto divine prophecies, being of
the nature of their Author, with
whom a thousand years are but
as one day, and therefore are not
fulfilled punctually at once, but
have springing and germinant ac-
complishment throughout many
ages; though the height or ful-
ness of them may refer to some
One age.’ Advancement of Learn-
&ng, Bk. II. Works, I. 49. Lond.
1765: cf. Nares, View of the Pro-
phecies, pp. 92 Sq., Lond, 1805,
and Davison, pp. 195 sq.
130
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III, grandeur of the Messianic period, very many of their
figures are derived from the anterior age of David.
The name of him who governed Israel as the right-
eous representative of God, becomes the name of the
Messiah: the seat of empire is the Holy Land; the
growth and ultimate glorification of the theocracy is
shadowed out as a reunion of Judah and Israel on
their return from the dispersion: and why? Because
the elder system was in all its parts prophetic ; be-
cause it typified, and was designed to pass into the
later; because the Christ of prophecy was the all-
righteous King of Judah, and has verily succeeded
to the throne of His father David; because the re-
storation from captivity was itself an earnest and a
prelude of the Messianic deliverance; and because all
nations, when they met as brethren in the bosom of
the Church of Christ, have recognised in Jerusalem
the birth-place and metropolis of the new occonomy,
and are ready to exclaim with Jews and proselytes
of old, ‘All my fresh springs shall be in thee' (Ps.
lxxxvii. 7). Or if the sacred writer contemplate the
fortunes of the Hebrew commonwealth as in many
ways repeated in the life of the Messiah:” if he shew,
* See, for example, Ezek. xxxvii.
24, 25, which is peculiarly per-
plexing to Mr. Newman (Phases,
p. 193). He fails to perceive
that the whole of the prophet's
description is ideal, though the
re-appearance of ‘David' on the
earth is sufficient to intimate this,
and that a barely ‘literal’ fulfil-
ment is not to be expected. ‘The
prophecy,’ as Mr. Fairbairn re-
marks, (Ezekiel, p. 363) “is a de-
tailed picture of coming good,
drawn, as such a picture must
have been, under the form ofthe old
covenant-relations. . . .The whole
earth is as much Christ's rightful
heritage as the territory and peo-
ple of Canaan were David's; and
only when it becomes His actual
possession, can the prophecy re-
specting Him, as the New Testa-
ment David, reach its destined ac-
complishment.' ' -
2 Cf. Dr. Mill’s Christ. Adv.
Pub/. (1844), pp. 4II sq., who
justly observes in treating of a
similar case (p. 408): “There are
other matters necessary to the
right understanding of Sacred pro-
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 131
for instance, that our blessed Lord in early childhood CHAP. III.
was compelled by hard necessity to sojourn in the T
land of Egypt, finding an asylum in that very region
which supplied a cradle to the Hebrew race, such
incidents are placed together as related, harmonising
and analogous, because the Christ is verily the pro-
mised Seed; because He is the Head and Antitype
of God’s collective First-born; and because He only
realised in all their fulness the exalted characteristics
which Israel as a nation was commissioned to exhibit
and diffuse.
And that Hebrews were themselves alive to such State of
ulterior and more perfect realisations of the elder feeling
ôm these
covenant, and frequently discerned the fitness of this subjects
ūtróvota in the language and general structure of the º the
prophecies, we are enabled to establish fully from
their extant literature." They welcomed every voice
that issued from the desert with the faintest whispers
of Messiah. His birth, His life, His kingdom, widely
as they often erred in estimating the nature, colouring
and effect of these, were constantly suggested to their
thoughts; and therefore when St. Matthew, writing
for the special benefit of Jews, alluded to examples
where predictions were fulfilled in that higher sense,
or when St. Paul, endeavouring to reclaim the Ju-
daizers of Galatia, declared that the arrangements of
the Abrahamic family with reference to the child of
promise were so ordered as to intimate that such a
child must be extraordinary and begotten from above,
they neither of them ran the risk of serious miscon-
phecies beside the bare rules ! See Schöttgen, Horae Hebraï-
(which no Sane man despises) of ca, passim ; and Mill, as above,
grammatical interpretation.’ p. 418.
132
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III.
ception, nor were open to the charge of sheltering
their arguments beneath a fanciful exegesis.
I grant that earnest minds have varied in their
power of tracing and appreciating the great ideas
that connect these deeper meanings of the Bible with
the naked and more primary sense. I grant that in
the present day the general tendency of thought is
adverse to such methods of interpretation, and that
writers who pride themselves on the superiority of
their critical acumen, are never more successful in the
judgment of the undiscriminating and the superficial,
than in their attempts to underrate the mysteries of
t
Holy Scripture. But the course of my argument
is not affected by this circumstance. I am endea-
vouring to ascertain what were the leading features
of the Old-Testament religion as interpreted by
persons occupying the position of the Hebrews; and
with reference to the topic now before us, it remains
indisputable that either owing to the character of
their sacred books, or to some other agency, they
were emphatically men of hope. In spite of every
storm that darkened the immediate future of the
Church, they looked with yearning confidence to
what they called ‘the times of restitution and re-
! It should, however, be stated
that the age is not without ex-
Momenten der mosaischen parallel
geht. Im Judenthum lag, wie im
amples of a healthier tendency.
Thus the reaction in De Wette's
mind impelled him to make the
following acknowledgment in ad-
dition to what has been already
cited (p. 82): “ICein durchaus
leeres Spiel war die typologische
Wergleichung des A. T. mit dem
N. T. Auch ist es Schwerlich
blosser Zufall, dass die evangelische
Geschichte in den bedeutendstem
Reime Blätter und Früchte, das
Christenthum. Freilich bedurfte
es der göttlichen Sonne um her-
vorzubrechem.’ And Umbreit has
very recently (Studieſ, und Iſrātā-
ſtem, 1855, 3tes Heft, pp. 573 sq.)
abandoned the un-Messianic in-
terpretation of Is. vii. 14, which
he had formerly endeavoured to
establish. -
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 133
freshing,’ of peace, forgiveness, and redemption. CHAP. III.
They took refuge in this “world to come,”—an age
when temporal evils would be all corrected or ex-
hausted, when mercy and truth would meet together,
and righteousness and peace would kiss each other,
when Zion under the benignant rule of Christ would
shew herself the mother-city of a world-embracing
system, and ‘all nations flow' to her for Solace and
for light.
And it is most observable, that however modern Admissions
sceptics may account for the origin and intensity of %º
this conviction, its existence at the birth of Christ is
now commonly admitted. The recognition of His
claims by many of His fellow-countrymen in Pales-
time and other regions, is attributed to the fact that
He was generally expected. And this fact indeed
is absolutely necessary to the establishment of the
Straussian hypothesis on the composition of the sacred
Gospels. The national mind, it is discovered, must
have been occupied completely with expectations of
some great Deliverer, or ideal portraits such as those
ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth by His followers, could
not possibly have been conceived. And with this
view accords the language of Mr. Mackay, a main
pillar of the Absolute Religion. ‘The fund of He-
brew hope,’ he writes,” “was as immeasurable as the
* Schöttgen, II. 23 sq.; cf. Ep.
to Hebrews, II. 5, VI. 5. Winer,
who is certainly not inclined to
over-estimate the Divine element
in Holy Writ, makes the following
statement on this subject: ‘Nur in
einer Beziehungtretensic [die Pro-
pheten] aus ibrem durch die Zeit-
verhältnisse bedington Gesichts-
kreise heraus und richten den
. Blick des Wolks auf eine fern lie-
gende ideale Zukunft, dann mäm-
lich, Wenn sie, durch die Betracht-
ung der mâchsten Zukunft nicht
befriedigt, von dem grossen Na-
tionalretter (Messias) und dem
hochbegliickten Zeitalter reden,’
u. S. W. Realworterbuch, s. v. Pro-
pheten, II. 279, 3rd ed.
* Progress of the Intellect, II.
134. Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. power of the invisible Sovereign ; and it was even
T anticipated that the prospective kingdom would em-
brace universal dominion, a dominion coextensive
with the theoretical (?) empire of the Deity over the
whole earth.’ According to Mr. Mackay, the origin
of these profound convictions was entirely human and
subjective. The Messiah-doctrine, he conjectures,”
was ‘a joint product of the misfortunes of the times
and of the theocratic constitution, the experience of
a want in this and other instances exciting ‘the ima-
gination to fill up the blank out of its own resources.’
But there is one other class of writers whom we
ought in fairness to examine before this startling
verdict is accepted. We shall always, it is true, be
grateful to the advocate of the ‘religion of humanity’
who confesses the existence of Messianic predictions,
or at least discovers new presentiments in favour of
the Gospel; yet he must excuse us if when he
proposes such inadequate explanation of the origin
of these presentiments, we seek elsewhere for less
fantastic guides and more intelligible reasons. Mr.
Mackay and his friends may treat the Hebrew pro-
phets as the pavireſs, or the preachers, as the rheto-
ricians, or the improvisatori of the times in which
they flourished; he may find in all their loftiest
utterances no more than natural guesses of a thought-
ful mind, or the creations of an eastern fancy: but
209. He refers to the same phe-
nomenon in his later work (Rise
and Progress of Christianity, p. 15,
Lond. 1854): “Through a long
series of misfortunes the Jews had
been constantly supported by the
expectation of a great deliverer,
called emphatically the anointed
king, or Messiah, who would re-
store the ancient glory of their
theocracy, or Divine Kingdom, as
it existed under David and Solo-
mon, inaugurating at the same
time a new reign of righteous-
ness.’
* Progress of the Intellect, II.
2 I O. g
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c.
135
we who look at them with different eyes, who have CHAP. III.
been taught to ‘worship the God of our fathers,
believing all things which are written in the Law
and in the prophets,’ shall rather form our estimate
of the phenomena in question after hearing what the
sacred writers tell us of themselves and of their own
experiences.
Now prophecy, in their meaning of the term, is The scrip-
a peculiar characteristic of Revealed Religion. There
tetral ac-
count of
is doubtless no lack of oracles and divination, of prophecy:
augurs and of fortune-tellers in the various records
of the heathen world; but we shall look in vain to
them for what is everywhere discovered in the Bible.”
We shall look in vain for series of explicit prophecies,
arising not from a mastery which the seer possesses
over hidden powers of nature, nor from the effects
of some delirious intoxication, where his reasoning
faculties are all suspended, but from holy, calm, and
conscious intercourse with God Himself, the personal
Revealer, who in due time vindicates the character
of the prophecy by bringing it to pass. “Produce
your cause, Saith the Lord : bring forth your strong
reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring
them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them
1 On the fundamental distinc-
tion between prophecy and all
forms of heathem divination, see
Håvernick, Einleitung, II. ii. 29
sq., and J. Smith's chapter on the
“Difference of the true prophetical
spirit from all enthusiastical im-
posture :' Select Discowºrses, pp.
190 sq. Lond. 1660.
2 Cf. Mr. Morgan's Christianity
and Modern Infidelity, pp. 120 sq.
Lond. 1854. ‘The Hebrew Scrip-
tures, then,’ writes Archer Butler,
‘themselves, and the people and
polity which form their singular
subject, intimate a wonderful
future, and point altogether to it,
and are wholly inexplicable un-
less on the supposition of it. This
at once distinguishes it [? them]
from every other ancient writing
of the same kind; among all na-
tional literatures this makes the
Jewish unique.’ Sermons, 1st
Ser, pp. 209, 2 Io, 3rd ed.
136
Christ and offer Masters.
shew the former things what they be, that we may
consider them, and know the latter end of them; or
declare us things for to come. Shew the things that
are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are
gods.” And as Jehovah challenges the idols of the
heathen, bidding them establish their title to divinity
by putting forth prophetic gifts, so all His messengers
were ever conscious of the special nature of their call-
ing, and have drawn the clearest possible distinctions
between the true and false in prophecy. “Woe,’
their cry was ‘unto the foolish prophets, that follow
their own spirit, and have seen nothing' (Ezek. xiii.
3). They were persuaded that the office of the
genuine seer had brought him into close communion
with the fountain of all knowledge; and prophecy
was therefore, in his case, a real opening of things
secret, an objective revelation of the plans and
purposes of God” (Amos i. 7; Is. Xliii. 12). He
saw what he describes: he was assured of it by
some immediate intuition.” Exalted to a higher
CHAP. III.
-- ~~. -...----------º-º-º-º-º-"
its reality
and objec-
tivity.
Is. xli. 21—23. Bp. Lowth * Witsius in one of his able
(Isaiah, p. 106, Lond, 1778) trans-
lates the second member of v. 2 I :
“Produce these your mighty
powers,” making the challenge
apply directly to the false divini-
ties. St. Jerome (in loc.) sees in
the passage an allusion to the
fact that heathem oracles were all
silenced at the coming of Christ.
‘Si ergo suum interitum non po-
tuere praedicere, quomodo aliena,
vel mala, vel bona, potuerint
nunciare 2' He then adds: ‘Quod
si aliquis dixerit, multa ab idolis
esse praedicta, hoc sciendum quod
semper mendacium junxerint veri-
tati; et sic sententias temperarint,
ut seu boni Seu mali quid acci-
disset, utrumque posset intelligi.’
Miscellamea (‘De Prophetis et
Prophetia') establishes the follow-
ing definition of prophecy: “Cog-
mitio et patefactio rerum arcana-
rum, quas quis non ex propria
Solertia neque ex aliorum relatu,
sed ex coelesti atque extraordinaria
Dei revelatione movit:’ Lib. I.
c. 2, § I.
* See the recent discussion of
this subject in Mr. Lee's Inspira-
tion of Holy Scripture, pp. 167 sq.
Lond, 1854;-a treatise well de-
serving the attention of all biblical
scholars who rejoice to see exact-
ness of thought combined with
fulness of knowledge and a reve-
rential spirit,
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 137
sphere of thought, admitted to a deeper survey of CIIAP. III.
the world invisible, the prophets for the time were T
made recipients of supernatural communications.
These the Lord Himself presented to them, and these
they apprehended by an organ of the soul which
corresponded to their outer vision, and which equally
convinced them of the truth and objectivity of what
they saw. While, on the contrary, all forms of
pseudo-prophecy were utterly subjective. There was
no external fact according with its utterances, nor
with the impulse of the human spirit. The diviner
may in many cases have been perfectly sincere, and
many of the heathen oracles when consulted on re-
ligious questions may have given answers highly
calculated to protect the interests of morality: but all
their best Vaticinations, if not due exclusively to
human shrewdness and reflection, were so many
vague forebodings and presentiments: they spoke
‘out of their own hearts' (Ezek. xiii. 2).
Such then is the grand distinction which the Assailants
sacred writers uniformly draw between the nature of **
prophetic visions and all merely human efforts to
obtain a knowledge of the will of God, and penetrate
the mysteries of the invisible. Yet strange to say,
the testimony of the prophets on this subject is re-
jected by the speculators of the present day, in order
to make room for novel theories, wild and arbitrary
in their form, if not completely pantheistic in their
1 Thus, Mr. Edward Strachey, dicters, the forth-speakers of God's
writing on Hebrew Politics in the
times of Sargon and Sennacherib,
(Lond. 1853) does not scruple to
make the following unqualified
assertion (p. 5): “The prophets
were the preachers, not the pre-
eternal plan and methods of gov-
erning man, not foretellers of par-
ticular events, of and to their na-
tion. This was what our Lord
and his apostles understood by the
name, and so has it always been
138 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. tendency. Where prophecies of redemption are not
T construed as the mere projections of the human con-
sciousness, or yearnings prompted by the want of
some Redeemer, they are all resolved into peculiarities
of natural temperament, in such a way as to discard
the operation of the Holy Spirit, and repudiate every
trace of an objective element. The founder of this
school was Benedict de Spinosa. Starting as he did
with a belief that God was only a generalised ex-
pression for all matural causes; he laboured to ob-
literate the distinction between a personal Revealer
and the subject of the revelation. He held that the
real source of all predictions lay in the imaginative
faculty, that when the prophets are said to have been
full of the Holy Ghost, the meaning is that they
were men of singular virtue and exalted piety, and
that as their admirers were ignorant of the true
causes of prophetic knowledge, they were in the
habit of ascribing it, like other portents, to an act
of God Himself. As one corollary from his main
positions he contended that “prophetic' gifts were
not peculiar" to the Hebrew nation, but diffused in
wºnderstood in modern times of ear-
nestness and zeal.” In a postscript
(p. 352) the author adds: ‘I have
not now first to acknowledge how
greatly I owe to Mr. Maurice my
principles and method of consider-
ing Hebrew prophecy; but their
application is my own.”
* Thactatus Theologico-Politici,
c. II. p. 15, Hamburg, 1670. “Qui
igitur,’ it is added, ‘Sapientiam,
et veram naturalium et spirituali-
um cognitionem ex Propheta.rum
libris investigare student, tota
errant via: quod, quoniam tem-
pus, philosophia et denique res
ipsa postulat, hic fuse Ostendere
decrevi, parum curams quid super-
stitio oggonniat, quae nullos magis
Odit quam qui veram scientiam,
veramgue vitam colunt.”
* Ibid. c. I. p. 13.
* He infers this chiefly from
the case of Balaam, who although
a true prophet is called by Joshua
(xiii. 22) Dºpp , ‘the diviner.’
But see Kurtz, Gesch. des Alten
J}ºndes, II. 457 sq. where it is
shewn (after Hengstenberg) that
Balaam was really verging to the
confines of heathen magic, though
he had not altogether lost his
early faith in the One true God.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 139
every part of heathendom. These principles when CHAP. III.
first advanced by Spinosa were generally execrated T
as “atheistic;' but after passing through the crucible
of certain German theologians, they are not un-
frequently espoused in England by the friends of
progress, and the adherents of the Absolute Religion.
In spite of all the protests which their authors have
inserted to the contrary, the prophecies in general,
not excluding those which are entitled Messianic, are
stripped of their divine authority, and treated as the
outbreak of an ardent patriotism, a feverish zeal, or
an exuberant imagination. *
I grant indeed that some few sparks of truth may
be detected here and there amid the theorisings of
this modern school. The prophet, for example, never
lost his individuality.” His natural faculties were
not suspended nor coerced by the incoming of a
higher agency. The style, the language, the poetic
colouring, the restricted knowledge of all subjects not
designed to be included in the scope of the prediction,
were his own. He was an inspired man, the human
and Divine factors coalescing, harmonising, and co-
operating in the exhibition of the thing revealed.
But after these concessions have been made, it seems
1 The name of Schleiermacher
must be added to this number.
His views respecting the Old
Testament in general were most
derogatory. For instance, he
maintains the following position
in his treatise JDer Christliche
Glaube (1.77 sq. 3rd ed. Berlin,
1835): ‘Das Christenthum steht
zwar in einem besonderem ge-
schichtlichen Zusammenhangemit
dem Judenthum ; was aber Sein
geschichtliches Dasein und Seine
Abzweckung betrifft, so verhält
es sich zu Judenthum und Heid-
enthum gleich.' With regard to
the Messianic predictions of the
Old Testament, he observes (Ibid.
p. 96) that their chief value to
us arises from the evidence they
furnish of a “striving of human
nature towards Christianity,’ and
of the preparatory aim of earlier
institutions; cf. p. 80.
* Cf. Lee, as above, p. 179;
Fairbairn, Ezekiel, Pref. p. vii.
140
Christ and other Masters.
CEIAP. III.
to me unquestionable, that no theory will explain the
— statements of the sacred prophets, nor account for the
sublime phenomena of revelation, which neglects to
recognise in prophecy the workings of a Supernatural
Agent, opening, elevating and directing the Spirit
of the seers, presenting to their inner vision images
of things to come, and thus supplying an objective
and historic basis for the faith and aspirations of the
Israelite. And such is certainly the view adopted
by the writers of the New Testament. Respecting
that salvation which has been accomplished in Christ-
ianity, the prophets are said to have “inquired and
searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that
should come unto us; searching what, or what manner
of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did
signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ, and the glory that should follow' (1 Pet. i.
10, 11): “for prophecy came not in old time by the
will of man; but holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost' (2 Pet. i. 21).
Nor are those the only criteria by which genuine
prophecy is separable from all human substitutes, and
from the auguries and divinations of the heathen
world. It stood from first to last in vital union with
monotheism: it kept pace with the expansion of
man's faculties, and aided in the gradual training of
the sacred commonwealth. As one agent in the
mighty course of operations that has issued in the
planting of a catholic Church, its form and structure
were peculiarly adapted to the exigencies of the
period' out of which it grew. Prophecy, in other
JHebrew
prophecy
as based on
history,
and inter-
twined
with it.
* This peculiarity was noticed CII. § 15: Opp. II. 211, ed. Bened.):
long ago by St. Augustine (Epist. “I’t tamen ab initio generis hu-
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 141
words, was so completely interwoven with the fortunes CHAP. III.
of the Abrahamic race as to supply continual answers T
in the moment of perplexity, and even to convert the
darkest epochs of their lifetime into fresh occasions
for directing them to the Messiah, and that period
when they should “receive of the Lord's hand double
for all their sins.’ While the presentiments that
rose in other countries were but dim and floating
visions of the night, with nothing in the past or
present where they could attach themselves, and
therefore destitute of moral power and practical re-
sults; the Messianic doctrine of the Hebrews was
real, living, and coherent. In their nation where it
is confessed no period seems to have existed when
the ‘historical sense' was not developed, prophecy
obtained immense advantages by calling to its aid
the associative faculty,” by clothing future incidents
in imagery consecrated by the memories of the past,
mani, alias occultius, alias evi-
dentius, Sicut congruere temporibus
divinitus visum est, nec prophe-
tari destitit, nec qui in eum cred-
erent defuerunt, ab Adam usque
ad Moysen, et in ipso populo
Israel, quae speciali quodam mys-
terio gens prophetica ſuit, et in
aliis gentibus antequam venisset
in carne.’ Mr. Trench, Hulsea??
Lectures (1845) p. 86, Suggests
the same thought : “And thus
(did time allow) we might trace
in much more detail how not only
in the idea of type and prophecy,
there is obedience to that law of
advance and progress, which we
have everywhere been finding,
but in the very order and sc-
quence of the prophecies them-
selves.’
* Grote’s Hist, of Greece, I. 492,
Lond. 1849. This writer thinks
that the ‘historical sense' did not
arise in the Superior intellects of
Greece till B. c. 700.
* Cf. Mr. Lee's remarks on this
subject (Inspiration of Holy Scrip-
tlø'0, pp. I49 º which he intro-
duces in the following passage :
“In considering the single predic-
tions of Scripture apart from the
complete structure of Prophecy,
we may observe, that a certain
method has been almost uniformly
pursued, which constitutes, as it
were, the Law according to which
the different portions of God’s
Revelation have been communi-
cated;—namely, that each predic-
tion, with scarcely an exception,
proceeds from and attaches itself
to some definite fact in the his-
torical present.’
142 Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III, and finding in the altered aspects of society a stock
T of fresh material' for increasing the vividness of its
descriptions and the area of its field of vision.
Prophecy was thus the living voice of God that
went along continually with the development of the
Hebrew nation. When it spoke the parched and
joyless desert seemed to blossom like the rose, and
minister fresh streams of comfort and of blessing:
men ‘drank of the spiritual Rock which followed
them, and that Rock was Christ.’ It smoothed the
pillow of the dying patriarch, convincing him that
there was still some better and enduring substance
in reserve : it taught his children to exclaim, as
Jacob did before them: ‘I have waited for Thy
salvation, O Lord' (Gen. xlix. 18). It inspired the
Israelites, when they went forth a youthful people
with the Lord Jehovah at their head, to occupy the
soil which He had promised to their fathers. It
consoled them in the midst of sterner scenes at
Horeb: it allayed the apprehensions there awakened
by the awful promulgation of the Decalogue; and as
‘the light that shineth in a dark place,' it pointed to
the possibility of milder institutions and the coming
of a second Legislator.” It grew more definite and
1 ‘Mir ist die Weissagung eine
ebjective Mittheilung géttlichen
Wissens an den Menschen, aber
eine solche, die den Zuständen
der jedesmaligen Gegenwart sich
lebendig anschliesst, ihren Be-
dirfnissen entgegenkommt, den
Factoren der Entwicklung sich
organisch einfügt. Die Abhäng-
igkeit der Weissagung von der
Geschichte ist für mich keine
andre als die, dass Gott die Sa-
menkörner der Weissagung nicht
eher ausstreut, als bis durch die
von Ihm gelenkte Geschichte der
Boden bereitet ist, dessen das
Samenkorn bedarf, um Wurzel zu
schlagen und Frucht zu bringen.’
Rurtz, Gesch. des Alten Bundes,
II. 550.
* See Deut. xviii. 15–19, Acts
iii. 22, vii. 37, Hebr. xii. 18, 19:
and cf. Sherlock, Disc. VI. pp. 127
sq. That the Jews and also the
Samaritans of our Lord’s age
adopted the Messianic interpret-
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 143
explicit in proclaiming the Messiah, when an actual CHAP. III.
kingdom had been founded in Judaea, when the con-T
quests of the son of Jesse had well-nigh exhausted
the more secular branches of the Abrahamic promise,
and the faithful had before their eyes a noble champion
of the true religion. During all that gloomy series
of disasters which ensued on the degeneracy of Solo-
mon, and the divulsion of the sacred tribes, the deep-
toned voice of prophecy was heard with greater fre-
quency alike in Israel and in Judah. It guided and
sustained a remnant of both countries by unfolding
to their view the picture of reunion and enlargement,
when after some thorough sifting of the Hebrew race,
the fallen tabernacle of David' would be re-established
in the midst of them ; when exiles would return to
‘seek the Lord their God, and David their king;”
when enemies of truth and righteousness would dis-
appear like some majestic forest; while the Branch"
ation is rendered highly probable
by John vi. I4, V. 45–47, iv. 25.
Some writers in modern times
have argued that a general refer-
ence to the ‘prophetic order' of
the Old Testament is included in
the word Nºn; ; while they main-
tain, however, that the one Pro-
phet in whom the idea of such an
order was fully realised, is the
Messiah. See the arguments in
favour of both views in Hengsten-
berg, Christology of the Old Testa-
'ment, I, 95 sq. Edinb. 1854, and
ICurtz, Gesch. des Alten Bundes,
II. 513 sq. The latter expresses
himself “unconditionally for the
exclusive reference to a single
definite Person, i. e. to the Mes-
siah” (p. 514).
1 Amos ix. I I, I2; cf. Acts XV.
16, 17, and Hengstenberg, Ibid. I.
3I4 SQ.,
* Hosea iii. 4, 5. Hengsten-
berg (Ibid. I. 282) observes that
‘by the king David the whole
Davidic house is to be understood,
which is here to be considered as
an unity, in the same manner as
is done in 2 Sam. vii. and in a
whole series of Psalms which
celebrate the mercies shewn, and
to be shewn, to David and his
house. These mercies are most
fully concentrated in Christ.’
* Cf. Is. x. 33, 34 (where the
proud armies of Assyria are men-
tioned under the figure of a migh-
ty forest) with the opening verses
of Is. xi. That the mysterious
‘Child' of Is. ix. 6, is identical
with the ‘Immanuel' of Is. vii.
I4, and both of them with the
eternal ‘Ruler' pointed out by a
contemporary (Micah v. 2 sq.),
can Scarcely admit of any question.
144
Christ and offer M.asters.
CHAP. III. emerging from the roots of Jesse would embrace the
world beneath His shadow, would inaugurate a
brighter era, would be called the Wonderful Coun-
sellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the
Prince of Peace. When heavier ills descended, when
the temple was itself defiled, and when the latest
caravan of captives brought the tragic news of this
calamity to Babylon, the land of the oppressor, it
was still the Messianic promise of a righteous King
and an eternal kingdom, that came forward to sustain
the drooping spirit of the solitary mourner. And
when at length the voice of prophecy was going to
be hushed entirely, when the Church was to be left
in solemn stillness, waiting for the manifestation of
the glory of the Lord, the latest breath of Malachi,
though stern and terrible for Israelites, who would
not rise to any true conception of the Messianic
character, was full of hope and solace for the rest:
it intimated the approach of times when every Gentile
nation would unite in prayer and offerings with the
holier section of the Hebrews, and the Sun of Right-
eousness arise with healing in His wings (Mal. i. 11;
iv. 2). -
Abundant illustrations of this view of prophecy,
elucidating the fitness of the various seasons when
it spoke, and its peculiar adaptation to the Wants, the
faculties, and prospects of the Hebrews are furnished
in all parts of the sacred volume: but my present
Particula).
thstances.
* See, for example, Zech. xi. in Malachiiii. 1–3, the Messenger
where many of the Israelites are of the Covenant whom they pro-
shewn symbolically to be filling fessed to delight in enters on His
up the measure of their fathers by work by sifting not the heathen
rejecting the Good Shepherd; and but the sacred family itself.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 145
purpose will be answered if I draw attention to the CHAP. III.
age of David and the Babylonic exile.
(1) In order to retain the Hebrews in the attitude Prophecy
of expectation, the time at which the Messianic pro- j #
mise would be realised was always indeterminate;
and therefore when the sceptre came at length into
the hands of David, many an eye would turn to him
with ardent longing, and behold in him that son of
Abraham, on whom their faith had long been centered.
‘Is this not he that should come?' may well have
been the general question. “Peace is everywhere
established from Dan to Beersheba ; Moab, Ammon,
Edom, and Philistia, who have hitherto curtailed our
borders and wasted the flower of our armies, are
content to rank among the vassals of the sacred
family; the last fortress of the Canaanite has been
reduced; and he who was the guiding spirit of those
mighty operations is the head and life of our religious
system. His hymns are on every tongue, and he
has vowed that he will never rest until the worship
of the Lord is firmly planted in his new metropolis,
and also in the heart and conscience of his people.’
Now this juncture was the time selected for re- The Mes-
lieving men's disquietude, and pouring a fresh flood ſº %.
of light upon the Promise. The well-known intima-
tions then conveyed to David form the basis of all
future prophecies. Israel was instructed that his
kingdom would supply the origin and groundwork
of a greater, that when David had been gathered to
his fathers, a posterity" descended from his loins
* The word is still VI (cf. ral, but as constituting an ideal
above, p, 124, n. 1), and may unity. That the reference is not
thereforé' be understood collect- exclusively to Christ we must
ively, i.e. of descendants in gene- infer from vv. 14, 15: while, on
WOL. I. 10
146
Christ and other Masters.
Char. III would rear a temple to Jehovah; and that the throne
of this posterity would be established for ever, yea,
that God would be to it a Father, and it would
be to Him a son (2 Sam. vii. 11–14). When Solo-
mon was born this prophecy indeed began to be
accomplished, and was more entirely brought to pass
when he completed the erection of the temple, and
the glory of the Lord was visible within its courts:
yet he might learn from David to extend his views
into the distant future, and appears himself to have
been conscious that his own achievements were utterly
unable to exhaust the fulness of its meaning (1 Kings
viii. 26, 27). From this time, however, the Messiah
was expected as the King, the King of Israel, exalted
on the throne of David, and in virtue of His close
communion with the Lord Jehovah, an object of
universal reverence, exercising justice and dispensing
mercy to the various families of men.
The Hebrews thus obtained one definite image of
the Christ; an image which enabled every thoughtful
of super-
hºwman
dignity;
the other hand, none but a super-
compared with I Chron. xvii. 17,
human Personage could realise
are thought by some to indicate
the absolute perpetuity of the
race, and fully satisfy the remain-
ing conditions of the prophecy:
cf. Acts ii. 30. On its intimate
connexion with Ps. ii. and the
light which is thereby thrown
upon it, see Ebrard, On the Epistle
to the Hebrews, pp. 39, 40, Edinb.
1853.
1. In 2 Sam. vii. 19, David says,
in his address to the Almighty,
‘Thou hast spoken also to thy
servant's house of things far
distant (pinyº); adding the
remarkable words nºR ns?]
ñn. TS DISI), which, as
the superhuman rank of the Mes-
siah. See the different render-
ings in Mr. Barrett's Synopsis of
Criticisms, II, 545 sq. Immedi-
ately before his death we find
David occupied with the same
magnificent thoughts respecting
the destiny of his house (2 Sam.
xxiii. 5): ' Por is not my house
so with God 2 . For He hath made
with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and sure;
for all my salvation and all my
pleasure, should He not make it
grow?'. …”
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 147
mind among them to approximate more closely to CHAP. III.
a true conception of the great Deliverer. But the T
humanity of Christ was not the only characteristic
which the prophet of that period was commissioned
to unveil. A hymn" composed by David on a sub-
sequent occasion represents his future Son returning
as a warrior from conflicts where His enemies were
miserably put to flight, and traces at the same time
His majestic course to more than human impulses.
The Son of David as there pictured occupies a most
exalted station. He is David's Lord as well: He
sits on no earthly throne, but at the side of God,
the Unapproachable, a sharer of His glory, and a
joint-administrator of His Kingdom.
And in order to prepare the Hebrew mind for still and also a
more wondrous revelations, and in order to exalt the JPriest,
thoughts and spiritualise the feelings with respect to
their Messiah, and the elevation of His throne from
earth to heaven, this passage also represents the Son
and Lord of David in a different aspect, and a totally
distinct capacity. The Law of Moses furnished no
idea of any priesthood in connexion with the tribe of
Judah (Heb. vii. 14): the union of royal and Sacer-
dotal offices was made impossible by the arrangements
of the old oeconomy; and yet the Christ is there seen
by David invested with the dignities of both.” He
is the Priest-king of the Hebrews, in order that
some work of expiation may be accomplished before
* Ps. cx. which is continually
cited in the New Testament as
David's and as also Messianic;
e.g. by our Lord Himself, Matth.
xxii. 43 sq.; cf. Hengstenberg,
On the Psalms, III. 326 sq.
* See the remarkable parallel
in Zech. vi. 12, 13, where the
Man, whose name is the Branch,
sits and rules as a Priest upon
the throne, and the royal and
sacerdotal offices are united in
IIis person (‘the counsel of peace
shall be between them both'),
148
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III.
Joctrine
of a suffer-
ing Mes-
Siah.
a people are prepared to offer themselves willingly
to God, and so be worthy of enlistment in the cause
of the Messiah, and of sharing in His universal con-
quests. -
But this image of the Priest, suggesting as it does
the thought of sacrifice, reminds us of new lessons
which the Psalms of David would impress on every
one who waited for redemption in Israel. It might
indeed have been anticipated from the first that He
who undertook the office of our Champion would
encounter the resistance of the evil power which com-
passed our defeat and ruin; yet, never till the age
of David was the Church invited to reflect distinctly
on the picture of a Christ involved in danger, suffer-
ing and humiliation. The persecutions and distresses
of the Israelitish monarch, and the obloquy which he
endured in his attempts to vindicate the true religion,
and promote the welfare of his country (Ps. lxix.),
had prepared men for the thought that even righteous
princes may not claim to be exempted' from the evils
incident to our condition while on earth; and there-
fore had prepared them in some measure for the
wondrous revelations of the 22nd Psalm. The ser-
vant of the Lord is there assailed by every species
of malicious mockery. His enemies have pierced his
hands and feet, and parted his garments among them;
and, unsated by this foul barbarity, they feast their
eyes upon the spectacle, and heighten his distress by
* The same lesson was forcibly
inculcated in the whole Book of
Job. ‘By the side of a long line
of prophecy, as a whole outwardly
, gorgeous and flattering, and pro-
mising in the Messiah a success-
ful potentate and opener of a glo-
rious temporal future for the Jew-
ish nation, there rose one sad but
faithful memento, and all that
appearance of approaching splen-
dour was seen in qualifying con-
nexion with other truths.” Christ-
tan Remembrancer (1849), p. 208.
On the Characteristies of Religion, &c. 149
shouts of Savage exultation. Now in reading such a CHAP. III.
psalm as this, a thoughtful Israelite may well ask his T
neighbour, ‘Of whom speaketh the prophet? of him-
self, or of some other man?' and when no adequate
fulfilment of that language can be traced in circum-
stances of the period, he will naturally regard it as
predictive of some future sufferer; while the closing
portions' of the Psalm compel him to identify that
Sufferer with the glorious King he is expecting.
For notwithstanding the extreme violence of perse-
cution, the holy speaker is not overwhelmed by it.
He is conscious that Jehovah interposes for his rescue,
and he therefore registers a vow that he will dedicate
to God a special service of thanksgiving; that high
and low, of Israel and of every nation under heaven,
shall be invited to a sacrificial feast, and join in cele-
brating his deliverance to all future ages. The truth
appears to be that David on this and other like occa-
sions spoke not merely for himself, but in the name
of his posterity; nor is it difficult to trace a reason
why the Psalms should bring to light the bitter
sufferings of the king Messiah, and why earlier ages
should be left comparatively ignorant of such truths.
The Hebrew Church was, under David, passing from
a state of meanness and depression, into one of ease,
1 The transition takes place at
v. 22, and the magnificent picture
of the whole world, as one result
of the deliverance of God's ser–
vant, consecrating themselves to
Jehovah, can only be realised in
Gospel times. Tottov yūp oiââu
étrº too Aa316 ápápºev yeyevn-
plévov, où6è éirí Tuvos Tóv ék
Aag (5. Mévos 3& 6 Aeatrótms
Xploros, 6 €k A285 caté Gépka,
6 évav0p6tmoras Oebs A6-yos, 6 €k
Aaglö Aagöv thu Too Sočxov pop-
qív. II&oſav yap yāv kal 6&Aao-
orav Tàs 9eo'yvogtas ÉTAjipoore,
ical Trétrelice Toys TráWat TA&vo-
puévows, kal Toſs eiðd'Aous trpoo-
q’épovitas Thy Tpooricúvmoriv, &vt.)
Töv oilk iſvray, Töv Švta Trpool-
kvyńoral Oedv. Theodoret, in .
Psalm. xxi.; Opp, Tom. I, 481,
Paris, 1642.
150
Christ and offer Masters.
prosperity and triumph. As a nation they began to
feel their outward and material strength, and there-
fore ran the risk of sinking down into voluptuous
self-security. If the idea of their Messiah had not
been lost entirely, they might still have learned with
many of their children in the days of Christ to picture
Him as nothing but a temporal prince, combining the
military strength of David with the peaceful pomp
of Solomon. Checks were, therefore, given to these
earthly tendencies by stating prominently how David
suffered, and associating with this fact another truth,
that sorrow and humiliation were reserved for his de-
scendant. The unworldly visage of the Crucified
was now uplifted for the study of the Hebrew
Church : the sufferings of Messiah were revealed as
necessary preconditions of His universal empire and
of the glory that should follow.
(2) We shall see, if I mistake not, further illus-
trations of these characteristics, or rather of this law
of prophecy, if we turn to the disastrous age of the
Captivity. How heavy a blow was then inflicted on
the house of David and the hopes of all the Israelites
The kingdom of the ten tribes had been already
“broken from being a people: they had fallen to
the heathen level of impurity and licence, and were
CHAP. III.
Prophecy
tº the age
of the Cap-
tivity.
1 ‘Et encore que le rêgne de humaines comme sa souveraine
ce grand Messie soit souvent
prédit dans les Ecritures sous des
idées magnifiques, Dieu m’a point
caché à David les ignominies de
ce bénit fruit des ses entrailles.
Cette instruction était nécessaire
au peuple de Dieu. Si ce peuple
encore infirme avait besoin d’être
attiré par des promesses tempo-
relles, il ne fallait pas pourtant
lui laisser regarder les grandeurs
félicité et comme son unique ré-
compense : c’est pourquoi Dieu
montre de loin ce Messie tant
promis et tant désiré, le modèle
de la perfection et l'objet de ses
complaisances, abīmé dans la
douleur. La Croix parăit à
David comme le trône véritable
de ce nouveau roi." Bossuet,
Discours sur l'Iſist, Universelle,
Partie II. § 4.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 151
Swallowed up in the Assyrian empire. In the mean-CHAP. III.
while partial reformations of the neighbouring state T
of Judah had in vain put off the evil day; corruption
seemed incarnate in the person of Jehoiachin ; the
Hebrew Church was ripe for chastisement, and ready
to pass under an eclipse: the promises of God were
on the point of abrogation: the visibility of the
theocracy was going to be lost; and all the members
of the Sacred commonwealth abandoned to the grasp
of an imperious and blaspheming power. Yet the
very moment when the prophet Jeremiah was com-
missioned to foretel this dread calamity, when he
published what must have appeared to many the
death-warrant of his nation, was also chosen as the
time for granting to the Church a further glimpse of
blessings to be afterwards her own. The picture of
recovery from the power of Babylon appears to break
entirely through the background of more gloomy
visions, and the menace of the stern reformer ulti-
mately softens down into an evangelic benediction."
Although the royalty of such a ruler as Jehoiachin
must perish, and although his house shall never
prosper, ‘behold the days come, Saith the Lord, that The new
I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a ”
King shall reign and prosper;' like his prototype the
ancient David (2 Sam. viii. 15), “he shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth.” The tribes who
constituted the ideal Church of God shall be hereafter
* Cf. Jerem. xxii. 30 with xxiii, comes to whom the judgment, or
5 sq. In Ezek. xxi. 25–27 we the right, belongs,’ and then would
have the same kind of contrast; follow a time of restoration when
the period of suffering and deso- the mitre and the crown are trans-
lation was to continue only till ferred to Him in all their glory :
the age of the Messiah, “until he cf. above, p. 147, n. 2.
152
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III. reinstated in their lost possessions; the sacred family
The 7tew
Covenant.
shall inherit every blessing that was then associated
with residence in Canaan, and proximity to God
Himself; and so great will be this restoration that
the old deliverance from the land of Egypt will
cease to be the turning-point of Hebrew history. Its
memories will be all absorbed by those of the
Messiah, and the consciousness of true redemption.
After a second passage through the wilderness, a
moral isolation in the desert of the nations (Ezek.
xx. 35, 36), there will be a glorious coming back to
Zion, and a fresh incorporation in the family of God.
But in addition to this general fitness of the shape
assumed by the Messianic promise, its republication
at the time of the Captivity had one peculiar feature.
In the leading prophets of the age (in Jeremiah and
Ezekiel), there are plain allusions to a new occonomy,”
different and distinct from that originally confirmed
with Israel on their exodus from Egypt. In this
new covenant God no longer writes His law extern-
ally, so as to render it a cold series of mandates and
requirements, but imparting first of all the remission
of sins, imparts therewith fresh impulses in aid of
man's obedience, and exalts the character of his wor-
ship by making it spontaneous, the outpouring of a
warm and renovated heart. Nay, such a change was
shewn to be essential in all Israelites who wished for
reinstatement in the favour of Jehovah, and the visible
tokens of His goodness. &
Now what period in the history of the Jews was
more propitious for the inculcation of these truths?
* Jerem. xxxi. 31–34, Ezek. which passages, see Fairbairn's
xxxvi. 22–33, on the latter of Ezekiel, pp. 342 sq.
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 153
So long as they remained in Palestine, so long as the CHAP. III.
continuity of their national existence was unbroken,
and so long as all the ordinances of the Law were
celebrated with their former regularity, the worshipper
might seldom realise the possibility of fundamental
changes in the system under which he lived. But
when the sanctuary itself was levelled with the
ground, when sacrifices were no longer offered, when
the priest and people had been left to mourn the
desolation of their country, some while clinging to
its wretched ruins, others in their lonely musings by
the streams of Babylon, how much was there in an
emergency like this to lift their thoughts above the
legal institutions, and constrain them to reflect on
better things to come ! How local and how limited
those institutions would appear to men, whom change
of place prevented from complying with them How
full of deep suggestions on the differences between
the real and symbolical, the moral and the ceremonial,
the perfect and the partial, the future and the past !
And if we glance at the predictions of Daniel, and
still more at those of Zechariah, we discover how
entirely both these prophets were enabled to detach
themselves from old associations, how the earthly and
material temple is replaced by one not made with
hands; and, in a word, how Christian subjects stand
completely out, and fill the vision of the seer.
Thus in spite of all the sternness of the legal
institute; in spite of all the trials, troubles, and
reverses which befel the race on whom that yoke
had been ‘imposed until the time of reformation,”
no feeling of despondence was ever generated in the
bosom of the Israelites. On the contrary, the elder
154 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. system died in hope; or rather its development was
T closed by giving birth to Christianity. Those in-
numerable threads of golden light, that run through
all the annals of the Hebrew nation, went on increas-
ing both in number and variety, until they met har-
moniously in Him, from whose abundance they had
issued, by whose Spirit they were scattered in the
ancient world, at sundry times, in divers manners.
The grand Subject of prediction came at last. He
took our human nature, died that we might live, and
reigns that we may triumph. He is ‘the Root and
the Offspring of David, and the bright and morning
Star.’ The Christian, therefore, can appropriate
every word of the exalted song which gushed origin-
ally from the heart of one that stood upon the very
confines of the new Oeconomy, and that spoke in sight
of him whose ministry was destined to become the
living link connecting Law and Prophets with the
Gospel: ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He
hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised
up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His
servant David; as He spake by the mouth of His
holy prophets, which have been since the world began.’
If it be found hereafter on a strict examination of
their sacred books and other ancient documents that
nearly all the heathen systems were defective in those
very points which form the leading characteristics of
Revealed Religion: if the general tendency of pagan
thought was in philosophers to pantheism, or the wor-
ship of nature as a whole, and in the many to poly-
theism, or the deification of particular energies of
On the Characteristics of Religion, &c. 155
nature; if sin was there regarded as eternal and as CHAP. III.
necessary, or in other cases as unreal, notwithstanding T
those frequent reclamations of the moral conscious-
ness that drove men to devise new rites of worship,
and to rear new altars in honour of the “un-
known' divinity: if being thus ‘without God in the
world, the heathen were also “without hope, the
victims in their thoughtful moments of distracting
doubts, of abject terror, and of withering desperation,
we may thence derive not only a fresh stock of mo-
tives for disseminating truths that we possess, but
special reasons for abstaining from all heathenish
speculations, and for listening with more docile spirit
to ‘the Oracles of GOD.’
APPENDIX I.
The Absolute Religion.
THE following extracts will give the reader a complete view of Arresp. 1.
the ‘reforms’ demanded by the advocates of what they term ––
‘the absolute religion,” or, ‘the religion of humanity.’ Mr.
Parker has the credit of being, if not their most cultivated,
certainly their most intelligible exponent, and we therefore
draw our first quotations from his works. In his IDiscourse of
Matters pertaining to Religion, (cheap reprint, London, 1850,
pp. 180, 181), he tells us:
‘Christianity agrees generally with all other forms in this,
that it is a religion. Its peculiarity is not in its doctrine of
one Infinite God, of the immortality of man, nor of future
retribution. It is not in particular rules of morality; for
precepts as true and beautiful may be found in heathen writers,
who give us the same view of man's nature, duty and destina-
tion. The great doctrines of Christianity were known long
before Christ; for God did not leave man four thousand years
unable to find out his plainest duty...... Every imperfect form
of Religion was, more or less, an anticipation of Christianity.
So far as a man has real Religion, so far he has Christianity.
This is as old as the human race. By its light Zoroaster,
Confucius, Socrates, with many millions of holy souls, walked
in the early times of the world.’
In an earlier chapter of the same work (pp. 71, 72), Mr.
Parker gives us further insight into the ‘paradise’ of his
religion:
‘In passing judgment on these different religious states
[viz. Fetichism, Polytheism, and Monotheism], we are never to
forget that there is no monopoly of Religion by any nation or
158 Appendia.
APPEND. I. any age. Religion itself is one and the same. He that wor-
T ships truly, by whatever form, worships the Only God. He
hears the prayer, whether called Brahma, Jehovah, Pam, or
Lord; or called by no name at all. Each people has its pro-
phets and its saints; and many a swarthy Indian, who bowed
down to wood and stone—many a grim-faced Calmuck, who
worshipped the great God of storms—many a Grecian peasant,
who did homage to Phoebus-Apollo when the Sun rose or went
down—yes, many a savage, his hands smeared all over with
human sacrifice, shall come forth from the east and west, and
sit down in the Kingdom of God, with Moses and Zoroaster,
with Socrates and Jesus,’ &c.
A later work by the same author, entitled, Theism, Atheism,
and the Popular Theology, Lond. 1853, ‘Introd.’ p. xxvi, con-
tains a fuller development of his eclectic principles:
‘Luther,’ he says, “endeavoured to make new ecclesiastical
raiment for mankind, tired of attempting to mend and wear
the old and ill-fitting clothes of the church, which became only
the worse for botching. In the present time there is the same
problem: to gather from the past, from the Bible, from the
Catholic and Protestant Churches, from Jew and Gentile,
Buddhist, Brahman, and Mahometam, every old truth which
they have got embalmed in their precious treasures; and then
to reach out and upwards towards God and get every new
truth that we can, and join all these together into a whole of
theological truth—then to deepen the consciousness of God in
our own soul, and make the Absolute Religion the daily life
of men.’
Again (pp. 132, 133):
‘As “Christian Theology” professes to be derived from a
verbal revelation of God, represented, by the Church, as the
Catholics say ; by the Scripture, as the Protestants teach,-so
the Absolute Religion is derived from the real revelation of
God, which is contained in the Universe; this outward universe
of matter, this inward universe of man; and I take it we do
not require the learned and conscientious labours of a Lardner,
a Paley, or a Newton, to convince us that the Universe is
genuine and authentic, and is the work of God, without inter-
polation. We all know that. I call this the Absolute Religion,
Appendia. 159
because it is drawn from the absolute and ultimate source; be- APPEND. I.
cause it gives us the Absolute Idea of God, God as Infinite; Tº
and because it guarantees to man his natural rights, and de-
mands the performance of the absolute duties of human nature:
cf. pp. 263,264, where Mr. Parker throws additional light upon
his theory by telling us what he does not believe. The re-
siduum, it appears from that passage, is slight indeed (quoted
above, p. 23).
Mr. W. J. Fox (The Religious Ideas, Lond. 1849) evinces
that he too has departed from the older ‘Unitarian' views, and
set up what he calls a ‘religion of humanity.’ It is substan-
tially the same as Mr. Parker's. He informs us that the source
of all revelation is the ‘moral constitution of human nature, the
human mind and heart’ (p. 66); that religions are not revealers
by virtue of what is peculiar to them, but ‘in what is common
to them with other religions’ (p. 49); adding that ‘what they
have as a peculiarity is something which will ill bear the test of
time, as compared with what is essential.” We are afterwards
told that his religion of humanity is not subordinated to the
influences of climate, but is always the same, is found wherever
man is found, ‘common in sense and reason, thought and feel-
ing, mind and heart:’ that ‘it is free from the collisions which
ever attend specific theologies,’ &c. (pp. 166, 167).
The same general principles pervade the different writings of
Mr. R. W. Mackay, being enunciated in the most startling form
at the commencement of his Sketch of the Rise and Progress
of Christianity, Lond. 1854. He tells us, for example, that
‘to the truths already uttered in the Athenian prison, Christ-
ianity added little or nothing, except a few symbols, which
though perhaps well calculated for popular acceptance, are more
likely to perplex than to instruct, and offer the best opportunity
for priestly mystification’ (pp. 19, 20).
Again (p. 21):
“If Christianity so much resembles its antecedents, con-
taining positively nothing which may not be satisfactorily
accounted for as a spontaneous development of thought or
natural requirement of the mind and heart, why unfairly divorce
it from historical analogies; why need we be astonished, or
allow our astonishment to represent as marvellous or miraculous
160 Appendia.
APPEND. I. a modification rendered inevitable, and which indeed was already
T pre-established in the mind before Christianity supplied a symbol
for expressing it.’
But the very ablest organ by which the principles of the
Absolute Religion are advocated in this country is the West-
minster Review. A favourable specimen is subjoined:
‘It is not the presence of God in antiquity, but his presence
only there, not his inspiration in Palestime, but his withdrawal
from every spot besides, not his supreme and unique expression
in Jesus of Nazareth, but his absence from every other human
medium,_against which these writers protest. They feel that
the usual Christian advocate has adopted a marrow and even
irreligious ground; that he has not found a satisfactory place
in the Divine scheme of human affairs for the great Pagan
world; that he has presumptuously branded all history but one
as “profane”; that he has not only read it without sympathy
and reverence, but has used it chiefly as a foil to shew off the
beauty of evangelic truth and holiness, and so has dwelt only on
the inadequacy of its philosophy, the deformity of its morals,
the degenerate features of its social life; that he has forgotten
the Divine infinitude when he assumes that Christ's plenitude
of the Spirit implies the emptiness of Socrates. In their view,
he has rashly undertaken to prove, not one positive fact, La
revelation of Divine truth in Galilee;—but an infinite negative;
—no inspiration anywhere else. To this negation and to this
alone is their remonstrance addressed. They do not deny a
theophany in the gift of Christianity; but they deny two very
different things, viz. 1, That this is the only theophany; and 2,
That this is theophany alone; that is, they look for some divine
elements elsewhere, and they look for some human here. It is
not therefore a smaller, but a larger, religious obligation to
history, which they are anxious to establish; and they remain
in company with the Christian advocate so long as his devout
and gentle mood continues; and only quit him when he enters
on his sceptical antipathies.” (July, 1852, pp. 203, 204.)
It is instructive to place in contrast with these views of
Christianity the main positions of one of its more learned
assailants before the birth of Spiritualism and the discovery of
the Absolute Religion.
Appendix. 161
Dupuis, Origine de tous les Cultes (new ed. Paris, 1822, p. APPEND. I.
181, 182) after citing examples of correspondency between the T
doctrines and ceremonies of Hebraism and those of the Persian
religion, as represented by Hyde, proceeds as follows : * Il nous
suffit des traits que nous avons rassemblés pour faire voir qu'il
n'y a rien de nouveau dans la secte des Chrétiens, rien qui soit
à elle, et qu'elle a absolument le caractère de toutes les religions
orientales et en particulier de celle des Perses, à laquelle nous
la rapportons comme à sa source. Nous nous sommes attachés
à saisir le caractère ou le génie original des religions des grands
peuples de l'Asie et de l'Afrique, des Egyptiens, Phéniciens,
Arabes, Phrygiens et Perses, parceque c'est du sein de ces
peuples qu'est sortie la religion de Christ, dont le berceau est en
Orient et presque au centre des mations ci-dessus nommées.'
* Nous avons vu que la grande divinité de ces pays était le
soleil adoré sous différens noms, Osiris en Égypte, Bacchus en
Arabie, Adonis en Phénicie, Atys en Phrygie, Mithra en Perse,
etc. Nous avons observé que, dans toutes ces religions, le Dieu-
soleil était personnifié', &c.
He afterwards undertakes to establish the agreement between
the Christian and other " mythologies'in point of doctrine, not
ascribing it to any necessary evolution of human thought, but
rather to external derivation :
* Nous ferons voir également que la théologie des Chrétiens
est fondée sur les mêmes principes que celles des païens,
Égyptiens, Grecs, Chaldéens, Indiens, et qu'elle renferme les
mêmes idées que celles qui faisaient partie de la métaphysique
universellement reçue quand le christianisme a paru. On
reconnaîtra que leurs docteurs parlent le même langage qu'on
parlait dans les écoles les plus fameuses de ce siècle-là, en sorte
que la religion des Chrétiens, dans sa partie théologique comme
dans sa partie cosmologique, n'a rien que n'appartienne aux
autres religions, et qui ne s'y retrouve bien des siècles avant
l'établissement du christianisme, et cela de l'aveu des auteurs
chrétiens, de leurs pères qui nous fournissent presque toutes les
autorités sur lesquelles est appuyée notre démonstration. Ainsi,
nous pouvons dire à juste titre : Nil sub sole novum.' (p. 192.)
VOL, I. - | |
PART II.
RELIGIONS OF INDIA.
RELIGIONS OF INDIA.
CEIAPTER I.
Varieties of Religious Thought among the Hindús.
3. * / * * s xy * w ** /
Ev Tij oroqíg toi, Ogot, oùic ēyva, 6 ſcóagos 61& Tàs Goſpías Tov ©eóv.
THE European who first fought his way across the CHAP. I.
passes leading to the north of India was Alexander tº
the Great. As early as the summer of 327 B.G. his º.º.
veterans rested one whole month upon the banks of India.
the Hydaspes. But although an opportunity was
thus afforded to the band of scientific Greeks, who
joined his expedition, for investigating the religions
of the Panjāb and for studying the peculiar genius
of the vanquished, the reports which they have left
us on these questions are extremely meagre and un-
critical. The honour of unlocking that mysterious
treasure-house in which the literary wealth of India
had been hoarded up from prehistoric ages was re-
served for other conquerors.
Nor, if Aristotle had himself attended his heroic
pupil, is it likely that our knowledge of the primitive
history of Hindústán would be materially augmented.
Doubtless an experienced eye, like the Stageirite's,
would have noted with especial interest and intelli-
166
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. gence the aspects of the physical world thus opened
to the eager gaze of the Hellenes. The grandeur
of the mountain-scenery, culminating in the Snow-
crowned summits of the Hindú-Kāsh, the richness
of the foliage, the fertility of the soil, the mighty
forests, the luxuriant rivers, the prodigious size and
the grotesque proportions of the animals and plants,
would all in turn have furnished topics for reflection
and comparison to the mind of such a traveller. He
would have probably assisted also in determining the
physiological characteristics of the native population,
and while remarking, as did others, the dyed beard,
the tunic of white linen, the ornaments of gold and
ivory, the timid air and almost feminine softness of
the men, their passionate love of music, juggling, and
gymnastics, have enabled us to speak more definitely
in reference to their moral elevation and the nature
of their intellectual training. He might further have
investigated more at length the contrasts which al-
ready marked the different orders of Hindú society,
such, for instance, as the distribution into castes, or
the specific points of difference then observable be-
tween the courtly and accomplished ‘Bráchman,’ and
the anchoret who mortified the flesh amid the silence
and discomforts of the jungle. Nay, it is conceivable
that a mind which mastered the whole compass of
Hellenic wisdom, might have been able to anticipate
some triumphs of the modern ethnologist; he might
have traced those common elements of thought and
feeling, language and mythology, which, binding
Greek and Persian and Hindú together, pointed back-
wards to the early dawn of civilisation and the cradle
of the human family.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 167
Yet, high as were the expectations not unnaturally CHAP. I.
raised by Alexander's expedition, one peculiarity in ºn
the mental constitution of Hindús prevented both ical cha-
the ancients and ourselves from gaining any accurate º
knowledge of their aboriginal condition. Rich as ”.
their literature is found to be in other products, it
has never given birth to formal histories;" and what
is even more remarkable, the Hindú scholar is de-
ficient in those very qualities which indicate the pre-
sence of historic consciousness. He gazes with a
cold, if not contemptuous, spirit on the vanities of
Sense and time, and therefore is disposed to treat all
questions of chronology with arrogant indifference.
He lives, or rather dreams away his lifetime, in the
midst of intellectual problems, labouring hard to
measure the immeasurable, to circumscribe the ab-
solute. Compared with such recondite speculations,
every incident of life is a mere ripple on the bound-
less ocean, as fleeting, as phenomenal. What now
is, may, for ought he cares, have been a thousand
times already, and may frequently come round afresh.
The object of his interest is reunion with Divinity,
a reabsorption of the finite soul into the primal source
of being ; and that destiny, according to the various
1 The only exception is the
JRája Taringini, a quasi-historical
account of Kashmir; and even
this, according to Prof. Wilson
(Asiatic Researches, xv. I sq.),
dates no higher than the XIIth
century after Christ. We are
elsewhere told by the same au-
thority, that the ancient (Bráh-
manical) records of India have
scarcely enabled us to determine
more than one important histori-
cal fact, viz. the identity of Chan-
dragupta, one of the kings of
Magadha, with the Sandracottus,
or Sandracoptus, of the Greek
writers. The reign of the latter
monarch began about 312 B.C.;
whereas if any credit were con-
ceded to the list of dynasties pre-
served in the Purárias, this event
would have to be placed 1200
years earlier (Lassen, Indische
Alterthumskunde, I. 501, Bonn,
1847).
168
Christ and other Masters.
CIIAP. III.
Jºactreme
theories 0%
the date of
JPIM2dſ,
civilisation?.
creeds of Hindústán, implies obliviousness in reference
to all earthly knowledge, and entire abstraction from
all shadows and illusions of the past.
Now, whether it is exclusively owing to the oper-
ation of such feelings that the literary monuments of
Hindústán are seldom found to be available for his–
torical purposes, I do not venture to determine. But
this may be affirmed with certainty, that if the annals
of India were less blank and barren, modern Europe
would have been far less bewildered than it is by
theories and counter-theories. Here, as in like cases,
where the evidence is dim and fragmentary at the
best, imagination is too often suffered to take wing,
and even to usurp the throne of history.
On one side we have seen a race of orientalists
so dazzled by the brilliance of their own discoveries,
so intoxicated by the novelty and beauty of the
region into which they were the first to penetrate,
that India is for them the fountain of all wisdom
and the mother of all civilisation. Glowing with
this fancy, they are anxious to persuade us that in
ages long before the birth of Moses or Sesostris, a
religious system which has since remained well-nigh
immutable, was fabricated by the genius of some
Hindú rishi on the banks of the Yamunā, or in the
plain of the Ganges; and that thither we must go
if we desire to find the master-key which can alone
explain the mysteries of later systems, which alone
can solve the problems of our spiritual nature, and
give back to western states the uncorrupted form of
Christianity." *
! See, for instance, Holwell's Bramins, &c. (Lond. 1779). This
Original Principles of the ancient writer glories in the name of
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
169
On the other side it has been vigorously con- CHAP. I.
tended, for example in the school of Niebuhr," that
the civilisation of India is both modern and derived—
a thing of yesterday, if we compare it with the
mental history of some other nations. The Hindús,
when vanquished by the troops of Alexander, and
described by Megasthenes, had (so these writers
argue) recently emerged from utter barbarism ; they
were kinsmen of the ‘black and savage Indians,'
whom we meet with in the pages of Herodotus;
while Sanskrit literature, for which the opposite
school asserted an unfathomable antiquity, had bor-
rowed all its choicer portions from Greek treatises
imported by the Arabs in the middle ages.
But truth, we now are justified in stating, was True state
extreme positions. When """
equidistant from these two
‘Orthodox Christian Deist' (p. 91),
and claims direct affinity with the
Hindús, who ‘from the earliest
times have been an ornament to
the creation,’ on the ground that
both he and they are strict mono-
theists. He deems the Bráhman-
ical religion the first and purest
product of a supernatural revela-
tion. The Hindú scriptures, he
supposes, contain, “to a moral
certainty, the original doctrines
and terms of restoration, delivered
from God himself, by the mouth
of his first-created Birmah, to
mankind, at his first creation in
the form of man’ (p. 71). Ac-
cording to Holwell's theory, our
blessed Lord was a reappearance
of “Birmah,” but the exact sub-
stance of His teaching can be
no longer ascertained, owing to
grievous corruptions and disfigure-
ments which it was made to
undergo at the hands of the apos-
tles and their followers.
* “This opinion concerning the
antiquity of Indian civilisation,
which has sprung up especially
within the last forty years [Nie-
buhr wrote as far back as 1830],
is, indeed, spreading farther and
gaining stability. I cannot decide
upon it, and cannot say what it is
founded upon; but from the as-
surance of a very competent En-
glishman, I believe that people
will soon come to the conviction,
as some highly competent persons
have already done, that all the
alleged knowledge of the Indians
does not by any means belong to
the centuries of Moses and Sesos-
tris, to which it has been assigned,
but that the greater part of their
literature belongs to the middle
ages; that for the most part it is
borrowed from the Greek, through
the medium of Arabic transla-
tions,’ &c. : Lectures on Ancient
Iſistory, I. I38.
170
Christ and other Masters.
Crap. I, the first intoxication of the orientalist was over; when
the monuments of ancient India were decyphered by
a race of scholars more sagacious than a Holwell and
less credulous than a Woltaire; when fresh materials
had been disinterred in various quarters, and a flood
of light had broken unexpectedly into this field of
literature from China and Nepāl on one side, and
Ceylon upon the other; random guesses were ex-
changed for logical deductions, and philosophizing
tamed or baffled by the stubborn strength of facts.
It was now obvious, that if Hindús were not his-
torians their religion had a history; that this religion,
far from being uniform and stationary in its character,
had undergone a series of important changes, not to
say of revolutions; that instead of being a spontaneous
product of the soil of Hindústán, and therefore un-
connected in its growth with other ancient systems,
, the original Hindúism bore in every feature the most
legible indications of a northern parentage, and indi-
cations which connect the elements of its mythology,
as well as of its speech, with other sections of the
‘Indo-European’ family.
The phases of religious thought which the im-
mediate object of the present work has made it
necessary for me to examine, are reducible under
three descriptions:
1. Wédaism, or the Waidic religion.
2. Bráhmanism. 8
3. Schools of Hindú philosophy, including Budd-
hism.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
171
Védaism.
§ 1.
It is now almost universally admitted that to
ascertain the basis of Hindú civilisation, or rather,
to become acquainted with the earliest utterances of
the Hindú religion, we must have recourse directly
to the class of sacred books entitled Védas." Here
I take my stand, and without entering very far into
particulars either as to the theology which they con-
tain, or the precise date of their composition, I shall
try to give the reader such a general view of both as
for the present purpose will be found sufficiently ap-
proximate.
Two remarks are necessary at the outset.
First, I shall exclude from this inquiry all reference
to the aboriginal (i.e. non-Aryan) tribes of India.
The Wédas have been ever the possession of one
dominant race,”—a race which, having crossed the
* See Colebrooke's Essay On
the Védas, or Sacred Writings of
the Hindús, first published in the
Asiatic Researches, VIII. 377–497.
They are four in number, and are
denominated the Rig-Véda, the
Yajur-Véda, the Sáma-Véda, and
the Atharva-Véda. The Rig-
Wéda (Wéda of Praise) is the one
genuine collection. The Sáma-
Wéda is only a short extract from
the Rig-Véda, containing such
hymns as had to be chanted
during the sacrifice. The Yajur-
Wéda is a similar manual intended
for another class of priests, who
had to mutter certain hymns of
the Rig-Véda, together with in-
vocations and other sacrificial for-
mulas. The Sanskrit text of the
Rig-Véda is being edited by Prof.
Max Müller : it has also been
translated in part by Prof. Wil-
son, and entirely by M. Langlois.
The White Yajur-Véda is edited,
with a translation, by Prof. Weber
of Berlin. The Sáma-Véda is
edited, with a translation, first by
Mr. Stevenson, and secondly by
Prof. Benfey of Göttingen. The
fourth Wéda, though some of its
materials are more recent, is re-
garded by the Hindús themselves
as of co-ordinate authority. It
has just been edited by Prof.
Roth and Mr. Whitney. Sup-
plementary works in illustration
of the texts of the Wédas have also
been published. Especially valu-
able is the Nirukta, an original
glossary and commentary which
has been also edited by Prof.
Roth : Göttingen, 1852.
* On the origin of the Hindús
CHAP. I.
172
Christ and other Masters.
Ç
CHAP. I. Indian Alps at some remote period, was gradually
diffused into the Panjāb, and ultimately over a large
portion of the whole Peninsula. Who and what was
the ‘barbarian' (mléchchha) they drove out before
them; who and what the abject serf, or Südra, they
had forcibly converted to their own religion, are ex-
traneous questions, interesting in themselves, but not
admissible within the limits of the present survey."
Secondly, I ought to mention that in forming
an estimate of the Wédas, my materials have been
gathered from the oldest portion of those treatises,
the Védas proper, and not from Bráhmanas and
Upanishads, in which the Vaidic doctrines are
idealised and systematically developed by later
For although many of these productions
hands.”
and their gradual occupation of
India, see Lassen, Ind. Alterth.
I. 5 II sq. They distinguished
themselves from other ancient
tribes by the name Arya = ‘no-
ble,” “well-born,' a designation
Originally belonging also to the
Medes ("Aptol, Herod. VII. 62),
and afterwards preserved in the
district Ariana, and in the modern
Ari and Arikh, applied by the
Armenians to the natives of Media.
Is àrya derived from arya ‘a
householder,’ originally used as
the name of the third caste or the
Vaiśyas, who formed the great
bulk of the immigrants or new
settlers. [Cf. Max Müller, The
Science of Language, pp. 240 Sq.
Lond. 1862.] See further illus-
trations in Lassen, I. 6 sq., and
Dr. Donaldson's New Cratylus,
pp. 118, I 19, 2nd ed. The former
of these authorities asserts (p.
511) that we find no traces of
their foreign extraction in the
ancient literature of the Hindús
themselves; but he is here not
quite accurate, as Weber pointed
out in his Indische Studien, 2tes
Eleft, 1850, p. 165.
* See Appendix I. at the end
of this. Part.
* These treatises are (1) the
Brähmañas, commentaries partly
liturgical and partly theological
in their character, containing, it
would seem, a much fuller devel-
opment of the Brähmanical sys-
tem, and (2) the Upanishads, a
kind of supplement to other sacred
books. Speaking generally, each
Wéda may be said to consist of
two parts, the Mantras, or prayers,
and the Brähmañas, or treatises:
Colebrooke, as above, pp. 387, 388
(cf. also Des Védas, par M. J. B.
Saint-Hilaire, pp. 16, 11, Paris,
1854). All the Brähmańas are
believed in point of time to lie
between the Wédas on the one
side, and the heroic poems on the
other; and Professor Wilson, ar-
guing from internal evidence,
seems to have made it not impro-
bable that one of the number, the
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
173
are said to breathe the spirit of the Wédas, and al- CHAP. I.
though some of them may fairly claim, on philological
and other grounds, a very high antiquity, it is im-
possible with our present knowledge to determine
their exact position in reference to the sacred texts
which they interpret.
Of the documents which Hindús have always held The chief
in special veneration, the Rig-Véda is the first and
foremost. It contains as many as 1017 ‘mantras,’
*.e. canticles and prayers. These, with slight ex-
ceptions, are religious in their character. About one
half of them are found to be addressed either to
Indra, the god of light,” or Agni, the god of fire;”
who therefore occupy the foremost place in the my-
Aitaréya Brähmafia (which, how-
ever, is not, he maintains, an in-
tegral part of the Rig-Véda) was
Written as far back as the sixth
century before the Christian era:
see Journal of the Asiatic Society,
XIII. Io;. The Wéda alone is
called Śruti, or revelation; every-
thing else, however Sacred, can
only claim the title of Smriti, or
tradition. The revelation was
supposed to be handed down by
inspired rishis, till at last it
reached the minds of common
believers, and was accepted by
them as absolute truth. Few
Brähmans at the present day can
read and understand the Wéda.
They know little more of it than
a few hymns and prayers. In-
stead of the Véda, they read the
Laws of Manu, the six systems of
philosophy, the Purānas and the
Tantras.
1 Indra, the Hindú Jupiter, is
not unfrequently styled ‘lord of
heaven,” (divaspati = diespiter).
The name ‘Indra’ is itself of
doubtful origin, meaning either
(1) “blue' (an epithet of the fir-
mament), or (2) “the illuminator,”
or (3) “the giver of rain:” Wuttke,
Gesch. des Heidenthums, II. 242,
Breslau, 1853. His attributes,
though for the most part terrible
in their manifestation, are essen-
tially creative or productive, and
sometimes absolutely beneficent ;
as when he is said to chase away
evil spirits from the clouds, or
send refreshing showers upon the
earth, in spite of the malevolence
of Writra or Abi, the demon who
withholds them.
* The Agni (= Ignis) of the
Wédas is not so much the god
presiding over the element of fire,
as the element of fire itself, con-
sidered partly as the vivifying
principle of vegetation, and partly
as a destructive agent. ‘Agni ist
die dem Indra gegentiberstehende
Naturmacht: Indra erzeugt das
Leben, Agniverzehrtes.” Wuttke,
Ibid, p. 241 ; cf. however, Prof.
Wilson, Rig-Véda, Vol. 1. ‘In-
trod.’ p. xxvii.
gods of the
Védas.
174
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. I. thology of the Wédas.
The next divinity to which
a certain prominence appears to be awarded is Wa-
ruña, the god of water; but none of these can be
distinguished absolutely from a multitude of other
gods, which either act as representatives of the chief
divinities, and so are Indra, Agni, and Waruña with
different names, or else appear as deifications of
some single aspect in the powers and processes of
nature. Trinity or triad there is none." Much less
can we observe among the ancient hymns of India
a complete and systematic theogony. The Vaidic
gods are for the most part isolated beings, shadowy
and impersonal energies, as multiform in character
and manifestation as the elements with which they
are connected, not to say identified. The earliest
grouping of them into a system must be dated from
the subsequent period,” when the image of one, holy,
personal Creator being broken more and more, and
fading more and more completely from the Hindú
mind, it was attempted to regain the thought of
unity, which man was sadly conscious he had lost,
by calling to his aid the light of metaphysics and the
generalisations of natural philosophy. -
The doctrine of one great First-Cause was not
| Those writers who labour to
establish that the Hindús have
worshipped a triad of divinities
from the very earliest period, give
the second or third place in it to
Varuña (Oipavós): Wuttke, Ibid.
p. 243. He is, in their view, the
preserving and directing agent of
the Vaidic system, the sphere of
his operation lying between those
of Indra and Agni. It deserves
to be further noted, that as far
back as the Wédas, Sexual dis-
tinctions were attributed to the
gods. Each of the three leading
divinities is attended by a wife,
who reflects his own special en-
ergy:—Indráñí, Waruñáñi, Ag-
náví.
* “In der Wédischen Götterlehre
findet sich kein System, obwohl
Indra schon der mâchtigste der
Götter ist:’ Lassen, I. 768. He
then sketches the oldest systematic
representations as we find them
in the Nirukta.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
175
indeed, as we shall see hereafter, absolutely banished
from the heart of bards and rishis; yet their extant
hymns should satisfy the most incredulous that the
idea of God as one, Supreme, and spiritual, never
formed a prominent article in the early creeds of
India. It retired far-off into the background. It
seldom operated as a principle of life. It was the
feeble and expiring echo of an older and a purer
revelation; and even where it shewed its power at
all, where Indra for the moment was absorbed com-
pletely by some brighter and more spiritual being,
the God of whom such visions preached was not a
thinking, willing, loving Spirit, personal and self-
conscious, ruling over nature as His work and as the
Father of the spirits of all flesh, but rather a great
That," a neuter abstract, separable from the world
of matter in idea, but not in essence; spiritualised
indeed, but spiritualised, ennobled, deified by the
poetic faculty of the worshipper. He was a nature-
god, and not the God of nature. .*
1. Accordingly if we proceed to analyse the psy-
chological peculiarities, which tended to project that
early creed of the Hindú, the point which strikes
us most is the profound devotion he had always paid
to natural phenomena. This tendency he manifested
in common with all nations of remote antiquity; for
though we cannot trace the Áryan backwards to his
1 The Sanskrit word (Tad) is
literally That. And the same
idea was in all probability ex-
pressed by the mystic monosylla-
ble Om (aum), by which the
hymns of the Védas were uni-
formly prefaced. Some writers,
referring the three letters to a
triad of the elements, explain a of
Agni (fire), w of Varuña (water),
and m of Marut (wind): but the
true etymology of the word ap-
pears to be suggested by the old
Persian ‘avam' (= aum), mean-
ing ‘That': see Lassen, I. 775,
Il. 3.
CHAP. I.
Plow far
the idea of
wnity was
7'etained.
Growth of
Pſindú
polythe-
«sm iſ
176
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. I. haunts in central Asia, nor speak positively of the
effect produced upon him by the savage scenery of
those regions he had traversed in the course of his
migrations, it is certain that on crossing the Hindú
Alps he bowed at once in adoration of the new and
beauteous world to which he was transplanted. The
earthly bias of the spirit had received fresh impulses;
the witchery exercised upon the senses was entire
and irresistible. How potent were such impulses,
how absolute such fascination in the other tribes of
western Asia, may be gathered from the noble protest
of the patriarch : ‘If I beheld the sun when it shined,
or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart
hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed
my hand; this also were an iniquity to be punished
by the judge; for I should have denied the God that
is above' (Job xxxi. 26–28). And like the patriarch
in sensibility, though not in fear and reverence,
were the authors of the sacred books of Hindústán.
The ‘golden-handed' sun, dispensing as the lord of
heaven his gifts of radiance and fertility; the starry
firmament, inspiring awe and deepening wonder; the
freshness of the morning and the calm of evening
twilight, whispering in man's heart of Supernatural
genii; Season following season, and One element com-
mingling with another; the scorching wind, the light-
nings flashing forth in majesty and armed with speedy
vengeance, rain and dew and drought, these all ex-
cited in their turn the sentiments of pain or pleasure,
joy or sadness, confidence or apprehension. All were
felt to indicate the presence of invisible powers, at
peace or else at enmity with man, and therefore
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
177
recognised as objects worthy of his prayers.” Such CHAP. I.
veneration of the elements may not indeed have con-T
sciously involved the worshipper at first in a denial
of God's sovereignty. He may have read in them
the tokens, symbols, agents of a spiritual Intelligence.
The harmony of natural laws, the wondrous and ma-
jestic revolution of the stars and planets, most of all
the glorious element of light from which the Aryan
borrowed the generic name of his divinities, may
have, at least to elevated minds, suggested other and
far higher spheres, of which the present world is only
a distorted copy and a feeble adumbration. Yet ere *
long a change came over men's ideas; the golden nº.
thread was broken which connected ‘the invisible
things of God, His power, His righteousness, His
personality, His fatherhood, with objects that solicit
and bewitch the senses.
Popular imagination ulti-
1 ‘It is the peculiar character
of the Indian mythology to com-
bine a gigantic wildness of phan-
tasy, and a boundless enthusiasm
for nature, with a deep mystical
import, and a profound philosophic
sense.’ F. von Schlegel, Phil. of
Hist, p. 154, Lond. I847.
* Déva, nom. dévas (= deus,
6eós, Goth, titas, A. S. tiw) is de-
rived from the Sansk. deva, “lu-
minous,” “resplendent’ (cf. Sub
divo);-an etymology which of
itself suggests the leading feature
of Hindú polytheism. Light, ac-
cordingly, became the aptest sym-
bol of the Divine Being. Thus
the Gáyatri, or holiest verse of
the Wédas, is addressed to the
sun-god, and contains the follow-
ing passage among others: ‘Let
us meditate on the adorable light
of the divine sun (Savitri) : may
it guide our intellects. Desirous
of food, we solicit the gift of the
VOL. I.
splendid sun (Savitri), who should
be studiously worshipped. Vene-
rable men, guided by the under-
standing, salute the divine sun
(Savitri) withoblations and praise.”
Asiat. Researches, VIII. 4oo: cf.
Wuttke, II. 260—262, where other
evidence is adduced to shew that
the Sun was at first regarded as
an image in the visible world
of what the Supreme Essence is
in the world invisible. ‘Perhaps,’
says Ritter (Hist, of Ancient Phi-
losophy, I. 92, Oxf. 1838), ‘there
is nothing more instructive in
Indian archaeology than (so to
express ourselves) the transparency
of their mythology, which permits
us to perceive how, with a general
sense of the divine, the coexistence
of a special recognition thereof in
the separate phenomena of nature
was possible, and how out of the
conception of the one God, a belief
in a plurality of gods could arise.”
12
178
Chrisł &nd offer Masters.
CHAP. I.
mately believed its own allegories, and not only so,
but construed them according to the letter. The
mythe became an object not of fancy but of faith;
and the relations of natural and supernatural being
thus inverted and obscured, the law was substituted
for the Legislator, and the Giver hidden from men's
eyes by the effulgence and the multiplicity of His
gifts.
In other words, the Wédas, taken as a whole,
reveal to us an aspect of religious feeling, always
bordering upon pantheism, often passing quite across
the border. Wheresoever in the world around him
the Hindú observed extraordinary manifestations of
the brilliant or the beautiful, the barren or prolific,
the sombre or the terrible; wherever the action of
the elements was such as to produce extraordinary
effects upon himself, his children, or his property,
he betrayed the consciousness of his dependence by
some special act of homage. He acknowledged in
such powers the presence of divinity; he called the
influence which affected him or his a déva (‘deus');
it was pregnant for the time with a divine or diabolic
efficacy, and therefore it became a fitting object of
desire or dread, of adoration or of deprecation, accord-
ing to the aspects it assumed in reference to the wor-
shipper. Hence, also, every province of creation was
soon peopled by spiritual energies, all varying in
their character with human hopes and fears, with
human interests and passions. Nay, so far was the
Elindú impelled in this direction that he deified the
sacrifice itself,’ from which he hoped to profit; he
JHow far
pantheistic.
1 For example, the hymns com- Rig-Véda are addressed to Soma,
prising one whole Section of the the milky juice of the moon-plant
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 179
worshipped his own offering, he worshipped the CHAP. I.
solemn form of words by which his offering was
accompanied. -
But although these objects had been each invested The Wada-
by imagination with a kind of personality, the dévas º, Żn
of the Hindú populace, throughout the Vaidic period, individual-
were little more than formless powers and colourless Číž/.
abstractions. Human properties, it is true, were
frequently ascribed to them: it was believed that
even gods are ultimately mortal, and can only pur-
chase an exemption from the common lot by drinking
of the potent amrita, the draught of immortality;
yet how vague was the impression made by this or
that particular god we gather from the fact that the
same element is connected at different times with
different divinities; the names are interchanged, the
powers confounded with each other; and thus, owing
to the want of individuality, the veneration of the
ancient gods grew obsolete; their memory vanished
with the phases of society from which they had
emerged, or with the momentary gushings of religious
sentiment in some peculiar locality. Even Indra,
occupying as he did the foremost place among the
group of Vaidic gods, and wielding powers, as it
would seem, identical with those of the Supreme
(asclepias acida), which the wor-
shipper had learnt to deify. Thus,
in Langlois's translation (Tome I.
p. 174) the following is the last
petition of such a prayer: “Dieu
fort, 6 Soma, que ta divine pru-
dence nous accorde la part de
richesses (que nous désirons)
Combats pour mous; personne ne
peut lutter contre toi. Tu es le
maître de la force, et régnes Sur
les deux partis: donne-nous la
supériorité dansla bataille.” This
deification of the Soma is still
more prominent in the Sāma-
Wéda.
* As early as the Rig-Véda,
the Soma sacrifice is called am-
vita (= ‘immortal'); and in a
secondary sense the liquor which
communicates immortality (Ibid.
p. 173).
180
Christ and other Masiers.
CHAP. I.
The moral
tone of the
Védas.
Being, is, nevertheless, presented in the Rig-Véda
as the offspring of Aditi, the mother of the universe;
the dignities with which he is invested are equally
ascribed to Agni, Rudra, and the rest; while, in the
next period of Hindú mythology, the same Indra
is depressed into a deity of the second order; his
heaven (or “swarga') is only fourth in rank among
the bright localities, entitled superhuman, and even
his throne itself is rendered insecure. He has to
tremble at the prospect of still further humiliation,
if, peradventure, some daring mortal shall complete
the horse-sacrifice, or qualify himself for ruling in
the place of Indra by extraordinary acts of penance.
Such are the indefinite forms and such the varying
aspects of Hindú polytheism at the early stage of its
development.
2. But if the Wédas thus abound with indications
that the worshipper in ancient times was gifted only
with a superficial consciousness of one Almighty God,
and if the texture of his hymns and prayers were
such as to obscure that consciousness still further
by interposing an innumerable crowd of fresh divini-
ties, we are prepared to find a corresponding deterio-
ration in his moral and religious sentiments. And
such is really the case. The physical attributes of
God and of Superior genii are confessed and vene-
rated; but the traces of belief in His moral govern-
ment are only few and indistinct.” The worshipper,
for instance, moved by some good fortune has pre-
pared his eucharistic offering, the oiled butter or the
* Langlois, II, 238; cf. III. 42, pp. 172, 173, who corroborates
492. this inference.
* See Saint-Hilaire, Des Pédas,
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
181
juices of a sacred plant; he bends in supplication; CHAP. I.
he invites his favourite god to come and taste of his
abundance. Winds and fire and sunlight, these are
all profusely welcomed to the banquet; but the God
of nature, He who framed the world and reigns
supreme above the elements, appears to have been
utterly overlooked; He has no part in the oblation,
except, perhaps, allusion to Him be intended in that
solemn muttering (Om), by which the ceremony is
preceded. Or, again, the worshipper is overwhelmed
by sorrow and perplexity; his hopes are blasted or
his fortune wrecked, and with the spirit of a famished
menial he determines to apply for aid and compen-
sation to some fresh divinity. His voice, which
quivers with emotion, has at length found utterance
in a passionate prayer; yet what that prayer in al-
most every case solicits is exemption from the phy-
sical ills of life, a fuller and more sparkling cup of
temporal prosperity. Large and healthy families, cows
and horses, fertile pastures, bounteous harvests, victory
over public and domestic foes, are found to be the
leading, not to say the solitary topics in the supplica-
tions of the Védas. We shall look in vain for peni-
tential psalms, or hymns commemorating the descent
of spiritual benefits.
This want of moral sensibility, this slowness to Imperfect
admit the presence and malignity of moral evil, and
the holiness of Him with whom we have to do, is not
by any means peculiar to the creed of Hindústán.
If prayers suggested in the Wédas differed in some
points from those of the adjacent countries, all such
differences were only matters of degree. If Persia,
for example, soon discovered that the greatest strug-
conscious-
hess of sin.
18
A-l
9 -
e
Chrisł and offer Masters.
CHAP. I. gles which affect humanity are not the struggles of
the sun and clouds, the waters and the winds, but
struggles raging in the breast of living men between
the elements of light and darkness, and the powers
of good and evil, it is notwithstanding an indisputable
fact that even in the brighter spots of ancient heathen-
dom the supplications offered to the gods are nearly
always prompted by the wish for temporal prosperity."
Exceptions there would doubtless be, since the con-
viction of man's moral bondage is inseparable from
himself, and cannot be obliterated in the lowest
depths of sensuality. Accordingly we may discover
here and there examples bearing witness to the glim-
merings of such consciousness as far back as the
earliest prayers of the Védas. ‘O Varuña, by our
invocations, by our sacrifices, by our holocausts, we
desire to turn away thine anger. Come, thou giver
of life; relieve us, prudent king, from our offences.”
* “They are supplicated to con-
fer temporal blessings upon the
worshipper, riches, life, posterity;
the short-sighted vanities of hu-
man desire, which constituted the
sum of heathen prayer in all hea-
then countries.’ Prof. Wilson,
Lectures, pp. 9, Io, Oxf. 1840,
Stuhr, Die Religions-Systeme der
heidnischen Völker des Orients,
Berlin, 1836, ‘Binleitung,” p. xii,
has pointed out the strong con-
trast in this particular between
the worship of the heathem and
the Christian; and indeed of all
the extant heathen prayers a very
small fraction only are offered in
the hope of calling down moral
or spiritual benefits. An example
of the latter may be seem in Creu-
zer's Symbolik, IV. 629, Leipzig,
1842.
* Rig-Véda, ed. Langlois, I. 41.
In a subsequent hymn (Ibid. I.
79) there are also allusions to
moral turpitude; but the last
verse is differently rendered by
Saint-Hilaire (Des Védas, p. 56).
I am very glad to find myself
again supported in the view here
taken of the Védas by the high
authority of Prof. Wilson, who,
after mentioning some other pecu-
liarities, remarks: ‘There is little
demand for moral benefactions,
although, in some few instances,
hatred of untruth and abhorrence
of sin are expressed; a hope, is
uttered that the latter may be re-
pented of or expiated; and the
gods are in one hymn solicited to
extricate the worshipper from sin
of every kind.” “Introd.” to his
translation of the Rig-Véda, I. p.
YXVl,
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
183
‘Soma [the personified libation] has declared to me CHAP. I.
that in the waters are all medicines [or, medicinal
plants]. Agni works the happiness of all: the
waters cure all evils. Salutary waters, guard my
body from disease [or, perfect all medicines for the
good of my body], that I may long behold the Sun.
Purifying waters, cleanse away from me whatever is
impure or criminal, every evil I have done by vio-
lence, by imprecations, by injustice.” It should also
be remembered that the same conviction of impurity
might not unfrequently suggest the offering of material
sacrifice, to which allusion has been made above. Of
human” victims no example is preserved in any of
the Védas; nor in that early age did man so fre-
quently evince his consciousness of imperfection by
inordinate displays of animal sacrifices.” What the
Hindú mainly offered was clarified butter poured
upon the fire, or else the fermenting juice of the
Soma-plant," which he presented in ladles to the deity
whom he invoked. In this, which may at first have
been commended to him by its potent and exhilarating
properties, he afterwards beheld an emblem of the
vital sap whereby the universe itself is made produc-
tive; but in bringing such oblation he was actuated
* Rig-Véda, ed. Langlois, I. 38,
and, as repeated, IV. I43.
2 They can, however, be plainly
traced as far back as the Aitaréya
Brähmana : see Prof. Wilson's
paper in the Jour. of the Asiat.
Soc. XIII. IoS.
3 There is allusion, however,
in the Rig-Véda, as well as in
the Yajur-Véda, to the sacrifice
of a horse (‘aswamédha'), which
afterwards obtained a new import-
ance in the Hindú worship. Still
as offered in the Rig-Véda, its
object is simply to acquire addi-
tional wealth and prosperity, not
as in the Puráñas and in Southey's
Curse of Kehama, to assist in de-
throning Indra and exalting the
Sacrificer to his place : see Wil-
son's Rig-Véda, Vol. II. ‘Introd.’
pp. xii. Sq.
4 Wuttke, II, 344 sq.
184.
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
JEarly date
of the
Védas.
chiefly by the hope of gratifying the animal wants
of his divinity, not by the idea of deepening his own
sense of guilt, or compensating for his own demerit.
Still, as we have seen, he was at times oppressed by
a misgiving that the gods were hostile to him; that
the Rákshasas (or evil spirits) interfered to vitiate
his offerings, and that Yama, the sovereign of the
dead, was planning his destruction. He grew anxious
therefore to disarm their vengeance, and to replace
himself if possible upon the moral elevation which
he felt that he had forfeited. Iniquity had left its
deadly poison in the spirit of the sinner; yet through
lack of some unerring guidance he could only dream
about the cause of his disorder, and could only guess
at the appropriate remedy.
3. If we now pass forward from this sketch of
early Hindú worship to the questions touching the
antiquity of the Védas, it must be conceded that one
class of arguments adduced by Indian scholars will
hardly stand the test of rigorous criticism. Sir
William Jones' endeavoured, for example, to fix the
precise date of the Yajur-Véda by calculating back-
wards through the lives of two-and-forty sages by
whom the document is said to have been handed
down to us. But the point of departure in this
calculation is the age of Parásara, which in its turn
depends upon the accuracy of astronomical observa-
tions. By the aid of such a process, Jones had
placed the composition of the Yajur-Véda as far back
as 1580 B.C. Colebrooke, in like manner, having
satisfied himself that a Vaidic calendar which he
examined ought to be referred to the 14th century
1 See the Preface to his translation of the Laws of Manu.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
185
B.C., obtained a very similar conclusion.
seems that this great scholar subsequently staggered
under the enormous difficulties of the problem, and
was finally disposed to treat his chronological state-
ments as precarious and conjectural." The same
opinion must be formed of other calculations resting
on the astronomical works of India; nor can vague
disclosures of the Kashmir chronicle be entitled to
a higher place.” Converging as they do, however,
these various testimonies must be held to have created
a presumption in favour of the early dating of the
Wédas, and such presumption is again supported if
we estimate the worth of the internal evidence.
But it Char. I.
(1) The language of the Wédas, when compared Argument
with later writings of the Indo-Aryan race, is charac-
terised by a profusion of archaisms. The grammatical
forms are less developed, the diction far more rustic,
and the style more rugged, primitive and elliptical.
To use the illustration of Sir William Jones, the
Sanskrit of the Wédas differed from the Sanskrit of
the classic age, as did the Latin of the age of Numa
from the Latin of the age of Cicero. Or in other
words, if we might reason from one member of the
family of nations to a second, the peculiarities of the
Wéda-dialect imply an interval as wide as that which
from the
character
* Cf. Saint-Hilaire, Des Védas,
p. 140. Prof. Wilson, in like
manner, Rig-Véda, “Introd.’ Wol.
I. p. xlviii., observes that in pro-
posing dates on this subject, no-
thing more than conjecture is in-
tended.
? Prichard, who appears to be
satisfied with Davis's treatise on
the astronomy of the Hindús (Re-
searches into the Physical History
of Mankind, IV. 102), attaches
great importance to the agreement
of the results obtained by these
different modes of computation.
He is, accordingly, prepared to
place the Great War, which sepa-
rates the historic from the pre-
historic period of Indian antiqui-
ties, in the 14th century before
the Christian era, Ibid. p. 104.
language.
186
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
Argument
from the
Vaidic
picture of
society.
parts the English of the venerable Caedmon from the
English of the Caroline divines. Those scholars who
devote particular attention to the study of the Védas,
have moreover noticed great diversities in the language
of the several volumes", implying that as the hymns
which they contain were gradually indited, the language
of the Áryan tribes had passed through several stages
of development; while on comparing the ‘Mantras,’
or Védas proper, with the Bráhmanas, which were
intended for their illustration, the existence of fresh
intervals between the composition of the text and
commentaries is thoroughly ascertained.
(2) But other proofs, more generally appreciable,
and to certain minds more cogent and conclusive, are
derived from the peculiar pictures there presented of
Hindú society. As the Vaidic hymns were, notwith-
standing the extravagant claims advanced in their
behalf, composed at various times by different poets,
and only strung together in the time of the half-
mythical Vyāsa (‘the Arranger'), they reflect the life
and feelings of the Aryan under very different circum-
stances. At first we see a man of patriarchal sim-
plicity, a hunter or a cowherd. His ideas are circum-
scribed within the narrow limits of his clan, the chief
of which, surrounded by a multitude of cattle, is the
father and perhaps the priest” of all his followers. In
Some points these primitive chieftains are not much
unlike the petty kings of the Homeric age;” but apter
parallels are found in Hebrew patriarchs, or in modern
Arabs of the desert. According to this version of his
Saint-Hilaire, p. 152, who ap- Rig-Véda the power of the priest-
peals to the authority of Roth, ly order (Purohiti) is established.
Benfey and Weber. * Cf. Langlois, Rig-Véda, “In-
* In the later hymns of the troduction,’ p. x.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
187
life, the Aryan colonist was originally nomadic in his Char. I.
habits: he was led from plain to plain, or from one
lofty plateau to another in quest of milder skies and
richer pasturage. At length, indeed, a mighty change
comes over his ideas: the shepherd is transformed
into a warrior, and we see him on the other side of the
great alpine frontier, permanently settled in the north
of Hindústán. Yet even there no manifest traces are
discerned of a political or religious organisation: we
look in vain for cities, temples, images and the like.
One section of the colonists appear to be engaged in
agriculture: groups of them have been collected and
arranged in villages: they are planting, Sowing,
building; on the one side anxious to propitiate the
ungenial powers of nature, on the other actively
engaged in warring with the dark-complexioned
‘Dasyus, or, in different words, expelling the old
tenants of the soil."
But, rude and simple though he be, the Aryan of
the Véda is no savage. He begins to manifest his
aptitude for intellectual culture: he is earnest,
* We catch occasional glimpses
of this contest in the hymns of
the Védas: e.g. Rig-Véda San-
hitá, I. 137, 138, ed. Wilson, a
passage which also proves that
the invaders thought themselves
the champions of true religion:
‘Discriminate,’ is the prayer to
Indra, ‘between the Aryasand they
[? them] that are Dasyus [ene-
mies]: restraining those who per-
form no religious rites, compel
them to submit to the performer
of sacrifices:’ and III, 34, 9: ‘De-
stroying the Dasyus, Indra pro-
tected the Aryan colour' (varna
= caste).
2 Prof. Wilson has drawn at-
tention to some of the points here
specified: but he seems to over-
state his case when he adds (Rig-
Véda, Vol. II. p. xvii.): ‘These
particulars, although they are
only briefly and incidentally
thrown out, chiefly by way of
comparison, or illustration, render
it indisputable, that the Hindús
of the Vaidik era even had at-
tained to an advanced stage of
civilisation, little if at all differing
from that in which they were
found by the Greeks at Alexan-
der's invasion.’
188
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
Argument
from the
theology of
the Védas.
thoughtful, enterprising: he learns to speak of ships
and commerce: he is not entirely ignorant of astro-
nomical science. A worker in the precious metals,
and a manufacturer of musical instruments, he has
already given proofs of his perception both of the
conveniences and the amenities of social life. He
has moreover learned in some degree the power, the
richness and the flexibility of his native language,
and from time to time there rises up a bard, or rishi,
whose poetic genius gives expression to the varied
feelings that are working in the breast of the com-
munity. This rishi is the oracle of his village: in
the songs and prayers which he composes lie the
elements of common worship, and the germs of that
far mightier system, which on its development is
destined to unite all Indo-Aryan tribes together, and
diffuse its humanizing influence to the southernmost
point of Hindústán. Such grand ideas, however,
were not present to the fancy of the ancient bards:
and he who is desirous of realising in some measure
the important changes afterwards wrought in Hindú
life, has only to transfer his thoughts from the origi-
nal aspects of society, as pictured in the Védas, to
that stage when the ambassador of Seleucus found
a welcome at the court of Chandragupta, or when
Kálidésa, in the century before the Christian era,
charmed his audience by the elegant drama of the
Fatal Ring. -
(3) There is one more criterion which enables
us to judge of the remote antiquity of the Védas.
It may be entitled theological. We find it, partly,
in the fact that some divinities who stand conspicuous
in these books have either undergone most serious
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
189
transformations, or else have vanished altogether from CHAP. I.
the literature of the next period:" partly, in the absence T
from the Wédas of some doctrines which had after-
wards become the cardinal points of the Hindú system.
Such, for instance, are the doctrines of caste, of
1 The following extract from
Prof. Wilson’s Introd., as above,
pp. xxvi, xxvii, is valuable on
more accounts than one, and es-
pecially as shewing how very
inexact some modern writers are
in their philosophisings on these
subjects: ‘The divinities wor-
shipped [in the Rig-Véda] are
not unknown to later systems,
but they there perform very sub-
ordinate parts, whilst those dei-
ties, who are the great gods—the
JDić majores—of the subsequent
period, are either wholly unnamed
in the Véda, or are noticed in an
inferior and different capacity.
The names of Siva, of Mahádéva,
of Durgā, of Kāli, of Rāma, of
Irishíla, never occur, as far as
we are yet aware : we have a
Rudra, who, in after-times, is
identified with Siva, but who,
even in the Puróñas, is of very
doubtful origin and identification;
whilst in the Véda he is described
as the father of the winds, and is
evidently a form of either Agni
or Indra. The epithet Kapardin,
which is applied to him, appears,
indeed, to have some relation to
a characteristic attribute of Siva,
—the wearing of his hair in a
peculiar braid; but the term has
probably in the Véda a different
signification . . . at any rate, no
other epithet applicable to Siva
occurs, and there is not the
slightest allusion to the form in
which, for the last ten centuries
at least, he seems to have been
almost exclusively worshipped in
India, that of the Linga or
Phallus. Neither is there the
slightest hint of another important
feature of later Hindúism, the
Trimúrtti, or Tri-une combina-
tion of Brahmā, or Wishflu and
Siva, as typified by the mystical
syllable Om, although, according
to high authority on the religions
of antiquity [viz. Creuzer's], the
Trimūrtti was the first element
in the faith of the Hindús, and
the second was the Lingam.’
* “The existence of but one
caste in the age of purity, how-
ever incompatible with the legend
which ascribes the origin of the
four tribes to Brahmā, is every-
where admitted.” Wilson, Vish%
Puráña, p. 406, n. 8. Lond. 1840.
This admission is strengthened
by the fact t at other races kin-
dred to the Aryans were unac-
quainted with the distinction of
caste. It should, however, be re-
marked that one single hymn in
the Rig-Véda favours a contrary
hypothesis: “Le Brahman a été
sa bouche; le prince (Rājanya)
ses bras; le Wësya, Ses cuisses:
le Soudra est né de ses pieds'
(Langlois, Iv. 341). But this
hymn is allowed on all hands to
be of later date (Ibid. pp. 498,
499; Lassen, I. 794). There is
also in the Rig-Véda (see Lang-
lois, IV. 489, n. 62) an instance of
the early use of dwijas (i.e. “twice-
born'), which is afterwards ap-
plied to members of the three
superior castes, who as such
underwent a special form of ini-
tiation; but in that remote period
the expression seems to have been
used merely for the priests (‘les
premiersnés de Rita').
190
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
transmigration and of incarnation;' none of which
have hitherto been discovered in the oldest records
of Hindúism.
What length of interval was necessary for pro-
ducing all these changes, social, mental, and linguis-
tic, it is now impossible to state with anything like
confidence or precision. The development of cognate
languages, the culture and expansion of the human
intellect, as well as the formation of the framework
of Society, may all have varied much in different
climates and in different periods of man's history.
But, what is most essential to our purpose, no eminent
critic of the present day will venture to maintain that
Hindú civilisation, as represented by its literature, is
capable of being carried backwards to a period more
remote than that of Joshua and the Exodus, the
age when Hebrew literature began to flourish, and, in
contrast to the Aryan, manifest a thoroughly historic
character, the age, moreover, when the literature, if
such it can be called, of other ancient nations can
present to the inquirer little more than monstrous
legends, or fantastic mythes, or barren lists of
dynasties.
§ 2. Brăhmanism.
It seems that when the Áryans had secured their
conquests in the country of the Five Rivers, and, as
some conjecture, offshoots following the course of the
Original
seat of
Bróhman-
is?n.
* “Dieses Dogma ist den Věda altesten Zeit die Lehre von der
fremd, und die. Wenigen Anspie- periodischen Menschwerdung des
lungen, die in ihmen auf Mythen erhaltenden Gottes zur Vertilgung
workommen, die später in die des Uebels noch nicht gebildet
Avatāra des Vishnu aufgenommen worden war:’ Lassen, I. 488.
worden sind, Zeigen, dass in der
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
191
Indus had been planted as far south as Cutch and CHAP. I.
Guzerat, the chief attention of the invaders was
directed to the spread of civilisation in the other parts
of the Peninsula. The centre of their earliest opera-
tions was a narrow strip of territory, watered on one
side by the Saraswati, from whence new colonies
were propagated year by year, until the plain of the
Ganges was entirely rescued from the grasp of the
“barbarian.”
On proceeding to inspect the institutions now
completed, we approach another epoch in the history
of Hindústán. The twilight of intelligence is passed.
The age when elements and processes of nature had
by man's poetic faculty been converted, first, into the
symbols of religious feeling, and then into the objects
of religious worship, is succeeded' by an age entitled
‘the heroic age of India, when the gods are more
completely humanised, assume a definite shape in the
imagination of the worshipper, and exhibit all the
ordinary signs of individuality.
Philosophers are not unfrequently disposed to
welcome this new species of polytheism, on the ground
that it contains a germ of something more exalted
and more ethical. They think that the idea of God
as one, as personal, as righteous, an idea which in the
* The divinities of the Vaidic
period, who most resemble the
heroes of the next age, are the
two demigods Aswins, ASwindº
(dual), children of the sun, en-
dowed with youth and beauty,
travelling in a three-wheeled and
triangular car, physicians of the
gods and benefactors of the human
race. Their name is derived from
ašwa (equus), since they are said
to have been begotten by the Sun
during his metamorphosis as a
horse; but as their mother is once
called the sea (Sindhu), many
writers identify them simply with
the sun and moon, which appear
to rise out of the ocean: cf. Prof.
Wilson, Introd, to Rig-Véda,
Vol. I. p. xxxvi. and Vol. II. p.
I79.
Character
of the new
theology.
192
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. I.
Occasional
marks of
progress.
former period was extruded from the popular belief,
was far more likely to be rescued and restored to its
supremacy when the inquirer started from the notion
of man-like gods, than when he bowed in adoration to
a host of shadowy genii or impersonal abstractions.
On the other hand, it should be recollected that the
Hindú populace would also be more prone to acquiesce
in a polytheism of its own creation, and lose sight of
spiritual facts which had their symbols in the primi-
tive mythology. In the worship of the elements, the
veil between the seen and unseen had remained com-
paratively slender; in the worship of anthropomorphic
gods in whom all human excellencies found their
utmost limit, the new object was more satisfying
because it was more human, but on that account was
far less calculated to suggest a higher class of truths.
We must allow, indeed, that intellectually the
Áryans gained a more exalted point of civilisation in
the second period of their history. The field of
knowledge had been everywhere enlarged : the power
of abstract thinking and the tendency to metaphysical
speculation, scarcely traceable in the Védas, were now
rapidly developed in all quarters: the refinement of
men's taste had shewn itself, if not in graceful and
voluptuous works of art, at least in the unrivalled
majesty and music of their language as employed in
the heroic poems. It is also true that in proportion
as they grew familiar with antagonisms in nature,
they betrayed a somewhat deeper consciousness of
discord in themselves; and that with keener sense of
moral turpitude, there came the habit of self-loathing
and the aspiration after some deliverance from the
fetters of the flesh. Such yearnings might be often
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 193
silenced by the thought that purity, attractive though CHAP. I.
it be, is for the present unattainable, that the character T
of gods themselves is full of grievous stains and
blemishes, that the obligation to a holy life is seldom
if ever urged in the most sacred institutions of their
forefathers; yet notwithstanding every drawback and
abatement, the existence of a higher tone of moral
sensibility appears unquestionable; and therefore we
may gladly acquiesce in Ritter's verdict, that ‘ the
retrogression in the second period of Indian religion
was not unattended with an element of progress.”
Special features of this new system will be more Organisa-
fully noticed when we come to trace the parallelisms ...
which they exhibit to the facts and verities of Christ-o al system.
ianity. At present suffice it to enumerate a few of
the more prominent characteristics. The Divine has
been distinctly apprehended under the form of the
human; and thus the pantheon is inhabited by beings
of godlike grace or power or dignity, conspicuous
alike in counsel and in action, and especially enlisted
in diffusing the Aryan faith among the old possessors
of the soil. The system also of which these are the
most popular divinities is made to undergo extensive
modifications. It has now a far more definite creed,
a cumbrous and elaborate ritual, a code of laws,
a dominant order of religious teachers. The Védas,
we have noticed, bear no marks of a distinction such
as that which forms the basis of the Hindú castes;
indeed the royal and the Sacerdotal offices are there at
times united in one eminent person; but in all the
commentaries on the Védas, and still more throughout
| Hist, of Ancient Philosophy, 1. 94.
WOL. I. 13
194
Christ and other Masters.
the Laws of Manu, the social system of the Indo-
Áryans is completely organised. The whole popula-
tion, as we there see them, are distributed into four
hereditary classes. One of these embraces, it would
seem, the conquered natives,” whose position is ac-
cordingly most abject. The remainder, who form the
Aryan part of the community, are (1) Bráhmans, or
religious teachers, (2) Kshatriyas, or knights, and
(3) Vaiśyas, or tradesmen. But in social rank the
Bráhman always rises very high above his fellows.
He is the depository of Divine wisdom and authority.
A belief in his exalted origin” secures him the pro-
foundest reverence even of the royal family. His
duties are indeed so rigorously defined, his life is so
divided between study, labour, and austerities, that
he is precluded from intermeddling in affairs of state
or from otherwise exceeding the bounds of his position:
yet in all that appertains to knowledge, secular or
sacred, he is absolute and unimpeachable.
The steps by which the Bráhman gained this vast
ascendancy are matters only of conjecture. Traces
may be found of some mighty conflict between him
* Lassen, I. 799. So impure
CHAP. I.
The “twice-
born.’
and abject were the members of
this fourth class, that Brähmans
1 These were edited and trans-
lated under the title Mánawa
Dharma-Sástra by Sir G. C.
Haughton, who based his labours
on the older version of Sir W.
Jones. Scholars are, however,
still divided as to the antiquity of
this compilation: cf. Ritter, I. 72
sq. with Elphinstone, Hist. of
India, pp. 226 sq. 3rd ed. Of
course many of the materials were
far more ancient: but the most
probable date of the appearance
of the code in its present form is
about the fifth century B.C. (later
than the rise of Buddhism, and
earlier than the great epic poems).
might not read the Wédas, even
to themselves, in the presence of
a Šádra; while to teach him the
law, or instruct him in the mode
of expiating sin, was sure to sink
a Brähman into the hell called
Asamvrita (Elphinstone, pp. 16,
17). Yet the chańdála, or off-
spring of intercourse which vio-
lated the law of caste, was held
to be even more contemptible.
He was classed with ‘dogs and
Crows.’
* See above, p. 189, n. 1.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
195
and the Kshatriya, between the champion of intelli-
gence and the champion of physical prowess; and
even after the Bráhman was victorious, the distinction
he had won was far less absolute than that which
separated all the three superior classes from the
wretched Südras they had crushed. Each individual
of those three classes was dwija, “twice-born': on
arriving at maturity, they all received a special
tonsure, and were all invested with a thread that
symbolised their elevation far above the multitude,
that gave them access to the Védas, and, it may be,
intimated a belief that souls of a superior order had in
recompense of previous merits been permitted to spend
another life in tenements so honourable."
But the Hindú doctrine of caste is intimately con-
nected with other central verities of their religion.
The Bráhman occupied the highest place in the gra-
dations of society, because he was believed to stand
in the most intimate relation to the Supreme Being,
CHAP. I.
New phase
of Pan-
theism.
because the Spirit of the Universe had been most
clearly imaged forth in him. For during all this
second period of Hindúism we shall find the various
species of existence ultimately traced to unity, on the
ground that each is a constituent part of God, and
that its special character depends upon its distance,
or the measure of its aberration, from the primal
source of being. In the creed of Bráhmanism, as
methodised by ‘Orthodox’ philosophy, God alone is
truly said to be: all other forms of life are, as to
their material properties, but empty and illusive;
while, as to their spiritual properties, they are but
1. Cf. Fred. von Schlegel, Phil. II. 318.
of Hist. pp. 156, 157; Wuttke,
196
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. transient scintillations of His glory. Alone, Supreme,
and unapproachable, a feeling of dissatisfaction with
Himself had crossed the mind of the Great Solitary.
He longed for offspring, and at length determined to
resolve the primitive simplicity of His essence, and
transform Himself into a world which might contrast
with His eternal quietude. From this desire of God
has sprung whatever is, or is to be: the earth, the
sky, the rock, the flower, the forest, the innumerable
tribes of gods and men, of beasts and demons,—these,
so far as they possess a true existence, are all consub-
stantial with divinity. The basis underlying all the
forms which they assume is the Ineffable, the Un-
created. God may be regarded as the undeveloped
world, the world as the development of God. He is
both the fountain and the stream, the cause and the
effect, the one Creator and the one creation. “As the
spider spins and gathers back [its thread]; as plants
sprout on the earth; as hairs grow on a living person;
so is this universe, here, produced from the imperish-
able nature. By contemplation the vast one germin-
ates; from him food [or, body] is produced; and
thence, successively, breath, mind, real ſelements],
worlds and immortality arising from [good] deeds.”
Expressions of this kind had not unnaturally suggested
to some minds the inference that the pantheism of
ancient India was simple and materialistic: but a
further insight into the philosophy, at least so far as
it appears in monuments of the Bráhmanic age,” will
prove such inferences to be erroneous. We may not
* An extract given by Cole- " ? A specimen is subjoined from
brooke (Asia!. Researches, VIII. the first chapter of the Laws of
475), from a upanishad of the Hanu (Jones' Works, III. 66, 4to,
fourth Wöda. ed.) : “He, whom the mind alone
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
197
indeed, be able to decide with confidence respecting
the complexion of the earliest Hindú metaphysics,
since the Védas, notwithstanding the ingenuity of
their commentators, will be found to have contained
a very slender metaphysical element: but as soon
as ever an attempt was made to bring the ruder
CIIAP. I.
superstitions of their forefathers into harmony with
more refined conceptions of the Godhead, the whole
tone of Hindú pantheism is subtilized, to the extent
of questioning the reality of the material world itself.
All forms assumed by matter are then held to be not
only transient but illusive. The semblance of reality
which they possess is due to Máyá,”—the personifica-
tion of God's fruitless longing for some being other
than His own, the power, by which, in different
can perceive, whose essence eludes
the external organs, who has no
visible parts, who exists from
eternity, even He, the soul of all
beings, whom no being can com-
prehend, shone forth in person.
He, having willed to produce
various beings from His own divine
substance, first with a thought
created the waters, and placed in
them a productive seed,’ &c.
* For instance, they have tried
to evolve the principal dogmas of
the Wédánta philosophy, on the
unity and universality of spirit,
from a long hymn of the Rig-
Véda, II. 125 sq., ed. Wilson.
* On this peculiar feature of
Bráhmanism, see Wuttke, T.I. 282
sq., who shews that in the Vaidic
period, mayá meant no more than
the desire of evolution. How-
ever, the idea of méyé, as fully
developed, always implies “illu-
sion,’ ‘unreality’: it means that
God, who in himself had no attri-
butes, was beguiled into a belief
that He possessed them by his
union with máyá, or his own
longing; and so appeared to cre-
ate, preserve, and destroy. The
following illustration from the
Probodha-Chandrodaya, as trans-
lated by Goldstücker (Ibid. p. 284)
will throw further light upon this
subject: “Maja [i. e. Māyā] ist
unbegreiflich. Gleich einer un-
Züchtigen Dirne lásst sie den
höchsten Geist Dinge sehen, die
gar nicht existiren, und tâuscht
ihn So. Der Göttliche, dessen
Glanz dem Krystalle gleicht, der
niemals sich verändert, ward durch
sie, die Unehrbare, in heftige Un-
ruhe versetzt. Er, der Wissende,
hing unklaren Phantasien nach,
und, da er in den von der Maja
bereiteten Schlummer fiel, er-
blickte er betäubt vielgestaltige
Träume : ich bin, diess ist mein
Water, diess meine Mutter, diess
mein Feld, mein Reichthum w.s. w.
. . . . Wie ein See in den Trugge-
bilden der Mittagssonne erscheint,
so entfaltete sich das fleckenlose
Licht aus unrichtiger Erkenntniss
als Ather, Luft, Feuer, Wasser,
lºrde.”
‘Méyé.’
198
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I words, the Absolute had been Himself beguiled from
His original quietude. But while matter is thus held
to be essentially non-existent, that which underlies
and animates the whole of the phenomenal universe is
one with the Divinity, who, by a species of self-
analysis, has brought Himself under the conditions of
the finite and the temporal, and must in future so con-
tinue till the visible is ultimately reabsorbed by the in-
visible, and multiplicity reduced afresh to simple unity.
It must not, however, be supposed that this idea of
one original and all-pervading spirit (Mahān-Åtmá)
was irreconcileable with the old polytheism. On the
contrary, the pantheon of the Indo-Aryans was en-
larged instead of narrowed in the progress of this
second period, till, as seen in the Purámas, it has
reached a most appalling magnitude. I shall here-
The Hindú after have occasion to refer specifically to the sacred
triad.
triad of the Bráhmans, and shall therefore only touch
upon it here, as one example of a law by which the
mind of the Hindú was constantly disposed to view all
forms of being under triune aspects." Addicted from
! Wuttke, with a truly Germanic passion for symmetrical arrange-
ment, and well-rounded theories, has represented this tendency in a
genealogical form :
Das sich entfaltende Brahma
—A-
/ N
Bntstehen Bestehen Wergehen
Geburt Leben Tod
Satva Radschas Tamas
Licht Luft Feuer
Himmel Oberwelt Unterwelt
Indra Varuna Agni
Brahmá' Wischnu Çiva
Götter Menschen Thiere
2--> --~
Geist Seele ICörper
(Seele } Selbstheit Gemüth Werstand
(Körper :) Kopf Brust Bauch
Brahmanen Xatrija Waiºia.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
199
the first to the examination of natural phenomena, he CHAP. I.
could not fail to witness year by year the rise, the
growth, the death (in order to the reproduction) of
vegetable matter. The concentration of his thoughts
on such a process had induced the habit of generalising
his conceptions, and finally of picturing all the changes
of the universe as an effect of generating, preserving,
and dissolving forces. It was by this process also
that the properties of creation, of preservation, of de-
struction (as the medium of regeneration) were per-
sonified and worshipped as Brahmā, Vishnu, and
Siva. The absolute and self-existent, the impersonal
That, by which the universe was first projected into
being, whose creative energies still operate in never-
ending cycles, had been thus presented to the Hindú
mind as ‘three only :” while some elevated spirits,
searching after the one supreme God, “if haply they
might find Him,” laboured to identify the object of
their search with the first member of the sacred triad.
As he was called Brahmá (masculine), they named Brahma
it Brahma (neuter). But results which we have
noticed in the Vaidic age were no less visible in this.
The lofty product of man's generalising faculty was
too ethereal and transcendant for the cognizance of
ordinary spirits. So remote was Brahma from the
sphere of sinful finite beings, so unloving and im-
personal his character, that no temple was erected
and no victim offered in his honour: and even his
more concrete image, the personified Brahmá, has
* See Asiatic Researches, VIII. gods are ‘only three' in number.
395–397, where Colebrooke It will be noticed more at length
quotes a remarkable passage from in Chap. II.
the Nirukta, affirming that the
Drahºma.
200
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. T. never, in historic times, conciliated to himself a share
of popular veneration.”
No apter illustration can be furnished of the shift-
ing and capricious genius of Hindú mythology, than
the fact that of those three divinities who rank fore-
most in the system of the Brähmans, Siva had been
previously unhonoured and unknown. The other
two had, in like manner, held subordinate positions,
Vishnu figuring in the Wédas as an elemental god
like Varuña, and Brahmā, if there identical with
Brahman,” being merely an equivalent for Agni.
And in strict accordance with these facts, the highest
tenants of the Hindú pantheon are still viewed as
finite beings, liable, when certain revolutions are
completed, to dethronement and extinction. They
partake of the phenomenal character of the universe;
and therefore the eventual winding up of all things
will necessitate their reabsorption.
It is thus apparent that the fundamental dogma
of the Bráhmans is the dogma of emanation. The
Divinity is believed to be resolved, diffused, discerpt-
ed, and so weakened. All things are imperfect,
because all are in a state of flux and reflux; their
intrinsic character depending on their ever-varying
distance from the centre of unity, or on the number
of the intermediate links by which they are removed
from the original essence.
! See Stuhr, Religions-systeme
des Orients, I. 97, 98. He is still
worshipped by one class, the
Bráhmans, at sunrise every morn-
ing: but (as Mr. Elphinstone re-
marks) he ‘was never much wor-
shipped, and has now but one
temple in India' (p. 89, 3rd ed.).
* See Langlois, Rig-Véda, Iv.
386: where we find a hymn on
the marriage of Brahman and
Júhú. In many other passages
of the Rig-Véda Brahmanaspati
= Agni, where Brahman appears
to mean ‘priest.’
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 201
And the same idea will help us more than any CHAP. I.
other to elucidate the Hindú theory of man. The Hºnda
‘orthodox’ philosopher uniformly started, in his spe-º ºf
culations on this subject, from the Divine side of "'
things, because with him spirit is all-important, and
the human spirit consubstantial with the Spirit of the
universe. But owing to a happy inconsistency, which
reappears in many later speculations, Hindú panthe-
ism could not altogether blast those instincts of the
soul which lead man to assert his individuality and
the inherent freedom of his choice. A few who
called themselves philosophers yielded, it is true, to
logical pressure, and adopted the degrading error of
the fatalist; they argued that the foulest crimes of
man are ultimately wrought by Brahma, and therefore
that the guilt is not attributable to the human instru-
ment:" but even his own distorted version of the Fall
will testify that the Hindú was dimly conscious all
the while of his original freedom and nobility. Ac-
cording to that tradition,” God, when He determined
to project the universe, gave birth at once to all
particular souls. At first, they were both free and
happy, but, impelled by envy and ambition, they
eventually broke away still further from the primal
essence, and so forfeited their eminent place among
celestial intelligences. A world, or rather purgatory, and of the
was then constructed for their habitation; it came *
forth already blighted and disorganised ; and out of it
* The Christian missionary of by Brahma; cf. Wuttke, II, 332.
the present day is not unfrequently “Adhuc enim mihi videbatur, non
repulsed, when speaking of right- esse nos qui peccamus, sed mescio
eousness and judgment to come, quam aliam in nobis peccare na-
by such assertions as the follow- turam.’ S. August. Confess. v. Io.
ing: “I have neither sin nor guilt, * See more on this subject in
for every thing is wrought in me Chap. III,
202
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. was made the human body of the same debased
material, in order to supply more deadly instruments
of torture, and more dismal cells for the incarceration
of the damned." The Here and visible had thus
become in Bráhmanism the dark antithesis of the
Hereafter and invisible; and we learn, accordingly,
how from the doctrine of emanation had sprung up
a second characteristic principle of this creed, the
Doctrine of doctrine of dualism. So lost, however, is the human
transmi-
gration.
spirit, so oppressed by the ungenial atmosphere
around it, and so weakened by the sinful burdens of
the flesh, that though in every case believed to be
recoverable, many a life of pain and penance will be
ordinarily needed for promoting its exaltation and
Securing its return. It may at first, for instance,
be united with the lowest species of organic life;
and, under favourable circumstances, may ascend in
its successive births ‘into the bodies of spiders, of
Snakes, of chameleons' and the like, until deemed
worthy of inhabiting a human tenement. The trial
then begins which will determine all its future destiny.
An opportunity has been given it of achieving its
own liberation; and according to the present quality
of its actions it will mount directly upwards through
the ranks of demi-gods and gods, or plunge again
into the lower region of existence, and commence a
fresh series of births. It may be that this vast idea
of transmigration was suggested, partly by man's
growing consciousness of his demerit, partly by his
inability to account for the existing distribution of
rewards and punishments, partly by observing points
of contact and resemblance between faculties and
* See the picture of a human body in Manu, chap. VI, §§ 77, 78.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
203
instincts of the lower animals and those of human CHAP. I.
beings. But, however prompted, the idea of trans-
migration became at length so deeply rooted in the
creed of Hindústán, that even the most rampant forms
of infidelity were unable to dislodge it. The first
aim of the Bráhmanical system, as interpreted alike
by peasant and philosopher, was to shorten the dura-
tion of such wanderings, or diminish the amount of
purgatorial suffering: and the highest glory of that
system, in the eyes of all its votaries, was to furnish
rules or grant indulgences, by which they might
attain immediate and complete exemption from such
terrible necessity."
What, then, are the methods which the Bráhman Character
has prescribed for the attainment of supreme felicity,
or reabsorption into God? These methods are re-religion.
ducible to two.
The first, adapted to the character
and capacities of the many, consisted chiefly, not to
say exclusively, of outward and mechanical acts of
worship.
Moral merit” was by them confounded
* “This belief [in a metempsy-
chosis] is not to be looked upon
as a mere popular superstition: it
is the main principle of all Hindú
metaphysics; it is the foundation
of all Hindú philosophy. The
great object of their philosophical
research in every system, Bráh-
manical or Buddhist, is the dis-
covery of the means of putting a
stop to further transmigration;
the discontinuance of corporeal
being; the liberation of soul from
body.' Wilson, Pref. to the
Sámkhya Káriká, p. x. Oxf. 1837.
2 For instance, it is declared in
the Laws of Manu (ch. II. § 79:
Jones' Works, III. 94): “A twice-
born man [i. e. a member of any
of the three superior castes], who
shalla thousand times repeat those
three (or Om, the vyāhritis, and
the gayatrí) apart [from the mul-
titude] shall be released in a month
even from a great offence, as a
Snake from his slough.” Again
(§ 82): “Whosoever shall repeat
day by day, for three days, with-
out negligence, that Sacred text,
shall [hereafter] approach the
Divine essence, move freely as
air, and assume an ethereal form.’
Cf. also the consentient testimony
of the late Col. Sleeman, a very
acute observer of the peculiarities
of the Hindú mind, in his Rambles
and Recollections, II, 18, 19.
popular
204
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. I.
Character
of the phi-
losophical
'religion.
with ritual punctuality. The repetition of the sacred
texts which they had gathered from the teaching of
the Bráhmans, though the Südra-class was rigorously
denied this scanty privilege; the invocation of a host
of deities; the deprecation of evil spirits; dutiful
obedience to the priestly order, and merciful regard
for every class of sentient creatures,'—these were
deemed the fittest passport, not indeed to absolute
repose, but to a loftier and more hopeful stage of
being on the dissolution of the present body.
It was very different with the second and far
smaller class, the early mystics and philosophers of
Hindústán. By these the doctrine of God's abstract
unity was more completely realised, and therefore
when they countenanced the worship of the dévas,
it was only as the old Socinian worshipped Christ,
or as the Roman-Catholic of the present age professes
to adore the saints.” They even shrank from the
idea of giving attributes to God, and so reducing
Him within the sphere of human sympathies, but
laboured, on the other hand, to raise humanity at
once into complete equality with the Divine. Their
favourite motto was, ‘He who knows the Supreme
God becomes God.” On the wings of knowledge,
therefore, these philosophers hoped to rise indefinitely
until they lost themselves in that which is alone true
being, the abysses of the Absolute and Universal.
They did not, it may be, reject the ceremonial
worship of their forefathers; they did not feel ex-
onerated from the duty of restraining their sensual
appetites, but rather would insist upon the need of
* See Manu, ch. XII. § 83. guese missionary in Won Bohlen,
* See the language of a Portu- Das alte Indien, I. 153.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
205
violent austerities in order to escape more easily from CHAP. I.
every fascination of the natural life: yet, on the
other hand, the pinnacles on which they stood were
so exalted and so inaccessible to the many, that a
total separation was now forming between them and
other classes of their fellow-countrymen, between the
follower of the Hindú Gnosis and the herd of vulgar
and unlettered souls: and, as the tradesman could
never gain the social eminence of the soldier, nor the
soldier of the Bráhman, none but members of the
learned class were they to whom immediate liberation
was made possible. The rest had, speaking generally,
been doomed to wander on for ages, and to undergo
an almost endless series of new births.
The object of these pages does not make it neces- Probable
sary for me to adjudicate respecting the antiquity of
prime on the appearance of the Institutes of Manu.
Nearly all competent scholars are inclined to place it
far higher than the date of Alexander's expedition,"
arguing partly from allusions interspersed in Greek
writers of the period, and still more from evidence
surviving in the two great epic poems of Hindústán,
1 Almost the only writer of in-
telligence who now advocates the
contrary is Col. Sykes: see Asiat.
Journal, Vol. VI. He there affirms,
“After a careful collation of facts,
I unhesitatingly declare, that I
have not met with evidence to
satisfy my mind that Bráhmanism
was ever in the ascendant, until
after the fall of Buddhism' (p. 448).
. . He believes that Buddhism was
the old religion of the Aryans,
and that Bráhmanism first became
the popular creed, When Sankhara
Achárya established the exclusive
worship of Siva in the 9th century
after Christ. In like manner Col.
Sykes is of opinion that the Pali
is an older language than the
Sanskrit, and especially presses
the point that, although we have
many old inscriptions and coins
of Buddhist kings (in Pali), we
have none whatever of Bráhman-
ical kings until the fourth, may
probably until the seventh century
after Christ.
º º ... Brăhman-
the religious system, which had manifestly reached its ism.
206
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
Rise of phi-
osophic
schools.
the Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata, which not only
testify to the continuous struggle of that system, in
the south of India, with the older form of heathenism,
with ‘monsters, giants and barbarous men,' but also
indicate the vast predominance obtained by the Bráh-
manical order. Yet, however this question may be
finally decided, little doubt exists that long before the
inroads of the Macedonian hero, adversaries of the
‘orthodox’ belief were silently arising and acquiring
strength beneath its very shadow. As the primitive
religion of the Védas was transformed from year to
year, until, in spite of their ingenious commentators,
we are able to detect few traces of its earlier charac-
teristics, so the creed of Brähmanism itself was finally
assaulted by the learned artifices of the sceptic, and
transmuted in the crucible of the philosopher.
§ 3. Schools of Philosophy.'
While the influence of the sacerdotal order was .
rapidly increasing, while
1 The two schools entitled to
the name of ‘orthodox,’ are (1)
the Pūrva (earlier) Mīmánsá,
founded by Jaimini, with the de-
sign of facilitating the interpret-
ation of the Wédas, and (2) the
Uttara (later) Mīmánsá,or Védánta,
attributed to the half-mythical
sage Vyāsa, or by others more
correctly to Vyāsa, named Krishía
Dwaipáyana. The name Védénta
(anta = ‘end’) sufficiently denotes
the spirit which pervaded the
latter system : although the basis
of that system must be sought not
so much in the Védas proper, as
in the Upanishads. See Cole-
brooke's Essays on the Philosophy
of the Hindús, as edited, with ad-
the Vaidic doctrines were
ditions, by Pauthier, Paris, 1833;
and the very useful edition of the
Aphorisms of various schools,
printed for the Benares Govern-
ment College, under the care of
Dr. Ballantyne. For a copy of
the latter series I am indebted to
the courtesy of John Muir, Esq.,
a true friend of India, who has
himself published An Examination
of Religions, in Sanskrit and En-
glish, Part T., Mirzapore, 1852, and
Part II., Calcutta, 1854; and a
collection, with an English trans-
lation, of Original Sanskrit Teacts
on the Origin and Progress of the
JReligion and Institutions of India,
Lond, 1858.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 207
recast in more ideal moulds, and while the popular CHAP. I.
mind of India, vigorous and creative as before, was
on the one side adding to the number of its mythes,
and on the other forming new religious confraternities
exclusively devoted to the worship either of Siva or
Vishnu, the thinking class of the community was
more and more estranged from the religion of their
fathers. They began to pry into such questions as
the following: “What is the original element, or
power of nature, lying at the base of all phenomena?
What is man, and whence? Whither is he tending?
Which of all things is the most important? What is
truth? And what must be my aim in order that
I may have done what is fitting to be done?’ These
questions might be turned aside or deemed unanswer-
able by many to whom they were presented; but
others, reeling under the burden they imposed, would
not unfrequently retire for comfort to the neighbouring
forest, and as followers gathered round them, each
might finally become the centre of a literary circle,
if not the founder of a school. At first, however, the Orthodox
contemplative philosopher might be unconscious, or”
but slightly conscious, of his opposition to the “sacred'
writings. He might even, like the earliest race of
Christian schoolmen, be desirous of employing philo-
sophic methods only to establish popular belief on
a more rational and lasting basis. To his efforts,
therefore, we may be indebted for the systematic
moulding of Hindúism, which appears in the post-
Vaidic writings; since every school of ‘orthodox’
philosophy manifests the deepest veneration both for
lyric and dogmatic portions of the Védas. These are
deemed the utterances of God himself; and, as par-
208
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
IHeterodoa:
philosophy.
taking of His essence, they are absolute, infallible,
eternal.”
Yet other thoughtful spirits, who have frequent
representatives in later times and distant countries,”
grew more daring in their philosophical speculations.
They were more disposed to start afresh in their
pursuit of knowledge, to devise a theory of religion
for themselves, and gather the materials mainly, if not
solely, from their observation of the world around
them. It was rather in the open book of nature than
in the traditionary hymns and legends that they
hoped to find a satisfactory solution of their multi-
plying doubts.
This bolder race of Hindú speculators we shall
most conveniently study in three classes, (a) the
‘atheistic' Sánkhya, (b) Buddhism, (c) the eclectic, or
intermediate school, as represented in the Bhagavad-
Gítá.
a. Sánkhya Philosophy.
The author of the Sámkhya philosophy was Kapila,
who, like the great majority of educated Hindús, was
probably a Brähman; though his later followers hold
that he obtained his knowledge of the twenty-five
categories, which formed the basis of his teaching,
The Són-
Åhya School.
1 For example, it is stoutly to be of modern extraction: ‘En
contended by the school of Mí- effet,” he writes, “la philosophie
mánsá (Aphorisms, Part I, pp. 32 indienne est tellement vaste, que
sq. ed. Ballantyne) that the Védas tous les systèmes de philosophie
are retrospectively eternal, not- s'y rencontrent, qu’elle forme tout
withstanding the occurrence in un monde philosophique, et qu'on
them of names of men, &c. peut dire à la lettre que l'histoire
2 Cousin, while engaged in lec- de la philosophie de l’Inde est un
turing on the philosophy of the , abrégé de l'histoire entière de la
last century, found himself carried philosophie.” Cours de l’Hist, de
back to India as the birthplace of Philosophie, I. 18O, Paris, 1829.
systems which are often thought
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
209
‘merely by birth; in other words, that he was him- CHAP. I.
self an incarnation of the Deity." The system which
he founded was entitled Sánkhya, apparently because
the author deemed it a result of pure reason, or
deliberate judgment. It professed to remedy the
various ills of life, external and internal, by resolving
intellectual difficulties, and by revealing to its votary
‘the real nature of all that is.’ It does not, like
some other systems, spend its strength in trying to
discriminate between existence and non-existence;
it puts the further question, What made things as
they are 2 and thus, excepting Soul, which is a mute,
inert, and passionless spectator of the process, every
thing is by the Sánkhya represented under the two
aspects of ‘producer' and ‘production.”
In this creed, the plastic origin of all material Its materi-
things, the primary productive essence" (prakriti),
whose properties come before us in sensation, is the
‘undiscrete, the indestructible, the all-embracing, or,
in modern phraseology, the Absolute. “Creation' is
the individualising of this universal principle: yet
- the motive power is due in no case to a conscious and
designing Agent, but rather to blind impulses, evolv-
ing first intelligence, or buddhi, one of the inherent
properties of the material essence, and then self-
consciousness, the third in order of the Sánkhya
1 See Dr. Ballantyne's Lecture worth observing that the modern
on the Sánkhya Philosophy, em- Buddhists of Ceylon frequently
bracing the text of the Tattwa- call their teachers ‘the clergy of
Samása, Mirzapore, 1850. reason:’ Tennent, Christianity in
* Sánkhya from Samkhyā = Ceylon, p. 192.
‘number,’ and also ‘reason.’ * Lecture, as above, p. 53. .
IHence ‘the rational system.’ 4. On its affinity with the #xm
Others find in the name a refer-
ence to something like the Pytha-
gorean theory of numbers. It is
WOL. I.
of Plato and Aristotle, see M.
Pauthier's note on Colebrooke,
ISSais, p. 17.
14
210
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. principles." The consciousness of individual existence
(ahan-kóra) is thus, according to the present system,
an attribute of matter:* its organ is material: it can
only be connected with the soul by self-illusion: it is
no proper and original element of man; and in the
school of Kapila, the aim is so to educate the young
philosopher, that he is prepared to lay aside the
pronoun I entirely, to affirm that souls have indi-
vidually no interest either in human passions or
possessions, and in this sense to declare, as the grand
climax of his teaching, “Neither I am, nor is aught
mine, nor is there any I.”
Another feature of the system is that, without
impugning the reality of spirit, or refusing to it some
directive agency, the active principle in man is always
held to be a property of body, and action itself re-
garded as material. Kapila did not wish, as it would
seem, to enter on elaborate discussions touching the
origin and destination of man's spiritual nature.
Philosophy, he concluded, ought to deal chiefly with
phenomena, not with final causes, and excepting hints
to the effect that buddhi, or intelligence, though itself
material, is the link between the soul and matter, we
shall look in vain for any definite theory as to the
connexion and disconnexion of the visible and the
invisible. The Sánkhya speculator had before him
two distinct classes of effects, a world produced by
nature, and a multitude of souls proceeding from
a spiritual essence. The first attracted his chief
* Lecture, as above, pp. 26, 54. is entirely passive.
* See Sánkhya ICáriká, ed. * Colebrooke, p. 44. The ori-
Wilson, pp. 175, 176, where it is ginal is remarkable : NáSmi na
distinctly affirmed that soul or mé náham,
spirit can have no attributes, and
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
211
interest.
fact that souls are in the ordinary state of man
possessed, or, he would say, deluded by the conscious-
ness of individuality, and that this consciousness will
haunt them till, so far as they are interested, all the
processes of nature have completed their development.
He also held that such activity of nature has no other
object than the liberation of the soul: it is an instance
of unselfishness: the process will go on with reference
to that liberation, till it is no longer needed, “as
a man boiling rice for a meal desists when it is
dressed.” “Generous nature, endued with qualities,
does by manifold means accomplish without benefit
[to herself] the wish of ungrateful soul, devoid of
qualities:” expressions, which, if I mistake not, were
among the earliest evidences that philosophic minds
were rising to the great conception of self-sacrifice, or
rather of spontaneous action in behalf of others.
How far the Sánkhya system is obnoxious to the Is the
Sámkhya
System
charge of atheism, has been frequently disputed.”
He did not, however, fail to recognise the CHAP. I.
Rapila himself affected to discern, in his peculiar atheistic *
theory of nature, the solution of all human problems,
and consequently was disposed to treat assertions of
a primal and intelligent Cause, distinct from matter
and surpassing nature, as extremely doubtful, or, at
least, as philosophically superfluous. Hence oppo-
nents," in whose eyes religion arid philosophy were
1 Sánkhya Káriká, ed. Wilson,
p. 168.
* Ibid. p. 171.
* Cousin, who treatsthesánkhya
philosophy as the sensualism. [sen-
sationalism] of India, declares that
it must always issue in “material-
ism, fatalism, atheism' (Cown's &c.
I. 200).
4 See the Aphorisms of the Wo-
dánta Philosophy, Bk. I. ch. I.
Sect. II. (ed. Ballantyne), contain-
ing a ‘confutation of the Atheistic
doctrines of the Sánkhyas.” One
argument is well put, viz. that
man, who by the philosopher is
called upon to identify himself
with the course of the world, can-
212
Chrisł and offer Masſers.
*s-
CHAP. T. convertible terms, assailed him chiefly on this ground,
asseverated that his teaching was ‘unscriptural’ and
absurd, repudiated his attempts to shelter himself
beneath a figurative interpretation of the Védas, and
branded all his speculations with the title “atheistic'
(mīrāśwara, i.e. ‘without an āśwara,’ or ‘lord’). But
his disciples might have urged in mitigation of this
charge that Kapila does not entirely overlook the
presence of spirit in the midst of the material universe,
—inert, indeed, and passionless, ‘a bystander, a spec-
tator,” but still a real entity,+and further, that he
is not unwilling to assign the origin of individual
souls to some great central essence,” gifted with voli-
tion, and as such, analogous to the abstract God of
the Védántins. The truth appears to be that Kapila,
in recoiling from their system, rushed at once into
the opposite extreme. They laboured to get rid of
contradictions between visible and invisible by ques-
tioning, and finally denying, the reality of the former.
He, perplexed as much as they by the anomalies and
apparent dualism of the world, allotted the first place
to matter, or at least invested it with all active pro-
perties. What was Māyā, or illusion, in the ‘ortho-
not without absurdity be called in the Colonial Church Chronicle,
upon to identify himself with what XI. Io9; quoting Colebrook's
is unintelligent.
1 Colebrooke, ed. Pauthier, pp.
40, 180. In reply to the ques-
tion, What is soul? it is an-
swered (Lecture, as above, p. 17):
‘Soul is without beginning, sub-
tile, omnipresent, intelligent, with-
out [the three] qualities, eternal,
spectator, enjoyer, not an agent,
the knower of body, pure, not
producing aught.'
2 This is disputed by a writer
Essay, where it is maintained that
the soul is, according to the Sán-
khyas, “neither produced nor pro-
ductive: it is multitudimous [i. e.
there is a multitude of souls, and
not one only universal soul] ‘in-
dividual, sensitive, eternal, unal-
terable, immaterial.” The view
taken in the text is supplied by
J. C. Thompson, Introd. to the
J3hagavad Gátá, p. lxvii. and else-
where.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
213
dox’ creed, became reality in his : it was the true
foundation of the visible universe.
The Sámkhya was, however, thoroughly
in the practical bent of his philosophy. He was
striving, like the rest, to purchase an exemption from
the fatal liability to repetition of birth; he hoped to
further the emancipation of the spirit from the bonds
of individuality. And knowledge was the single
recipe which he would deign to offer in promoting
these desirable results. He laid no stress whatever
on the influences of moral goodness; while sacrifice
and every form of ritual observance, though the merit
of them was in general terms conceded, could possess
no charm for him, because they only served to place
the worshipper upon a level with the perishable
dévas, and secured no more than temporary libera-
tion.” Such grovelling aims can never satisfy the
aspirations of the true philosopher. He, therefore,
hastens to strike out a new and independent pathway,
free, as he maintains, from every shadow of ‘impurity,
excess, or deficiency.” r
If we ask, What is the special character of the
remedy to which these wondrous powers may be
attributed?—the answer is that it consists of a pro-
found acquaintance with the Sámkhya philosophy, as
digested in twenty-five categories; or, in other words,
implies a perfect knowledge of the way in which
1 Aphorisms of the Sámkhya
Philosophy, Bk. I. Aph. 83 : Sán-
khya Káriká, ed. Wilson, p. 15.
In the aphorism, it is maintained,
that all liberation, Supposed to be
wrought out by ritual observances,
will be found imperfect and tem-
porary, just because it was the
2"
result of act, or was accomplished
by means.
* Sámkhya Káriká, p. 14. It
is curious to observe that the ‘im-
purity’ of the Vaidic method arose
partly from the countenance there
given to animal sacrifices.
CHAP. I.
Indian Practical
aim of Iſa-
pila and
his follow-
7°S,
Means of
liberation.
214
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. T. mankind are constituted, and the means by which
Jſapila's
theory of
%)}{t/?.
they can escape from the entanglements of self. No
sooner have these principles been mastered than the
Sánkhya is elevated, potentially at least, to the ulti-
mate stages of existence. Pain and pleasure, vice
and virtue cease to operate for him. He is no more
susceptible of qualities so accidental and so earthly.
It is true that, owing to the force of impulses already
given, he must continue for a while to occupy a
human body, and must act like other mortals, “as
the potter having set his wheel whirling puts on it
a lump of clay, fabricates a vessel and takes it off,
and leaves the wheel continuing to turn round;" yet
all the consequences of action are prevented when the
soul is once illuminated by true knowledge. Or if
it be asked again, By what peculiar channels man
obtains this salutary illumination?—the answer is,
By inference, by perception, and, last in order, by
tradition or ‘right affirmation.” For Kapila was
driven to confess not only that some truths may far
exceed the range of human vision and the powers of
human logic, but that, on their revelation, such high
verities are capable of being handed down to future
ages. He himself had, for example, been indebted
to the ancients for more than one ingredient of the
system he had founded.
With regard to the capacities of the human sub-
ject, Kapila pursued a very independent line. He
went so far as to suggest ideas fatal to the vast
prerogatives of the Brähmans. Human souls, he
1 Sámkhya Iſārść, pp. 184, 18 s said to be, the existence of Indra,
* Lecture, as above, p. 49. Some the northern Kurus, the golden
of the matters not proveable by mountain Méru, the nymphs in
perception or by inference are Paradise.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
215
argued, though personally distinct,” are all of equal
worth and elevation. Present inequalities in their
condition he referred to the specific structure of men's
bodies, or rather to the distribution of the primary
elements from which their bodies are compounded.
These elements” together form a triad. They are
purity or goodness (sattva); imperfection, pain or
foulness (rajas); blind indifference, stupidity or dark-
ness (tamas). In proportion to the dominance ob-
tained by one or other of the primary elements, man
approaches, first, to the divine or noble ; secondly,
to the selfish, or the barely human ; thirdly, to the
bestial, the inert, or the besotted. He alone who by
obeying the dictates of true philosophy rises high
above the ordinary level is exempted from the risk,
or rather the necessity, of emigrating step by step
through various forms of bodily organisation. Here,
as we have hinted, Kapila was always true to the
received opinions; nay, so deeply rooted in his mind
was the idea of transmigration, that he started an
elaborate theory for its defence. When some began
to ask, How souls which he believed to be inactive
have the power of passing from one body to another?
1 The rival doctrine of the Wé-
dántims is presented in the follow-
ing extract: ‘This soul of all
worlds is but one : by whom is it
made more ? Some speak of Soul
as several—seeing that knowledge
and other mental states are ob-
servable [simultaneously—some
being happy whilst others are
sad]; but in the Brähman, the
worm and the insect; in the out-
caste, the dog and the elephant;
in goats, cows, gadflies and gnats,
the wise behold the same [single
soul]: Lecture, as above, p. 24.
* Ibid. p. 27. Such a distri-
bution, with other objects, was
perhaps much older than Kapila
(Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. 832) : yet
the guna of the Sánkhyas is no
mere attribute, but a substance
discernible by soul through the
medium of the faculties. In
Prakriti, or nature absolute and
unmodified, we have the three
qualities in perfect equipoise:
Wilson, on Sánk. Kár. p. 52.
CHAP. I.
Three
“qualities.’
216
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. I. or secondly, How it happens that emancipation is not
Theistic
Sánkhya.
universally effected in the act of disembodiment?—
his answer was, that every soul upon its first emission
and association with matter, is invested also with a
subtile and elastic framework (linga-sarāra), the re-
flection of the more substantial body. This it cannot
afterwards abandon till the hour of ultimate emancip-
ation; and a vehicle is consequently found in which
the passive soul may be transferred from one material
tenement to another.
Acute, however, as the author of the Sánkhya
system was, he failed eventually to satisfy the anxious
questions of Hindús respecting the Supreme Intelli-
gence. When they demanded by whom the human
spirit had been made to emanate, or why the great
primordial element was individualised in human
bodies, Kapila could only urge that such had been
the necessary order of development, one step of some
inscrutable and eternal process. The uniform vague-
ness of his language on these questions led to the
formation of another school, entitled the ‘theistic'
Sánkhya.” It ascribed no will to prakriti, or the
material essence; it recognised an (Swara, or lord,
and therefore did not hesitate to preach that God
exists, that God is the intelligent Source of being,
that God allots those varying passions, powers and
faculties which men continually exhibit, and that
* Colebrooke, pp. 24, 25, with
Pauthier's notes. The latterpoints
out the close affinity of this notion
to certain speculations of the
Greek philosophers and early Fa-
thers of the Church, respecting
the corporeity of the soul.
* Ibid. pp. 34 sq. Wuttke (II.
424) is of opinion that this modi-
fication is due to Christian influ-
ences: nor is there anything in
the chronology adverse to his
view; for when Lassen (I. 833)
places Patanjali, with whom it is
associated, in the 2nd century be-
fore Christ, he allows that the
evidence for so doing is extremely
slight. -
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thoughſ.
217
God is the great Judge who punishes or rewards CHAP. I.
according to their conduct. Modified by the acces-
sion of these new and better influences, the Sámkhya
system grew, and flourished in some districts; though
at present hardly any traces of it are discernible in
the literary circles of Hindústán."
b. Buddhism.
From the school of Kapila to that of Buddha” the
transition is most obvious and direct. The close
affinity between them did not escape the eye of Cole-
brooke, and, in spite of Ritter's disbelief, the truth
of his remark has been continually verified.” One
system is indeed no more than the extension and
practical embodiment of the other. I am not desirous
of maintaining absolutely that principles allied in
some degree to those of Buddhism were unknown to
other Asiatics in still earlier times."
1 In the present day, if it sur-
vive at all, we have to search for
it among the labyrinths of German
metaphysics. Prof. Wilson says:
“During the whole of my inter-
course with learned natives, Imet
with but one Brahman who pro-
fessed to be acquainted with the
writings of this school.” Pref.
to the Sámkhya ICáriká, p. viii.
* See a new work by C. F.
Roeppen, Die Religion des Buddha
wºnd ihre Pntstehung. Berlin, 1857.
8 See, for instance, Lassen, I.
830, 83.1 : Saint-Hilaire, Des
Védas, p. 147. The latter ob-
serves with justice, that all the
indianists ‘n’hésitent pas à re-
connaitre dans le bouddhisme,
devenu plus tard une religion, un
développement et une copie du
sänkhya de Kapila. La resem-
What I intend
blance ne peut faire le moindre
doute pour qui se donnera la
peine d’étudierles deux doctrines:
les bases de l’une et de l'autre
sont identiques.’
* “It may be,” says Mr. Hardy,
Manual of Buddhism, p. 88,
Ond. 1853) “that Götama pre-
Sented himself to the world as the
Successor of men, whose claims to
Supreme authority were thus ac-
knowledged; but I have not yet
met with any well-authenticated
data of their doctrines or deeds.”
Yet even this has been positively
denied by W. von Humboldt in
his great work, Ueber die Kawi-
Sprache, I. 290 : “Sowohl die An-
nahme eines Wor-Brahmanischen,
als eines ursprünglich Ausser-
Indischen Buddhismus, bedarf
keiner Widerlegung mehr.’ Cf.
218 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. by Buddhism, is the system of metaphysical and
T social philosophy, organised by Sákya-muni, or Gau-
tama Buddha. Neither am I speaking here of Bud-
dhism in its modern development, as modified by inter-
mixtures either with the popular forms of Brähmanism,
or with the older superstitions of the countries where
it afterwards gained a footing: for that view of it
will come more properly before us, when we pass
from Hindústán to China, and the other regions
where it still possesses a complete ascendancy. In
different words, we shall be dealing now with a
philosophy rather than with a religion.
º Although in passing to a survey of the principles
ſººn of Buddhism, we entirely quit the region of the mythe
and enter that of the historic legend, and although
the ground we have to traverse is in general less
encumbered by chronological difficulties, the point of
starting has not hitherto been absolutely determined.
The narratives that wear the greatest semblance of pro-
bability are the Chinese on one side, and the Sing'-
halese on the other; while of these conflicting autho-
rities, the latter is preferred by nearly all competent
writers of the present day." The death of Gautama
on the other side, Col. Sykes, as
above, p. 205, n. I. I may here
also add, that the religion of the
Jains, which still Survives in Gu-
zerat and other parts of India, is
connected in its origin, if not
absolutely one with Buddhism:
see Colebrooke, Asiat. Res. IX.
279 sq. , Stuhr Die Religions-
Systeme, &c. I, 61 sq.
1 E. Burnouf, Introduction à
!'histoire du Bouddhisme indien,
Pref. p. iii. p. 587, Paris, 1844;
Tassen, II. 51 sq.; Elphinstone,
pp. III, II 2, 3rd ed. ; Hardy,
Manual of Buddhism, p. 353. Mr.
Blphinstone makes the following
observations, in the justice of
which almost every one is now
disposed to acquiesce: ‘These
discrepancies are too numerous to
be removed by the supposition
that they refer to an earlier and
a later Budha; and that expedient
is also precluded by the identity
of the name Sakya, and of every
circumstance in the lives of the
persons to whom such different
dates are assigned. We must,
therefore, either pronounce the
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 219
is thus ascribable to the year 543 B.C., i. e. two cen- CHAP. I.
turies before the date of Alexander's expedition.
When the primitive story is divested of the count- Early bio-
less fables in which it has been decked by later %.
superstition, Gautama is there presented not as one
of many incarnations of the Deity,” nor as the sole
Indian Băudhas to be ignorant of
the date of a religion which arose
among themselves, and at the
same time must derange the best
established part of the Hindú
chronology ; or admit that an
error must have occurred in Cash-
mír or Tibet, through which places
it crept into the more eastern
countries, when they received the
religion of Budha, many centu-
ries after the death of its founder.
As the latter seems by much the
most probable explanation, we
may safely fix the death of Budha
about 550 B.C.’ There are per-
sons who identify Buddha with
the prophet Daniel, and ascribe
the appearance of Buddhism in
India to the captivity and disper-
sion of the Jews | | See Wilson’s
paper in Journal of As. Soc. (1856)
XVI. 233.
* See the very copious legends
of Götama (or, more properly,
Gautama = a descendant of Go-
tama) in Mr. Hardy's Manual of
Buddhism, pp. 139—353. These
are drawn exclusively from Sing'-
halese sources, but are identical
with accounts now circulated in
Birmah and Siam, and have also
very much in common with the
Tibetan traditions, as previously
reported by Csoma Körösi, and
still more fully in the Røya Tch'
er Rol Pa (a Tibetan history of
Buddha, circ. 150 B.C. ed. Toucaux,
Paris, 1847); with the Nepālese
traditions, as reported by Mr. B. H.
Hodgson; with the Mongolian
(Tataric) traditions, as reported
by M. Schmidt, and with the
Chinese as preserved in the Foe
Iſoue Ki, and translated by Abel
Rémusat. Professor Wilson (as
above, pp. 247, 248) has suggested
various considerations, which in
his judgment throw suspicion on
these narratives, and ‘render it
very problematical whether any
such person as Sákya Sinha, or
Sákya-muni, or Sramaña Gau-
tama, ever actually existed.’ The
reader is also referred to an ad-
mirable sketch of Sákya-muni in
M. Saint-Hilaire's recent work
JDu Bouddhisme, pp. 28–123,
Paris, 1855, where the historical
and legendary elements are sepa-
rated with great care and acumen.
2 On the story which had
reached St. Jerome, and was re-
peated by Ratramnus, respecting
the birth of Gautama from the
side of a Virgin, see Lassen, III.
370. In the Lalita Vistara (in-
cluded in M. Foucaux’s Tibetan
history of Buddha, and assigned
by him, and Wilson after him, to
about 150 B.C.) Gautama is said
to have previously attained the
rank of Bódhisatwa (which is in-
ferior only to that of Buddha) in
the Tushita heaven, where he
taught the doctrine to innumer-
able millions of Bódhisatwas, &c.
To rise to the elevation of a
perfect Buddha one existence
more on earth was necessary, and
he therefore becomes incarnate as
the son of the Sákya prince
220
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. receptacle of the divine Intelligence, but simply as
a man,—a man of gentle, ardent, pensive, philan-
thropic nature. Descended from a royal house in
one of the most polished provinces of central India,
he was nurtured in the midst of luxury, and with
the prospect of unbroken happiness. But ere he
reached the flower of manhood Gautama grew weary
of the pomp and pleasures of his father's court. Pre-
sentiments by which he seems to have been haunted
almost from his cradle, and the ever-darkening
pictures which he drew of human wretchedness and
mutability, had filled his heart with sadness border-
ing on despair. At last, abandoning his favourite
wife, he stole away entirely from the palace; and
at the age of nine-and-twenty sought relief in the
society of Bráhmans, with whom he lived six years
a life of study and asceticism. It was while occupied
in these pursuits, resisting the temptations to sensual
pleasure, and mourning over the prostration of the
universe at large, that he awoke to the idea of stand-
ing forth among his fellow-men in the capacity of
liberator and reformer." Hitherto he was but Sákya-
Suddhódana, king of Kapilavastu,
and Māyā his wife: he is born
miraculously from his mother's
side, who died seven days after
his birth. Wilson, in Journal of
As. Soc. (1856) XVI. 243. The
feeling which prompted this pe-
culiar theory of incarnation was
subsequently shared by the Wa-
lentinians, and in the 16th cen-
tury by our Joan of Kent: see
Hardwick’s Hist. of Reformation,
pp. 278, 279, and n. 6. In the
fabulous legend of Lao-tse, com-
posed as late as A.D. 350, he also
is said to have issued from the
left side of his mother, who
carried him in her womb for 72
years: see the ‘Introd.” to S.
Julien’s edition of the Tao-te-
Jºng, p. xxiii.
| He finally thought himself
capable of becoming the deliverer
of the whole universe. See the
narrative in Saint-Hilaire, pp. 55
sq. ‘Il avait enfin trouvé la voie
forte du grand homme, la voie du
, sacrifice des sens, la voie infaillible
et Sans abattement, la voie de la
bénédiction et de la vertu, la voie
Sans tache, Sans envie, sans igno-
rance, et Sans passion . . . la voie
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 221
muni, the ‘solitary of the race of Šákya; now he Char. I.
fancied himself entitled to the appellation Buddha, Founda-
‘the awakened,’ ‘the enlightened.’ He collected, in #. of
e tº e & t wddhism.
the midst of spiritual ecstacies, that during the present
cycle of the universe he was exalted to the very
highest point of being, and that by renunciation of
the world he had been freed from all the limitations
of natural existence. For the sake, however, of pro-
moting the emancipation of others, he did not pass
away immediately into his ultimate condition. He
resolved to be the founder of a school; but instead
of acting like the Brähmans, he exhibited at once the
deep and comprehensive basis on which he thought
a worthier fabric should be reared. He preached in
public at Benares (Varanásſ), and afterwards in other
parts of northern and central India, fascinating a large
crowd of followers, by the beauty of his person, the
feminine suavity of his manners, his ardour, his
austerities, the touching eloquence of his address, the
mildness and philanthropy of his doctrines, his use
qui měne à la possession de la tification of human desires both
science universelle, la voie du
souvenir et du jugement, la voie
qui adoucit la vieillesse et la
mort, la voie calme et sans trouble,
exempte des craintes du démon,
qui conduit a la cité du Nirvāna:’
Ibid. p. 57.
1 ‘The two most successful re-
ligious impostures, which the
world has yet seen, are Buddhism
and Muhammâdanism. Each
creed owed its origin to the en-
thusiasm of a single individual,
and each was rapidly propagated
by numbers of zealous followers.
But here the parallel ends: for
the Kurán of Muhammad was
addressed wholly to the ‘passions'
of mankind, by the promised gra-
in this world and in the next;
while the Dharma of Sákya Muni
was addressed wholly to the ‘in-
tellect,’ and sought to wean man-
kind from the pleasures and vani-
ties of this life by pointing to the
transitoriness of all human enjoy-
ment. . . The former propagated
his religion by the merciless edge
of the sword; the latter by the
persuasive voice of the mission-
ary. The sanguinary career of
the Islamite was lighted by the
lurid flames of burning cities; the
peaceful progress of the Buddhist
was illuminated by the cheerful
faces of the sick in monastic
hospitals [for the crippled, the
deformed, the destitute] and by
222
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
of the vernacular language, and, according to the
legends, a profuse display of wonder-working powers.
When Gautama breathed his last, at the advanced
age of eighty, Buddhism had been firmly rooted in
some parts of Hindústán. The sayings of the founder
were gradually collected into Sátras, which, on being
augmented by the Vinaya and Abhidharma (disciplin-
ary and metaphysical treatises), became the rivals of
the Vaidic literature. These all were duly authorised
in synods; and ere long the doctrines which they
recommended had so far prevailed that they were
threatening to eradicate the ancient system. Of
Hindú kings who manifested an especial interest in
the spread of Buddhism, none was more conspicuous
than Aśoka,” who, on abandoming the hereditary faith,
Its early
propaga-
tion.
the happy smiles of travellers re-
posing in Dharmasálás by the
road-side. The one was the per-
sonification of bodily activity and
material enjoyment; the other
was the genius of corporeal ab-
stinence and intellectual contem-
plation.” Cunningham, Bhilsa
Topes, pp. 53, 54. Buddhism has
been defined as a “puritan-quiet-
ist' offshoot from Hindúism.
1 * Sätra' is properly a ‘philo-
Sophical aphorism;’ but like other
Sanskrit words, it acquired a
technical meaning from its adop-
tion by the Buddhists. The oldest
of their Sūtras are written, for
the most part, in simple prose,
the text, as now preserved, be-
longing to the first century after
Christ. The genuine Sūtras,
whether in Sanskrit or in Pāli,
all begin with the expression,
‘This has been heard by me,’ im-
plying that they are the ipsissima
verba of Sákya. ‘We may con-
sider it established upon the most
probable evidence that the chief
Sanskrit authorities of the Bud-
dhists still in our possession were
written, at the latest, from a cem-
tury and a half before, to as
much after, the era of Christianity.’
Wilson, Buddha and Buddhism
(Journ. Of As. Soc. XVI, 240).
The Pāli works of southern India
date from the fifth century after
Christ. The later compositions
indicate the influence of foreign
admixtures, and in one the para-
ble of the Prodigal Son is said to
have been distinctly reproduced :
Wuttlee, II. 522 : see also Saint-
Hilaire, Du Bouddhisme, p. 126.
One of the most interesting relics
of “orthodox’ Buddhism is the
Lotus de la bonne Loi, translated
from the Sanskrit by Burnouf,
Paris, 1852. -
* See a full account of these
extraordinary assemblies in Cun-
, ningham, pp. 55 sq.
* See the narrative in Lassen,
II. 21.5 sq. Buddhism thus be-
came the religion, the state-reli-
gion of India, in the third cen-
Warieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
223
endeavoured at the middle of the third century before CHAP. I.
Christ to give the new religion a predominance in
districts far beyond the boundaries of Magadha. The
Bráhmans had in early times diffused their influence,
either by the agency of the Sword, or of religious
Solitaries, who, bent on self-renunciation, settled in
the territory of the unbeliever, and bore silent witness
to the creed and worship of their forefathers. Bráh-
manism, however, could not propagate itself except
by making Südras of all people whom it vanquished;
for to spread the higher elements of religious know-
ledge among those who were not genuine Aryans,
was believed to be peculiarly profane. Buddhism, on
the other hand, made no distinction in the quality of
the persons it addressed; and, in a synod held 246 B.C.
a regular plan was organised for propagating the new
faith by means analogous to those employed hereafter
in conducting Christian missions,—by pacific and
persuasive teaching, and translating Buddhist writings
into foreign languages. --
The first-fruits of their mighty harvest were Buddhism
gathered in Kashmir: and under Ming-Te the flexible
‘s diffused
7m Iſash-
creed of Buddhist emissaries won for them admission miº, and
to the court of the “celestial empire, A.D. 61,–
exactly at the time when Christianity was marching
forth in all its pristine vigour to subdue the kingdoms
of the western world. The Buddhists, it is true,
could not eventually retain their hold on India.
After thriving for a thousand years, and writing
tury, B.C. The dynasties, which seventh century of our era; and
reigned in the chief cities of was extirpated under Sankara-
India, were Sûdras. Buddhism Achārya.
was losing ground rapidly in the
China º
224 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. a triumphant history in monasteries," and enormous
T temples excavated from the living rock, there came
a vast and terrible revulsion in the feelings of the
is expelled populace. The younger sister was violently extruded
”* by the elder from all parts of Hindústán,” if we except
one scanty remnant at the foot of the Himalaya.
Yet meanwhile Buddhism had evinced a property
unknown to every other heathen system. It was far
more capable of transplantation. It flourished with
peculiar freshness and luxuriance in Tibet, and ultim-
ately in the Tartar tribes of central Asia. Above
all, it kept possession of its ancient fortress in the
island of Ceylon; and thither in the early centuries
of our era flocked a multitude of foreign pilgrims,
anxious by such visit to abridge their term of peni-
tential suffering, to venerate the relics of Gautama
Buddha, or to kiss the print of his gigantic foot.
Points of What then were the characteristics of this mar-
łontact with & ºt g
%.” vellous system as originally constituted? Its founder,
2S/??, we discern at once, had common ground with Bráh-
manism, which, notwithstanding, he endeavoured to
demolish. He took for granted the hereditary doc-
trine of transmigration; he argued, like his prede-
cessors, for eternal cycles of the universe, and infinite
successions of births and new births. It was a funda–
mental article of the Buddhist creed that “he who is
now the most degraded of the demons may one day
rule the highest of the heavens; he who is at present
1 Wihāras = monasteries: Sthū- ties; and in the 16th, Abulfazl,
pas (“topes') = monuments erect- the minister of Akbar, being anx-
ed over Buddhist reliquiæ (be- ious to explore the characteristics
tween the third and seventh cen- of all religions, could find no one
turies of our era). to assist him in his enquiries re-
2 In the eleventh century Bud- specting Buddhism.
dhism was limited to a few locali-
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
225
seated upon the most honourable of the celestial
thrones may one day writhe amidst the agonies of
a place of torment; and the worm that we crush
under our feet may, in the course of ages, become
a supreme Buddha.” It was also held that liberation
from this terrible necessity of repeated births was the
grand aim of all religions. Buddhism, in like manner,
recognised the wretchedness of individual being, and
fell in with the prevailing tendency to quietude, to
mortification of the flesh, to abstract and ecstatic
contemplation.
In many other points, where it diverged entirely
from the old religion, it was following, consciously or
unconsciously, the path marked out by Kapila, and
trodden by his disciples. The founder of the Sánkhya
philosophy had taught that Brahmá himself was
only at the head of the elemental creation, and, as
such, was finite, mortal, subject to contingencies like
pain and ignominy. The Supreme authority of the
Védas might accordingly be questioned; their tenets
1 Hardy, Manual of Budhism,
p. 36. Saint-Hilaire, Du Boud-
dhisme, p. 183, seems of opinion
that in the possible extent to
which transmigration may be
carried, Buddhism is even more
exacting than Brähmanism. AC-
cording to the Buddhist no in-
crease is possible in the number
of personal spirits, so that there
is a constant tendency to the de-
population of the world of appear-
ance (Sansāra); and in the long
run every such spirit will pass
into the Buddha-world; will be-
come a Bódhisatwa, and finally
reach ºrvána. “Alles, was da
lebt und athmet, Soll und muss
Buddha werden :’ Schott, p. 3;
cf. p. Io. Before the final step
WOL. I.
is taken by which the Bódhisatwa
becomes a perfect Buddha, he
may undergo repeated births either
into the world of dévas or of men.
In this case he is represented as
a Saviour, whose mission is to
rouse men from their slumbers,
and incite them by his own ex-
ample to a course of self-renunci-
ation and philosophy. A thou-
Sand of these Bódhisatwas appear
in the world of men during each
great Kalpa (Mahākalpa); all are
born in the north of India. That
period of the world in which we
live has already beheld four of
these Bódhisatwas. The last
was Sákya-muni, whose successor
is expected at the end of 5ooo
years, Ibid. p. 13.
15
CHAP. I.
Assails the
Védas and
the estab-
lished
religion.
226 Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. I might be all subordinated to other forms of knowledge.
Gautama intensified this feeling, and completed the
Sánkhya innovation by rejecting the Védas altogether.
As the “enlightened' one, and as believing in the
infinite capacity of his own intellect, he placed his
tripod far above the throne of beings like Brahmā, or
Mahéswara; he was himself the ‘lord and teacher,
not of one section of the universe, but of all ‘the
three worlds.’
Another blow inflicted by him on the old religion,
and especially on the power of the Brähmanical
order, was the absolute rejection of animal sacrifice.
Some indication of a like repugnance is traceable to
early times,” and in the creed of Kapila, the shedding
of blood was openly denounced as one example of
“impurity.” But in Buddhism the rejection rests
on deeper and more subtle grounds. The Buddhist
has no consciousness of guilt, because he utterly
denies the freedom of the creature. Sin is in his
view a necessary thing : it is a cosmical and not
a personal evil: its vitiation is inherent in the world
of matter, and inseparable from all forms of transient
being. If the Buddhist sins, the punishment which
nature has attached to his demerit will inevitably
take effect: the law must have its course. He there-
fore manifests no wish for reconcilement: he has no
JBuddhist
doctrine of
sin.
1 This affinity between Kapila
and Gautama is pointed out in
Lassen, I. 831. In the Singha-
lese Buddhism of the present day,
which is largely intermixed with
Bráhmanical elements, the Mahá-
Brahmá is notwithstanding only
the ruler of a ‘bráhma-lóka',:
Hardy, p. 41. This idea of the
gods being made subject to the
will of a mortal by his perform-
ance of superhuman austerities
was not entirely new in Hindú-
stán.
* See Roth, Nirukta, “Einl.’ p.
* See above, p. 213, n. 2.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
227
idea of mediation, of satisfaction, of propitiation." On Char. I.
the other hand, a keener insight into all the possible
consequences of the Hindú doctrine of transmigration
would naturally serve to deepen his repugnance to
traditionary usages involving the destruction of animal
life:* from both which causes it results that Bud-
dhism stands conspicuous in the midst of heathendom
as a religion without sacrificial cultus. The very
name of sacrifice (yajna) has been discarded, and the
simple worship of the Buddhists, almost universally
restricted to the offering up of prayers and flowers
and perfumes, in memory of their founder. It is true
that orders of religious teachers,” corresponding to the
Christian clergy, were instituted as early as the reign
of Asoka; but excepting in the Lama-hierarchy of
Tibet, which may hereafter call" for more particular
notice, Buddhist priests perform no functions that are
strictly sacerdotal; they are rather confraternities of
memdicants, who act as patterms of the sternest form
of self-renunciation, or as mere teachers of the popul-
a CG.
1. Cf. Mr. Thomson's Bampton
Lectures, pp. 44, 45. In speaking
of Singhalese Buddhism at the
present day, Sir E. Tenment ob-
serves that “neither in heaven
nor on earth can man (according
to the Buddhist doctors) escape
from the consequences of his acts;
that morals are in their essence
productive causes, without the aid
or intervention of any higher all-
thority; and hence forgiveness
and atonement are ideas utterly
unknown.”
* “The Báudha religionists carry
their respect for animal life much
further than the Bramins : their
priests do not eat after noon, nor
drink after dark, for fear of swal-
lowing minute insects; and they
carry a brush on all occasions,
with which they carefully sweep
every place before they sit down,
lest they should inadvertently
crush any living creature.” El-
phinstone, p. 107. Still, at the
present day, as the same writer
adds in a note, ‘the laity eat ani-
mal food without restraint; even
the priests may eat it, if no animal
is killed on their account.”
* Burnouf, Hist, du Bouddhisme,
pp. 293 sq.; Wuttke, II. 557.
* See Appendia; II.
228
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. T.
JBuddhist
It was contended in the class-rooms of the Sánkhya
philosophy that human spirits, in whatever bodies
view of the they may dwell, are all intrinsically equal.” Gautama
Casté-
system.
was also a believer in this doctrine, and went so far
as to reduce it into practice. He could not shut his
eyes, indeed, to the existence of the caste-system;
and, accepting it as an established fact, attributed
distinctions in the various orders of society to differ-
ences of conduct in a former life: but notwithstanding
such admission, men of every caste were equally in-
vited to his lectures, and arranged according to their
age and worth; and, as he taught that all, whatever
be their natural gifts or opportunities or condition, are
entitled to the same spiritual advantages, and have
access to the means of liberation, he prepared his
hearers for the ultimate dissolution of the caste-
system,” and the overthrow of Brähmanism. Indeed
the universe itself, and not the narrow confines of the
Aryan tribes, was chosen as the theatre on which the
new religion sought to operate: the Buddha, though
he taught in northern Hindústán, was anxious to
deliver and enlighten all things.
(1) But besides these general principles, there
were, in Buddhism, other characteristics which de-
serve particular consideration. Some of them may be
regarded as speculative, or metaphysical; the rest as
practical, or moral. In Kapila's system, we already
noticed, the idea of God was never prominent: it was
in danger of evaporating altogether in the midst of
JVas
JBuddhism
atheistic 2
1 * The Bráhman is born of 'a out exception—men, women, boys,
woman, so is the chańdála (out- girls, poor and rich.” *
caste). ‘My law is a law of grace * It is retained, however, in
for all’, ‘My doctrine is like the Ceylon: Hardy, pp. 71, 78.
sky. There is room for all with-
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
229
philosophical refinements. But Gautama went further CHAP. I.
still: the system which he founded is more openly
atheistic. It not only disregarded, but denied the
one eternal God, the Maker and the Ruler of all other
forms of being. Whatever symptoms of intelligence
and design, whatever powers of organisation it might
recognise, they all were held to be inherent properties.
of matter. The world and all things in it rise into
existence, are transformed, and ultimately vanish in
obedience to some natural order, some inscrutable
necessity: they are like regular undulations of the
ocean flowing one into another; they are links in some
eternal chain of causes and effects. To Bráhmans
God is everything; to Buddhists God is nothing.
Brähmanism, when fully and minutely analysed, is
found to be all centre; Buddhism all circumference.
The first contended, that because the abstract Brahma
is one only and immutable, all things subject to
mutation are unreal; they merely seem to be. The
second argued, that because all things are now multi-
form and mutable, they cannot have a single and im-
mutable basis. In the one, the spirit underlying
every form of matter is an efflux of the Godhead; in
the other, while the world appears to be undeified,
the only God is not confessed. The Buddhist breaks
entirely loose from the ideal pantheism of the Brāh-
man, but he finds no refuge in the sanctuary of truth;
his creed is purely negative and nihilistic.' Excep-
1 The following statement of
Professor Wilson entirely corro-
borates the inferences I had drawn
respecting the atheistic character
of primitive Buddhism : ‘Belief
in a supreme God, the Creator
and Ruler of the universe, is un-
questionably a modern graft upon
the unqualified atheism of Sãkya
Muni: it is still of very limited
recognition. In none of the stand-
ard authorities translated by M.
Burnouf, or Mr. Gogerley, is there
the slightest allusion to such a
f
230
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. tion' may perhaps be made in favour of one school or
Theistic
sect, the Buddhists of Nepāl and western Tibet, who,
owing to their close proximity to Bráhmanism, or
other causes, seem to have inherited a loftier and more
spiritual faith, transferring their idea of God to one
supreme Intelligence, whom they designate Adi-
Buddha; but of Buddhism, as it stands depicted in.
the oldest class of monuments, we need not hesitate
to affirm, that no single trace survives” in it of a
sect in
Nepāl.
First Cause, the existence of whom
is incompatible with the funda-
mental Buddhist dogma of the
eternity of all existence. The
doctrine of an Adi-Buddha, a first
Buddha, in the character of a
supreme Creator, which has found
its way into Nepāl, and perhaps
into western Tibet, is entirely
local, as is that of the Dhyānī
Buddhas, and the Bódhisatwas,
their sons and agents in creation,
as described by Mr. Hodgson.
They are not recognised in the
Buddhist mythology of any other
people, and have no doubt been
borrowed from the Hindús. There
can be no First Buddha, for it is
of the essence of the system that
Buddhas are of progressive de-
velopment: any one may become
a Buddha by passing through a
series of existences in the practice
of virtue and benevolence, and
there have been accordingly an
infinitude of Buddhas in all ages
and in all regions.’ Journal of
4s. Soc. (1856), XVI. 255, 256.
Weber (Indische Skizzen, Berlin,
1857, p. 67, note) takes substan-
tially the same view.
* See Elphinstone, pp. 104, IoS.
Wuttke, following Burnouf, is,
however, of opinion that the sect
is comparatively modern (II.529),
especially as no trace of it is
found in China, and as the nearest
approximation to such theism in
the speculative philosophy of the
Buddhists (see Hodgson, in Asiat,
Jęesearches, XVI. 435 sq.) does not
go beyond the Sámkhya doctrine
of a spiritual essence.
* Cunningham (Bhilsa Topes,
p. 39) seems to be of opinion that
the earliest race of Buddhists dif-
fered most materially from the
Sánkyas, and instead of holding
the eternity of matter, contended
that everything was the creation
of the self-existent Adi-Buddha,
who willed it, and it was.
* “In den Sutra und den wich-
tigsten andern Religionsschriften
ist keine Spur eines hôchsten
weltbildenden Wesens:" Wuttke,
II. 527. In this verdict concur
Burnouf, Schmidt (as there cited,
p. 529); Tennent (Christianity in
Ceylon, p. 208, note); Hardy,
JManual of Budhism, p. 399; Saint-
Hilaire, Du Bouddhisme, p. 245,
It should, however, be stated on
the other side, that Col. Sykes
(Journal of Asiat. Soo. VI. 377)
endeavours to screen the Bud-
dhists from the charge of atheism.
His chief appeal is to a curious
hymn, composed, as many think,
by Gautama himself, at the mo-
ment when he became Buddha.
It is printed, with three versions
somewhat differing, in Mr. Hardy's
Manual, pp. 180, 181 : but there
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
231
Supreme Being, either like the Óm of the Vaidic
period, or the Brahma of the Laws of Manu. Bud-
dhism even went so far as to reject the Sánkhya
theory of an active material essence, on the ground
that all such arguments are contradicted by the
mutable phenomena of the universe. “Beings are
not created,’ says a writing of high authority among
CHAP. I.
the Buddhists, ‘by one God, or lord (Swara), neither Buddhist
by one spirit (purusha), neither by matter (pradhána).
If there were indeed a single cause of all things, as
God, or spirit, or matter, then, by the simple fact
of the existence of this cause, must the world at once
have been created in its entirety, since a cause cannot
exist without producing its due effect. But all things
may be seen to come into the world, according to a
law of succession, some issuing from the parent-
womb, others from the germ. It must accordingly
doctrine of
is nothing in it to militate against
the view here adopted. It merely
states that Gautama had found
the “artificer' (Gehakāraka = the
House-builder') of the human
frame, i. e. the key explaining the
true doctrine of existence, and
had thus secured exemption from
all future wanderings. Major
Cunningham (Bhilsa Topes, p. 36,
and elsewhere) maintains that the
primitive Buddhism was ‘theistic,”
in the sense that Gautama ad-
mitted the bare existence of a
Supreme Being, but denied His
providence. On the contrary,
Schott, a very ... great authority,
in his treatise Uber den Buddhais-
Amºs in Hochaste), º&nd in China.
(Berlin 1846) declares: “Die ur-
sprüngliche, ungefälschtelbuddha-
Lehre weiss von Keiner ewigen
Individualität, und somit verdankt
auch das Weltgebäude keiner sol-
chen sein Dasein’ (p. 2). Speak-
ing of the present state of Bud-
dhism in China, Gutzlaff declares:
‘It is heresy to talk of a causa-
tion, or a primary Author, for all
things have existed since number-
less Kalpas, and by their natural
tendency return to annihilation.’
Journ, of As, Soc. XVI. 80. “It
is a grand machinery, without an
intellectual propelling power:”
Ibid. p. 81. The most ancient
and genuine school of Buddhism
is that of the Swabhávikas, whose
doctrine is thus summarily indi-
cated in a Buddhist Páli book:”
“Whence come existing things?
from their own nature, Swabhá-
wót. Where do they go to after
life 2 into other forms, through
the same inherent tendency.
How do they escape from that
tendency Where do they finally
go? into vacuity,+sumyatá.” Wil-
Son, in Journ. of As. Soc. XVI.
256.
causation.

232
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. T. be concluded that there is a series of causes, and
Twelve-fold way in which all life has been produced.
that God is not the single cause.”
To elucidate this doctrine of causation was indeed
one principal object in the teaching of ‘the sons of
Sákya.’ They believed that theoretically the first
approach to liberation involves a knowledge of the
Starting,
therefore, with the old hypothesis, that the cycles of
the universe had no beginning, individual life, with
all its ills and accidents, its faculties of mind and
body, is traceable backwards through twelve stages”
to the first term in the circle of generation, which is
“ignorance' (avidyā), and consists in mistaking for
durable that which is but evanescent and precarious;
or, in other words, assigning to the universe a reality
which it does not actually possess. For Buddhism,
in this matter, went beyond the elder system; it re-
garded all ‘the three worlds' as ‘empty,” as no better
than a shadowy and illusive phantom. Having lost
all faith in God the Author of the universe, the Bud-
dhist was propelled to the conclusion, that the sensible
forms around him ought not to exist: they had no
right to be, and therefore since they are, they must
be evil; and the object was accordingly to liberate
all sentient creatures from their bondage to the non-
chain of
(30,26868.
| Quoted from the Yasomitra, dhist does not profess to en-
in Burnouf, p. 572.
* See Saint-Hilaire, pp. 188—
190. This “ignorance' is an ab-
stract quality producing another
abstract quality, merit and de-
merit, karma; which karma gives
birth to a third abstraction, con-
sciousness; and this being en-
dowed with physical power, pro-
duces body and mind, and so on :
Hardy, p. 392. Yet the Bud-
lighten us either respecting the
origin of avidyā, or the manner
in which karma operates.
* Schmidt has pointed out (Mé-
noires de l'Académie de Saint
I'étersbourg, I. 98 sq.) that the
two main principles of Buddhism
are (1) that the three worlds are
empty, and (2), that there is no
difference between being and non-
being. -
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thoughſ. 233
existent. So entirely was the mind of Gautama CHAP. I.
possessed by this idea, that of the elementary les-
sons which he taught men in conjunction with his
doctrine of the twelve-fold chain of causes, nearly
all had reference to the rise and remedy of human
suffering. The universality of that sufféring, its ‘Four
birth from passion and desire, the possibility of ºft,
escaping from it, and the method of escape, these
constitute the ‘four grand verities” impressed in
early youth upon the memory of Buddhists.
And if the special character of this deliverance Nirvāna.
be investigated, we find it summed up in the word
nirvana, ‘extinction,’ ‘blowing out.’
Such was the
Supreme felicity of the Buddha : such the goal to
which, he ever pointed the aspirations of his followers.
It was formerly disputed whether more is meant by
the expression nirvana than “eternal quietude,”
“un-
broken sleep,’ ‘impenetrable apathy'; but the oldest
literature of Buddhism will scarcely suffer us to
doubt that Gautama intended by it nothing short
of absolute “annihilation,” the destruction of all
elements which constitute existence.”
* Saint-Hilaire, p. 127.
* Ibid. pp. 195 sq.; Burnouf,
Iſist. du Bouddhisme, p. 589:
Wuttke, II, 570. The last writer
§: 571) cites the following passage
from a Mongolian Catechism: “Der
Sansára [i. e. the world of appear-
ance] ist Seiner Wesenheit nach
leer, Seiner Form nach trügerisch,
einen Wirkungen mach verderb-
slich : Nirvâna ist auch seiner
Wesenheit mach leer, aber erver-
nichtet jede Täuschung und be-
freit won allem Uebel.” Prof.
Wilson (Journ. of As. Soc. XVI.
256, 257) adopts the same view
as that which I havo stated in
the text. Life is the cause of
evil, from which there is no escape
but by ceasing to be. In Bud-
dhism there is no recipient for
the liberated soul.
* Nirvāna is sometimes used to
signify the Buddha-world, the
world inhabited by Bódhisatwas
(candidates for Buddhaship); but
the more abstract meaning is the
true one. “In Nirwāna aber fliesst
alles befreite Geistige zu einer
absoluten Monas Zusammen; aus
den unzähligen Buddha's wird
unpersömliches Buddha :’ Schott,
p. Io. Nirvána is aptly defined
as ‘ein von allem Etwas ewig be-
234
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
Neither Bráhmanism nor Buddhism could feel
happy in the present world: to both it was a prison-
house, a place of torture and of ignominy. But the
gulf between the two rival systems was in this
respect immeasurable. Bráhmanism contended that
true being does exist beyond the world of phenomena
(Sansára); Buddhism, that being is the same in all
the ‘three worlds,’ but nowhere is possessed of more
than the appearance of reality. The Bráhman,
writhing under the calamities of life, was anxious to
emancipate himself as soon as possible from the
world of phantoms, that he might revert to his
original oneness with divinity: the Buddhist, driven
to desperation by witnessing the same, calamities,
was no less anxious to escape, but was content if
he could ultimately pass beyond the verge of that
enchanted circle which was fatal to his peace, and so
attain to non-existence. Both alike gave utterance
to the grief which preyed upon their inmost being:
but the Buddhist sorrowed as the man who has no
hope; and his philosophy is therefore the philosophy
of despair. *
(2) But while we charge the creed of Gautama
with atheism and nihilism, we must acknowledge
that it rose in one respect superior to all other
heathen systems, in the loftier tone of its morality.
It was a practical, and not a speculative philosophy,
JBuddhist
ethics.
freites Nichts:’ p. 1 1. ‘Existence
is a tree: the merit or demerit of
the actions of men is the fruit of
that tree and the seed of future
trees; death is the withering away
of the old tree from which the
others have sprung; wisdom and
virtue take away the germinating
faculty, so that when the tree
dies there is no reproduction.
This is Nirvána.' From the
J3rahma-jála, a Pálá Sátra, where
Sákya-muni is made to confute
sixty-two Bráhmanical heresies:
Wilson, as above, p. 257.
Warieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
235
concerning itself not with God and the invisible, but CHAP, I.
with the charities and duties of the present life.
Here indeed we find the secret of its mightiness, the
key to its majestic progress in the whole of eastern
Asia. The grand picture of a royal youth, abandon-
ing his home and honours to become the gentle, apt,
and sympathetic teacher of the people, was alone
sufficient to evoke a class of sentiments forgotten by
the old religions. And in course of time fresh argu-
ments were found to strengthen the devotion which
this picture of philanthropy excited. ‘A great part
of the respect paid to Gótama Budha arises from the
supposition that he voluntarily endured, throughout
myriads of ages, and in numberless births, the most
severe deprivations and afflictions, that he might
thereby gain the power to free sentient beings from
the misery to which they are exposed under every
possible form of existence. It is thought that myriads
of ages previous to his reception of the Budhaship,
he might have become a rahat ſome who is entirely
rescued from all evil desire], and therefore ceased
to exist; but that of his own free-will he forewent
the privilege, and threw himself into the stream of
successive existence, for the benefit of the three
worlds.” Nor was the founder of Buddhism merely
anxious to exhibit his commiseration for the calami-
ties of other men. He laid unwonted stress on
1 Hardy, Manual of Budhism,
98; cf. Prof. Max Müller, in
Mr. Thomson's Bampton Lectures,
p. 36. One of the reflections as-
cribed to the youthful Gautama
in a Tibetan biography is to the
same effect (in Saint-Hilaire, p.
39): ‘En faisant voir la clarté de
la loi aux créatures obscurcies par
les ténèbres d'une ignorance pro-
fonde, je leur donnerai l’oeil qui
voit clairement les choses; je
leur donnerai le beau rayon de la
pure Sagesse, l’oeil de la loi, Sans
tache et Sans corruption.’
236
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
Precepts
and prohi-
bitions.
Self-denial
and aw–
sterities.
social and domestic duties, while the Bráhmans, in
their teaching, rather aimed at the production of
ceremonial punctuality."
Believing that, in spite of some paramount ne-
cessity, the individual has the power of punishing
himself by an illicit course of action, every Buddhist,
whether lay or cleric, was enjoined to kill no living
thing, to be honest in his dealings, to indulge no
sensual appetites, to abstain from lying, and intoxi-
cating liquors; while a further series of more rigorous
injunctions was provided for the guidance of the
monks, the celibates, the devotees.” In carrying out
these regulations it is easy to perceive that the most
exemplary Buddhists had no true idea of the dis-
tinctive properties of soul and body, and of their
reciprocal relations. On the one side, they identified
intelligence with sensibility:" on the other, they re-
garded the external organs as the only seat of evil
and the single enemy of mankind. The body was
even treated by them as consubstantial with brute
matter; and to curb its wayward passions, to seal
up the various inlets of temptation, to mortify and
extirpate the sensual appetites, and by dhyāna, “ con-
templation,’ rivet the desires exclusively upon the
ultimate destimation of the human subject, was the
1 See the drama called Mrich-
chhakali, which is said to repre-
sent Buddhist institutions with
singular fidelity.
* The list of commandments
varies somewhat in different writ-
ings: see Stuhr, I. 180, Prichard,
Iv. 124. Upham (Historical and
sacred Books of Ceylon, III. 12, 158;
cf. pp. 162, 163) gives a list, ten
in number, more closely resem-
bling the second table of the Deca-
logue.
* The Bhikshus and Bhikshunís
are all separated from the world,
and engage to lead a life of self-
denial, celibacy and mendicancy,
and to estrange themselves from
all domestic and social obliga-
tions, Prof. Wilson (Journ. of
As. Soc. XVI. 255) animadverts
on the rigour and inhumanity of
these regulations.
4 See Saint-Hilaire, p. 226.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
237
highest aim of ethical philosophy. The conviction
of present wretchedness, which throws a shade of
melancholy over the whole life of the Buddhist
devotee and furnishes a clue to most of his specul-
ations, is thus deepened by a course of self-inflicted
torture. So far indeed was he bent on carrying his
renunciation of the sensible world and its enjoyments,
that he stigmatised his Bráhman rival as a man who
lived in bondage to the present and the visible."
Nor was passive self-control the only point to
which importance was attached in Buddhist ethics.
Man was there exhorted to promote his extrication
from the bonds of individuality by sharing the calami-
ties of others: he was to facilitate his own escape
by making others rise superior to the fatal law of
transmigration. It is probable that here and there
a Buddhist might be influenced by the same generous
self-devotion which had characterised the framer of
his creed: but generally his eye was fastened on the
prospect of remuneration; he believed that by assist-
ing others he should be smoothing his own pathway
to nirvāna. Merit, with demerit the correlative, is
the power by which, according to Buddhism, the
destiny of all sentient beings is controlled;” and
le tourbillon des naissances à
! Stuhr, I. 187. “Chose étran-
venir. Mieux vaut pour eux
ge,’ says M. Pavie, referring to
some moral maxims of the Bud-
dhists, ‘ceux qui méditent Sur
ces belles pages, au lieu de Con-
clure qu'il y a une autre vie ou
l'âme humaine doit trouver la
satisfaction de ses immenses dé-
sirs, se retirent dams une négation
désespérée. Ils dédaigment tous
les biens de la vie comme une
illusion, comme un leurre qui
séduit l'esprit et l'entraine dams
cesser d'être, s'abîmer dams un
incompréhensible néant: c’est
donc l'art de mourir une fois pour
toutes, que le novice vient étudier
dams le monastère:’ Revue des
Letta, Mondes, 1854, Tome v. p.
I 33.
* Hardy, p. 445. I(arma is
properly ‘that which is to be
done.’
CHAP. I.
Sympathy
with other
sufferers.
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. T.
General
anildmess
of the
IRuddhist.
Why his
system was
compara-
tively
fruitless.
when this principle was fully apprehended the ac-
quisition of a stock of merits became the great
concern of life: religion was converted into a regular
system of profits and losses.”
Still we must not overlook the emphasis which
Buddhism uniformly placed upon a class of gentle
and retiring virtues, which were well-nigh banished
from the rest of heathendom, meekness, resignation,
equanimity under suffering, forgiveness of injuries.
Much as these are found to differ from the correspond-
ing virtues of the Christian, and symptomatic as they .
often are of womanly, instead of manly and heroic
qualities, they could scarcely fail to benefit a multi-
tude of savage tribes to which they were pro-
pounded. For example, when the Buddhist finds
himself assailed by calumny or open violence, he
restrains his animosity by reflecting that the blow
has been necessitated by misdemeanors committed in
some previous existence. He is thankful that no
heavier penance has fallen to his lot; and even at the
last extremity, when death itself must be confronted,
he can welcome it as the appointed means of libera-
tion from ‘this unclean body.”
Truth, however, calls for the addition, that fair
and lovely as might be the outward forms of Bud-
dhism, its inherent principles were such as made it
well-nigh powerless in the training of society, and
therefore it has left the countries which it overran the
prey of superstition and of demon-worship, of political
misrule and spiritual lethargy. Confessing no supreme
! Ibid. p. 507, where reference transferring the balance from one
is made to the Chinese practice of year to another: see also Saint-
keeping a debtor and creditor ac- Hilaire, pp. 21.5 sq.
count of the acts of each day, and * Wuttke, II, 579.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
239
God, who is at once the Legislator and the Judge,
its moral code was ultimately void of all authority.
Denying also the true dignity and freedom of the
human agent, it invested moral sentiments and re-
lations with a kind of physical outsidedness; they
were all parts of a great system with which the
fortunes of the Buddhist, why he knew not, were
mechanically connected. He spoke indeed of ‘laws,'
but these were only common rules of action, according
to which all things are found to happen: vice had no
intrinsic hideousness, and virtue was another name
for calculating prudence; while love itself was in the
creed of Buddhism little more than animal sympathy,
or the condolence of one sufferer with his fellow.
Buddhism also could discourse of ‘duty'; but such
duty, as it had no object and no standard, was devoid
of moral motive: it shrank into a lifeless acquiescence
in some stern necessity, a blind submission to some
iron law. The Buddhist’s principle of action was
‘I must'; he could not say ‘I ought.”
c. The Eclectic School of India.
To understand the origin of this eclectic school
we must remember that, in addition to the systems
of philosophy already noticed, there had been from
early times a strong and passionate bias in favour
of asceticism.” Partly owing to the climate, which
! See Mr. R. A. Thompson's
Christian Theism, I. 187 sq. on
the ethics of Spinosa.
2 See Wuttke, II. 362 sq. The
old Brähmanical ascetic was first
known as Syamaña (cf. the Xap-
pával of Megasthenes); but after
the time of Asoka, the word seems
to have been exclusively assigned
to the Buddhist dévotees (Lassen,
II, 449, 7oo, n. 3). Cf., however,
Wilson, in Journ. of As. Soc. xvi.
230. It still exists in the Páli
form Samaná, and is sometimes
CHAP. I.
II???dſ,
asceticism.
240
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I. induced inertness and disposed to contemplation, man
had at the close of the Vaidic age begun to muse
profoundly on the paradoxes of the world around
him. He sighed for peace and unity, and everything
that thwarted this desire and made him conscious of
his isolation and estrangement from the primal source
of being, he was anxious to repudiate and uproot.
He also mused upon the conflicts which he felt among
the moral elements of his nature, and ere long arrived
at the conclusion that the seat of all disorder is the
region of the senses. By indulging these he was
persuaded that the soul is lured from the pursuit of
spiritual and heavenly things, and therefore drew up
special rules of discipline by which the downward
tendency might be corrected and reversed. By ‘ ex-
ercise and dispassion,’ by ‘asceticism and mortifica-
tion, the mind was thought to be capable of reaching
a state of absolute calm in which one single object
may be contemplated to the exclusion of all others.
This object was at first to be the Lord (Swara): ‘but
as the practised swimmer parts with his last cork or
bladder, so the soul of the ascetic must in due course
part with every object, and at length meditate with-
out an object at all.” His principles, as wrought
into a system, constitute the Yoga school of Hindú
philosophy, in which the yogin, or devotee, aspires to
perfect union (“yoking') with the Divine Being.
used by the Chinese Buddhists as
equivalent to “priest,’ but must
not in that connexion be con-
founded with the shaman of de-
mon-worship. See Schott, p. 18,
n. 1, who points out that the word
Saman = shaman is Tungusic.
Weber on the contrary (Indische
Skizzen, p. 66, Berlin, 1857) thinks
that the Shaman of the devil-wor-
shippers was a corruption of Sra-
onaſta; and so Caldwell, Grammar
of the Drávidian Languages, p. 519,
note, Lond, 1856.
* See Aphorisms of the Yoga,
Bk. I, §§ 17, 18, ed. Ballantyne.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 241
At last, perhaps when many centuries' had been CHAP. I.
allowed for the development of these tendencies, tº
there rose in northern Hindústān a poet and philo-ºl.
e o g tº gº agava
sopher, who, while faithful to the main positions of Gītā
the ancient Bráhman, sought to reconcile his meta-
physical tenets with the speculations of the Sánkhya
School; and while confessing the advantages to be
derived from the contemplative mode of life, con-
tended that principles of self-renunciation were re-
concileable with devotion to all active duties. This
writer was himself a Bráhman and a Vaishnava, i. e.
a member of the sect which had invested Wishfīu”
with the attributes of the Supreme Being, and which
worshipped him in preference to the rival Siva. The
work which he composed, the Bhagavad-Gità," was
dexterously inlaid by him in one of the great literary
monuments of his forefathers, where ‘it reads like
a noble fragment of Empedocles or Lucretius intro-
Homeric epic.” The later
duced into the midst of an
* It is now generally conceded
that the date of the Bhagavad-
Gítá is post-Christian. Even
Lassen, who contends for the an-
tiquity of Krishna-worship, places
this poem in a later period of
Hindú history, ‘in welcher die
Wishnuiten in Secten zerfielen und
ihre Religionslehre mit philoso-
phischen Lehren in Einklang Zu
bringen versuchten :’ II. 494. Mr.
J. C. Thomson, its recent editor
and translator (Hertford, 1855),
is disposed to place it between
Ioo B.C. and 300 A.D.
* See, for instance, ch. XVIII.
(p. 121 of Mr. Thomson's trans-
lation), where Arjuna is charged
by his divine instructor not to
reveal his knowledge to misbe-
lievers or revilers of Krishfia, the
incarnate form of Wishfiu.
VOL. I.
* This poem is, for the most
part, a colloquy between Arjuna
and Krishna. Arjuna is one of
the sons of Páñdu, and after being
in banishment for years, is making
a grand effort to dethrone his
uncle and cousin by whom he had
been iniquitously expelled. His
sufferings moved the pity of Wish-
flu (Krishna), who had become
his bosom-friend, his councillor
and charioteer. When the dia-
logue opens, the two hostile armies
are drawn up in battle-array, but
Arjuna recoils from the encounter
on reflecting that it must lead to
the slaughter of his near relations.
The object of Krishna is to over-
rule this feeling.
* Quarterly Review, Vol. XLV.
pp. 6, 7.
24.2
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. I. portions of it are chiefly occupied with philosophical
The
theology,
theories which were already glanced at in our survey
of the Sánkhya system; and indeed the only novel
feature of speculative value is the effort made to
harmonise the varying elements of that system by
supposing the material and spiritual essences to be
alike eternal, ‘by uniting them in one Supreme
Being, and thus making nature, or the material
essence, a portion of the great eternal Deity.” Here
indeed the teaching of the Bhagavad-Gitä seems to
have approximated to the theism of revealed religion;
but a closer survey will convince us that the two
ideas are really incompatible.
l See Mr. Thomson’s ‘Introd.’
pp. xcv. xcvi.
* The following extract from
a rapturous prayer of Arjuna, on
discovering the real greatness and
supreme divinity of his companion,
should be cited here, because it
has few parallels in the whole
area of Hindú literature : “The
universe, O Krishíla l is justly
delighted with thy glory, and de-
voted to thee. The Rákshasas
ſevil spirits] flee, affrighted, to
the divers quarters of heaven, and
all the multitudes of the Siddhas
[demi-gods] salute thee. And,
indeed, why should they not adore
thee, O great one ! thee, the first
creator, more important even than
Brahmá himself? 0 infinite king
of gods' habitation of the uni-
verse! thou art the one indivisible,
the existing and not existing
[spirit and matter], that which is
supreme. Thou art the first of
the gods, the most ancient person.
Thou art the Supreme receptacle
of this universe. Thou knowest
all, and mayest be known, and
art the Supreme mansion. By
thee is this universe caused to
For since matter in
emanate, 0 thou of endless forms.
. . . .Thou All! Of infinite power
and immense might, thou com-
prehendest all; therefore thou art
All. As I took thee merely for
a friend, I beseech thee without
measure to pardon whatever I
may, in ignorance of this thy
greatness, have said from negli-
gence or affection, such as, O
JKrishíla 1 0 son of Yadu ! O
friend and everything in which
I may have treated thee in a
joking manner, in recreation, re-
pose, sitting, or meals, whether in
private, or in the presence of
these, eternal One | Thou art
the father of the animate and in-
animate world.’ ch. XI. (transl.
pp. 79, 80). Krishna had already
(ch. VII, pp. 51 Sq.) prepared his
companion for this outburst of
adoration, by declaring, “I am
the cause of the production and
dissolution of the whole universe.
There exists no other thing su-
perior to me. . . . On me is all the
universe suspended, as numbers
of pearls on a string;' adding also,
that he was the 'mystic syllable
0m in all the Wédas.
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought. 243
the Hindú system remains an independent substance, CHAP. I.
coessential with divinity, or since God is there sup-
posed to fashion all things by changing Himself into
the material universe, His own Supremacy is so far
questioned and invaded; while by attributing to
every individual a portion of the Supreme Being,
which, according to that later system, exists in him
together with his own individual soul, each form of
animated nature is said to have within it particles of
divinity; and on this ground polytheism, hero-worship,
and even animal-worship, are reasserted and de-
fended."
It is, however, to the ethical portions” of the poem The othical
that I draw attention more particularly, as enabling *
us to trace the highest flight of philosophical Hindú-
ism, in its efforts to determine the right course of
human conduct. .*
(1) A primary object of the writer was to vindi- Reassertion
cate the institution of caste, which had been sorely ºf the ſaw
* * of caste.
shaken by the Buddhist revolutions, and perhaps we
may infer impugned by members of the Kshatriya-
class, who were beginning to exceed their own pro-
vince. So absolute and so inviolable, it is taught,
are duties which the law of caste imposes, that these
transcend and overpower all earthly considerations.
For example, it was the intention of the poet to
establish that love of kindred, though a virtue in
itself, must be sacrificed whenever it is generating in
the warrior's breast a feeling of compassion for his
enemies. His province is to fight, and fight he must
on all occasions, and at any cost whatever. ‘It is
1 Cf. “Introd.’ as before, p. cii. xv.111.
* Ch. 1.-ch. vi., ch. XII. ch.
244 Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. I, better to do one's own duty, even though it be devoid
of excellence, than to perform another's duty well.”
Now theory (2) The second object is to modify the Yoga-
º doctrines in such a manner that devout persons may
feel under no pressing obligation to consume their
lives in violent austerities and maceration of the
body. The author does not, it is true, deny the
efficacy and numerous excellences of that older sys-
tem; but he argues” that when transformed into the
JCarma-Yoga, by adapting principles of renunciation
(sannydisa) to all the duties of common-life, it is still
worthier of acceptance, and of greater efficacy in for-
warding the process of emancipation. In the earlier
system men's surrender of the world was outward,
local, physical; in the later it was to become more
inward, spiritual, and complete. The one, persuaded
that evil always enters through the inlet of the senses,
laboured to impair and so destroy the sinful medium ;
the other, acquiescing in this doctrine as to the
peculiar province of temptation, urged the duty of
subjugating the heart in such a manner that sensual
impressions were disarmed and made inoperative. In
other words, the way to overcome the world, was not
to leave it, and seek out asylums in the jungle, but
to extirpate all wishes and affections that produced
attachment to it. Action was the proper element in
which the devotee should undergo his training; yet
action was at last to be entirely free from passion or
emotion, and entirely irrespective of all consequences.
1 See p. 26, and, more fully, the scale of religious privileges,
pp. 18 sq. In pp. 66, 67, there for they are ranked with ‘women
is a passage which intimates that and Súdras.’
members of the vaisya-class had 2 “Introd,’ as before, p. cviii.
...: now: fºllen, rather than risen in
Varieties of Hindú Religious Thought.
245
‘Let the motive for action be always in the action CHAP. I.
itself, never in its reward.” “He into whom all
desires enter in the same manner as rivers enter the
ocean, which is ſalways] full, yet does not move its
bed, can obtain tranquillity; but not he who loves
desires.” The author did not, it is true, deny that
adequate reward is always given to acts of ritual
worship. On the contrary, he maintained that when-
ever actions are performed with interested motives
they involve” the agent in a series of necessary bonds
or consequences (karma-bandha); sometimes pur-
chasing admission for him to the heaven of Indra ;
sometimes, where he is the victim of base fear, and
sacrifices to the demons, entailing on him an abode
in less exalted spheres of being. Yet the one reward,
and that which to the Hindú is alone desirable, was
allotted to a different class of devotees. Where true
devotion, action without passion, filled the spirit of
the worshipper, he soared directly upwards to his
ultimate condition. Having learned to concentrate
his thoughts entirely on the Supreme Being, he ob-
tained a perfect mastery over his whole nature: he
subdued not only the irregular appetites, but every
movement of the matural affections; he was ‘of the
same mind to friends, acquaintances, and enemies, to
the indifferent and the neutral, to aliens and relatives,
to the good and bad.” As ‘ candles placed in shelter
from the wind do not flicker, so this perfect devotee
| Ch. II. (p. 16). In the pre- the letter of precepts quoted from
vious page there is a remarkable the Védas.
passage reflecting on those who * Ch. III. (p. 19),
were misled by “flowery' sentences * Ch. IV, (pp. 31 sq.)
to assign the chief importance to “ Ch. VI. º 44).
246
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. I.
Subsequent
$nertness of
the Hindú
oniºid.
has been translated far above the sphere of earthly
perturbations: he is utterly unmanned.
Such may be regarded as the last development
of Hindú philosophy; for the monuments of the
succeeding, or Puranic period, notwithstanding all
the rich profusion of mythological novelties, give few
if any indications of mental progress. Here and
there the surface of religious thought may have been
rippled, for a while, by the attempts of earnest indi-
viduals' to remodel the ancestral creed and lead men
back to primitive institutions. The Kurán also,
borne along the bloody stream of Arab conquest, was
for ages dominant in various parts of India, but in-
fused no higher life into the native population. Ex-
cepting the religious movements headed by Nanuk
in the fifteenth century, and by Akbar in the six-
teenth, both advancing from eclectic principles in the
direction of a purer form of deism, the historian of
Hindú philosophy will have little to record of uni-
versal interest till the master-minds of the Peninsula
shall start from their lethargic slumber, and shall
learn to vibrate once again beneath the potent touch
of Christianity.
Since his death a
! One of the most remarkable
was the learned Brähman, Ram-
mohun-Roy, who laboured in the
first quarter of the present cen-
tury to expound the Védánta phi-
losophy among his fellowcountry-
men, with the hope of establish-
ing a more general belief in one
only God.
Society, calling itself Tatwa-bod-
himi Sabhá (“Truth-expounding
Society'), and meditating the
Same object, has continued to ex-
ist at Calcutta : see Journal of the
48. Soo, XIII. 2 Io.
CELAPTER II.
Apparent Correspondencies between Hindúism
and Revealed Religion.
. . . . ‘So werden wir es unmöglich finden, in der Indischen Religion
eine Quelle oder eine Rivalin in Beziehung auf die Grundidee des
Christenthums zu finden.” DoRNER.
Two inferences are commonly drawn by the opponents CHAP. II.
of Christianity from the remarkable series of pheno- Relations
mena exhibited in the foregoing chapter. It has %;".
been alleged (1) that those exalted products of man's Christian-
theorising faculty will prove how very much of truth *
may be discovered without invoking the assistance
of particular revelations; and that consequently we
are justified in treating the Gospel as one of many
signs of spiritual activity, as a further egress and
embodiment of ‘the religion of nature,’ as a novel
way of working out ideas and instincts latent in
the breast of all the human species. Or else it is
objected (2) that both Hindúism and Christianity
are for the most part vestiges of some primeval and
barbaric superstition, from which it is reserved for
true philosophy and the doctors of the Absolute
Religion to emancipate alike the churches and the
world. "
As my present object is chiefly historical, I shall
248
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. II.
Theory of
primeval
Żyrophecies.
say nothing of the contradictions involved in these
two different pleas of modern scepticism. Both of
them I hope to answer most effectually by ascertain-
ing how far alleged resemblances between the Christ-
ian and heathen systems really extend, and then
suggesting in each case what seems the obvious
medium of communication or the natural ground of
correspondence.
Some general observations, bearing both on this
and on the following chapter, will be necessary by
way of preface.
1. It must be pleaded that the cogency of many
arguments which unbelief has urged against the
supernatural character of Christianity is due to in-
discreet assertions of the Christian apologist. Ex-
aggerating the amount of light possessed in primitive
times by the adherents of revealed religion; exagge-
rating also the antiquity of many Gentile systems
which were made almost coeval with the first dis-
persion of mankind, he frequently approached the
study of such systems with a confident expectation
of detecting in them fresh analogies to truths which
have been only brought to light by the announce-
ments of the Gospel. When, for instance, a new
world of intellectual enterprise was opened through
the cultivation of Sanskrit literature, it was presumed
by numbers of our fellow-countrymen who led the
way in those researches, that the harvest to be reaped
in India would not only confirm the older portions of
Mosaic history, but also rescue from oblivion many
a clear and pointed prophecy of the Incarnation and
the Cross. If man had always, from the infancy
of time, been fully conscious of these central facts
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
249
of our religion, why not search for remnants of such CHAP. II.
knowledge and expressions of such consciousness in
all parts of heathendom ? That dim traditions of the
Fall of man, that distant echoes of some promise
of redemption do in fact survive wherever human
steps have wandered, will be shewn hereafter when
we come to real parallelisms between the Christian
and other systems : but the sanguine expectations of
mythologists were doomed to disappointment, when,
assuming that the old deposit of traditionary know-
ledge had been well-nigh coextensive with the field
of revelation, they attempted to translate familiar
mythes of Hindústán into the language of the Old
and New Testament. Nor did the evil consequences
of the theory cease with its explosion. Works, in
which it was developed, are still found to operate
injuriously upon the cause of true religion, by Sup-
plying scoffs and cavils to that class of misbelievers
who would fain reduce the Gospels to a level with
the sacred books of India. ‘Zeal,” says a thoughtful
writer on the Hindú pantheon, “sometimes has in its
results the same effect as infidelity, and one cannot
help lamenting that a superstructure requiring so
little support should be encumbered by awkward
buttresses, so ill applied, that they would, if it were
possible, diminish the stability of the building that
they were intended to uphold. Of this description
were the zealous researches of some missionaries,
who, in Brahmá and Saraswati, easily found Abra-
ham and Sarah; and the Christian Trinity is as
readily discovered in the monstrous triad of the
Hindús. Of this description also, I am disposed to
think, are the attempts at bending so many of the
250
Christ and offer Masſers.
events of Krishna's life to tally with those, real or
typical, of Jesus Christ.”
2. There is another mode of contemplating such
phenomena which deserves a passing notice, chiefly
from the fact that it was sanctioned by those vener-
able writers, who first struggled, hand to hand, with
pagans in defence of Christianity. It rests, however,
on a vague presumption rather than on tangible and
valid evidence. Its authors argue that heathendom,
in regions where the light of genuine prophecy was
quenched, had been occasionally misled by “ diabolic
mimicries' of Christianity, projected by malignant
demons, who, in order to preoccupy the spirit of their
votaries and indispose men to accept the Gospel,
coined a number of those base equivalents which still
pass current in the Gentile world. Accordingly it is
believed that, in addition to the series of primeval
facts, which, under somewhat different versions, were
preserved in most heathen countries, certain rites and
dogmas, which are commonly held to be of Christian
origin, had been already counterfeited and caricatured
in far older creeds: and hence a living writer has not
CHAP. II.
Theory of
diabolic
CO2/??ter-
feits.
* Moor, Hindú Pantheon, p. 200,
Lond. 1810. In Maurice's Hist.
of Hindústán, II. 225, Lond. 1824,
and in Mr. Haslam's more recent
work, The Cross and the Serpent,
pp. 149 sq. Lond, 1849, the legend
of Krishíla is confidently regarded
as a remnant of Some primeval
tradition concerning the future
life of the Redeemer. The Jesuits
were at first divided as to the
wisdom of the ancient Chinese,
but eventually agreed in attribut-
ing to them a knowledge of the
True God, and connecting them
with the patriarchs of the Holy
Scripture. “Der orden erklärte
sich won nun an für die sogennante
alte Weisheit der Chinesen, die
sie aus irgend einer antediluvian-
ischen Verbindung mit den Bib-
lischen Erzvätern errettet hätten.
Andere stiegen nun bis zur Sünd-
fluth empor und meinten, Noa's
kinder seyen die ersten Weisen
des Landesgewesen; noch Andere
wollten zwischen Jao, Noa oder
gar Jehova eine ganz besondere
Aehnlichkeit finden. So leicht
findet man, was man sucht und
winscht.” Prof. Neumann, in
Illgen's Zeitschrift (1837), Bund
VII. Op. I 3; I4.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 251
scrupled to contend that “no external resemblances to CHAP. II.
any part whatever of the catholic system form any T
kind of presumption against that system, seeing that
such anticipations of parts of it are, upon this theory,
to be expected.”
3. It was perhaps in the recoil from theories of Theory of
this nature, overstrained and made incredible, that *:::::
other writers have been since propelled into an opposite
conclusion. In their eyes, the correspondencies be-
tween the heathen and Christian systems, where not
purely casual and external, may be almost universally
referred to some internal affinity, to principles inherent
in the constitution of man, and stimulated by ne–
cessities of his moral nature; the grand merit of
Christianity, so they think, consisting in the fact,
that it has spoken with authority on the character
and bearing of those fundamental principles, and
taught men how to regulate the course of their de-
velopment. But while granting, as I do, that such
assumptions will account for several of the points in
question, there are many other indications of affinity
so minute and so specific, that we cannot fairly pass
them over with this short and summary explanation.
By so acting, the opponent of Christianity incurs the
charge of sheltering his objections under words that
may hereafter prove no more than empty generalities.
In any case it were unreasonable to call for our assent
to his hypothesis till further questions have been
I See Mr. Morris's Essay to-
wards the conversion of learned and
philosophical Hindús, pp. 201 Sq.
Lond. 1843, where the opinions
of the Fathers on this subject are
recited at length. In declining
to accept the view there taken of
heathen worship, I have no desire
to call in question the great truth
that evil spirits were concerned in
instigating and appropriating such
worship, and that the Gentiles,
therefore, Sacrificed 3alpovíois, ſcal
où Osó (I Cor, x. 20).
252
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II. asked and answered. What is the amount of proba-
JEacterizal
commº-
cation,
bility that some outward channel of communication
eaſisted at, or prior to, the birth of Christ, between
Hindú philosophers and the doctors of the western
world? And if so, is it further probable, from the
character aud circumstances of the age, that any
interchange or fusion would take place between the
various and conflicting doctrines then in course of
circulation? These inquiries are, I think, deserving
of more notice than they have commonly received
from modern speculators: for exactly in proportion
as the answer is affirmative will natural media be
discovered for explaining some of the more close
resemblances which I have undertaken to investigate.
Now with reference to the former question, it is
certain that a lively intercourse subsisted in the earliest
age of Christianity between the western marts of
Hindústán, and those of Persia and Egypt. Thought-
ful minds were also actively employed in tracing the
divergencies and points of contact in the different
systems of philosophy, and in searching for some
common ground on which they all could meet to-
gether. This eclectic tendency is manifest on one
side in the schools of Alexandria, which, after it
absorbed the commerce both of Tyre and Carthage,
was the centre and emporium of all forms of philo-
sophic speculation; and on the other side in many
schools of India where the publication of a treatise,
like the Bhagavad-Gita, bears witness to the ruling
wish for peace, for union, for amalgamation. We
might, therefore, be prepared to find that in the
traffic carried on between the east and west, regard
was sometimes had to higher interests than those of
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 253
merchandise. But further it is argued to the satis- CHAP. II.
faction, not to say delight, of adversaries of the ºngº,
Gospel, that many rampant heresies, by which the º,
tº tº . tº . 20.7°9'S208,
primitive Church was torn and weakened, had been
generated in attempts to blend the truths of Christ-
ianity with notions borrowed from the heathen creeds
of Hindústán and Persia. The riddle which the
founders of the Gnostic sects were all struggling to
interpret had reference to the origin of physical and
moral evil;” and the various guesses which these
sects propounded have betrayed, in almost every case,
their eastern origin. If it be doubtful whether
Buddhist emissaries, panting for fresh fields of action,
penetrated through the towns and villages of Parthia,
and even reached the shores of the Mediterranean,
there is no lack of evidence enabling us to specify
some individual links by which the interchange of
articles of faith might be most naturally effected.
Bardesames,” for example, one of the more brilliant
spirits of the latter half of the second century, had him-
self travelled from Edessa to some part of Hindústán,
expressly with the purpose of there studying the
religion of the Bráhmans: while Mani,” who en-
1 See Won Bohlen, Das alte In-
dien, I. 571 sq. He concurs in
many of the views adopted by
J. J. Schmidt, in his treatise,
Uber die Verwandschaft der gnos-
tisch-theosophischen Lehren ºmit
den Religionen des Orients, vorzii-
glich dem Buddhaismus, Leipzig,
1828; and afterwards, in the
main, by Neander, Ch. Hist. II.
159 sq. Bohn's ed. See also Prof.
Wilson's Preface to the Vishſ, u
Puráña, p. viii.; and the more
recent investigation in Lassen, III.
379 SQ.,
* e. g. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 27:
t& Mačiuov repl roi troAv0pvX-
Afftov trapë roſs aipeguátats (mth-
platos, too tró6ev ji ic a k{a, cal
Tepl too yeum'rºv Štěpxeiv rhy
iſºmv.
* Won Bohlen, as above, p. 572.
According to Lassen (III. 404),
Pardesanes did not actually travel
to India, but derived his know-
ledge of Brähmanism from inter-
course with ambassadors sent from
India to Antoninus Pius.
* Neander, II. 170. This writer
guards himself, however, against
254
Christ and offer Masters.
deavoured to construct a composite religion, of which
Christianity was made a leading element, had wan-
dered far and near in quest of knowledge, and
contracted in his wanderings an especial fondness for
the creed of Gautama, which he studied under the
roof of some Buddhist grotto in Turkistán.
If the above considerations make it probable that
intercourse did actually exist between the early
misbelievers and the speculative minds of Hindústán,
I hold myself at liberty to argue, on the other side,
that Christian influences might be as readily made
to operate through corresponding channels, and assist,
to some degree, in modifying the old principles of
Hindúism. But the question is not one of plausi-
bilities and bare presumptions. Many circumstances
raise it higher in the scale of probability. I shall
not insist upon the fact that copies of the Gospels,
both in their genuine and corrupted form, obtained
a very wide circulation in all regions of the east.
I shall not exaggerate the value of the evidence which
traces the extant community of ‘Christians of St.
Thomas” to the apostolic age. Eusebius” has dis-
CHAP. II.
Jºhſºther
proofs of
eastermal
communº-
cation.
Spurious
Gospels :
‘Christians
of St. Tho-
%as.’
the construction that he means to * See Hough, Hist. of Christ-
explain all the parallelisms be-
tween true and false religions on
the theory of external influences.
He accordingly adds (p. 164):
‘Analogies of this sort, having a
perfectly internal origin, often
recur in the historical develop-
ment of Christianity, wherever
corruptions of purely Christian
truth have sprung up.’ Cf. Lassen,
III. 407, 408. Major Cunningham
(Bhilsa Topes, pp. 133 Sq.) is of
opinion that Porphyry, “the learned
Pagan, was in fact a European
Buddhist.’
ianity in India, I. 32 sq. Wiltsch
(Kirchl, Geographie, I. 18, n. 8)
declares himself in favour of the
old traditions on this subject:
“Die Annahme, dass der Apostel
Thomas in India Asiatica, seu
Orientali die christliche Kirche
gegründet habe, est fast allgemein,
und wenn je eine Nachricht der
Kirchen-Historiker verdient ge-
glaubt zu Werden, so ist es diese.”
* Hist, Eccl. v. Io, where in
speaking of Pantaenus, he writes:
ôs ſcal ſchpulco, too cató. Kplotov
eūayyeXtov Tols étr &vatoxfis 30-
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 255
tinctly mentioned, that when a learned doctor of CHAP. II.
Alexandria, at the close of the second century, was
impelled by missionary zeal as far east as India, he ſission of
found the seeds of Christianity already scattered, and Pantanus,
already bearing fruit. The same diffusion of the
Gospel at this early period is attested by the Arian
writer, Philostorgius. He informs us of a missionary and of .
with the surname Indicus (6'Ivöös), who, on visiting *
his native land and other parts of the Hindú Penin-
sula, was not surprised to meet with fellow-Christians,
whose peculiar rites attested their antiquity, as well
as their comparative isolation from Christendom at
large. The date of this testimony is about the year Testimony
350, and two centuries later every doubt as to the #.”
permanent presence of Christianity is dissipated by pleustes.
accurate reports of an Egyptian writer,” whose exten-
sive travels gained for him the title ‘Indicopleustes.’
Among other places where Christian bodies had been
organised he mentions Taprobane (Ceylon), Male or
Mangalor on the coast of Malabar, and Calliana,
a settlement near Bombay.”
And if it be alleged that nearly all this evidence Permanence
points to southern rather than to northern Hindústán, iſ ºf
the answer is that we have frequent traces of Christ- north-
ianity in that quarter also. The prolific missions" of º
the old Chaldaean or ‘Nestorian' Church, diffused
verty &vaðetx6ival, pºéxpt ſcal tăs
*Ivööv oſtetxduevov yis; cf. Ne-
ander, I. I. I.3.
1 FIist. Eccl. III. 4. The native
lace of Theophilus (c. 5) was
i. Sukhatara, the modern
Diu Sokotora: Lassen, II. I IoI.
2 See Neander's remarks on
this account of Cosmas, Ch. Hist,
III. 165, 166, and Lassen, II, IIoI.
* Cf. Renan (in Journal Asia-
tique (1856) p. 25.1) for some ac-
count of a Buddhist monk who in
the sixth century became a Christ-
10. Il.
4. A ‘Notitia' of the very nu-
merous sees founded by Nestorian
influence is given in Assemani,
Bibl. Orient. III. pt. ii. pp. 705 Sq.
256
Christ and other Masters.
with marvellous rapidity over regions far beyond the
Tigris, had ere long their offshoots in the heart of
Bactriana and the northern provinces of India. There
a knowledge of the Gospel lingered through the
Middle Ages; for as late as 1503" we find the
Nestorian patriarch ordaining a metropolitan and
three bishops for the regulation of the Church of
India; while in 1666, owing partly to these influences
and partly to the rival missions of the Latin Church,
the Christian population in the north-western provinces
was roughly estimated at 25,000 families.”
It is not then so improbable that while India on
the one hand stimulated the formation of the early
Christian heresies, genuine Christianity may in turn
have imported some of its distinctive elements into
the speculations of Bráhmanical and Buddhist doctors.
One of the most able Hindú scholars of the present
day" has even found allusion to such modifications
in the ancient literature of India, and pointed out
particular links of intercourse through which the
Christian influence may have been conveyed. His
CHAP. II.
Probable
allusion to
Christiaº-
ity and its
effects in
the Mahā-
bhārata.
1 Wiltsch, II, 361.
2 Sleeman, Rambles and Recol-
lections, I. 15, quoting Thevenot,
the traveller.
3 Weber, Ind. Studien, I. 4oo,
note. His deductions from the
passage in the Mahábhárata are
as follows: “Dass Brähmanen
tiber das Meer nach Alexandrien
oder gar Kleinasien gekommen
seien zur Zeit der Blüthe des
ersten Christenthums, und dass
sie, heimgekehrt nach Indien, die
monotheistische Lehre und einige
Legenden desselben auf den ein-
heimischen, durch Seinen Namen
an Christus den Sohn der göttli-
chen Jungfrau erinnernden, und
vielleicht schon vorher göttlich
werehrten Weisen oder Heros
Jºrishīla Dévakiputra [Sohn der
Dévaki “Göttlichen”] úbergetra-
gen haben, im ibrigen die christ-
lichen Lehren durch Sánkhya-
und Yoga-Philosophemata erset-
Zend, wie sie umgelzehrtibrerseits
vielleicht auf die Bildung gnos-
tischer Sekten hingewirkt hatten.’
Lassen, who controverts some
portions of Weber's theory (Ind.
Alterthum. II. Io96 sq.) believes,
notwithstanding, that the people
visited by the Brähmans were
really Christians (p. Io99), and
conjectures that the interviews
took place in Parthia.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
(
25
*
chief authority is a passage of the Mahābhārata, CHAP. II.
allowed on all hands to be one of the last additions’ ‘T
made to that gigantic poem ; and as such it may have
been no earlier than the second century of the Christ-
ian era. According to it, three Bráhmans crossed the
sea upon a visit to some neighbouring region (Svéta-
dwſpa), whose peculiarities, if the story be divested of
poetic adjuncts and embellishments, consisted mainly
in the fact that the inhabitants were light complex-
ioned, and also in religion were monotheists (ékántinas).
During this visit of the Bráhmans they acquired a
stock of knowledge which enabled them on their return
to introduce improvements into the hereditary creed,
and more especially to make the worship of Krishna
(Vásudéva) the most prominent feature of their system.
The foreigners from whom they borrowed these ideas
are said to have also worshipped the one God without
the intervention of images, to have been gifted with
superior faith (bhakti), to have assigned peculiar effic-
acy to prayer when offered up in spirit, and to have
confidently hoped that their specific doctrines would
ere long attract to them a larger circle of adherents.
Without entering on the controversies touching the
precise date or the locality of this interview, or claim-
ing any knowledge of the more immediate effects
which it produced on one party or the other, I am
* Lassen, II. Io96, n. 1. A himself with too great certainty
writer in Col. Ch. Chron. (XI. 146
sq.) is of opinion that the Brāh-
mans were not likely to borrow re-
ligious ideas from foreign sources.
He translates the whole passage
from the Mahābhārata (Bk. XII.
ss. 337–341), and is inclined to
think that Lassen has expressed
VOI. I.
in regard to the origin of the
legend. Weber (Indische Skizzen,
Berlin, 1857) has one essay en-
titled, “Die Verbindungen Indiens
mit den Ländern im Westen.”
He resumes the discussion of
Irishía-worship (pp. 92 sq.).
17
258
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
JEaxaggera-
tions of
sceptical
writers on
this subject,
surely justified in drawing from it the conclusion that
as intercourse may thus be shewn to have subsisted
between the Christian and the Brähman, it is not
impossible that some ideas and traditions of the latter
were subjected to the transforming influences of
Christianity. -
Placing, therefore, all these facts and inferences
before the reader to guide him in his judgment of
what follows, I shall now proceed to the investigation
of particular points in which the two religions have
been thought to touch, if not entirely coincide. These
have reference to—
1. Hindú monotheism.
2. Hindú triads, or trinities. .
3. Hindú avatáras, or incarnations, especially that
of Krishnia.
§ I. Hindú monotheism.
The observation is now current that whatever else
the old inhabitants of India may have gradually
forgotten or distorted, their idea of God has always
been the same, and always far Superior to conceptions
that prevailed in other parts of heathendom. “The
Gospels themselves,’ wrote Belsham, “teach not a
purer monotheism than do the sacred writings of the
Hindoos.” Voltaire, in his endeavours to destroy
the supernatural character of Christianity by pointing
out its close resemblance to other systems, had pa-
raded the same boast in many of his writings; but
when he sought to justify his language by appealing
* Quoted in W. J. Fox's Religious Ideas, p. 11.
Flindúism and Revealed Religion.
259
ge
to the Ezour-Veidam," which he took an active part CHAP. II.
in rescuing from oblivion, he betrayed at once the
weakness of his cause and his own blind credulity.
The production was in fact no genuine monument
of ancient India; it was the fabrication of a Jesuit
missionary, who had put it forth in order to facilitate
the conversion of the more learned class of Hindús
by shewing that some truths of Christianity were not
unknown to their forefathers. This fact alone should
have suggested to mythologists that belief in one
Supreme Being was less prominently stated in the
genuine Védas than the ‘patriarch of infidelity’ was
willing to suppose. And if we turn from vague
assertions or disjointed extracts, and examine the
documents themselves, it is quite obvious (1) that
current statements on the purity and sublimity of
early Hindú worship are very much exaggerated,
and (2) that where traces of monotheism exist at all,
they indicate a tenet far inferior to the lofty theism of
Christianity.
My own belief is that no absolutely true idea
can be obtained with reference to these subjects till
a deeper study of Hindú literature shall have
enabled us to discriminate more accurately between
the lyric and dogmatic portions of the Védas, i. e.
between those portions which are manifestly ancient,
but in which there is a general absence of the meta-
physical element, and those of later growth in which
that element is active, and preponderates. It is also
I See the account in Saint- Alexander's expedition: but the
Hilaire, Des Pédas, pp. 15 sq., real author, it is said, was Roberto
and Adelung's Sketch of Sanskrit de' Nobili, a nephew of Bellar-
Literature, pp. 75, 76, Oxf. 1832. mine, who went on a mission to
Voltaire imagined that the work India about 1640.
was composed before the date of
|
260
*
Christ and other Masters.
most desirable to separate as far as may be the prae-
Christian treatises from those which are allowedly
post-Christian ; since suspicions are fast gaining
ground that even the Bráhmanical ideas of God were
somewhat modified and exalted by intercourse with
Christianity.
If we lay aside expressions in the Vaidic hymns
which have occasionally transferred the attributes of
power and omnipresence to some one elemental deity,
as Indra for example, and by so doing intimated
that even in the depths of nature-worship intuitions
pointing to one great and all-embracing Spirit could
not be extinguished, there are scarcely a dozen
‘mantras' in the whole collection where the unity
of God is stated with an adequate amount of firmness
and consistency. The great mass of those productions
either invoke the aid, or deprecate the wrath, of
multitudinous deities, who elsewhere are regarded as
no more than finite emanations from the ‘Lord of the
creatures” (Prajapati); and therefore in the sacred
CHAP. II.
Rarity of
allusions to
077 e God.
sprechenden Lehren des Christen-
1 See above, p. 216, n. 2. Weber
thums influenzirt worden ist:’
also has pronounced distinctly in
favour of this view : “Wenn ich
nun schon oben, p. 4oo, aus einer
bestimmten Sage des M. Bh, speciell
die Verehrung Krishna’s als Ein-
gottes, als durch das Bekannt-
werden der Bráhmaña mit dem
Christenthum veranlasst gemuth-
masst habe, so kann ich nicht
umbin hier es auch weiter als
meine Vermuthung auszuspre-
chen, dass überhaupt die spätere.
exclusiv monotheistische Rich-
tung der indischen Sekten, welche
einer, bestämmten persömlichen Gott
werehren, um Seine Gnade flehen
und an ihm glauben (bhakti und
graddhá) ebon durch das Bekannt-
werden der Inder mit den ent-
Ind. Stud. I. 423, and, as reiter-
ated, II. 169.
* Thus in the remarkable hymn
entitled “Au Dieu Créateur' (Rig-
Véda, ed. Langlois, Iv. 409, 410)
the last clause runs as follows:
“O Pradgāpati, ce n'est point un
autre que toi qui a donné nais-
sance à tous ces étres. Accorde-
nous les biens pour lesquels mous
t’offrons le sacrifice. Puissions-
nous étre les māitres de la rich-
esse !' And just before the su-
premacy of One God is distinctly
recognised: “Parmi les dieux il
est le Dieu incomparable. A quel
(autre) dieu offirions-nous l'holo-
causte §’ -
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. - 261
books themselves polytheism was the feature ever CHAP. II.
prominent, and, what is more remarkable, was never -
openly repudiated. In other words, where a belief
in the supremacy of God is manifest at all, it looks
as though it were unable to assert itself in practice,
Owing to the uncongenial atmosphere by which it
was surrounded. Still, we must allow, that of those One of the
e tº o gº e best Speci-
hymns in which monotheism is predominant, some .
exhibit true conceptions of the power, the spirituality,
and the unrivalled majesty of God. The following
is a specimen; it is taken from the last division of
the Rig-Véda, and entitled by a commentator, the
Supreme Spirit' (Paramdtmá):—
“Nothing then existed, neither being (sat), nor non-being
(asat); no world, no air, no firmament. Where was then the
covering of the universe? where the receptacle of the water P
where the impenetrable depths of air P Death was not, nor im-
mortality, nor anything that marked the boundaries of day and
night. But THAT (Tad) breathed in solitude without afflation,
absorbed in His own thought (swadhá). Besides THAT nought
existed. The darkness was at first enveloped in darkness; the
water was devoid of movement; and everything was gathered
up and blended together in THAT. The Being reposed on the
bosom of this void; and the universe was at last produced by
the strength of His devotion (tapas). In the beginning desire
(káma) was formed in His spirit (manas): and this was the
first productive principle. It is thus that the wise men, pond-
ering in their heart, have explained the union of being and
non-being.
“But who can know such things exactly P. Or who can declare
them P These beings, whence come they P. This creation, whence
did it originate P The dévas were themselves created or pro-
duced. But THAT, who knows His nature and His origin P
* Langlois, iv. 421. I have brooke's (Asiał. Jęesearches, VIII.
followed his translation in the 404) and Saint-Hilaire's (Des Vé-
main, comparing it with Cole- das, p. 60). A.
262
Chrisſ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
Nature of
JHindú
7??0%0-
theism.
Who can tell how all this varied world has issued into being P
Can it, or can it not, support itself? He who, from the heights
of heaven, is gazing on the universe, He alone can tell whether
it exists, or only seems to exist.”
It is obvious from the character of this exalted
hymn and the position which it occupies in the Rig-
Véda, that it was the product of an age in which the
speculations of India were assuming the peculiar forms
presented to our view in the Bráhmanic period. And,
we saw already, a belief in the common origin of
the phenomenal universe was, in this second stage of
the Hindú religion, lying at the root of all men's
theorisings. Unity became the central, though it
might be esoteric," doctrine of the ‘orthodox’ philo-
sopher. Every thing that is, and every thing that
seems to be, comes forth originally from God, who
is the primal source of being, and eventually is
gathered up afresh in Him, the all-pervading Soul
or Spirit. The dévas, worshipped by the undiscern-
ing multitude, are held to be no more than scintil-
lations of His majesty: they emanate from Him, who,
when the worlds were brought into existence, had
proceeded to create the “guardians of the worlds.”
Hence God is, ultimately, every thing, and every
thing is God. He ‘is Brahmá ; he is Indra; he is
Prajápati: these gods are he, and so are the five
! It is remarkable that this doc-
trina arcani, on which Cudworth
and others have insisted as a fun-
damental characteristic of ancient
systems of philosophy, was recog-
nised as late as the sixteenth cen-
tury. In one of Xavier's conver-
sations with a Brähman, he was
told conſidentially that the learned
Hindús all believed in the unity
of God; and further, that it was
revealed in their ancient writings,
‘que toutes les faussés religions
cesseroient un jour, et qu'un
temps viendroit ou tout le monde
garderoit une même loi:' Bou-
hours, Vie de S. François Xavier,
pp. 95, 96, Louvain, 1822.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
263
primary elements, earth, air, the etherial fluid, water,
and light.”
The attributes and operations of this one great
Spirit are nowhere brought before us with such
fervour and sublimity, as in the Isa-Upanishad, a
kind of pendant to the second Wéda: for not only is
He there exhibited as the All-glorious and Supreme,
but also as the proper object of man's worship, the
restorer of the fallen spirit, and the author of eternal
happiness. The following passage” will give the
reader a just idea of the whole:
“One sovereign ruler pervades this world of worlds. Nur-
ture thyself with that single thought, abandoming all others,
and covet not the joys of any creature. He who in this life
performs his religious duties may desire to live a hundred
years; but even to the end thou shouldest have no other occu-
pation. It is to regions, left a prey for evil spirits and covered
with eternal darkness, that those men go after death, who have
corrupted their own soul. This one single Spirit, which nothing
can disturb, is swifter than the thought of man. This primal
Mover the dévas even cannot overtake. Unmoved itself, it
infinitely transcends all others, however rapid be their course.
It moves the universe at its pleasure: it is distant from us, and
yet very near to all things: it pervades this entire universe, and
yet is infinitely beyond it. The man who has learned to recog-
CHAP. II.
mise all beings in this supreme Spirit and this supreme Spirit in .
all beings, can henceforth look upon no creature with contempt.
The man who understands that all beings only exist in this
single being ; the man who is made conscious of such profound
identity, what trouble or what pain can touch him P. He then
arrives at Brahma himself: he is luminous, apart from body, .
See Colebrooke's translation Rammohun Roy, Translation of
from the Aitaréya Arañya, in several principal books, &c. of the
Asiat. Res. VIII. 42 I, 422. Weds, pp. 1 or sq. Lond. 1832;
_* It is translated with the title and still more exactly from a
Isávásyan, in Sir W. Jones's somewhat different text, by Saint-
Works, VI, 423 sq., 4to. ed., by Hilaire, Des Védas, pp. 86 sq.
264.
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II. apart from evil, apart from matter, pure, and rescued from all
taint: he knows, he foreknows, he rules every thing : he sees
only by himself alone, and things appear to him such as they
were from all eternity, always like themselves......... Let the
wind, the breath immortal, carry off this body of mine, which
is mere ashes; but, O Brahma, remember my intentions, re-
member my efforts, remember my deeds. O Agni (spirit of
fire), conduct us by sure pathways to etermal happiness. O God,
who knowest all beings, purify us from every sin, and we shall
be enabled to consecrate to thee our holiest adorations. My
mouth is seeking truth only in this golden cup. It is I, O
Brahma 1 I who adore thee under the form of the resplendent
sun. O Sun eternal, hearken to my prayer.”
The striking similarity in tone and sentiment
between this prayer and the more lofty passages' of
the Bhagavad-Gºtá has not unmaturally induced
a modern writer to assign their composition to the
same period of Hindú literature; and at the same
time hinted that, as the date of the latter was sub-
sequent to the diffusion of Christianity, the former
may be possibly indebted for some of its more ethical
properties to the superior light of revelation. But,
however all such points may be eventually decided,
it is certain that no higher specimen of heathen
worship has been hitherto found in the surviving
monuments of Bráhmanism. “One is tempted to
ask,' writes” a learned translator of it, “whether the
Himálaya or Mount Sinai was the first to listen
to these sacred verses.' But he adds immediately
afterwards: ‘That grand idea of the unity of God
was lost in India, instead of being developed: it
was swallowed up in pantheism; and these precious
* See a specimen above, p. 242, * Saint-Hilaire, p. 89.
Il. 2.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 265
germs have therefore perished under a mass of most CHAP. II.
deplorable superstitions.”
Here indeed is one of the peculiarities to which Practical
I would direct the special notice of the reader. The *
Hindús have been, from first to last, a tribe of
creature-worshippers, a nation of polytheists. Belief
in one supreme Intelligence, so far from elevating
the character of their institutions and obtaining an
exclusive utterance in their sacred poetry, has been
an heirloom only of the favoured few. It was so,
in the Vaidic period, when the young imagination
of the Aryan, intoxicated by the beauties of external
nature and led astray from God, sought refuge in the
deification of the elements. It was so, when his
descendants had been taught to clothe the genii of
that earlier period with the attributes of human heroes
and of god-like sages. It is so at present, when
a Hindú writer has been heard deploring the incur-
able idolatry of his countrymen, and affirming that
‘the allegorical adoration of the true Deity,” which
anti-Christian scholars had professed to recognise in
the existing forms of worship, is totally unknown
among themselves. -
But I shall go yet further. Passing by the question Defect in
as to whether any changes were, in this particular, #.
effected through the agency of the Gospel and Kurán,
I feel justified in asserting that the best conceptions
formed of the supreme Being, in the highest systems
* In the ‘Introduction’ to his
Thranslation, &c., Rammohun Roy
possess, in their own departments,
full and independent power; and
declares, that the Hindús of the
present day “have no such views
of the subject, but firmly believe
in the real existence of immuner-
able gods and goddesses, who
ſ
to propitiate them, and not the
true God, are temples erected and
ceremonies performed :’ p. 5; cf.
above, pp. 199, 200.
266
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. II.
God in His
Telation to
7matte)'.
of Hindú philosophy, are all imperfect and onesided:
they fall short of those which have impressed them-
selves on almost every chapter in the records of the
true religion.
1. The Jehovah of the Hebrews and the God
of Christians is so purely spiritual and so entirely
Supramundane, that His worshippers could never run
the risk of identifying their Divinity either with the
forms of matter, or with powers and processes of the
material universe. He is in essence totally distinct
from each and all of these. The world of matter
is objective to Him, and so far from thwarting His
divine omnipotence, it is one single product of His
legislative will, an instrument, a vassal. On the
other hand, the Brahma of Hindústán is evermore
confounded with the vital properties of nature, or is
only made coordinate and coequal with them. Crea-
tion itself is there preceded by a something,’’ that
restrains and fetters the sovereignty of the Creator;
or else, as in the Sánkhya system, where it was
attempted to establish a peculiar principle of causality
by extruding the revealed idea of God, creation is no
more than the spontaneous evolution of a primary
essence, irrespectively of any conscious and designing
Agent. God, in other words, is not supreme accord-
ing to the doctrine of Hindú philosophers. Some
of them indeed allow us to regard Him as the ever-
present basis and the sole substratum of the universe,
the life and starting-point of all its varied operations:
but in no case do the energies inherent in His being
enable Him to rise superior to mysterious laws which
regulate the course of nature. Even where the
* See Prof. Wilson's Lectures, p. 53.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 267
Sánkhyas had, in later times, so modified' their tenets CHAP. II.
that volition was ascribed to the Almighty and His
moral attributes more fully recognised, this virtual
limitation of His freedom, this entrenchment on His
absolute supremacy, continues to be visible.
And since Hindús were rarely able to conceive of How far
God as altogether separable from the world of phe- &mpersonal.
nomena without plunging into utter atheism, so their
noblest thoughts of Him are in the same proportion
leavened and debased by pantheistic elements, of
which the logical issue is denial of His proper
personality. “This whole, it had been taught in
schools of ‘orthodox’ philosophy, ‘this whole is
Brahma, from Brahmá to a clod of earth. Brahma
is both the efficient and the material cause of the
world. He is the potter by whom the fictile vase
is formed : He is the clay of which it is fabricated.”
Nor, as other phases in the history of Bráhmanism
present themselves for our investigation, are evils
of this kind corrected and removed. The system in
which the freedom of God appeared to be entirely
compromised was followed by a subtler form of
pantheism, which contended that whatever is resulted
from the internal necessities of the Divine nature;
so that the idea of God, as known to Christendom,
instead of gaining clearness with the growth of meta-
1. Above, p. 216.
* Wilson, Ibid. p. 49; and
above, p. 196; although, as Prof.
Wilson justly remarks, the full
extent of these materialistic illus-
trations may not have been in-
tended. Rammohun Roy, as be-
fore, p. 12, explains the phrase
“All that exists is indeed God’ as
equivalent to “Nothing bears true
existence excepting God'; and the
phrase ‘Whatever we smell or
taste is the Supreme Being’ as
equivalent to ‘The existence of
whatever thing appears to us re-
lies on the existence of God.”
But surely this refinement is ex-
cessive.
268
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II, physical acumen, had remained as evanescent and
impersonal as before. Men argued that all essences,
which underlie the various grades of being and impart
to the material world whatever of reality it may
possess, originate in one great Spirit, who is subjected
to periodic resolution and is periodically reabsorbed
in simple unity. Creation, therefore, must be con-
strued still more nakedly as another name for emana-
tion. God Himself is one, because the universe is
one mighty organism, and all the forms of animated
nature, being consubstantial with divinity, or con-
taining in themselves a particle of the all-pervading
Spirit, are thereby shielded from the violence of man,
or made the fitting objects of his worship. Such is
even the theology of portions of the Isa-Upanishad,
from which an extract has been given above: and
such is also one main tenet of the Bhagavad-Gºtd,
where, in the midst of efforts to establish the uni-
versality of God, the language put into the mouth
of the divine interlocutor breathes the sternest kind
of pantheism, and pursues the principle of absolute
necessity to its furthest and most fearful consequences.
2. But granting that relations between God and
matter are not always so far misinterpreted; granting
that some higher thoughts than such as we have just
reviewed were struggling here and there for utterance
through the pantheistic terminology of Bráhmanism;
granting that the unity of which it speaks is something
more than Nature, as traced backwards to its primary
God no real
object of
trust and
worship.'
1 Yet Wuttke (II. 262) is indis- zurückgeführte Natur, das Natur-
posed to grant more than this: Eins, die einheitliche Grundlage
* Das Brahma,’ he writes, ‘ist aller natürlichen Dinge, ist nicht
nichts als die auf ibre Einheit mehr und nicht weniger.’ When
JTindžism and Revealed Religion.
269
germ and basis by a generalising process of the CHAP. II.
intellect, or Nature, as idealised and deified by the
poetic faculty of the worshipper: granting, also, that
the current dogmas, with regard to the great Spirit
of the universe, are sometimes capable of interpret-
ations which do not of necessity exclude the thought
of His self-consciousness and independent personality,
how poor are, notwithstanding, the most elevated
of Hindú conceptions as compared with that which
has, in every age, been printed on the heart of
Christians and of Hebrews | There the Author of
the universe, as represented by philosophy, is so
unknown, so abstract, so incapable of definition, so de-
void of everything that constitutes a bond of sympathy
with created beings, as to exercise no power on the
direction of the human will or the formation of the
human character. No man is able to hold converse
with the Absolute; no déva can describe the being
or mark out the path of the Ineffable. The thought
of Him inspires not confidence and hope, but awe,
distrust, and apprehension. He has no paternal cha-
racter." The world and the affairs of men may all
indeed be subject to fixed laws which had their origin
in Him, but no account is taken by this doctrine
of the providence by which He regulates the course
of individuals and the destinies of nations. Much
less are men regarded as the objects of His love
Christianity, as he contends, was
brought into communication with
E[indúism, the resulting idea of
God was a mixture of ‘Christian
monotheism’ and ‘Hindú natural-
ism.’
* See Creuzer's Symbolik, I. 171,
172, Leipzig, 1836, on the differ-
ence between the Christian and
heathen use of the word “Father'
as applied to God. ‘Wenn der
Christ seinen Gott Water nemnt so
ist es ungetheiltes Wertrauen, was
ihm dieses Wort eingiebt. Der
Christ kennt seinen Gott.’
270
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II, and pity, as the wanderers He would fain recover
from their blind infatuation, as the prodigals whom
He is ever yearning to reclaim and elevate, to pardon
and renew. Belief in the Supreme God is therefore
with such persons barely speculative: it does not
warm the heart; it does not quicken the religious
sentiment; it does not foster gratitude; it is not
perfected by love. The Brahma of the Hindú school-
man still continues a great It, a vast but cold abs-
traction, shewing little or no interest in the world
and in the fortunes of his human progeny, or at the
best receding far beyond the cognizance of ordinary
spirits. Hence it has resulted that the great majority
of Hindús have always, during the historic period,
substituted for the one true God a host of demi-gods
and other parasitical divinities, like those which crowd
their pantheon at the present day. Each group they
have invested with some one or other of the attri-
butes of God, and made supreme in some one pro-
vince of creation. These are held to exercise on man .
the personal government which seemed unworthy
of the abstract Brahma, or entirely foreign to His
nature. These, it is maintained, are still accessible
to mortals; these can listen to the prayer and quaff
the grateful sacrifice: these punish or reward accord-
ing to the quality of actions; and whatever therefore
of religious sentiment is now evoked in the great
mass of Hindú worshippers, is not so much the issue
of half-conscious gropings after the Unknown God,
whose image is not utterly obliterated from the human
spirit, as a tribute consciously and freely paid to those
who are “no gods.’ -
Before passing to another division of the subject,
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 271.
I cannot help remarking how completely the internal CHAP. II.
character of the doctrines here compared unites itselfs,
with different kinds of evidence in shewing that if ſº
Bráhmanism and Christianity have borrowed from *
each other, the obligation is upon the side of India,
not of Palestine: for while many traits of the scrip-
tural idea of God can never be explained by reference
to Brähmanic speculations, nothing pure or noble is
distinguishable in the latter, which might not have
been derived from more explicit statements of the
former. I incline, however, to the intermediate view
already urged by St. Augustine in his controversy
with the Manichaeans of his day: ‘Be it known, he
writes, ‘to Faustus, or those rather who are charmed
by his productions, that our doctrine of divine Mon-
archy is not borrowed from the heathen, but that, on
the other hand, the heathem themselves had not so
wholly lapsed into the worship of false gods as to
relinquish all belief in the one True God, from whom
is every order of created being.”
§ 2. Hindú trinities, or triads.
It is difficult to understand how any one, whose Real
te © nature of
judgment was not clouded by some theory of his own ...}}-
respecting the extent of the primeval revelation, or mºnºa'
- * triad.
who on the other hand was not desirous at all hazards
to impair the sacred character of Christianity, could
ever have adduced the Hindú triad as the parallel
of that transcendent mystery which forms the basis
of the Catholic faith. Sir William Jones, who com-
monly shewed himself as eager as the rest of his
1 Contra Faustum, lib. XX. c. 19 : Opp. VIII. 345, ed. Bened.
272
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II. contemporaries to detect the slightest shadows of
affinity between the Bible and the sacred books of
India, was in this case strenuous in denying the
reality of the alleged resemblances.” And fresh
investigations have completely justified the verdict
of that eminent critic. The trimºrrt of India, which
eventually is represented under the symbol of a body
with three heads, has no foundation in the Védas,”
nor have any traces of it been discovered in the Laws
of Manu. It was clearly the production of a later
age, an age when thoughtful persons, anxious to
regain their hold on the idea of unity, began to study
all the various processes of physical life, and to re-
duce them into three kinds or phases, generation,
preservation, and destruction.” Each of these was
deemed the efflux of a special energy, and Brahmá,
Vishnu, and Siva were selected as the verbal repre-
sentatives of natural causes contemplated in their
three-fold character. So long as the idea of God
as one, Supreme, and personal was consciously pre-
served, those titles would not necessarily issue in
impiety. Men felt that Brahmā, the Ineffable, whose
proper dwelling is in gloom and silence, had notwith-
1 Asiatic Researches, I. 273. He
complained that missionaries, in
their zeal for the conversion of
the natives, had been foolish
enough to urge that ‘the Hindús.
were even now almost Christians,
because their Brahmā, Wishfiu
and Mahésa [Siva.] were no other
than the Christian Trinity.” One
of these missionaries was the
Jesuit Bouchet, who in the words
of Chateaubriand (Génie du Christ-
tanisme, v. Io) sent home a number
of most curious details “sur le
rapport des fables Indiennes avec
les principales vérités de nôtre
religion, et les traditions de l'écri-
ture.” On the contrary, a learned
Jewish writer, Philippsohn, De-
welopment of the Religious Idea,
p. 156, has pointed out that the
‘trinitarian Godhead of Christian-
ity’ differs from all other triads in
being ‘exclusively and wholly
good; whereas in heathenism one
of the three divine powers was
conceived to be opposed to the
other two, the principle of evil.”
* See above, p. 189, n. 1.
* Above, pp, 198, 199.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 273
standing made a revelation of Himself in nature, and CHAP. II.
that under three ideal forms expressing His distinct-
ive operations in that province, men were able to
conceive of Him and pay Him adoration.
But however this may be, it is quite certain How it ex-
that ere long the physical attributes of God, as jº,
the Creator, the Preserver, the Destroyer, were so Divine
rigorously personified, that they not only superseded w???ty;
the more elemental of the Vaidic deities, but prac-
tically excluded from men's thoughts the personality
of God Himself. Brahmá, for instance, who in theory
constituted the first link of some grand chain of
emanations, was eventually saluted as the “great
creator,’ the ‘father of the universe,' the ‘founder
and the governor of all things:’ while other epithets,
no less exalted and as plainly inconsistent with belief
in unity, were gradually transferred by similar pro-
cesses to Siva and Vishnu. These three together
represented everything that was divine; all other
objects in the pantheon were reducible to these, and
were held to be new phases of the three superior
gods. ‘The deities are only three,’ says a high
authority” of Bráhmanism, ‘whose places are the
earth, the intermediate region, and heaven; viz. fire,
air, and the sun. They are pronounced to be [the
deities] of the mysterious names severally; and Pra-
jópati, the Lord of the creatures, is [the deity] of
them collectively. The syllable Om intends every
deity. It belongs to Paraméshthi, him, who dwells
in the supreme abode ; it appertains to Brahmá, the
vast one ; to Déva, God; to Adhyātmd, the super-
. . Wuttke, II. * Sq. . Asiat. Res. VIII. 395 sq.
2 Quoted by Colebrooke in
VOI,. I. 18
274
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
and subst:-
tufted the
worship of
created
beings.
intending soul. Other deities belonging to these
several regions are portions of the [three] Gods; for
they are variously named and described, on account
of their different operations: but [in fact] there is
only one Deity, the Great Soul (Mahán-Atmá).’
This passage, interesting on other accounts, will more
especially enable us to realize the thought which
underlies all seeming inconsistencies in statements
of different Hindú writers respecting the essential
character of the members of their sacred triad.
Brahmā, Vishnu, and Siva are deemed worthy of
the highest honour, and in act have been so wor-
shipped, because they gather up and place before the
worshipper everything that he can possibly know of
God; yet all the while they are, as to their essence,
creatures' separable from Brahma, differing in degree
but not in nature from the members of the human
species, and all destined to eventual reabsorption like
other finite beings. Hence also, as the consequence
of this conception, each of them is represented in the
ancient books of India accompanied by a wife (Sakti),
who forms the counterpart of his own energies;”
Saraswati reflecting the peculiar powers of Brahmá,
Lakshmi of Vishnu, and Parvati of Siva.
It were needless to point out in detail how this
* The following passage is very
explicit: ‘You are not to consider
Wishflu, Brahmā, and Mahádéva
(Siva), and other incorporate be-
ings as the Deity, although they
have each of them the denom-
ination of Déva, or divine.
They are all created; while the
Supreme Being is without begin-
ning or end, unformed, and un-
created; worship and adore Him.”
The writer then explains that
worship is paid to inferior deities
in order that men’s “minds may
be composed, and conducted, by
degrees, to the essential Unity.’
Quoted in Lord Teignmouth's
Jife of Sir Wm. Jones, II, 284,
8vo. ed.
* See Stuhr, I. Ioo, Wuttke, II.
27o ; and cf. above, p. 174, n. I.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 275
Hindú triad differs from the Catholic doctrine of the CHAP. II.
Holy Trinity,+that, I mean, for which the primitive cºstian
Church had never ceased to struggle with the utmost º,y
jealousy" when assaulted by a host of pagan theories in Unity. '
on the right hand and the left. The opposition be-
tween such doctrines is entire and fundamental. The
germ of the Christian Trinity is not discoverable in
any or in all the processes of physical nature. The
actual development of the idea is neither tritheistic
nor Sabellian. Christians have indeed been ever
constant in maintaining the grand principle of the
divine Monarchy. They believe in one only True
God, one starting-point, one Head, one àpxij, one
original, supreme and indivisible Essence. They
believe, accordingly, that while the Godhead of the
Father is entirely independent, and of none, the God-
head of the Second Person in the blessed Trinity is
derived,—derived from all eternity, by the communi-
cation to Him of the Godhead of the Father ; and
a similar remark is applicable to the mode in which
the Third Person has eternally coexisted in that
infinite Being. They believe, in other words, that the
Divine essence, though incapable of multiplication,
was not absolutely sterile, yea rather, that in virtue
of its communicability, those three transcendent and
profound relations have arisen which justify the titles
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
1 Thus St. Athanasius, Contra
Arianos Oratio II. (Opp. I. 325,
Colon. 1686) protests with his
wonted vehemence against the
tendency of the pagan mind to
represent the Persons of the Holy
Trinity as created intelligences:
‘AAA’ oilk &v &váoxoutó ris Xpt-
attavóv Tóv Totograv aipetucóv'
‘EAA#vov yöp (6ta Taüta, Šote
'yevnthu eio &yely Tpudôa, Ical
Tois yeumtois at thy ovvečiard ſev,
FC. T. A.
276
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. II.
Sánkhya
triad.
On the other hand, all Catholic Christians have
maintained with equal firmness that as each of the
Three Personalities is properly Divine, so each must
be regarded as the subject of attributes, as one distinct
and personal Agent. The Word of God, for instance,
is no simple quality, constituting one person with the
Father; as a man together with his faculties is said
to form one human subject. Neither is the Son of
God a deified intelligence, exalted far above the level
of his fellows, and entrusted with the joint adminis-
tration of the universe. However much these views
of Christ and of His Person may be advocated here
and there by the professing Christian, they differ
toto colo from the principles inherited by early saints
and martyrs; for otherwise the opposition offered to
the Gospel by the pagan scoffer and half-pagan
heretic would be utterly inexplicable.
No greater resemblance will again be found be-
tween the Christian Trinity and some ideal combin-
ations which arise from time to time in systems of
Hindú philosophy. One of these appears to have
been prompted by a wish of later Sánkhyas to get
rid of the Brähmanical triad, and replace it by a
something more in harmony with their own peculiar
speculations. They accordingly affirmed" that buddhi,
or intelligence, the second in order of their ‘princi-
ples,’ became distinctly known as three gods, by the
agency of the three ‘qualities;' and was thus to be
esteemed ‘one person' (mºrrtä) distributed in ‘three
dévas,' or, in other words, Brahmā, Vishnu, and Siva.
Buddhism, in like manner, had in later times put
forth its own peculiar triad. Intelligence, the first
JBuddhist
triad.
* Colebrooke, Essais, ed. Pauthier, pp. 17, 18.
Hindifism and Revealed Religion.
277
principle, was in the monasteries of Nepāl associated CHAP. II.
with Dharma, the principle of matter; while a me-
diating power, or Sangga, was combined with the
two others in order to secure their union and har-
monious co-operation."
But this latter class of triads
will more fitly come before us, on proceeding to ex-
amine” what is called the “Platonic trinity,” a doctrine
which has often since the days of Plotinus been put
forward as subversive of the loftier claims of Christ-
ianity.
§ 3. Hindú avatāras, or incarnations, especially
that of Krishna.
A remark which I have made already in allusion 0.9% of
$ndſ,
to the Hindi triads may as safely be extended to the avatāras.
Hindú theory of incarnations.
That theory again
1. Cf. Cunningham (Bhilsa Topes,
pp. 35, 36; p. 358: Lond. I 854),
who traces back this triad as
far as B.C. 247. Schott Uber
den Buddhaismus in Hochasien,
pp. 39, 40) has some interesting
revelations on this subject. The
three most precious things in the
estimation of Buddhists are Sákya-
muni, his religion (Dharma), and
the community of religious men
(Sangga). “Unter Dharma und
Sangga versteht man im ganzen
buddhaistischen Hochasien und
eben so in China keine mit Buddha
eins attsmachenden Persomen oder
Seinem Wesen emanirten Kräfte.’
Still the Buddhists of those re-
gions are sometimes in the habit
of grouping three objects of wor-
ship together; e.g. Sákya-muni,
his next predecessor, and his next
successor (Ibid. p. 40). On Egypt-
ian and other triads, see Wilkin-
son, 2nd Series, I. 185 sq.; and
Bunsen's protest “in the name of
philosophy’ against the abuse of
the word; Egypt's place in Uni-
versal History, I. 365.
* In the meantime I refer the
reader to C. Morgan's able In-
vestigation of the Trinity of Plato,
&c., who, in treating of the Catho-
lic doctrine of the Holy Trinity,
remarks (pp. 154, 155, Camb.
1853): “But the cultivators of
human wisdom appear to have
been total strangers to it, till it
was disclosed to them by a teacher
of philosophy, [Plotinus], who
had been educated in the bosom
of Christianity. Then, and not
till then, they used it as a key to
unlock the abstract subtilties of
Plato, and to throw a decent veil
over the extravagant and licen-
tious fables of Pagan mythology.’
278
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. II.
has no existence either in the Védas, or the Laws
of Manu.” It is, therefore, a development, or rather
I should say, an aftergrowth, of which no trace
appears until we reach a later stage in the religious
history of Hindústán. There was, however, a clear
tendency in the direction of this dogma, when phi-
losophers had once begun to realize the principle of
emanation; for if all created beings had within them
particles of Divinity, it was easy to believe that
heroes, whether physical or moral, had been gifted
with so large a share of the divine, that God might,
without impropriety, be said to dwell in them, to
speak in them, to use them as material instruments
whereby His purposes were carried out.
The name of avatāra, or descent, has been, how-
ever, for the most part limited to certain manifesta-
tions of Vishnu, the second member of the mytho-
logical triad, who is made to vindicate his character
as god and guardian of humanity, or as a middle-
term between the powers of generation and destruc-
tion, by stepping down from his celestial dwelling-
place for the deliverance of the earth at large, or for
the special benefit of his worshippers. The avatdºras
of this class are ten in number. First of all Vishnu
is represented as inhabiting the shape of an enormous
fish, by which a remnant of the human family was
rescued from a general deluge; secondly, as incarnate
in a tortoise, by whose help the dévas were enabled
to manufacture for themselves a new elixir, or am-
brosia, which imparted immortality; thirdly, in a
Their gene-
ral forms
and cha-
7'acteristics.
| Above, p. 190, n. I. and then as a divinity of inferior
* Wishiu is only once noticed in rank. -
this ancient code (Bk. XII. § 121),
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
279
boar, which, when the earth was carried by a demon CHAP. II.
to the bottom of the sea, dived down and rescued it;
and then advancing, in the fourth place, to the highest
order of animal life, and clothing himself with attri-
butes more terrible and avenging, he appears as
Nara-singha, the ‘Man-Lion.’ The fifth incarnation,
that of Vámana, the Dwarf, exhibits him rather in
the light of a diplomatist, who had recovered for
the dévas the possession of the “three worlds' when
they were conquered by the demon Bali.
We shall see hereafter that the earliest of these
legends was not destitute of all historic basis, and
others, as the second, third, and fourth, and possibly
the fifth, are equally susceptible of such an explan-
ation. The tenth, or Kalki avatāra, is believed to
be still future, pointing to some fearful crisis, when
Vishnu, in human form, and seated on a ‘white
horse,' shall give the signal for extinguishing this
visible universe. The four remaining avatāras (the
sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth) are all so far
historical, that a real basis for them is discoverable
in the annals of the Aryan conflicts, either with the
savage aborigines of the Peninsula, or with other
foes of the Bráhmanical religion.” Vishnu, in every
case, is thought to be incarnate in the person of some
Sage or hero; he struggles with malignant spirits,
whether men or demons, and having rescued his own
1. Cf. Rev. vi. 8, which intimates was an illusory form emitted from
the Christian origin of this legend, the substance of Wishſiu (the ninth
It will be considered again in
Chap. III.
2 For instance, the startling
phenomena of Buddhism were
finally explained by some of its
Brähmanical opponents on the
supposition that Gautama Buddha
in the series), and that his mission
really was to deceive and so de-
stroy the Daityas, or lower classes,
who from their ascetic habits had
grown too powerful: see Vish?";
I’ur. ed. Wilson, pp. 336 sq.
280
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
I’articular
catamina-
tion of
Jörish?ia-
tsm.
own mystic power (máyd).
followers from their grasp, recedes again into the
sphere of absolute divinity.
But one of these remarkable incarnations, that
of Krishna, or the eighth of the foregoing series,
will demand a fuller investigation, not only as the
leading member of a group, but also as peculiar in
its characteristics, and presenting many obvious
points of similarity to incidents recorded in our
Gospels.
In the earlier avatāras, Vishnu is said to have
emitted only a portion (ansa) of his godhead, and
so to have established an imperfect relation with the
forms of animal and human life; but Krishna, on
the contrary, reflected the most glorious image of the
god of preservation. The god himself was actually
incarnate; he descended as a real man upon the
theatre of humanity, while claiming for himself the
attributes of the Supreme Being, with whom he is
identified. The first example of this great conception
meets us in the pages of the Bhagavad-Gita, in
which the poet makes him speak as follows: ‘Even
though I am unborn, of changeless essence, and the
lord also of all which exist, yet, in presiding over
nature (prakrit), which is mine, I am born by my
For whenever there is
1 Krishía-worship, according descroyances particulièresal’Imde,
to M. Pavie, Bhagavat Dasam
Askand, Pref. p. xi. (Paris, 1852)
is ‘le plus moderne de tous les
systèmes philosophiques et reli-
gieux qui ont partagé l'Inde en
sectes rivales. Basā sur la théo-
rie des incarnations successives
que n'admettaient mile Véda, ni
les législateurs de la première
époque brahmanique, le krich-
naïsme differe sur tant de points
qu'on a été tenté de le considerer
comme un emprunt fait aux phi-
losophies et aux religions étran-
gères.’
* Chap. IV. (p. 30, ed. Thom-
son). Elsewhere Krishna is re-
presented as the Lord of the world,
the Creator, the ‘Lord of Brahmá,
Wishfiu and Siva:” Wuttke, II.
339.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 281
a relaxation of duty, O son of Bharata! and an in- CHAP. II.
crease of impiety, I then reproduce myself for the
protection of the good, and the destruction of evil-
doers. I am produced in every age for the purpose
of establishing duty.’ But although the name of
Krish a and the groundwork of his legend were thus
fully apprehen 'ed at an early period, it was only
in the course of ages that Krishnāism was able to
embody itself into a sect, and only after further in-
tervals that the legend was invested with the fulness
and luxuriance, which it manifests in the Puráň s,”
—documents belonging to what is termed the ‘re-
naissance of Bráhmanism,’ i.e. a period not earlier
than the eighth, nor later than the twelfth century
of the Christian era. -
I subjoin an extract of the legend” as derived The
from these sources by a recent hand with no un- Fºr
friendly or polemical object:
1 Elphinstone, Hist, of India,
p. Io2, 3rd ed., places the forma-
tion of all the sects, which are
founded on the worship of parti-
cular incarnations, later than the
beginning of the 8th century of
the Christian era: and Colebrooke
(As. Res. VIII. 495) believes that
the ‘worship of Rama and of
Crishna by the Vaishnavas, and
that of Mahadeva and Bhavami
by the Saivas and Sactas, have
been generally introduced since
the persecution of the Bauddhas
and Jainas.” Lassen, in like
manner (Ind. Alt. II. 446) con-
siders that prominence was given
to Kishſia-worship in the hope
of counterbalancing the influence
of Buddhism at the time when it
was threatening to become uni-
versal in the Peninsula.
* See the Vishīvu Puráña as
edited by Prof. Wilson, and the
Bháqavat-Powróña, as edited by
M. Burnouf. As all this class
of writings are thoroughly secta-
ºrian in their character, they must
have originated after the growth
of the rival sects into which Brâh-
manism was at length divided;
and the general opinion now is
that no Puráň , as it now exists,
can claim the high antiquity
which was formerly assigned to
it (Lassen, I. 479 sq.),
* In Mr. Thomson's edition of
the Bhagavad-Gité, pp. 134 sq.
A longer summary will be found
in M. Pavie's edition of the Bha-
gavat Dasam Askand, Pref. pp.
xxxiv. sq.
282
Christ and offer Masters.
“The king of the Daityas or aborigines, Áhuka, had two
sons, Devaka and Ugrasena. The former had a daughter named
Devaki, the latter a son called Kansa. Devakſ (the divine) was
married to a nobleman of the Áryan race named Vasudeva (or
Anakadundubhi), the son of Sūra, a descendant of Yadu, and by
him had eight sons. Vasudeva had also another wife named
Rohini. Kansa, the cousin of Devaki, was informed by the saint
and prophet Närada, that his cousin would bear a son, who
would kill him and overthrow his kingdom. Kansa was king
of Mathurá, and he captured Vasudeva and his wife Devaki,
imprisoned them in his own palace, set guards over them, and
slew the six children whom Devakí had already borne. She
was now about to give birth to the seventh, who was Balaráma,
the playfellow of Krishna, and, like him, supposed to be an
incarnation of Wishiiu; but by divine agency, the child was
transferred before birth to the womb of Wasudeva's other wife,
Rohini, who was still at liberty, and was thus saved. Her
eighth child was Krishna, who was born at midnight, with
a very black skin,' and a peculiar curl of hair called the
Srivatsa, resembling a Saint Andrew's cross, on his breast.
The gods now interposed to preserve the life of this favoured
baby from Kansa's vigilance, and accordingly lulled the guards
of the palace to sleep with the Yoga-midrā, or mysterious
slumber. Taking the infant, its father Vasudeva stole out
undiscovered as far as the Yamunā, or Jumna, river, which
seems to have been the boundary between the Áryans and the
aborigines. This he crossed, and on the other side found the
cart and team of a nomad Āryan cowherd, called Nanda, whose
wife, Yashodá, had by strange coincidence just been delivered
of a female child. Vasudeva, warned of this by divine ad-
monition, stole to her bedside, and placing Krishfia by her,
re-crossed the river, and re-entered the palace, with the female
baby of Yashodá in his arms, and thus substituted it for his
own son. When Kansa discovered the cheat, he for a while
gave up the affair, and set the prisoners at liberty, but ordered
CHAP. II.
* Krishina, as an adjective, slightly disguised. Each word
means simply black, which ought grows maturally out of the cha-
at once to dispose of the vulgar racter of the personage with whom
cavil that Xplotós is Krishna it is associated.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
283
all male children to be put to death. Vasudeva then entrusted CHAP. II.
Krishna to the care of Nanda, the cowherd, who took him to
the village of Gokula, or Vraja, and there brought him up.
Here Krishma, and his elder brother Balarāma, who joined him,
wandered about together as children, and evinced their divine
character by many unruly pranks of surprising strength, such
as kicking over the cart, which served as conveyance and
domicile to Nanda and his family. The female Daitya Pútaná
was sent to suckle him, but the refractory baby, discovering
the trick, showed his gratitude by slaying her. Later in life
he vanquished the serpent Káliya in the middle of the Yamunā
(Jumna) river. A demon, Arishta, assuming the form of a
bull; another, Keshin, that of a horse; and a third, Kālanemi,
all undertook to destroy the boy, but each fell victims to his
superhuman strength. Krishíla now incited Nanda and the
cowherds to abandon the worship of Indra, and to adopt that
of the cows, which supported them, and the mountains, which
afforded them pasturage. Indra, incensed at the loss of his
offerings, opened the gates of heaven upon the whole race, and
would have deluged them, had not our hero plucked up the
mountain Govarddhama, and held it as a substantial umbrella
above the land. He soon took to repose from his labours, and
amused himself with the Gopīs, or shepherdesses, of whom he
married seven or eight, among whom Rādhā was the favourite,
and to whom he taught the round dance called Rása-, or
Mandala-nrityam. Meanwhile Kansa had not forgotten the
prophecies of Närada. He invited the two boys, Krishma and
Balarāma, to stay with him at Mathurá; they accepted, and
went. At the gates, Kansa's washerman insulted Krishna, who
slew him, and dressed himself in his yellow clothes. He after-
wards slew Kansa himself, and placed his father Ugrasena on
the throne. A foreign king of the Kālayavana (Indo-Scythian)
race soon invaded the Yadu, or Aryan, territory, whereupon
Rrishna built and fortified the town of Dwóraka, in Guzerat,
and thither transferred the inhabitants of Mathurá. He after-
wards married Satyabhāmā, daughter of Satrájit, and carried
off Rukmini, daughter of Bhishmaka. His harem numbered
sixty thousand wives, but his progeny was limited to eighteen
thousand sons. When afterwards on a visit to Indra's heaven,
284.
Chrisſ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. II, he behaved, at the persuasion of his wife, Sat'abhámá, in a
Jēesem-
blances to
sacred
history.
manner very unbecoming a guest, by stealing the famous
Pārijāta tree, which had been produced at the churning of the
ocean, and was then thriving in Indra's garden. A contest
ensued, in which Krishſia defeated the gods, and carried off
the sacred tree. At another time, a female Daitya, Ushā,
daughter of Bána, carried off Krishſia's grandson, Aniruddha.
His grandfather, accompanied by Rāma, went to the rescue,
and though Bána was defended by Siva and Skanda, proved
victorious. Pau draka, one of Wasudeva's family, afterwards
assumed his title and insignia, supported by the king of Benares.
Rrishina hurled his flaming discus (chakra) at this city, and
thus destroyed it. He afterwards exterminated his own tribe,
the Yádavas. He himself was killed by a chance shot from
a hunter. He is described as having curly black hair, as wear-
ing a club or mace, a sword, a flaming discus, a jewel, a conch,
and a garland. His charioteer is Sātyaki; his city, Dwóraka;
his heaven, Goloka.”
The reader will not fail to notice in this legend
more than one exact coincidence with circumstances
in the human history of our blessed Lord. Remote
as are the main ideas which it embodies from the
principles of Holy Writ, there is sufficient also of
external correspondence to account for the alacrity
with which the modern infidel has seized upon the
tale of Krishíla, and has tortured it into an argu-
ment against the truth of Christianity. Nor has
the abstract I have just been quoting brought before
us every minor point' in which the incidents of the
Gospel are supposed to be as clearly visible. Other
versions of the Krishna-legend tell us how, in addi-
tion to the marvellous birth at midnight, choirs of
dévatas, resembling the angelic host of Bethlehem,
* See a pointed summary of dāstān, II, 222, 223, Lond. 1820.
these in Maurice's Hist, of Hin-
Hind?sm and Revealed Religion.
285
saluted the divine infant as soon as he was born.
They give still greater prominence to the massacre
of the innocents by Kansa, and his failing to secure
possession of the child by whom he was at last to
be supplanted. They narrate how, in the train of
miracles that follow this deliverance, the young hero,
to the great amazement of his parents and a troop of
cowherds by whom he was attended, overcame the
serpent Kālīya, and trampled on its head; while of
particular acts ascribed to him in after-years by the
compilers of the more expanded version of the story,
the cleansing of lepers, the raising of the dead, his
own descending to the world invisible and reascend-
ing to the proper paradise of Wishiu, are not the
least conspicuous.
It is true indeed that not a few of these minute
CHAP. II.
*-º-º-º- *m-----------
PHeathen
resemblances to sacred history, if taken one by one,”
have also parallels in other realms of heathendom,
and therefore may be possibly explained as merely
outward and fortuitous, or else as borrowing their
chief force from arbitrary combinations and the
specious and deceptive colouring under which we
are accustomed to present them. Two or three ex-
amples from Greek writers will best illustrate my
meaning. If Krishna was violently persecuted in
his infancy, it might be answered, so was Hercules
exposed to the implacable rage of Juno. If Krishna,
in his triumphs, comes before us crowned with flowers
and at the head of dancing milkmaids and intoxicated
satyrs, the description will apply to Bacchus also. If
Krishna, veiling his divinity, is said to have been
concealed beneath the roof of Nanda, the cowherd,
Apollo, in like manner, acted like an ordinary mortal
*
286
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. II.
Probability
of eacternal
communic-
ation
between
Jºrishſīā-
Žsm and
Christian-
ity.
The reveal-
ed idea of
Christ
original.
when he sought a shelter in the household of Ad-
metus. Or again, if Krishna is to be regarded as
a purely human and historical hero, doomed to death
in childhood from forebodings that his life would
prove the ruin of another, we can find his parallel
in the elder Cyrus, who had also been entrusted
to the care of herdsmen, to preserve him from the
vengeance of his royal grandfather, whose death it
was foretold he should eventually accomplish.
Yet in placing these analogies before the reader,
as suggesting to one class of minds a possible medium
for explaining the resemblances which form the sub-
ject of our investigation, I am willing to admit that
such a method does not give what seems to me a
Satisfactory account of all the parallels in question,
more especially when we include the minor topics
furnished by more ample versions of the Krishna-
legend. Many of these, I grant, might have been
accidental; but all can scarcely be so treated, with-
out violence to probability and ordinary experience.
If then we adopt the theory of external intercourse
as furnishing the simplest and most adequate ex-
planation of the present phenomena, it must follow
either that Christianity has borrowed from Hindúism
or Hindúism from Christianity. -
Now the former supposition is at once repudiated
by the fact that our doctrine of the Incarnation and
Messiahship of Christ is perfectly original in itself
and perfectly consistent with the language of the
Hebrew prophets. Even the astounding incidents of
the Saviour's childhood,' which are thought to be
most nearly related to the Krishna-legend, are proved,
in our own Gospels, to have been foretold by men
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
287
who flourished long before the Bráhman had begun CHAP. II.
to dream of avatāras: and with reference to the
Promise generally, its form was thoroughly Hebrew,
interwoven from first to last with the exalted destinies
of Abraham and David, pointing ever with a firmer
hand and larger measure of illumination to the won-
drous facts of Nazareth and Bethlehem, foreshadow-
ing the persecutions which befel the Man of Sorrows
as the necessary precondition of the “glory that should
follow;' and in all the course of this mysterious
evolution, blending with itself no heterogeneous or
extrinsic element, much less an element originating
on the far-off borders of the Yamunā, and in the
cloister of some Bráhman devotee.
But if the character of our Messianic doctrine be Did Christ-
thus singular and self-consistent, and if all attempts ºff, the
ICrishna-
legend ?
to draw it out of foreign sources are discovered to be
futile, what are we to think of the other hypothesis,
according to which the Krishna-legend is indebted
for at least a portion of its richness and embellish-
ment to influences diffused by Christianity? Can
we offer any adequate explanation of the Christian
elements in Krishmäism, by supposing that there was
an actual intercourse of some kind or other between
the two religions?
To answer this question, we must distinguish, in
the first place, between Krishna considered as an
ancient hero, and the Krishíla who is ultimately said
to be identical with the Supreme Being, and the
leading member in a system of religion and philo-
sophy. -
Now that Krishna, though unnoticed in the very
oldest literature of India, may have already figured
288 .
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
Jørishnā-
tsm, pro-
perly so
called,
subsequent
to Christ-
Žanity.
as a local hero in the period preceding the Great
War, and subsequently, as the Hercules of the Panjāb,
may have attracted to himself the reverence of his
fellow-countrymen, are suppositions by no means
improbable. The allusion of Megasthenes' to some
such hero, far surpassing other men in strength of
mind and body, and especially distinguished by his
zeal in purifying land and water and destroying
every form of noxious animal, will bear to be in-
terpreted of Krish’, , as well as Balaráma and the
rest, whom popular superstition had exalted far above
the rank of ordinary mortals. Yet this reference of
the language has not been suffered to pass on without
a challenge;” and other argument, alleged in favour
of the high antiquity of Krishíla, have been weakened
more and more by modern criticism. When, for
instance, he was represented as the central object”
of the Māhabhārata, the statement was devoid of
The real heroes of that poem are
all solid basis.
1 Megasthenis Indica, ed. Sch-
wanbeck, p. 290 : ſcaffapāv Totha'al
Töv 9mpſov yºu te ſcal 96AaTrav:
cf. Lassen, I. 647, 648.
* Lassen, in replying to some
of Weber's observations (cf. above,
p. 256, n. 3) on the peculiarities of
Rrishjiaism, investigates the ori-
gin of the Avatāra-system (II.
1 106 sq.), and concludes that the
doctrine of Wishfiu's incarnations
was formed at least three centu-
ries before the Christian era, al-
though the number and order of
such incarnations were first settled
at a later period. To these argu-
ments Weber has replied in 'de-
tail (Ind. Stud. II. 4O9 sq.), ques-
tioning, among other things, the
identity of Krishia with the In-
dian Hercules Cf Greek writers.
In any case, he argues, this hero
or demi-god was no incarnation,
in the proper sense of the lan-
guage, and was very different
from the Krishía of later times.
In the Avatāra-system the grand
peculiarity consisted not in the
fact that some divinity assumed
a human or animal form, and in
it protected and purified the earth,
but rather ‘dass der Gott aus
Mitleid mit der leidenden, aus
Zorn gegen die sindige Mensch-
heit Selbst als Mensch geboren
wird und ein menschliches Dasein
führt.” (p. 41 I.)
8 See, for instance, Elphin-
stone's India, p. 93, 3rd ed. ; and
a rectification of the statement in
Lassen, I. 488.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
289
the Pándavas; and if it be remembered that of the CHAP. II.
100,000 distichs in the poem only 24,000 can be
shewn to have entered into the original composition ;
and further, that the tales relating to Krishna's boy-
hood, his frolics at Vrindåvan, and even his destruc-
tion of the Asuras, ‘have all a modern complexion,”
we may fairly doubt if the author of the poem, as
it stood at first, knew anything of Krishna beyond
his character of hero, prince, or chieftain. This, at
least, may be regarded as extremely probable, viz.
that the splendid episode (the Bhagavad-Gita) which
made us first acquainted with his claims to super-
human power and dignity, which first identified his
being with that of the Supreme, and first brought
out distinctly the idea of sympathy with the human
species and of periodic births in order to promote
their welfare, was composed as late as the third
century of the Christian era. It may be inferred
accordingly, that all our certain knowledge respecting
Rrishna, in the times preceding the diffusion of the
Gospel, is confined to very few particulars. He was,
first of all, a man possessed of more than ordinary
virtue and intelligence; and secondly, a hero acting
as the leader of the shepherd-chieftains in his own
immediate neighbourhood: and thirdly, a demigod
or emanation, it may be, especially connected with
Vishnu, and zealous for the purity and permanence
of physical creation. As to the development of this
idea and its amalgamation with the higher thoughts
propounded in the Bhagavad-Gºtá, I think them
products of external agencies connected with the
* Tassen, I. 484, 489. ráña, p. lxxi, and p. 492, note.
2 Wilson, Pref. to Vishäu Pu-
VOL. I. 19
290 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II. spread of Christianity. It has been shewn elsewhere
T how numerous, in the early ages of the Gospel, were
the causes predisposing men to interchange religious
speculations, and how numerous also were the chan-
nels by which intercourse might have been readily
effected. I have also quoted the opinion of a critic
conspicuous in this field of ancient literature, who
maintains that in One of the latest additions to the
Mahābhārata allusion to such intercourse is clearly
traceable, as well as hints of the effect produced by
it, in modifying men's ideas of God, and also in
imparting a fresh form and colour to the Hindú
Influence theory of incarnations. Nor is this opinion, in so
tºº. far as Krishna is concerned, of recent origin. Sir
Gospels. William Jones, whose interest was excited by minute
resemblances between the legend of Krishna in its
newest form and certain narratives of Holy Writ,
attempted to explain the ‘motley story' on the sup-
position that ‘spurious Gospels, which abounded in
the first age of Christianity, had been brought to
India, and the wildest part of them repeated to the
Hindús, who engrafted them on the old fable of
Césava, the Apollo of Greece.” The same view has,
in substance, been adopted by many other scholars,”
who have also pointed out that one of the chief
media by which Hindú mythographers obtained their
knowledge of the early history of our Lord, and the
peculiar source from which they borrowed hints for
the embellishment of their story, was the Evangelium
Infantia, an apocryphal writing known originally by
* Above, p. 260, n. 1. 8tán, II, 218 sq. Lond. 1820.
* Asiat. Resear, 1.274. * Printed in the Codea, Apocry-
° e.g. Maurice, Hist, of Hindú- phus, ed. J. A. Fabricius, I, 127 sq.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 291
the title of ‘Gospel of St. Thomas, and, perhaps CHAP. II.
from a supposed connexion with him, circulated at -------
an early period on the coast of Malabar. It is
significant also that this gospel was already current
among heretics, but reprobated by the Church herself,
as early as the time of Irenaeus, and was subsequently
held in special honour by the followers of Mani,” and
by other misbelievers like him ; their object being,
as we know, to blend the creed, the legends, and the
institutes of paganism with some of the distinctive
elements of Supernatural religion.
But leaving all these questions, as we must do, Funda-
in comparative obscurity, it is important to observe *.
that Krishmäism, when purged from all the lewd and between
Bacchanalian adjuncts which disfigure and debase it, †
comes indefinitely short of Christianity. Regarded Christian-
in its brighter aspect, it will prove that man is far 7ty ;
from satisfied with the prevailing forms of nature-
worship, and is struggling to become more conscious
of the personality of God, and panting for complete
communion with Him. It recognises the idea of
God descending to the level of the fallen creature
and becoming man.” It welcomes Krishina as one
realisation of this great idea, as the hero who was
sent to lighten many a burden of pain and misery
under which the universe was groaning, as the teacher
1 Adversus Hares, lib. I. c. 20,
ed. Stieren.
2 See the ‘Testimonia' collected
by Fabricius, pp. 133, 136, £38,
140. In the decree of Pope Ge-
lasius, De libris apocryphis, it is
called ‘Evangelium nomine Thomºe
apostoli, quo utuntur Manichæi.’
3 Seo Wilson's Vish?” Puráña,
p. 492, n. 3, where it is explained
that although Krishía as to his
human properties and condition
was only ‘a part of a part (ans-
(in Sávatára)of the supreme Lºrahma
yet he was in reality ‘the very
Supreme Brahma.” The comment-
ator adds an observation acknow-
ledging it to be ‘a mystery how
the Supreme should assume the
form of a man,’
292
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. II.
who alone could save mankind by pointing out a
method of escape from the necessity of repeated
births. These yearnings after something higher,
purer, and more heavenly, are discernible at intervals
amid the very sternest forms of pantheism ; they
bear witness, notwithstanding all the flagrant con-
tradictions in the system with which they are con-
nected, to a consciousness of moral guilt, as well as
to a sense of physical evil; they give rise to the
anticipation, that mankind will ultimately burst the
trammels of their adversary and be reconciled to God.
Yet, on the other hand, the dogma of Hindús,
when measured by a Christian standard, is but
shadowy and unsatisfying. The most perfect in-
carnation of Vishnu, as found in Krishnia, is docetic
merely ; it rather seems to be than is.” According
to the theory of matter, which prevailed among his
followers, the Divine and human could not truly
come together, and could not permanently coexist.
The one essentially excludes the other. Krishna,
therefore, on going back to his celestial home, or, in
the language of philosophy, on his reabsorption into
the Great Spirit of the universe, entirely lays aside
the perishable flesh, which he had once inhabited.
He quits his human body; he abandons ‘the con-
dition of the three-fold qualities;’ he unites himself
with ‘his own pure, spiritual, inexhaustible, incon-
ceivable, unborn, undecaying, imperishable and uni-
versal spirit, which is one with Vásudeva.” In this
on the sub-
ject of the
Incarna-
tion?.
I Dorner (Lehre von der Person The death of Krishna is here as-
Christi, I, 7 sq., Stuttgart, 1845) cribed to a random shot of the
has some excellent remarks on this hunter Jará (i.e. infirmity, old age,
point. decay).
3 Vishnu Pur. ed. Wilson, p.612.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
293
respect, he differs altogether from the God-Man of CHAP. II.
the Christian Church,--the Mediator in whom Divine
and human are completely reconciled, the Meeting-
point where earth and heaven, the finite and the
Infinite, the personal and Absolute, have coalesced
for ever, and are wedded in the bonds of an in-
dissoluble union. And as one result of such im-
perfect and confused idea, it followed that the bless-
ings said to have been brought by Krishna were not
real and abiding: they could only last until the close
of one particular age, or period, when the powers of
evil, softened and repressed, but still, according to
this view, incapable of subjugation, would break forth
again with irresistible violence, and be everywhere
triumphant. It is written in one of the Purdmas:
‘The day that Krishna shall have departed from the
earth will be the first of the Kali age.”
1 Ibid. p. 487. In like manner sacred feet, the Kali age could
it is stated (p. 486), “As long as not affect it.’
the earth was touched by his
CHAPTER III.
Real Correspondencies between Hindúism and
Revealed Religion.
‘Nulla porro falsa doctrina est, quae non aliqua vera intermisceat.’
ST. AUGUSTINE.
IT has been shewn how various but converging
arguments, for which we are indebted mainly to
the light of modern science, have all tended to cor-
roborate the scriptural narrative with reference to the
common origin of men. Exactly therefore in pro-
portion as this point has been established, it is likely
that the different sections of the human family will
preserve in their dispersion many an interesting frag-
ment of primeval knowledge, and contribute to the
reconstruction of primeval history. If all have radi-
ated from one centre; if all inherit the same human
faculties, and have been actuated by the same peculiar
instincts, we shall be prepared to find, with local
variations, and at different depths below the surface,
many a link of that great chain which girdles the
whole globe, and binds humanity together.
Proofs of common parentage may all indeed have
CHAP. III.
Unity of
the-hwman
7°006.
1 Part I. ch. II.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 295
been obscured and weakened by a multitude of dis-CHAP. III.
uniting agencies, as climate, isolation, force of cha-Trans.
racter, and the like. Two stories of the ancient * ºf
© tº c yeligious
world may in the process of transmission have been knºwledge.
blended into one. The names of persons may have
been entirely lost or hopelessly corrupted. The scene
of this or that catastrophe may have been altered for
the gratification of individual caprice or national
vanity. A race of simple shepherds, with none of
the explicit guidance which is furnished by a written
document, may have so magnified, embellished, and
confused the stories and traditions of their ancestors,
that all the ingenuity of modern criticism will prove
unequal to the work of disentangling the historic
from the mythic, and of weeding out the genuine
from the false. Yet, notwithstanding these formidable
obstructions, we are warranted, on the hypothesis of
unity, in searching everywhere, as far as human steps
have wandered, for remains of a substratum of pri-
meval knowledge; confident that such remains had
once extended on all sides with the extension of the
human species, however much they are at present
buried and corrupted, broken and displaced. And
the tenacity with which the popular mind has ever
clung to what is ancient and established, will further
justify us in predicting that the many would retain
their hold on the original traditions of the Indo-
Åryan race, long after the philosopher had ceased
to care about them, or provide a place for them in
his new system of ethics and religion.
Let us, then, inquire, as far as may be, whether Hindú re-
such hints can be derived from any of the extant;"
documents of India, and more particularly from one
296 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. class of writings, the Puráñic, which, as meant for
T the instruction of the people, may be naturally ex-
pected to embody and reflect the popular traditions.
We are not a little strengthened in these expectations
by the fact that nearly all the ancient writings of
Hindús, so far from advocating the notion that truth
is self-evolved, or a discovery of the human reason,”
recognise in God the only Source of supernatural
teaching; and so far from urging that the present
age alone is in possession of such teaching, they
proclaim their frequent obligation to the purer wisdom
of antiquity, and to the guidance of the ‘Sages who
have delivered it to us.” “Truth,’ they say, “was
originally deposited with men, but gradually slum-
bered and was forgotten : the knowledge of it returns
like a recollection.”
Now the points that were most likely to be
cherished in the memory of the ancient world were
not so much the details of primeval history, as those
marvellous and momentous facts, which, happening
in the infancy of time, and prior to the date of the
original dispersion, were supposed to bear directly
on the hopes, and fears, and general fortunes of the
human species, or were fitted by the startling or
attractive shape which they assumed in primitive
Points most
likely to be
£)'a^*S-
mitterſ.
! It is true, as I have more
than once observed, that the Pu-
ráñas in their present form are
thoroughly sectarian, and there-
fore must have been all modern-
ized; but whenever the remodel-
ling of them took place there can
be no doubt that very old maté-
rials were extensively employed.
See Prof. Wilson’s Pref. to the
Vishnſ, Puráña, p. lxiii.
* Thus, for example, it is ex-
pressly said by a philosopher,
(Samcara, ed. Fr. Windischmann,
p. 106), ‘dass man nicht durch
Vermittelung von Wernunftgrün-
den, sondern durch Hülfe der von
jeher tiberlieſerten Lehren Brah-
ma erreichen könne.’
* Yajur-Véda, xl. Io, 13, as
quoted by Morris, Essay, p. 6o.
4 See Humboldt's Cosmos, 11.
I 12, I 13, Sabine’s ed.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
297
lays and legends to excite the cravings of the earnest CHAP. III.
heart, and fire the popular imagination. -
Such points are:
1. The primitive state of man.
. His fall.
:
His punishment in the deluge.
The rite of sacrifice.
The primitive hope of restoration.
§ 1. The primitive state of Man.
Inconsistent as may be the various Hindú stories The ori-
touching the creation of this visible universe, and the
original innocence and dignity of men, “it is not
difficult, writes a high authority,” “to detect through
all their embellishments and corruptions, the tradition
of the descent of mankind from a single pair, how-
ever much they have disguised it, by the misemploy-
ment of the figures of allegory and personification.’
According to one view, Brahmá, the god of
creation, had converted himself into two persons, the
first man, or the Manu Swāyambhuva, and the first
woman, or Satarăpă:” this division into halves ex-
1 Prof. Wilson, Lectures, p. 56.
Buddhism, on the contrary, having
lost all faith in a Creator, and
contending that the rise and
perishing of the world is ‘by
nature itself,’ rejected the idea of
an original pair. ‘There was no
such thing as that of the creation
of the first man and woman.’
Upham, Sacred Books of Ceylon,
III. 1, 2, Lond. 1833. Yet this
statement is somewhat modified,
... I'7.
* “There was formerly only one
Véda, only one God, one fire, and
one caste. From Purāravas came
the triple Véda in the beginning
of the Tréta age.” From the
Bhāgavata Puráña.
* Vishnu Pur. pp. 51, 52. In
the Laws of Manu, (I. 32), the
same notion is expressed in a
somewhat different form. After
stating (§ 31) that for the mul-
tiplication of the human race, the
Creator caused the four castes to
proceed respectively from his
mouth, his arm, his thigh and his
foot, it is added: ‘Having divided
his own substance, the mighty
power Brahmā became half male
and half female.’
g??al pair.
298 Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III. pressing, it would seem, the general distinction of
T corporeal substance into two sexes, and Satarāpā, as
hinted by the etymology of the word itself, denoting
the great universal mother, the one parent of a ‘hun-
dred forms.” A second representation is that, in the
opening of the present kalpa, Brahmá created out of
his own substance as many as a ‘thousand pairs”
of each of the four classes, into which mankind has
been distributed. But since these statements are
both found at no great distance from each other in
the same Purdina, they are probably intended to be
reconciled by supposing that in the former case we
have a Hindú reminiscence of the history of creation,
and in the second an ideal picture of the primitive
race of human beings. Be this, however, as it may,
Innocence the Hindú legends are agreed in representing man as
.." one of the last products of creative wisdom, as the
master-work of God, and also in extolling the first
race of men as pure and upright, innocent and happy.
‘The beings who were thus created by Brahmá are
all said to have been endowed with righteousness and
perfect faith ; they abode wherever they pleased, un-
checked by any impediment; their hearts were free
from guile; they were pure, made free from soil by
observance of sacred institutes. In their sanctified
minds Hari dwelt; and they were filled with perfect
wisdom by which they contemplated the glory of
Wishnu.”
Their noble The first men were accordingly the best. The
* Krita age, ‘the age of truth, the reign of purity, in
which mankind, as it came forth from the Creator, was
not divided into numerous conflicting orders, and in
1 Wishſu Pur. p. 45 and n. 4. 2 Ibid.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 299
which the different faculties of man all worked har-CHAP. III.
moniously together, was a thought that lay too near T
the human heart to be uprooted by the ills and in-
equalities of actual life. In this the Hindú sided al-
together with the Hebrew, and as flatly contradicted
the unworthy speculations of the modern philosopher,
who would fain persuade us that human beings have
not issued from one single pair, and also that the
primitive type of men is scarcely separable from that
of ordinary animals. In the former of these con- Buddhist
clusions it is true he may appeal on his behalf to *
theorisings of the Buddhists; but with reference to
the latter, they also were equally unable to cast off
the tenets of their forefathers. It is held that a
distinguished group of beings (brahmas) whose merit
was insufficient to support them any longer in superior
worlds, took refuge on the earth, and as the lustre
of their ancient greatness lingered round about them,
they retained one class of Superhuman attributes;
they were able to subsist without food, and gifted
with the power of passing through the air at will.
No change of seasons, and no alternation of night
and day could be experienced in their neighbourhood;
and free from all the present accidents of humanity,
they lived for ages in unbroken peace and inexhaust-
ible felicity. Whether this legend of the brahmas
be regarded as an echo of some old tradition pointing
to the first estate of men, or to the fall of angels, is
comparatively immaterial: it evinces a belief that
primitive inhabitants of the earth ranked higher than
the beasts that perish, and were strangers to the guilt
* Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 64.
300
Chrisſ and other Masſers.
CHAP. III.
Práhºmanº-
cal reminis-
cences of
Paradise.
and darkness which have pressed so heavily on their
descendants.
The Bráhman and the Buddhist, in like manner,
have preserved some recollections of the nature of the
spot in which those first inhabitants were planted.
According to legends of the former, the abode of
man in his primeval innocence was the fabled mount
Méru the ‘centre’ of the globe. “It is a high and
beauteous mountain. From the glittering surface of
its peaks the sun diffuses light into the far-off regions.
Arrayed in gold it forms a worthy habitation for the
dévas and gandharvas. Hideous dragons guard this
mountain; they frighten back the sinner who ventures
to approach it. The sides are covered over with
plants of heavenly origin; and no finite thought can
soar as high as the cloud-piercing summit. It is
adorned with graceful trees and limpid waters; and
on every side resounds the music of the birds.' To
this description of the Mahdbhdrata, some other fea-
tures may be added from different sources. The
position of Méru is in the centre of a region called
Ilávrita; it is said to be enclosed by the river
Ganges, ‘which, issuing from the foot of Vishnu, and
washing the lunar orb, falls here from the skies, and,
after encircling the city, divides into four mighty
rivers, flowing in opposite directions.” On the
summit of the mountain is the dwelling-place of
Siva, as well as the capital of Brahmá. There also
1 See Lüken’s Traditionen des * Mr. Faber attempts, but un-
Menschengeschlechts, pp. 65, 66, successfully, to connect this name
Münster, 1856; Faber's Origin of Ilávrila, which he also writes
Pagan Idolatry, I. 31.4 sq. Lond. Ida-Vratta, with Eden. (I. 326.)
1816, and Bāhr's Symbolik des 3 Vishhu Pur, ed. Wilson, pp.
Mosaischen Cultus, I. 168. Heidel- 169, 17o.
berg, 1837.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 301
is the home of blessed spirits; there is Nandana, the CHAP. III.
grove of Indra, and there the Jambu-tree,” whose T
apples, large as elephants, feed the Jambu-river with
their juices, and secure to all who drink of it un-
varying health and happiness, and exemption from
all physical decay. It is manifest that the scene
of all this blessedness was placed by the Hindú
mythographers among the lofty peaks of the Himá-
laya. In sight of them the Aryan had originally
settled when he crossed the alpine frontier; and as
time went over, and his children were still further
severed from the primitive haunts of man, the glorious
high-lands of the north were peopled by his ever
active imagination with groups of mythic beings.
There was the locality from which the founders of
the Indo-Aryan race had issued: and there the
theatre on which, according to his dreams, had been
enacted all the mysteries of the ancient world. Those
legends, therefore, notwithstanding a huge mass of
wild exaggerations, will bear witness to primeval
verities. They intimate how in the background of
man's visions lay a Paradise of holy joy, La Paradise
secured from every kind of profanation, and made
inaccessible to the guilty; a Paradise full of objects
that were calculated to delight the senses and to
elevate the mind; a Paradise that granted to its
tenant rich and rare immunities, and that fed with
its perennial streams the tree of life and immortality.
The waters also of Ilávrita, divided as they were into
four channels, and flowing towards the cardinal points,
may not unnaturally suggest comparison with the
primitive river that “went out of Eden to water the
1 Ibid. p. 169. * Ibid. p. 168.
302
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. III, garden; and from thence was parted and became
T into four heads' (Gen. ii. 10): although in course
of time, when mount Méru was commonly identified
with the summits of the Hindú Alps, we might
expect that those four streams would in like manner
be discovered in the principal rivers that descend
from the Himálaya.'
Buddhist This legend of the Bráhmans in the hands of
...; Buddhist rivals has been subjected to fresh em-
Paradise, bellishment. The latter in depicting Mahá-Méru,
informs us” of ‘Square-faced inhabitants, who are
exempted from all kinds of sickness, and from other
evils incident to humanity. “They do not perform
any kind of work, as they receive all they want,
whether as to Ornaments, clothes, or food, from a
tree called kalpa-wurksha. This tree is 100 yojanas
high, and when the people require anything, it is
not necessary that they should go to it to receive
it, as the tree extends its branches, and gives what-
ever is desired. When they wish to eat, food is at
that instant presented; and when they wish to lie
down, couches at once appear. There is no relation-
ship, as to father, mother, or brother. The women
are more beautiful than the dévas. There is no rain,
and no houses are required. In the whole region
there is no low place or valley. It is like a wilder-
ness of pearls; and always free from all impurities,
like the court of a temple or a wall of crystal. The
1 The names of the rivers in
the Vish?w Puráña are the Sítá.
(the river of China, or Hoangho),
the Alakanandá (a main branch
of the Ganges), the Chakshu
(? the Oxus), and the Bhadrā (the
Oby of Siberia): see Prof. Wil-
son’s note, p. 171. The Buddhists
also have their four holy rivers,
and place the sacred garden at the
foot of mount Méru, towards the
South-west, and at the source of
the Ganges: Faber, I. 325.
* Hardy's Manual of Buddhism,
DD. I.4, 15.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 303
inhabitants live to be a thousand years old; and all CHAP. III.
this time they enjoy themselves like the dévas, by
means of their own merit and with the assistance of
the kalpa-tree.'
§ 2. The Fall of Man.
But while so many legends of the ancient Áryan
intimate with singular unanimity that man as he came
forth from his Creator was both innocent and happy;
while they point us to an age of truth, of light, of
perfectness, and lead us backward to a spot, whose
primal beauties were unsullied by the breath of phy-
sical and moral evil, they have spoken as distinctly
of some fearful retrogression, of degeneracy without
us and within us, of bodily decay, of mental ob-
scuration, of estrangement from the Source of Life,
and of expulsion from our first inheritance. ‘The
deep sense of this fact, writes Coleridge,’ ‘ and the
doctrines grounded on obscure traditions of the pro-
mised remedy, are seen struggling, and now gleam-
ing, now flashing, through the mist of pantheism,
and producing the incongruities and gross contra-
dictions of the Bráhman mythology: while in the
rival sect, in that most strange phenomenon, the
religious atheism of the Buddhists, with whom God
is only universal matter considered abstractedly from
all particular forms—the fact is placed among the
delusions natural to man.’
If we consider only the more popular doctrine of General
the Bráhmans, it is found to be in substance that ſº of
he Hindſ,
which has impressed itself on all religions of an- doctrine.
* Aids to Reflection, I. 225, 226, Pickering's ed.
304
Christ and other Masters.
tiquity, and forms the basis of all creeds whatever :
viz. that sufferings were entailed upon the world at
large by the disordered will or appetite of individuals,
impelling them to seek for gratification by eating of
some interdicted products of the soil. This vivid
consciousness of retrogression, in its moral aspect,
was obscured, indeed, from time to time by the
Hindú philosopher, who, advancing from pantheistic
premises, adopted the well-known hypothesis of chro-
nological cycles. In his teaching every perfect revo-
lution in the fortunes of the universe (mahá-yuga) is
divided into four shorter periods,' which are each in
turn invested with specific qualities corresponding to
assumed distinctions in the general history of man.
Thus, after the Krita or Satya-age, when everything
is true and perfect, comes the Tretá-yuga, or age of
sacrifice, when virtue having ‘lost one foot’ and the
divine ingredient in our spirit” waxing feeble, ‘the
innate perfectness of human nature is no more
evolved.” After this appears the Dwópara-age, the
age of doubt, of scepticism, of infidelity; and last
of all the Kali-age, through which the world is said
CHAP. III.
Chronolo-
gical cycles.
1 Vishnu Pur. Book I. chap. iii.
As Professor Wilson remarks, “It
does not seem necessary to refer
the invention [of these cycles] to
any astronomical computations, or
to any attempt to represent actual
chronology.’
* Wishfiu on becoming subject
to the conditions of time (Kāla)
is said to have himself “infused
into created beings sin, as yet
feeble though formidable, or pas-
sion and the like.” (Ibid. p. 45.)
This led directly to the loss of the
eight kinds of perfection, which
the human race had once enjoyed:
(1) Rasollásá, the spontaneous or
prompt evolution of the juices of
the body, independently of nutri-
ment from without; (2) Tripti,
mental satisfaction, or freedom
from sensual desire: (3) Sánya,
Sameness of degree : (4) Tulyaté,
similarity of life, form and feature:
(5) Wisoká, exemption alike from
infirmity or grief: (6) Consumma-
tion of penance and mediation, by
attainment of true knowledge: (7)
The power of going everywhere at
will: (8) The faculty of reposing
at any time and in any place.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 305
to be at present passing, when the powers of darkness CHAP. III.
and disorder have become predominant in the soul
of man, and when external nature groans beneath the
burden of iniquity.
Yet side by side with such elaborate theories More pre-
on the origin of evil and the probable course of tºº.
its development from generation to generation, there Bráhmans.
lingered in the memory of Hindús a far more definite
knowledge of primeval history, and of the agencies
through which the present lot of man was rendered
so abnormal. They had learned that human misery
is the fruit of disobedience; that the physical ills
of life originate in moral delinquency, and that of
parent sins, by which the world at large was ulti-
mately overrun, the chief are pride and self-compla-
cency, ambition, and self-worship. One legend out
of many shall be cited in illustration of this topic.
As the old traditions of their ancestors were gradually
distorted, the Hindús appear to have identified the
first man (Manu Swāyambhuva) with Brahmá him-
self, of whom, as of the primary cause, he was the
brightest emanation; while Satarápé, the wife and
counterpart of Manu, was similarly converted into
the bride of the creative principle itself. Brahmā,
in other words, was ‘confounded with the male half
of his individuality,” so that the narratives which
in sacred history relate to Adam and Eve, were
not unfrequently transferred to Brahmá and to his
female counterpart-Satarāpā, or, according to a
different form, Saraswati. Brahmá thus humanized
is said to have become the subject of temptation.”
* Ibid. p. 53, note. Lüken’s Traditionen des Menschem-
2 The story is thus extracted in geschlechts, pp. 83, 84.
VOI. I. 20
306
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III. To try him, Siva, who is, in the present story,
identified with the Supreme Being, drops from heaven
a blossom of the sacred vata, or Indian fig, -a tree
which has been always venerated by the natives on
account of its gigantic size and grateful shadow, and
invested alike by Brähman and by Buddhist with
mysterious significations, as ‘the tree of knowledge
or intelligence’ (b6dhidruma). Captivated by the
beauty of this blossom, the first man (Brahmá) is
determined to possess it. He imagines that it will
entitle him to occupy the place of the Immortal and
hold converse with the Infinite: and on gathering up
the blossom, he at once becomes intoxicated by this
fancy, and believes himself immortal and divine.
But ere the flush of exultation has subsided, God
Himself appears to him in terrible majesty, and the
astonished culprit, stricken by the curse of heaven,
is banished far from Brahmapattana and consigned
to an abyss of misery and degradation. From this,
however, adds the story, an escape is rendered possible
on the expiration of some weary term of suffering and
of penance. And the parallelism which it presents to
Sacred history is well-nigh completed when the legend
tells us further that woman, his own wife, whose
being was derived from his, had instigated the am-
bitious hopes which led to their expulsion, and
entailed so many ills on their posterity.
It is also worthy of remark, that Buddhism, in
spite of deep and fundamental misconceptions,” has
retained at least a glimmering of primeval truth in
reference to the fall of man as well as to his origin
Buddhist
traditions.
* Lassen, I. 255–26o. Hardy's Ilſanual, pp. 65, 66.
* See above, p. 226; and
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 307
and loftier destinies. The Buddhists of Ceylon, for CHAP. III.
instance, have been taught that a class of spirits,
who survived the wreck of previous worlds and
systems, had, on their migration to the human sphere
of being, lost another portion of their primal dignity.
They were deprived of their perfections, we are told,
by reason of ‘their covetousness and by eating of all
sorts of food, which lust effected in them. Thus
they became man and woman, according to their fate,
from whom we have all proceeded.” *
But while some Hindú philosophers attributed Bráſonant-
the fall of man to a necessity inherent in the very º
nature of all finite emanations; while others saw in Zºmpter.
it the consequence of our association with time and
matter; and while a third division, more alive to the
realities of life and to the moral bearings of the fall,
were willing to regard it as a penalty incurred by
guilty spirits in a previous stage of their existence,
the majority of the people clung more closely to
traditions of their ancestors. The Buddhist, it is
true, denied emphatically that the origin of evil is
ascribable to any cause except ‘the mischievous and
corrupted temper of man :” but in the creed of popular
Brähmanism, the sin of our first parents was traced
up directly to the guile and malice of a tempter, not
within us but without us. The tempter was, in form
at least, a serpent. ‘Almost all the nations of Asia,
is the forced confession of a modern rationalist,”
1 Sacred Books of Ceylon, ed. * Won Bohlen, Das alte Indien,
Upham, III. I'7. :- I. 248 ; cf. Håvernick, Intr. I. to
2 Ibid, p. 157. When the the Pentateuch, p. 101 (Edinb.
further question is asked, ‘Is the 1850), where the fact that local
devil, or any other powerful spirit, peculiarities are wanting in the
the cause of sin P’—the Buddhist Hebrew narrative is referred to
is taught to answer, “by no means.’ as a proof of its originality.
308 Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III. ‘assume the serpent to be a wicked being, which
has brought evil into the world.” “How strangely,
writes a second,’ ‘is the serpent everywhere mixed
up with the development of the religious sentiment
in man.” As such it had become, in almost every
part of heathendom, an object of religious worship,”
or, to speak more properly, a symbol of those deadly
and terrific powers, which, present (as men thought)
in serpents, were the objects of continual dread, and
therefore, of religious deprecation. Serpents may in-
deed have been occasionally welcomed by the ancient
Aryan as the bringers or restorers of good fortune,
just as they are sometimes fed in our day with re-
luctant interest at the doors of Hindú cottages and
temples; but the common attitude which they assume
in all descriptions both of ancient and modern writers
is one of absolute antagonism to man. The Hindú
serpent is the type and emblem of the evil principle
in nature; and as such, we see it wrestling with the
goddess Parvati, or writhing under the victorious foot
of Krishia when he saves from its corrupting breath
the herds that pasture near the waters of the Yamunā.
And as a further illustration of this view, it is con-
tended, that many Hindús who feel themselves con-
strained to pay religious worship to the serpent, re-
gard it, notwithstanding, as a hideous reptile, whose
approach inspires them with a secret awe and in-
surmountable horror.
The serpent But it may be necessary to investigate these ques-
** tions somewhat more particularly, for the purpose of
image of discriminating, if possible, between the character of
matter ge-
overally. & e & *
$/ 1 Priaulx, Quastiones Mosaica, * See Deane's Worship of the
p. 85, Lond. I 842. Serpent, pp. 65 sq. Lond. 1830.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 309
the serpent when it forms the subject of a Hindú CHAP. III.
mythe, and when the subject of a Hindú legend.
According to the first view, it is believed to be a
symbol of primitive matter generally; according to
the second, it is an image of the evil spirit, the seducer
and arch-enemy of man. We are reminded' that
anterior to the human epoch when Brahma is still
sleeping on the waters and preparing to diffuse him-
self through all the various orders of creation, the
dévas already brought into existence are anxious
to ascertain what part has been reserved for them in
the ensuing process. They petition the Great Father
of beings (Mahdipitri), and are made at his suggestion
to precipitate themselves upon the earth in the shape
of material elements, fire, air, water, and the like,
with Indra as their head and leader. At this epoch
also comes into the world the chief of the serpents
(Kulikétu), who has soon occasion to complain most
bitterly to the Lord of the universe, that, for no fault
of his, he was continually tormented by the Suras,
or inferior gods inhabiting Swarga and composing
the great army led by Indra in his conflict with the
Asuras. In answer to the prayer of Kulikétu, Brah-
ma is said to have enjoined that he should henceforth
receive adoration like the dévas from each human
being, and that mortals who refused to pay such
worship to him, should be cut off by some unnatural
death and made incapable of rising higher in the
scale of created beings.
I think it not improbable that the right interpret-
* See an interesting paper Sur * The same as Kulika, one of
le Mythe du Serpent chez les Him- the chiefs of the Nāgas, or serpents:
dous, in the Journal Asiatique, Ibid. p. 481.
Mai-Juin, 1855, pp. 469–529.
310
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III, ation of this mythe is one which has already been
suggested. It directs us to behold in Kulikétu an
emblem of the earth before it had been subjected to
human culture, when it felt itself tormented by the
Suras, or, in other words, assaulted by the armies
of the firmament, the rain, the lightning, and the
tempest. In the midst of this disorder, man, who
had been hitherto regardless of the soil on which his
lot is cast, and the material out of which his body
is constructed, was bidden by the Lord of creation
to render homage to the powers and processes of
nature, to propitiate the ungenial elements, and wel-
come in all forms around him the immediate presence
of Divinity.
According therefore to this mythe the serpent was
not absolutely and directly charged with the origin-
ation of all evils; yet suspicions of such agency were
nevertheless implied from first to last in the con-
ception of the story. There was lurking under its
fantastic imagery an idea that matter in the whole
compass and duration of it was intrinsically evil;
and might therefore be identified with that which
was the recognised embodiment of the evil principle.
And other tales of ancient India bring this truth
before us in the greatest prominence. Side by side
with representations of the serpent as a type of prim-
itive matter was unfolded the analogous conception
of him as the enemy of the human race." For in-
stance, at the opening of the Mahdibhārata itself, we
find a touching illustration of this subject. The
young and beautiful Pramadvará has been affianced
to the Bráhman Ruru, but just before the celebration
The serpent
considered
(LS (!??
Żmage of
the devil.
* Ibid. p. 488.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 311
of their nuptials she is bitten by a deadly serpent CHAP. III.
and expires in agony. As tidings of her death are T
carried round the neighbourhood, the Bráhmans and
aged hermits flock together; and encircling the corpse
of the departed mingle their tears with those of her
disconsolate lover. Ruru is himself made eloquent
by grief; he pleads the gentleness of his nature, and
his dutiful observance of the laws of God: and finally,
as the reward of his superior merits, Pramad vará is
given back to him; yet only with the sad condition that
he must surrender for her sake the half of his remain-
ing lifetime. If this legend will not altogether justify
the supposition' that a reference is intended by it to
the primitive pair of human beings, whose existence
was cut short by a disaster inflicted on the woman
by the serpent, it may serve at least to shew us how
familiar was the Hindú mind with such a represent-
ation, and how visions of the fall of man had never
ceased to flit with more or less confusion across the
memory of the ancient bards.
§ 3. The Hindú version of the Deluge.
I shall not ask the reader to investigate a series Inportance
i. & de ſe of the
of those minor points in which attempts are made to $5.
institute a clear connexion between the earliest Hindú
1 ‘N’y a-t-il point, dans cette
donnée, comme unressouvenir du
couple primitif condamné à une
vie courte et précaire à cause de
la femme surprise par le serpent 2
. . . Dans la légende indienne,
comme dans la fable grecque [i. e.
of Orpheus and Eurydice], comme
dans le récit biblique, c'est à la
femme que le Serpent s'adresse;
il la choisit pour première victime,
parcequ’elle est moins prudente,
moins ferme en ses pensées que
l'homme, son maître et son appui.
It dans quelles circonstances en-
core ? Lorsque le bonheur sourit
aux jeunes couples, et qu'aucun
malheur me semble les menacer de
près mi de loin.” Ibid. pp. 490,
49 I.
312
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III.
Moder?
form of the
JHindú
legend.
legends and corresponding pages in the Scriptural
history of man. But there is one catastrophe which,
if the record of it in the Book of Genesis be accepted,
could not fail to make a most profound impression in
all quarters of the globe which had been visited by
human footsteps. That catastrophe is the Deluge.
The ammals of the world begin afresh in Noah. The
ark in which he rode securely to his destination is the
second birth-place of the human family.
Now here again it is important to observe, that
the Hindú traditions, notwithstanding the grotesque
embellishments they underwent, from time to time,
at the hands of the mythographers, were all in close
accordance with the principal facts of revelation.
They inform us how, amid an age of deep corruption,
when the world was drowned by the avenging waters
of a deluge, the Deity Himself came down to earth,
in order to ensure the preservation of a righteous
king, Manu, and to deposit with him in a ship the
seeds of all created beings. Tike other legends of
antiquity, the present one has varied greatly with
the lapse of ages, and been coloured by the varying
conceptions of the people among whom it was diffused.
I shall first extract’ the popular, or Puráñic, version
which, as might have been anticipated, is the most
exuberant of the forms transmitted to us:
“Desiring the preservation of herds, and of Brähmans, of
genii and of virtuous men, of the Védas, of law, and of precious
things, the Lord of the universe assumes many bodily shapes:
but, though he pervades, like the air, a variety of beings, yet
he is himself unvaried, since he has no quality subject to change.
At the close of the last Kalpa, there was a general destruction
* Asiat, Researches, I. 230 sq.
Hindúism, and Revealed Religion. 313
occasioned by the sleep of Brahmá ; whence his creatures in CHAP. III.
different worlds were drowned in a vast ocean. Brahmá, being T
inclined to slumber, desiring repose after a lapse of ages, the
strong demon Hayagriva came near him, and stole the Védas
which had flowed from his lips. When Hari, the preserver of
the universe, discovered this deed of the prince of Dánavas, he
took the shape of a minute fish called Sap'harí. A holy king,
named Satyavrata, then reigned; a servant of the spirit which
moved on the waves, and so devout that water was his only
sustenance. He was the child of the Sun; and, in the present
Ralpa, is invested by Narāyama in the office of Manu, by the
name of Srāddhadéva, or the god of obsequies. One day, as
he was making a libation in the river Kritamála, and held
water in the palm of his hand, he perceived a small fish moving
in it. The king of Dravira immediately dropped the fish into
the river together with the water, which he had taken from it;
when the Sap'hari thus pathetically addressed the benevolent
monarch: ‘How canst thou, O king, who shewest affection to
the oppressed, leave me in this river-water, where I am too
weak to resist the monsters of the stream, who fill me with
dread P’ He, not knowing who had assumed the form of a fish,
applied his mind to the preservation of the Sap'hari, both from
good nature, and from regard to his own soul; and, having
heard its very suppliant address, he kindly placed it under his
protection in a small vase full of water; but, in a single might,
its bulk was so increased, that it could not be contained in the
jar, and thus again addressed the illustrious prince : ‘I am not
pleased with living miserably in this little vase; make me a
large mansion, where I may dwell in comfort.’ The king, re-
moving it thence, placed it in the water of a cistern; but it
grew three cubits in less than fifty minutes, and said: ‘O king,
it pleases me not to stay vainly in this marrow cistern; since
thou hast granted me an asylum, give me a spacious habitation.”
He then removed it, and placed it in a pool; where, having
ample space around its body, it became a fish of considerable
size. ‘This abode, O king, is not convenient for me, who must
swim at large in the waters: exert thyself for my safety, and
remove me to a deep lake.' Thus addressed, the pious monarch
threw the suppliant into a lake; and, when it grew of equal
314
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III, bulk with that piece of water, he cast the vast fish into the sea.
When the fish was thrown into the waves, he thus again spoke
to Satyavrata: ‘Here the horned sharks, and other monsters of
great strength, will devour me; thou shouldest not, O Valiant
man, leave me in this ocean.” Thus repeatedly deluded by the
fish who had addressed him with gentle words, the king said:
‘Who art thou, that beguilest me in that assumed shape?
Never before have I seen or heard of so prodigious an inhabitant
of the waters, who, like thee, hast filled up in a single day
a lake of a hundred leagues in circumference. Surely thou art
Bhagavat, who appearest before me; the great Hari, whose
dwelling was on the waves, and who now, in compassion to thy
servants, bearest the form of the natives of the deep. Salut-
ation and praise to thee, O first male; the lord of creation, of
preservation, of destruction | Thou art the highest object, O
Supreme ruler, of us thy adorers who piously seek thee. All
thy delusive descents in this world give existence to various
beings; yet I am anxious to know for what cause that shape
has been assumed by thee. Let me not, O lotus-eyed, approach
in vain the feet of a deity, whose perfect benevolence has been
extended to all; when thou hast shewn, to our amazement, the
appearance of other bodies, not in reality existing but succes-
sively exhibited.’ The lord of the universe, loving the pious
man who thus implored him, and intending to preserve him
from the sea of destruction caused by the depravity of the age,
thus told him how he was to act. “In seven days from the
present time, O thou tamer of enemies, the three worlds will
be plunged in an ocean of death; but, in the midst of the
destroying waters, a large vessel, sent by me for thy use, shall
stand before thee. Then shalt thou take all medicinal herbs,
all the variety of seeds; and, accompanied by seven saints, en-
circled by pairs of all brute animals, thou shalt enter the spacious
ark, and continue in it, secure from the flood, on one immense
ocean, without light, except the radiance of thy holy companions.
When the ship shall be agitated by an impetuous wind, thou
shalt fasten it with a large sea-serpent on my horn; for I will
be near thee: drawing the vessel with thee and thy attendants,
I will remain on the ocean, O chief of men, until a night of
Brahmá shall be completely ended. Thou shalt then know
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 315
my true greatness, rightly named the supreme godhead. By CHAP. III.
my favour all thy questions shall be answered, and thy mind T
abundantly instructed.’ Hari, having thus directed the mo-
narch, disappeared; and Satyavrata humbly waited for the time,
which the ruler of our senses had appointed. The pious king,
having scattered towards the east the pointed blades of the
grass darbha, and turning his face towards the north, sat
meditating on the feet of the god who had borne the form of
a fish. The sea, overwhelming its shores, deluged the whole
earth; and it was soon perceived to be augmented by showers
from immense clouds. He, still meditating on the command
of Bhagavat, saw the vessel advancing, and entered it with the
chiefs of Brähmans, having carried into it the medicinal creepers
and conformed to the directions of Hari. The saints thus
addressed him : ‘O king, meditate on Késava; who will surely
deliver us from this danger, and grant us prosperity.’ The god,
being invoked by the monarch, appeared again distinctly on the
vast ocean in the form of a fish, blazing like gold, extending
a million of leagues, with one stupendous horn on which the
king, as he had been before commanded by Hari, tied the ship
with a cable made of a vast serpent, and, happy in his preserva-
tion, stood praising the destroyer of Madhu. When the monarch
had finished his hymn, the primeval male, Bhagavat, who
watched for his safety on the great expanse of water, spoke
aloud to his own divine essence, pronouncing a sacred Puráña,
which contained the rules of the Sámkhya philosophy : but it
was an infinite mystery to be concealed within the breast of
Satyavrata; who, sitting in the vessel with the saints, heard
the principle of the soul, the Eternal Being, proclaimed by the
preserving power. Then Hari, rising together with Brahmá
from the destructive deluge which was abated, slew the demon
Hayagríva, and recovered the sacred books. Satyavrata, in-
structed in all divine and human knowledge, was appointed in
the present Kalpa, by the favour of Wishinu, the seventh Manu,
surnamed Waivaswata ; but the appearance of a horned fish to
the religious monarch was Māyā or delusion; and he, who shall
devoutly hear this important allegorical narrative, will be de-
livered from the bondage of sin.”
316
Chrisł and offer Masſers.
This Puráñic version of the Deluge (for to that
catastrophe alone has any of our modern Scholars
ventured to refer it) is, according to its own admis-
sion, coloured and disguised by allegorical imagery.
It avows, for instance, that one prominent object in
the picture, the phenomenon of the horned Fish, is
mayd, or is based upon illusory ideas; while other
features of it have an air of gloom and mysticism
peculiar to productions of the Hindú mind in the
ascetical, or Yoga, period of its history. There is,
however, a different version' of the legend, shorter
and far less ornate, in one of the great epic poems of
India. That version contains no reference either to
the sleep of Brahmá, the pilfering of the Védas, or
the systems of Hindú chronology, which, as resting
on the thought of a succession of similar worlds, may
have themselves been primarily suggested by the story
of the Deluge.” It is further silent with regard to
the specific power by which Manu was able to collect
together seeds of all existing things: nor was the
author of it acquainted with those mighty serpents,
who, in the Puráňic version, are said to have ap-
proached Manu and acted as the cords by which his
ark was fastened to the horns of the enormous Fish.
In one case also, it is Vishnu that becomes incarnate,
mainly with the purpose of preserving the integrity
of the Védas; in the other, it is Brahma, or the
‘Lord of all things,' who is mercifully stooping to
CHAP. III.
Peculia?"
character-
‘stics of this
degend:
A second
oversion.
* Edited by Bopp, Berlin, 1829,
with the title, Die Sündfluth, nebst
drei anderen der wichtigsteh Epis-
oden des Mahá-Bhárata. The
writer of this version, as it now
stands, is made to refer, as his
authority, to the account of the
Matsya avatāra, which has been
given above; but Prof. Wilson
argues (Pref. to Vish?vu Puráña,
p. li.) that the story in the Ma-
hábhárata is really more ancient.
* Cf. Lüken. Traditionen des
Menschengeschlechts, pp. 187, 188.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 317
the level of the creatures for the rescue of his un-CHAP. III.
corrupted servant.
Still the outlines of the legend are precisely the A third
same in both versions; and their close resemblance”
to each other, and also to the scriptural narrative of
the Deluge, has induced a recent critic' to conclude
that all the knowledge of this subject which Hindús
have ever manifested was originally derived from
a Semitic source. He has not, however, specified
a channel, by which the transfer was likely to be
effected; and if his meaning be that some account
of the Deluge was first transmitted to the Panjāb in
comparatively modern times, the conjecture is not
only in itself improbable, but adverse to Hindú tra-
ditions. Another of these was happily brought to
light a few years ago by the publication of the Yajur-
Wéda. Appended to it is an ancient commentary,
the Satapat'ha-Brdhmaha, in which the Hindú story
of the Deluge is again presented to us in a still
simpler dress, and what is worthy of especial notice,
accompanied by allusions which imply that Áryans
had themselves referred the Deluge to a high antiquity,
and also had retained a glimmering consciousness of
some connexion between it and their migrations from
the northern side of the Himálaya.
I am induced to give this legend also in its en- Version of
tirety, that ample means may be afforded for ascer- fºr
taining what the Aryan of an early day had handed mana.
1 Burnouf, Bhágavata-Powrána,
Tome III. Pref. pp. xxiii. sq.,
where the points of divergence
between the Puráñic and the Epic
legends are fully pointed out.
“In the ancient historical frag-
ments [preserved in Josephus] of
the Assyrianor Babylonian history
belonging to the Semitic race, the
Hindú fable has a close parallel
in the story of Xisuthrus and his
flood, and the fish-god Oannes.’
Prichard, III. 198.
* Weber's Ind. Stud. I. 161 sq.
3.18
Chrisł and offer Masters.
CHAP. III, down to his posterity in reference to the marvels of
the Flood, its nature and its consequences:
“One morning the servants of Manu brought him water for
ablutions, as the custom is to bring it in our day when men's
hands have to be washed. As he proceeded to wash himself he
found a fish in the water, which spoke to him, saying, ‘Protect
me and I will be thy Saviour.’ ‘From what wilt thou save
me?’ ‘A deluge will ere long destroy all living creatures, but
I can save thee from it.” “What protection, then, dost thou
ask of me?’ ‘So long as we are little,' replied the Fish, “a
great danger threatens us, for one fish will not scruple to
devour another. At first, them, thou camst protect me by
keeping me in a vase. When I grow bigger, and the vase will
no longer hold me, dig a pond, and protect me by keeping me
in it; and when I shall have become too large for the pond,
then throw me into the sea; for henceforward I shall be strong
enough to protect myself against all evils.’ The Fish ere long
became enormous (jhasha), for it grew very fast, and one day
it said to Manu, ‘In such a year will come the deluge; call to
mind the counsel I have given thee; build a ship, and when
the deluge comes, embark on the vessel thou hast built, and
I will preserve thee.’ Manu, after feeding and watching the
Fish, at last threw it into the sea, and in the very year the
Fish had indicated, he prepared a ship and had recourse [in
spirit] to his benefactor. When the flood came, Manu went
on board the ship. The Fish then reappeared and swam up to
him, and Manu passed the cable of his vessel round its horn,
by means of which he was transferred across yon Northern
Mountain. “I have saved thee,’ said the Fish, “now lash thy
vessel to a tree, else the water may still carry thee away, though
thy vessel be moored upon the mountain. When the water has
receded, then also mayest thou disembark.’ Manu implicitly
obeyed the order, and hence that northern mountain still bears
the name of ‘Manu's descent” (Manor avasarpajam). The
1 In the Mahábhárata the name
of the mountain is Naubandhana
= ‘ship-bond’); and, what is
very remarkable, Manu is there
supposed to be resident in India
when the deluge comes, and to
be carried by it as far as Mount
Himavat; whereas in this version
of the story, it is implied that his
Original seat was on the north of
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 319
deluge swept away all living creatures; Manu alone survived it. CHAP. III.
His life was then devoted to prayer and fasting in order to
obtain posterity. He made the Páka-sacrifice; he offered to
the Waters the clarified butter, cream, whey, and curdled milk.
His offerings were continued, and at the end of a year he thereby
fashioned for himself a wife:2 she came dripping out of the
butter; it trickled on her footsteps. Mitra and Waruña ap-
proached her and asked ‘Who art thou?” She answered, ‘The
daughter of Manu.’ ‘Wilt thou be our daughter P’ ‘No,' the
answer was: “My owner is the author of my being.” Their
solicitations were all vain; for she moved directly onward till
she came to Manu. On seeing her, he also asked her, “Who
art thou?’ And she answered, ‘Thine own daughter.” “How
so, beloved, art thou really my daughter P’ ‘Yes; the offerings
thou hast made to the Waters, the clarified butter, the cream,
the whey, and the curdled milk have brought me into being.
I am the completion of thy vows. Approach me during the
sacrifice. If so, thou shalt be rich in posterity and in flocks.
The desire which thou art cherishing shall be entirely ac-
complished.” Thus was Manu wedded to her in the midst of
the sacrifice, that is, between the ceremonies that denote the
opening and the close of it. With her he lived in prayer and
fasting, ever-anxious to obtain posterity: and she became the
mother of the present race of men which even now is called the
race of Manu. The vows which he had breathed in concert with
her were all perfectly accomplished.”
the Himalaya range, and that he
crossed over from thence into
India (atidudráva): see Weber,
. 165.
l ëhe Pákayajna, or sacrifice
in which food is offered, implies
either the worship of the Višwa-
dévas, the rites of hospitality, or
occasional oblations, or building
a house, the birth of a child, or
any occasion of rejoicing.” Wil-
son, Fish. Pur. p. 292, n. 3.
* The following passage of the
legend is, perhaps, an allegorical
embellishment, the idea being that
praise (ſdá), the daughter of
Mamu, is the medium and accom-
plice by which he was able to
bring about the creation of new
orders of being. In this manner
the present legend is made to
harmonize with that in the Ma-
habhárata, where the new crea-
tion is said to be achieved by the
extraordinary penance of Manu.
But the birth of lilä from the
Waters, and the overtures of Mitra
and Varuña (? Day and Night),
are still involved in mystery. Cf.
Weber, I. 169.
320
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III.
General
2nference.
Here again it would be quite superfluous to en-
large upon the shifting and capricious character of
the Hindú legend, and still more to specify the points
of contact which exist between it and the narrative
preserved to us in Holy Scripture. Both these ob-
servations will immediately suggest themselves to
every reader. But there is another point which, if it
be less obvious, is certainly no less deserving of at-
tention. The simplicity of the account in Genesis;
the truthful and historic air of every part of it; its
close coherence with all other facts of revelation, as
well as with the scriptural theory of man and of the
universe; the absence from it of those manifest de-
pravations, which are only capable of being rectified
and made intelligible when brought into the light
which it diffuses, give additional weight to the
authority on which it is received by Christians, and
vindicate its claim to be regarded as a genuine copy
of the old tradition that descended, age by age, from
Noah to all members of the sacred family.
§ 4. Hindú rite of Sacrifice.
Attention has been drawn already" to some cha-
racteristics of the Védas, intimating how very low
was the degree of moral sensibility once prevalent in
the Aryan tribes of Hindústán. And this remark is
further illustrated by the versions of the Deluge we
have just been criticising. Although the human race,
according to Hindú legends, was so utterly over-
whelmed that Manu had become the second head and
parent of Our species, it is obvious, and especially
Moral in-
sensibility
of the
JHöndºs.
* Above, pp. 182, 183.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 321
obvious in the oldest form of the tradition, that the CHAP. III.
moral bearings of the Deluge were comparatively for-T
gotten. It was rather treated as a dire catastrophe,
originating in some physical necessities, than as the
fruit and punishment of human sin. So far indeed
the Buddhist' rose superior to the Bráhman. He was
clearly conscious that although there must be periodic
revolutions of the universe, their consequences may
be all averted from the individual, who is open to
the terrible warnings by which they are preceded.
When a déva issues forth, according to the legends
of Ceylon, arrayed in mourning and with trembling
voice and streaming eyes announces, through the
various regions doomed to desolation, that in a
hundred thousand years the present kalpa will be
finished, he is also commissioned to declare how
every man is able to escape the dread calamity:
‘Let him assist his parents, respect his superiors,
avoid the five sins, and observe the five obligations.”
The Bráhman, however, notwithstanding the dul-Bráhmani-
ness of his moral intuitions, had always differed from *
the Buddhist in the care which he bestowed on the
performance of sacrificial rites. There was no period
in the lifetime of the Indo-Aryan people when altars
were not reared and sacrifices offered.” For example,
1 See the whole passage in
Hardy's Manual, pp. 29, 30. “The
beings in the world in great fear
approach the déva, and ask him
whether he has learnt this by his
own wisdom, or has been taught
it by another; when he replies,
that he was sent by Mahá-Brah-
má, the déva of many ages. On
hearing this declaration the men
and dévas of the earth regard each
other with affection, from the fear
VOL. I.
that comes upon them; by which
merit is produced, and they are
born in a brahma-loka.’
* Lassen, I. 789. He urges
among other points the existence
of the three words hu (dhu), 660,
and Lat, fio, which shew that
sacrificial rites, and even offerings
made by fire, were older than the
original dispersion of the Indo-
Turopean family.
21
322
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III.
Remote
as early as the hymns of the Rig-Véda, men appealed
to the abundant blessings which were granted to
antiquity of their forefathers in virtue of the Soma-sacrifice. ‘O
sacrificial
Soma [thus personifying the libation], thy bounties
have been all remembered. . Thou conductest us
along the best of pathways. Under thy protection,
O thou whose surname is Indu [liquor], our holy and
wise ancestors have won the favour of the dévas.”
And, in harmony with this tradition, we noticed how
the Hindú legend of the Deluge not only testified to
the existence of primeval sacrifices, but extolled their
wondrous merit. As Noah, on issuing from the Ark,
is said to have built an altar unto the Lord, the Self-
existent, that he might propitiate His anger by
‘ burnt-offerings' (Gen. viii. 20–22); so the first
anxiety of Manu was to people the earth afresh,
by means of prayer and mortification, and still more
by what was held to be the grand ‘accomplisher of
all desires,’ by various forms of sacrifice. But though
the early prevalence of this rite among the Indo-
Aryans must in future be regarded as indisputable,
there remains no small confusion in some quarters
with regard to the precise direction and design of the
oblations thus presented.
1. First, then, it should be remembered, that during
the historic period, oblations were seldom or never
made to God, the abstract Brahma, excepting where
the worshipper had half-unconsciously identified Him
with one or other of the elemental deities, with
Indra, Agni, Soma, and the like, or else with some
illustrious demi-god, the special organ of divinity.
In other words, the Hindú offered his material sacri-
2'ites.
One design
of Hindú
Sacrifices.
| Rig-Véda, Tome I. p. 171, ed. Langlois.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 323
fices not to God, but to the gods." As we behold CHAP. III.
him pictured in the sacred books of his religion, the T
objects of his worship differ only in degree, and not
in nature, from the worshipper himself. They too
are creatures, and as such are ultimately doomed to
perish in the winding-up of all things. And the
prevalent ideas of sacrifice entirely corresponded with
this low conception of the nature of the beings to
whom it was referred. ‘By sacrifices the gods are
nourished.” Rain and fire and sunlight were believed
to gather strength and potency proportioned to the
size of the oblation, and the fervour of the human
spirit. It was, therefore, not so much the feeling of
unworthiness, or the intention to deny one's self,
that prompted a large class of the Hindú oblations.
Man was thoroughly persuaded” that the gods were
capable of receiving benefit from his services, that
they were fed by the abundant products of his field
or garden, were exhilarated by the juices of the holy
soma-plant, were nerved by his impassioned prayers,
were solaced by the music of his hymns, and that in
recompense for all such acts of piety, the gods became
propitious to him: his pastures grew more fertile;
his flocks and herds were multiplied; a numerous
family gathered round his table, and the foe that
threatened to destroy or vex him was more readily
circumvented and despatched.
* Above, pp. 199, 268–270.
Wuttke corroborates the view
there taken : ‘Nicht zu dem Ur-
Brahma steigt das Gebet und der
Opferrauch empor, Sondern nur
zu den dem Menschen ebenbür-
tigen creatürlichen Göttern :’ II.
353: ... . .
* Vish?u Pur. p. 44.
* See the passages collected
from the Védas in Wuttke, II.
342, 349, and contrast with them
Psalm L. , 7–15. That worthier
views were however subsequently
far more common is evident from
passages quoted in Bähr, as below,
II. 273, 274.
324.
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III.
Propitia-
tory sacri-
fices.
2. But while such feelings were most prominent
in many of the oblations of the ancient Áryan, he
also proved that he was never destitute of those con-
victions which form the proper basis of the rite of
sacrifice; he shewed a sense of personal unworthiness,
and a desire of making good his imperfections by
offering to God the choicest of his hopes, and sacri-
ficing the best of his possessions. Hence the offer-
ings which he brought were sometimes far more costly
and more obviously piacular. As early as the com-
position of the third Véda, they were all reduced
under five heads: (1) Agnihotra, burnt offerings,
or libations of clarified butter on sacred fire; (2)
Dersapaurnamása, sacrifices at new and full moon;
(3) Cháturmásya, sacrifices every four months; (4)
Pasuyajna or Aswamédha, sacrifice of a horse or
other animals; (5) Soma-yajna, offerings and liba-
tions of the juice of the acid asclepias, or moon-plant.
A peculiar virtue was, however, generally ascribed to
that one class of sacrifices which, as it involved the
strangulation of the subject offered, would run counter
to the prejudices of the later Aryan, who had mastered
the ideas arising out of his belief in transmigration.
While the other offerings were all mainly eucharistic,
these were held to be propitiatory. While in other
cases the god worshipped was invited to come down
and share the offering with his suppliant, these were
all religiously committed to the flames. While others
had but little reference to the moral standing of the
worshipper, these all derived their meaning from his
1 Vishnu Pur. p. 275, n. I : cf. unbloody sacrifices were matural-
Bähr, Symbolik des Mosaischen ly presented to Wishfiu, and the
Cultus, II, 222, 223, who points bloody Sacrifices to Siva.
out, that, generally speaking, the
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 325
felt antagonism to powers above him, and his dread CHAP. III.
of their impending vengeance. While the rest were,
for the most part, offered to some individual member
of the Hindú pantheon, a sin-offering contemplated
the whole group of dévas, and in them, it may be,
recognised the majesty of the Supreme Intelligence.
‘The worshipper,’ it was taught, ‘who offers up an
animal duly consecrated by Agni and by Soma, is
therewith able to buy off all deities at once.”
In this conception of the Hindú rite of sacrifice, Hindſ.
ascending step by step through various orders of *
animals, and culminating in the grand oblation of worth”.
the horse, the ‘king of sacrifices,’ we are able to
detect the clearest parallelism to some of the pro-
visions of the Mosaic economy.” Animal sacrifice
was uniformly prompted by a deep conviction of
personal unworthiness, and the necessity in every
worshipper to compensate for his shortcomings and
imperfect consecration of himself to God. His life
was felt to have been placed in peril, or rather it
was wholly forfeited to the Divine Proprietor, whose
will he had resisted, and whose laws he had trans-
gressed. He laboured, therefore, by renouncing some
of his chief goods, to symbolise and make apparent
both to the Divinity and to himself his consciousness
of guilt and misery, and, if possible, to clear away
the barriers that obstructed his approach to God.
1 See the remarkable extract
from the Aitaréya Bráhmaña in
Roth’s “Einleitung' to his edition
of the Nirukta, p. xxxiii. In the
same passage the editor points out
the close resemblances between
the customs of the early Hindús
in slaying their sin-offerings, and
the corresponding customs of the
Greeks and Romans.
* See above, p. 173, n. 2;
Manu, ch. v. § 39, § 53, ch. XI.
§ 261 ; Rámáyaſha, I. 13, ed.
Schlegel.
* Above, pp. 116, 117.
326
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. III. Hence also, by a terrible distortion of the rite of
sacrifice, had grown the custom of devoting human
life itself to the offended dévas; for although there
is no public trace of such oblations' in the very
earliest period of Hindú religion, the revolting spec-
tacle was seen at last, and was repeated by some
barbarous and fanatic spirits from that day to our
OWI).
3. On the other hand, the teaching of the earnest
and enlightened Aryans had been deflecting more
and more from the revealed idea of substitutive
suffering. They laboured to effect their own recovery
without the intervention of a Mediator. Sacrifices
might, indeed, be offered, and might possibly appease
the wrath of some inferior déva, but the only offering
which philosophy could stamp with its approval, was
the conscious dedication of the individual spirit to
the Spirit of the universe. According, therefore, to
these doctors, the whole life of man must be a great
oblation of himself, intended to promote his absolute
Sacrifice
according
... to the phi-
losophers.
* Above, p. 183, and n. 2. It gehabt haben, wie die Sage von
may be mentioned, in addition to
the paper of Prof. Wilson's there
referred to, that Roth has also
examined the remarkable legend
of Sunahsépa (Weber's Ind. Stud.
I. 457 sq., II. I 12 sq.), and that
he regards it as proving the ex-
istence of human sacrifices at an
early period. ‘Als Mittelpunkt
der Sage in dieser Form erscheint
offenbar die Rettung Gunahçepa's
vom Opfertode, ihre nächste Be-
ziehung ist also die religiös-sitt-
liche, gerichtet gegen den Gräuel
des Menschenopfers. So mag
demn diese Legende, die einzige
indische der Art, für das brah-
manische Wolk dieselbel3edeutung
Iphigenia oder von Phrixos für
die Hellenen, die von Abraham
und Isaak für das hebräische
Alterthum. Die Aehnlichkeiten
in einzelnen Zügen liessen sich
manche namhaft machen: es mäge
gentigen darauf hinzuweisen, dass
die indische Erzählung für den
dem Tode entzogenen Menschen
keimen Ersatz auf dem Altare
Selbst eintreten làsst: die Bitte
um Gnade gentigt um das Gräu-
liche Schlechthin aufzuheben.’
In later times the offering of
human victims was generally
confined to the worshippers of
Siva, and his wife Kāli or Durgā.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 327
deliverance from the fetters of the selfish and the CHAP. III.
natural. Exactly in proportion as he continues to
possess an individual being, he is broken off from
God, he is encompassed with infirmities, he is the
victim of his appetites, the slave of his affections,
and as such, abandoned to the powers of evil. Hence
wherever this conception was fully realised, the form
of man's devotion was most rigorous and ascetical.
Though ‘suitable acts of expiation had been enjoined
by the great sages for every kind of crimes,” they all
were far from satisfying the rules of penance which
the ardent devotee was willing to impose upon him-
self. The proper sacrifice, he urged, is that which,
springing from an utter abnegation of the individual,
aims at nothing short of God and self-annihilation.
§ 5. The Hindú hope of restoration.
The grand idea of an historic Saviour, entering How far
once for all into the line of humanity, and once for *:::::: .
all achieving its redemption by the offering of Him- historical
self to God, was utterly unknown to every class of Saviour.
ancient Aryans. Sacrifices may have taught men
the imperative need of some such intervention, and
may further have suggested the conception of some
und ihn Wieder zu seiner Einheit
1 The following extract from
the Probodha-Chandrodaya (ed.
Goldstücker, p. 55) will serve to
illustrate the whole subject:
‘Wenn sie den Höchstenin Banden
legten, den Einigen zur Wielheit
theilten und den evigen Herrscher
in körperliches Dasein warfen und
zu der Stufe der Sterblichkeit
brachten, so Werde ich eine Busse
vollbringen, die dem Leben dieser
Brahmatheiler ein Ende macht
führt.”
* Vishnu Pur. p. 2 Io. Yet in
accordance with the laxer princi-
ples of the Puranic age, and of
the Hindú sectaries, it was finally
maintained that ‘reliance upon
Krishía is far better than any
such expiatory actsas religiousaus-
terity and the like.’ Remembrance
of Hari (Wishfiu) is said to be the
“best of all expiations.” Ib.
e’
328
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. III. Victim higher than the cows and horses which they
strangled, and more holy than the holiest yogin who
consumed his life in penance and austerities; but the
actual course of Hindú thought was rather tending to
diminish than increase the keenness of these cravings
and the force of these suggestions. While the many
had been more and more disposed to acquiesce in
a routine of ceremonial observances, relying for the
rest on some particular déva, whom they specially
selected for their patron; the philosopher had grown
more confident of his resources, and more daring in
his efforts to mount upward on the wings of know-
ledge and asceticism, and consummate his fellowship
with God. Yet notwithstanding all these wayward
tendencies, diverging, each in opposite ways, from
principles of true religion, there was always in the
heart of man a yearning after some external Saviour;
there was always a presentiment that such a Saviour
would eventually stoop down from heaven, and by an
act of grace and condescension master all our dead-
liest foes, and reinstate us in our lost inheritance.
This dim and elementary idea, pointing to a
future religatio of the human and Divine, and so
pervading all systems of religion, was especially
manifest in the traditions of Hindús respecting the
descent of God to earth in various forms of creaturely
existence. I have already drawn attention to the
legend of the Deluge, where, according to one version
of it, Brahmá, and, according to another, Vishnu, is
said to have appeared as an enormous Fish, in order
to promote the welfare of his righteous follower, and
preserve the continuity of the human species. Other
legends bring before us different kinds of avatdras,
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 329
where the rescue of mankind from the dominion of CHAP. III.
malignant spirits is no less conspicuous. Earth her-
self complains' how she is reeling under the vast load
of guilt and wretchedness, yet her complaints are all
eventually carried to Vishnu, who comforts her by
the assurance that her wrongs shall be redressed and
all her enemies brought to shame and silence. The
hope of such emancipation is, we saw, most formally
expressed in recent versions of the Krishma-legend.
There a series of periodic interventions in behalf of
man is definitely asserted, while the object contem-
plated by them is no less distinctly said to be a
moral object, the suppression of impiety, the pro-
tection of the good, and the establishment of duty.” The Kaiki-
But, as if to satisfy us that the faith of the Hindú “”
in champions of his own devising was extremely
feeble at the best, we see him ready to abandon them
and willing to accept a novel incarnation of Vishnu,
whose advent is still future. For example, in the
close of the Kali-yuga, when the world, relapsing
more and more into impiety, has reached the brink
of annihilation, the Hindú expects a fresh deliverer,
human both in form and aspect, seated on a white
horse, and armed with a destructive scythe. To
him will be awarded the eight faculties” which con-
stituted man's original perfection : he will also be
a genuine ‘portion of Brahma,’ ‘ the Beginning and
the End.” “By his irresistible might he will destroy
all the mléchchas and thieves, and all whose minds
are devoted to iniquity. He will then re-establish
righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those
1 Asiatic Res. x. 27. * Above, p. 304, n. 2.
* Above, p. 281. 4 Vish?w Pur. p. 484.
330
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. III, who live at the end of the Kali-age shall be awaken-
ed, and shall be pellucid as crystal. The men who
are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall
be as the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth
to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age,
its probable or age of purity.” Yet the modern Origin of docu-
origin.
ments in which this legend is preserved, as well as
its position in the series of Hindú avatāras, and the
glaring contradiction which it offers to older repre-
sentations of the sacred books in reference to the
yuga-system, all require us to place it in an age
far subsequent to the diffusion of the Gospel. On
the other hand, the manifest resemblances which it
exhibits to some visions of the Apocalypse will as
clearly justify us in imputing its origin to Gnostic,
if not Christian, influence; an identification fatal to
the cavils of a modern rationalist, who, after citing
the Kalki-legend with an air of triumph, goes on to
tell us that ‘ the Jews have the same belief, but that
‘with them it is an after-thought.” The truth is
that, so far from being either secondary or derived,
the expectation of a Christ, all-righteous and all-
merciful, a Christ in whom all nations of the earth
may find a blessing, was imprinted on the heart
and memory of the Hebrew people from the time of
Abraham : it was the pivot of their firmest hopes,
it was the key to all their Scriptures.
* Ibid. Cf. Lüken Traditionen, rung der Welt verlangt oder we-
2O. nigstens verlangen Sollte, direkt
* “Der Kalkin insbesondere mit widerspricht, erklärtsich dagegen
Seinem Weissen Rosse ist Schwer- vortrefflich aus den ähnlichen
lich eine indische Erfindung, da Vorstellungen der Gnostiker.’
er dem Yugasystem, Welches am Weber, Ind. Stud. II, 41 I.
Ende jedes Kaliyuga eine Zerstö-
CELAPTER IV.
Contrasts in the general development of Hin-
diſſism and Revealed Religion.
“In the present impure age, the bud of wisdom being blighted
by iniquity, men are unable to apprehend pure unity.’
|BIINDú PHILOSOPHER.
‘Huiv 8& &rekáAviyev 6 Oebs 31& Tod IIvetgatos aitot.—ST, PAUL.
1. IF one were asked to single out the main criterion CHAP. IV.
by which patriarchs, like Abraham, may be dis- Abraham
tinguished from the Aryan chief, whose portrait is ;...
preserved among the oldest hymns of the Rig-Véda, ancient
it would turn far less upon the difference in their Arya)?.
mental organisation and their outwärd forms of wor-
ship, than on sentiments by which that organisation
was directed and those forms of worship were upheld.
The men to be contrasted are both primitive and
simple-hearted. Both are nomades, far inferior, it
may be, to their descendants in the strength and
clearness of their intellectual powers, though more
than equal in poetic sensibility; collecting wisdom
as they move from spot to spot in search of regular
modes of life and permanent habitations. The wealth
of each is in his flocks and herds; his strength in
the devotion of his clansmen and posterity. Both
are also conscious of their moral wants, and their
332
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP, IV, dependence on superior genii; both are men of praise,
The faith
of the
Piebrew
patriarch.
of prayer, of sacrifice. And yet how very different
are the aspects of their inner life, the real character
of their religious worship, their relations to the world
invisible. x
The father of the Hebrew race, as we behold him
in the Book of Genesis, abandoning his paternal roof,
and then encamping, year by year, beneath a foreign
sky, is ever influenced by the consciousness of super-
natural guidance. The arm on which he leans is
that of the Omnipotent. The Lord Himself is with
him in the course of his migrations: his misgivings
are all hushed when he reflects that God, the Self-
Existent, is his shield, and his exceeding great re-
ward (Gen. xv. 1). The patriarch, in other words,
has such a faith in God as justifies his claim to be
a Christian by anticipation, “the father of the faith-
ful.” That organ of the soul by which we realise
as present what is actually beyond the range of
human vision, was in him directed to the object
where alone it can be satisfied. The God of Abraham
was living, personal, ever-present, irresistible, no cold
Abstraction of the logical faculty, no distant Some-
thing which could only be defined by negatives, but
a willing Friend, a righteous Judge, a sympathetic
Father. Abraham's road may lie along the trackless
plain or the inhospitable mountain-side, and yet he
fears no evil: his trust is in a living God and
Guardian, who will never fail His own. He may
be called to suffer, but he suffers at the hands of
One who will convert the scourge itself into an
instrument of blessing. He may have to sacrifice
the fairest of his earthly prospects, yet he knows to
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 333
whom the sacrifice is made. He wanders childless CHAP. IV.
in the land of promise, yet as often as he gazes up
to heaven, he welcomes in the stars that spangle the
unclouded firmament, an image of his own posterity.
Abraham ‘believed in the Lord; and He counted it
to him for righteousness’ (Gen. xv. 6). ,
The Indo-Aryan, on the other hand, had no such
faith in God, and no such trust in His protection.
Indisposed to love God, he was equally unwilling to
retain God in his knowledge. In proportion as he
left his Father's house to wander forth in quest of
this or that debasing pleasure, faith was dimmed and
paralysed within him, till the thought of a supreme
Intelligence, distinct from matter and transcending
all material processes, had well-nigh vanished from
his soul. Instead of finding peace in God, he vainly
sought it in the adoration or deprecation of the
elements; and having abandoned himself to this
inferior kind of worship, he oscillated from one déva.
to another, but had real faith in none.
It is indeed remarkable, that the efficacy of a
principle analogous to Christian faith was never
plainly recognised in India till after the propagation
of the Gospel." Then it was that the idea began
to shew itself in one particular Hindú sect, where
men adopted phraseology which might have been
mistaken almost for the language of the early Church.
They spoke of worshipping God in spirit: they
ascribed a wonderful significance to faith (bhakti);
yet even this new verity was in the end so much
distorted, that the spurious ‘faith' of India had be-
come no better than a cloke for heartless apathy or
1 See Lassen, II. Io96, Io99, and above, p. 257, 258.
334
Christ and offer Masſers.
CHAP. TV.
gross licentiousness. Belief in one particular déva,
or a firm reliance on the merit of Some special avatāra,
would, according to this system, obviate the need of
virtue, and would sanctify all kinds of vice.”
How different was the faith of Abraham | It did
not terminate in dévas like Vishnu or Siva, Krishia
or Gamésa: and the object being raised indefinitely
higher, and invested with distinctly moral attributes,
the principle of faith had also gained a corresponding
elevation. “I am the Almighty God: walk before
me, and be thou perfect’ (Gen. xvii. 1). Such was
the original basis of the covenant which brought the
patriarch into a new relationship with God. The
Being whom he worshipped was not only righteous,
but was righteousness itself. He was no local deity
with limited jurisdiction or with human partialities.
He was the Judge of all the earth (Gen. xviii.25):
and to impress this grand idea on Abraham and his
posterity was the uniform design of all the elder
revelation. The satisfying of men's intellectual crav-
ings was but secondary and subordinate, compared
with the enlivening of their conscience, the rectifying
of their wishes, and the purification of their heart.
The will of man, as one essential organ needed for
The mora!
superiority
of the
JHebrew
patriarch.
* Elphinstone, pp. 98, 121, and
Wilson, ſectºres, p. 31. The
latter of these authorities, who
has enlarged upon the question in
his History of the Hindú Sects,
remarks that by teaching the doc-
trine of ‘faith alone,' the Hindú
sectarian has rendered conduct
‘wholly immaterial.” “It matters
not how atrocious a sinner may
be, if he paints his face, his breast,
his arms, with certain sectarial
marks; or, which is better, if he
brands his skin permanently with
them with a hot iron stamp; if
he is constantly chanting hymns
in honour of Wishflu ; or, what is
equally efficacious, if he spends
hours in the simple reiteration of
his name or names; if he die
with the word Hari, or Rāma, or
Krishíla, on his lips, and the
thought of him in his mind, he
may have lived a monster of
iniquity, he is certain of heaven.’
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
335
the due appropriation of Divine knowledge, as one CHAP. IV.
leading element in the spiritual constitution of our
race, was made in Hebraism the subject of a special
education: it was moulded step by step into con-
formity with the will of God. He asked the patriarch
and his descendants whether, with the knowledge of
Him which they had already, they would still believe
in Him, and follow Him as their supreme Director,
even though His path might sometimes be mysterious,
and the truths He taught them might sound harsh
and paradoxical. And the effect of this divine oeco-
nomy is clearly seen from day to day in Abraham
himself. The patriarch can never be indifferent for
example to his earthly prospects and position; for
the present world to him is not a ‘vast mirage' of
unsubstantial phantoms, but is full of deep realities.
He longs for offspring, he aspires to see his family
in possession of the land of Canaan; yet whenever
God appears to be rescinding the original promise,
Abraham as often bows to the decision, and resigns
his own will to the will of God: and when at last
old age is creeping over him and he is still like one
who sojourns in a strange country, and must buy
himself a sepulchre, his walk with God continues to
uphold and purify him; he can look more clearly
through the temporal promise to the principles which
underlie it; the postponement first, and then the
partial realisation of it, teach him to reflect more
deeply on some brighter and enduring heritage; and
this spirit being thus exalted to a closer converse
with the things invisible, he dies, as he has lived,
—in faith.
On the other hand, it seems as though the Indo-
336
Christ and other Masters.
Char. IV. Aryan were far less susceptible of moral culture, and
The hope-
ful spirit
of the
Plebrew
patriarch.
that culture far more seriously retarded by the rank
luxuriance of his other powers, the vividness of his
imagination, and the acuteness of his speculative
faculty. “In the hymns of the Véda, we see man
left to himself to solve the riddle of the world.”
As soon as he relinquishes the primary faith in God,
he dooms himself to wander without light or guidance
in the midst of endless mazes, and to struggle with
gigantic and insoluble enigmas. Nay, the obscura-
tion has extended far and deep into the spiritual
province of his nature. He is ‘alienated from the
life of God through the ignorance that is in him,
because of the blindness of his heart.” The oracle
of conscience may still speak indeed, but its decisions
are continually disputed and rejected. The monitor
within him, his own inmost self, may raise its fre-
quent protest in behalf of righteousness, and drive
him to invoke the help of Indra, or the mercy of
the purifying Waters; yet he finds in them no real
and abiding comfort; he is tempted to resign himself
afresh to the dominion of the power of darkness, and
to give up the battle of humanity for lost.
Abraham, ‘believing Him faithful that promised,’
was conspicuous also as a man of hope, of large ideas,
of glowing aspirations. He shewed himself most
conscious of his noble destiny; he realised, as few
had done before, the glories which had been reserved
for all adherents of the true religion. He saw the
day of the Messiah; he saw it, and was glad.
Directed by the light of the prophetic spirit, he
beheld not only the detention of his children's chil-
1 Prof. Max Müller, in Bunsen’s Phil. of Univ. Hist. I, 134.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 337
dren in a land that was not theirs, and their eventual Char. IV.
recovery from bondage after a definite term of years
(Gen. xv. 13, 14), but also their migration to the
land of promise, the commencement of some Hebrew
dynasty, and last of all the advent of the Son of
Abraham, in whom all nations of the earth are
blessed. We ought not, doubtless, to exaggerate
the area of his field of vision, nor represent him
as possessed of all those truths which, after the
diffusion of a perfect light, we may discover in the
oldest version of the Gospel-promise. The reality
itself may be as different in degree from aught which
Abraham anticipated, as the future glory of the
Christian may transcend the imagery by means of
which he now approximates to some idea of it.
Still Abraham was in his day the champion of the
ancient faith ; and as he wandered far and near and
saw the nations lapsing one by one into idolatry
and creature-worship, he could hardly fail to under-
stand that the election of his family, as the family
of God, was for some high and holy purpose, that
the basis of the covenant was a moral basis, and
that He, in whom the stock of Abraham would
finally put forth its choicest branch and reach its
highest glory, was to spread the blessings of this
covenant in all the scattered tribes of man.
But where in any of the Védas can we find a
parallel to this patient trust in God, this glowing
hope of an imperishable kingdom? There were
echoes, it may be, confused, and often contradictory
echoes of the primitive condemnation of man's
tempter; and as evil seemed to propagate itself
from age to age, and as the malice of the demons
VoI. I. 22
338
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. IV. grew still more intolerable, earnest hearts would
grope, despairing of all human Saviours, for a God
of truth, of holiness, of mercy: yet oft as heathen-
dom put forth these dim presentiments, and fondly
as it clung to these half-conscious prophecies of re-
demption, it was never able to decipher' them until
the promise was in fact fulfilled, and meaning was
imported into them by the announcements of the
Gospel. The heart had always striven in the di-
rection of Christianity, but never till the advent of
the Saviour was that striving made intelligible even
to itself.
Now the contrast here exhibited between the
father of the faithful and the more elevated of those
Aryan colonists who chanted in their first migrations
the impassioned hymns of the Rig-Véda, is in
general true of the religious systems under which
the Hebrew and Hindú were being educated. In
the one we have stability, in the other, fluctuation;
in the one, development, in the other, discontinuity;
in the one, progress, in the other, retrogression. In
the first, the Object of belief entirely fills the spirit
of the worshipper, He is the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever; in the second; the divinities all change,
or vanish in the lapse of ages; they are ‘old’ and
‘young,” are less and greater, this supplanting or
eclipsing that, and all extinguishable by the very
law of their existence. Moreover, out of Abraham
Contrast
extended to
religious
systems.
1 ‘The universal heart of man- * The Wëdas themselves distin-
kind, from out of the depths, in- guish between the great gods and
voked the presence of the Restorer, the less, between the young gods
though it would not read its own and the old. Wilson, Rig-Véda,
involuntary prophecy.” Archer I. 71.
Butler, Sermons, 1st Series, p. 241.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 339
there grew a family which proved itself the cham- CHAP. IV.
pion of monotheism, and which acted as the shelter
of the purest forms of worship and the guardian
of the oracles of God. That family in spite of all
adverse influences was one and indestructible: it
stood in reference to the world at large as stood the
sacred ark of Noah in the midst of the avenging
waters. It surmounted all the storms and fluctua-
tions of all ages; it carried in its bosom the be-
ginnings of a new creation, and the germs of super-
natural life that should hereafter leaven all the mass
of humanity.
As centuries revolved, the creed of that sacred Continuity
family had doubtless grown more definite and lu- %. 7'6–
minous; the measure of man's light was greater, and
his knowledge of his future destiny more certain and
explicit; but the several steps by which these vast
accessions were produced are all apparent in the
marvellous annals of the Hebrew people. So far
from standing in a line with heathemism, so far from
borrowing its distinctive properties from any or from
all the Gentile systems, the religion of the Old
Testament, if we believe its own assertions and de-
nunciations, was from first to last in diametric oppo-
sition to them. They were from beneath; it was from
above. They all were issuing from the brain and
heart of man; they varied with the variations of his
temperament and with the growth of intellectual
culture: it was the result of an objective revelation,
which, coming down immediately from God, was
radiant with the light of His perfection, and was
based upon relations between God and man which
neither time nor space can modify. As early as the
340
Chrisſ and other Masters.
CHAP. IV.
Mew points
of compa-
*ison.
patriarchal period it was taught how every ethnic
system would be finally superseded; how the ‘Shiloh’
would inherit all the royalty of Judah, and how
Gentiles would all flock to Him for light, for shelter,
for nutrition. And when Christianity was actually
established it was far from disappointing these an-
ticipations of the ancient world. It grew out of that
anterior system, as the ripening flower unfolds itself
organically from the bud, or as the daylight is the
natural sequence of the dawn. The Church of God
has not been planted on the ruins of the old theocracy,
but is its proper consummation. The Son of Abra-
ham is now the Prince of Peace and King of Glory,
and all ‘who are Christ's are Abraham's seed and
heirs according to the promise.”
2. Nor if special features of the Hebrew and
Hindú systems be compared in chronological order,
shall, we often find that the alleged resemblances
between them are more than Superficial ; provided
only that our estimate of revealed religion is based
entirely on original and authentic documents. This
proviso is the more important, since analogies far
deeper do exist, as we shall see hereafter, between
the genuine creeds of Hindústán and certain deprava-
tions of revealed truth as it was first communicated.
It might be urged, for instance, with considerable
plausibility that Bráhmanism, in reference to the
general course of its development, will stand to
Buddhism in the same relation that Mosaism stands
to Christianity; or, in other words, that if we place
the principles enunciated in the Védas and the Laws
of Manu side by side with those contained in the Old
Testament, and if we place the principles of Gautama
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 341
side by side with those of Christ and the Apostles, CHAP. IV.
the comparison will lead us to infer some inward, if - - -º -
not outward and historical affinity, between the dif-
ferent systems of belief. These questions both de-
mand a more particular examination.
(1) First, then, Bráhmanism was but a secondary Brähman-
stage in the formation of the Indo-Aryan institutions. }. *.
It appears to have adapted to the wants of nations #. to.
ſº e (20%"(ºS7)?,
what before had been restricted to the family, the
clan, the disconnected tribe. In this respect the
office of Mosaism was not only analogous, but ident-
ical. Both, in order to effect such purpose, had
engrafted new elements upon the worship of the
previous period; both had multiplied the number
of sacrificial rites, and, while reviving many of the
ordinances which had the sanction of the former
generations,’ fresh importance seems to have been
given to ritual uniformity, as though, in that peculiar
phase of human progress, the language of symbolic
action was peculiarly expressive and intelligible.
But while I grant the perfect truth of all such repre-
sentations, the objector needs to be reminded that
the moral system of the Hebrews was meanwhile
indefinitely superior to that of popular Hindúism.
The institutes of Moses added, it may be, to what
had formerly prevailed; they authorised a far more
solemn and elaborate liturgy; but, unlike the in-
stitutes of Manu, they insisted at the same time
more emphatically on the need of spirituality in the
worshipper: the tone of every interdict and admon-
ition grew more penetrating and severe. ‘Will
I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
1. Cf. Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences, pp. 8, 9, Lond, 1847.
342
Christ and offer Masters.
CEIAP. IV.
Iſereditary
priesthood.
Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows
unto the Most High ; and call upon Me in the day
of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
Me. But unto the wicked God saith, What hast
thou to do, to declare My statutes, or that thou
shouldest take My covenant in thy mouth 2' (Ps. L.
13–16). The symbols of the Hebrew law were thus
far more than barren and unmeaning ceremonies:
they suggested to the worshipper a multitude of deep
and spiritual relations. Man was taught to separate
the visible imagery under which divine things were
brought down more fully to his present understanding
from ideas and principles enveloped in them, and
especially to hear the doctrine of the unity, the
placability, the holiness, and the supremacy of God,
proclaimed in every chapter of their ritual institute.
Again, the system, re-enacted under Moses, like
that which owed its birth to Manu, had a powerful
and hereditary priesthood, whose prerogatives were
guarded by a list of stringent prohibitions. None
but they could minister in holy things. Yet here,
in spite of all apparent similarities, the difference is
essential and extreme. The Hebrew legislator had
most plainly recognised the unity of the human race:
he gave no sanction to the law of caste, by which the
Bráhman had been lifted far above his fellows, not
in office only but extraction and inherent worth.
The son of Aaron was an ordinary Israelite; he was
descended from an ordinary member of the patriarchal
family,–no emanation from the head or reason of
Brahmā, while others were the offspring of the feet.
And, as the consequence of this original equality, the
high-priest of the Hebrews, though invested with
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
43
3
superior rank and ministering before God, not only CHAP. IV.
for himself but also in behalf of other men, had
never shewn a disposition to invade the privileges
of his brethren. His official dignity was felt to be
compatible with the sacerdotal character of every
Israelite, who, owing to his moral elevation and
particularly to his knowledge of the one True God,
had always been a member of a “royal priesthood,'
and a ‘prophet for all mankind.” Accordingly the
insight into heavenly mysteries, and access to ‘the
oracles of God,” had never been confined, among the
Hebrews, to one narrow circle, or one favoured class.
The many were not left to gather up such crumbs
and fragments of religious truth as chanced to fall
from the abundant table of some haughty doctor like
the Brähman. The provisions of the Law had
rendered it possible for every one to know the will
of God, and make it known to others; and each
father, in pursuance of this principle, was urged to
teach his children, “to the intent that when they
came up they might shew their children the same.’
The point, however, which is more especially in- Narrow-
ness of
sisted on by those who institute comparisons between
the Hebrew and Bráhmanic systems is the partial and
exclusive spirit manifest in both. That narrowness,
indeed, may fairly be ascribed to every aspect of the
latter system, no one has yet ventured to dispute. Its
very constitution was harsh and inelastic. It knew
of no expansion beyond the members of the three
superior (“twice-born’) classes; for the Südra, though
reduced by the victorious arm of the invader and
associated with the rest in the capacity of a serf,
* See above, p. 111, n. 1.
Yange,
344
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP, IV, was held to be excluded, by impurity of descent,
from all acquaintance with the Védas' and from other
like advantages. But can the same exclusiveness
be fairly charged against the Hebrews and their
system? Doubtless one great object of it was to
fence them in from the contamination of the neigh-
bouring heathen, and by educating them apart to
render them a single and peculiar people; yet there
never was a period in their history when they were
treated as a higher and distinct ‘race' of beings, or
the proselyte rejected from communion with the
genuine Hebrew. Men, for instance, like the Kenites
or the Rechabites, retaining the ancestral faith in one
True God without conforming to the ritual law of
Moses, lived for centuries on terms of amity with
Israel and were sheltered near the sanctuary of God.
The psalmist and the prophet are both heard exulting
in the thought that Zion was the home and mother-
city not of Israel only, but of gentile nations also.
At the dedication of the temple Solomon did not
forget the ‘strangers' coming out of far countries to
worship in Jerusalem. They also were embraced
within the circle of the prayer; ‘That all people
of the earth may know Thy name, to fear Thee, as
do Thy people Israel' (1 Kings viii. 43). And as
the number of such proselytes went on increasing,
the energy of Hebraism itself would be recruited by
admixtures from the heathen world. The single
difference in point of expansibility between the Christ-
ian and Hebrew systems lay in this;–that under the
more perfect institution converts are relieved from the
necessity of compliance with the ancient ritual, on
* See above, p. 194, n. 2.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 345
the ground that man, exalted by incorporation into CHAP. IV.
Christ, is now attaining his majority,+is capable of --- --
higher and more spiritual forms of education. Still
it should not be forgotten that nothing would at first
conduce more largely to the spread of Christian in-
fluences than the existence of those Jewish proselytes
in every district both of east and west. They served
as starting-points for missions to the heathen ; they
were links, or rather living stones, made ready in the
providence of God for binding all the world together,
and for building up a Catholic Church.
(2) But, secondly, do other and more obvious Buddhism
e e tº * : e. tº /
points of similarity exist between the general aspects º,
of Buddhism and those of Christianity? Was Bud- to Christ-
dhism, for example, in its main particulars the off- tanity.
spring of an older system 2 Christianity was also
this, but with the grand distinction that it never for
one moment ceased to venerate the holy writings and
traditions of its predecessor; whereas Buddhism
entered on the work of revolution by rejecting or
contemming the authority of the Védas. Or, did
Buddhism labour to emancipate the ancient world
from the dominion of an irksome and elaborate ritual?
Christianity has in turn effected this emancipation;
not, however, by the violent uprooting of the older
forms of service, but by placing in the very centre
of its dogmatic system the reality which they fore-
shadowed, and thus elevating and refining the whole
character of worship. Or, again, did Buddhism
venture to repudiate every species of animal sacrifice?
The Gospel did the same, but in obedience to a very
different theory both of God and man. So far from
questioning the truth of instincts which had found
346 - Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. IV. expression in the ancient sacrifices, it was ever point-
--- ing to ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin
of the world: it taught men how the offering of all
other victims was eclipsed and superseded not by the
development of human reason or the riper dictates
of philosophy, but ‘through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all.” Did Buddhism lay
unwonted stress on ethics? Christianity did the
same, but building on a true foundation, all the
lessons which it inculcated were sustained by deep
and heavenly motives; they grew directly out of its
theology, deriving thence their highest virtue and
most touching illustration. To be good is, in the
moral system of the Christian, to be God-like: while
in Buddhism, where the thought of the Creator and
the Judge is virtually rejected, the moral code itself
is stripped of its supreme authority. Or was Bud-
dhism from the first distinguished by the feminine
mildness of its tone, the gentleness of its demeanour,
the diffusiveness of its philanthropy? These crown-
ing excellencies of the heathen system were again
transcended by the genial spirit of Christianity; for
though it has distinctly recognised the freedom of the
human agent, and so carried its appeal directly to the
manlier province of our being, it has taught men
with unequalled emphasis to put away ‘all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking,
with all malice,’ and has charged them to be “kind
one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another,
even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven them.”
Or, lastly, did the followers of the Buddha rise at
length to the conception of an ever-widening empire,
and embark on the conversion of far-distant nations?
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
347
Have their tenets been in fact accepted, not by CHAP. IV.
Hindús only, but by countless multitudes in China
and Tibet, and still more recently by Japanese and
Burman, Mongol and Malay ? The Gospel in like
manner claims to be a ‘world religion.’ It has
never faltered in that claim since He, whose errand
was to rescue and restore humanity, commissioned
the small band of Galilaean peasants to go forth into
the world and ‘preach the Gospel to every creature.”
By the majesty and life inherent in the Gospel it has
subjugated, step by step, the first, the mightiest, the
most highly-gifted nations; and although, in some
localities, the tide of conquest has receded and the
vantage-ground been lost, the course of Christianity
was on the whole triumphant and progressive. Every
year is adding largely to the proofs already given of
supernatural vigour, and indefinite expansibility: and
thus the Gospel is, in fact, what Buddhism vainly
strove to be, the agent in the hands of God for
working the regeneration of the human family."
Yet, while I would contend that most of the Real coin-
alleged resemblances between the spirit which per-
vades the Bible on the one side, and the Hindú
Sūtras on the other, are but slight and superficial,
I am far from saying that no analogies whatever
can be traced in the historical development of the
religions we are now comparing. What, then, is the
general nature of these points of contact? I answer:
* It is melancholy to hear a
weak and half-infatuated Writer
of the present day, in discussing
the great question, What is Truth?
(Lond. 1856) complain of ‘the
partial littleness, the narrowness
of conception, and circumscribed
application of our Christian in-
vention, and the isolated instances
of beneficence exhibited in the
ministry of Christ,’ as compared
with the Buddhist’s ‘sublime pic-
ture of an exulting universe,’ &c.
p. 156.
cidences
between
India and
the West.
348
Christ and other Masters.
they are, for the most part, not discoverable in the
genuine dogmas of revealed religion, but in later
depravations of it, not in Hebraism as founded on
the ancient Scriptures, and embodied in the temple-
service, not in Christianity as once for all delivered
by the Lord and His Apostles to the keeping of the
early Church, but in some schools and systems,
drawing their original life from these, yet leavened
and corrupted by other elements of foreign or extrinsic
growth.
Nor will the bare existence of such resemblances
be matter of surprise to him who soberly reflects upon
the way in which they are produced. As soon as
ever the mind of man is anxious to break loose from
what is supernaturally revealed; as soon as ever the
authority within him is suffered to resist and overrule
the authority without him, he at once relapses, in the
same proportion, to a state of nature: the religious
system he constructs is so far standing on a level
with heathenism; and whenever such internal affinity
has been established there is reason to expect, in
cases even where no outward agents are at work,
CHAP. IV.
I?oot of
such resem-
blances.
* See above, p. 253, n. 4. Qui-
net (Le Génie des Religions, pp.
215, 216, Paris, 1851) appears to
have been startled by the discovery
of some of the resemblances be-
tween Buddhism and the Roman-
ism of the Middle Ages:—‘On
reste d'ailleurs confondu en voy-
ant comment, à travers toutes les
differences de temps et de lieu, la
même empreinte spirituelle a pro-
duit, dans lecatholicisme dumoyen
âge et dans le bouddhisme de la
haute Asie, des institutions, des
moeurs, des singularités, si par-
faitement semblables qu'on Croir-
ait l'Orient et l'Occident plagiares
l’un de l'autre. Dans les légendes
des bouddhistes de Ceylan, comme
dans les chroniques des monas-
tères de Citeaux et de Saint-Gall,
ce ne sont que fondations de con-
vents d'hommes ou de femmes,
missions chez les peuples étran-
gers, pèlerinages, benédictions de
reliques, indulgences, prédica-
tions, conciles Cecuméniques pour
combattre les Schismes, extirper
l'hérésie, maintenir l'orthodoxie.’
On some of the points here cited,
See Appendix II.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 349
a general similarity between tenets of two independent Char: IV.
doctors, and, it may be, in the structure of their
sacred institutions. -
I shall notice one or two examples. Of the three Essenism.
great sects who figured in Judaea at the close of the
Old-Testament occonomy, one of the most remarkable
was the confraternity of the Essenes; which, though
entirely Jewish in its main complexion, may remind
us here and there not only of Pythagoras and the
‘Polistae, but of Gautama Buddha and his school."
There is the same mystic glow upon the spiritual
life of the Essene. Repelled and wearied by the
frigid ritualism of the Pharisee, and disgusted by
the selfishness and scepticism of the Sadducee, his
feelings had impelled him to withdraw entirely from
the town; he lost his reverence for the temple-
service, he endeavoured to arrive at fuller knowledge
of the things of God by analysing his own emotions.
Meanwhile, however, he was not a mere recluse, in-
active, meditative, and unpractical. He saw in every
human being the image of the one Creator; he ab-
horred all forms of slavery; he was ardently desirous
to promote the moral and material interests of his
1 A late writer (Mr. J. H.
Gouldhawke), in his extravagant
production, The Solar Allegories,
Calcutta, 1855, attempts to prove
that ‘the greater number of per-
sonages mentioned in the Old and
New Testaments are allegorical
beings. He has also laboured to
connect the philosophy of the
Essenes with that of the Pytha-
goreans and Hindú philosophers
(p. 20); and in particular traces
back the growth of Christian mo-
nasticism to influences diffused by
them and their associates in the
Schools of Alexandria. Neander,
in considering a similar objection,
has admitted (Life of Christ, p.
40, London, 1851) that the sect
of the Essenes, though strictly
Jewish in its origin, contained
within it some infusion of Oriental
theosophy, but is at the same time
very careful to point out the fun-
damental contradiction between
the special principles of Essenism
and those of Christianity.
350
Christ and offer Masters.
CHAP. IV, fallen countrymen. But here, as in the case of
Farly
Christian
heresies.
Buddhism, while attempting to remodel and regener-
ate, the Essene abandoned his belief not only in
the errors and extravagances of other sects, but in
some vital principles of true religion. He estranged
himself from the divine society where God was more
immediately present. The spirit which he more and
more betrayed was, in the language of Neander,
“monkish and schismatic.” Like the Buddhist he
believed in some arbitrary and irrevocable fate,”
necessitating human action. Like the Buddhist also
he repudiated the ancient doctrine of mediation, pro-
pitiation, and redemption, by disparaging, if not ab-
juring, the rite of sacrifice, in which that doctrine
was embodied; and thus, in spite of all the amiability
and gentleness of his nature, we hear of no Essenes
among the little company of Hebrews ‘who first
trusted in Christ.’
Or, take again the swarm of heresies that soon
invaded almost every province of the early Church.
Abandoning, as they did, the more essential of the
supernatural truths of revelation, they were virtually
and in effect revivals of paganism ; and family-like-
ness may accordingly be traced among the older
speculations current in the schools of heathen philo-
sophy. In discussing, for example, the nature of the
Divine Sonship, Sabellius and his party taught a
doctrine very similar to that already noticed in the
trimºrrtä of India; while Docetism, starting from
a notion that the spiritual and material cannot per-
* To 8& Töv Ego muáv yévos, éicetums ºftºpov &v0pátrous ātavrá.
trávrov Tiju Giuapuéumv cupſav Joseph. Antiq. XIII. v. 9, ed.
&topatveral, ſcal pumöèv 5 pº cat’ Havercamp.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
351
manently coexist, had merely reproduced the Hindú
doctrine of avatāras. The inward correspondence in
the texture of ideas had issued in a similar deprava-
tion of revealed truth. * *
Or if, penetrating below the surface, we investigate
the elementary thoughts and feelings that hereafter
found an utterance in monastic institutions of the
Church, we find that on the one side those ideas are
alien from the spirit of primitive Christianity, and on
the other that they had been long familiar in the east
before they were appropriated or unconsciously re-
produced among one class of Christians in Syria and
Egypt. India was the real birthplace of monasti-
cism,' its cradle being in the haunts of earnest yogins
and self-torturing devotees, who were convinced that
evil is inherent not in man only but in all the various
forms of matter, and accordingly withdrew as far as
possible from contact with the outer world.” At
first indeed the Christian hermit like the earliest of
his Hindú prototypes had dwelt alone upon the out-
skirts of his native town or village, supporting him-
self by manual labour and devoting all the surplus
of his earnings to religious purposes. But during
the fourth century of the present era many such
hermits began to flock together in the forest or the
wilderness, where regular confraternities were organ-
ised upon a model more or less derived from the
Egyptian Therapeutae and the old Essenes of Pales-
1 Prof. Wilson, in Asiat. Res, writes Mr. H. T. Prinsep, (Tibet,
xvi. 38. See also Mr. Hardy’s p. 150, Lond 1852,) “who prac-
Fastern Monachism, and M. Pavie's tised penances and sat on pillars,
critique on it in the Revue dos like Simeon Stylites,’ are still
JJewo, Mondes, 1854, Tome v, found at Koom-boom and in Tibet.
‘The type of those devotees,' * See above, pp. 239, 240.
CHAP. IV.
Monasti-
cism :
352
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. IV, tine; the members, in their dress and habits, most
of all resembling‘ those of the religious orders who
still swarm in Tibet and Ceylon. When Christianity
was suffered to ally itself with the monastic tenden-
cies so characteristic of the eastern mind, some justi-
fication would be doubtless found in the ungenial
aspect of the age and in the feelings which might
naturally impel an earnest spirit to recoil from the
great centres of corruption, and erect itself a shelter
from the inroads of barbarians and the storms of
public life. It is indisputable also that, in spite of
morbid symptoms” pointing to a different conclusion,
a new character was at once imparted to this foreign
mode of life by contact with the principles of the
Gospel; and that, being thus ennobled, the monastic
institute was frequently converted by the gracious
providence of God into an apt and salutary agent
for the training of the Christian scholar and the
propagation of the Christian faith. Yet after all
such benefits are estimated at their very highest
worth, monasticism remains in its idea and essence
inconsistent with the proper genius of revealed re-
ligion. It can draw no sanctions from the writings
of the Old Testament; it is repugnant to the spirit
910 genuine
fruit of
Christian-
ºty.
1 See Elphinstone's India, p.
Io'7.
2 The histories and legends of
the fourth and following century
abound in illustrations of the la-
mentable errors and extravagances
resulting from the prevalent pas-
sion in favour of monasticism.
Some examples are collected by
Neander, Ch. Hist. III. 337 sq.
He particularly draws attention
to the sect of Euchites, who, as
he reminds us, constituted the
first order of ‘mendicant friars'
(p. 342) within the pale of Christ-
ianity.
* It is worthy of notice that
when Beda was requested by his
friend, the bishop of Eſexham, to
compile an exposition of the first
book of Samuel, he felt himself
constrained to use the allegorical
method of interpretation, because,
as he remarked, the literal would
Ino more apply to persons who
alone were in a condition to pro-
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
353
of the New. Though Christianity is found to be CHAP. IV.
unsparing in its condemnation of all forms of world-T
liness, and though it teaches as was never taught
before ‘a total separation from all bonds considered
as merely earthly, it has nevertheless repudiated the
heathenish idea that any creature of God is evil in
itself, or is, in other words, the product of ungodlike
beings like the Gnostic demiurgus. Christianity so
far from doing violence to any of our natural duties
and relationships has consecrated all of them afresh ;
So far from labouring to pluck up the instincts and
affections proper to humanity, it renders them more
true and sensitive, because it renders them more
Christ-like; purifying and refining and ennobling.
Christianity, again, forbids the spiritual warrior to
throw down his arms and quit the post of danger and
of duty. His vocation is to benefit the world by his
example, to be in it, but not of it, and, himself made
luminous by fellowship with Christ, to ‘let his light
so shine before men, that they may see his good
works, and glorify his Father who is in heaven.’
And such was also the conviction of the early Christ-
ians. When the heathem were disposed to charge
them with indifference to the practical business of
society and the requirements of the state, the accusa-
tion was indignantly rejected by their ardent and
severe apologist:” “We are no Brachmans,’ he could
fit by his labours; “quibus eccle-
siastica vitae consuetudine longe
fieri ab uxoris complexu et co-
lebes manere propositum est.’
Works, ed. Giles, VII. 369.
1 Dr. Kay, Principal of Bishop's
College, Calcutta, has recently
discussed this subject, with special
reference to Hindú theories, in
WOL. I.
his excellent essay on The Pro-
mises of Christianity, Oxf. 1855.
* Tertullian Apologet, c. XLII,
The whole passage is remarkable:
‘Sedalio quoque injuriarum titulo
postulamur, et infructuosi in ne-
gotiis dicinur : quo pacto homines
vobiscum degentes, ejusdem vic-
tus, habitus, instructus, ejusdem
23
354
- Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. IV.
add, ‘nor Indian Gymnosophists, dwellers in woods,
estranged from the affairs of life. We know that our
duty is to give thanks for every thing to God, the
Lord and the Creator. We are far from wishing
to repudiate any one of His works. We are tem-
perate, it is true, and learn to use without abusing.’
(3) . But granting, for the sake of argument, that
real and profound resemblances did often come to
light in the development of the religions we have
just considered ; granting that some points of contact
can be shewn to have existed in the growth of Bráh-
manism and Hebraism on one side, and of Buddhism
and Christianity on the other; granting even, as one
writer has of late contended, that there is as much
in the records of Hindú systems ‘of what was parallel,
as of what was antagonistic to the Gospel;” let us
test these suppositions in a different way, and measure
the alleged affinities by following out the principles
from which they are believed to flow into their
logical consequences and their practical results. Now
Bráhmanism, as understood by all philosophers, was
uniformly striving to obtain exemption from the lia-
bility to repeated births: its ultimate effort was to
give such kinds of knowledge to its votary as enabled
him to say, ‘I am Brahma,’ ‘I am All that is.’ As
Soon as ever this exalted Standing has been gained,
II indúison
and Christ-
ianity in
their ultim-
ate Conse-
quences.
ad vitam necessitatis? Neque * Prof. Jowett, Epistles of St.
enim Brachmanae, aut Indorum
gymnosophistoe Sumus, Sylvicolae
et exules vitae. Meminimus gra-
tiam nos debere Domino Deo
Creatori [cf. 1 Tim. iv. 3, 4];
nullum fructum operum ejus re-
pudiamus : plane temperamus ne
ultra modulm aut perperam uta-
mur.’ f
I’awl, &c. II. 385, 386. Lond.
1855. “The living, perfect truth
has points of tangency for the
one-sided forms of error; though
we may not be thereby enabled
to put together the perfect whole
from the scattered and repellent.
fragments.” Neander, Life of
Christ, p. 41.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 355
the transmigration of the spirit ceases; but exactly CHAP. IV.
at the point where the resemblances to Christianity T
might be expected to attain their fulness, the diver-
gence is most fundamental and entire. The act of
reabsorption, every Bráhman argues, will destroy the
personality of the human subject; his mental and
moral organisation is utterly subverted, superseded,
and dissolved. ‘Annihilation, therefore, as regards
the individual being is in Brähmanism as much the
ultimate destiny of the soul as it is of the body, and
“Not to be” is the melancholy result of the religion
and philosophy of the Hindús.” And if the end of
all their mighty speculations be thus cold and desol-
ating, what shall be our judgment of the younger
system of philosophy, which, affecting to restore and
purify the ancient creed, reduced it to more dismal
blanks, and lengthened out the awful series of nega-
tions? The common cry of Buddhism was: ‘It is
transient; it is wretched; it is void.” With these
reflections on the emptiness of all around him, the
philosopher was labouring to appease the hunger of
the human spirit; or if he ventured to discourse of
future recompense and liberation from the evil of our
present lot, the goal to which he ever pointed is the
state where all the elements that enter into our idea
of being will be utterly exhausted and burnt out.
The heaven of philosophic Buddhism is nirvāna.
‘The mighty efforts of science in the ancient world
have only issued in the forming of a vast and uni-
versal abstraction. They gave birth to Buddhism,
a system in which there is no longer more than one
sole existence, the Absolute, a system, and in which
* Prof. Wilson, Lectures, p. 65.
356
Christ and other Masters.
this same existence is the infinite Void resembling
non-existence. Here, then, is the furthest bound
that could be reached by science, when applied to
spiritual and divine things; it is the deification of
Nothing.” &
On the other hand, we cannot fail to notice how
revealed religion, with each phase of its development,
had grown more positive in its form, and brought
men better tidings. It was eminently hopeful and
constructive. It unfolded the great truth, that man
is in the present life preparing for his ultimate con-
dition; that he now begins to be what he will be for
ever. It preaches more and more distinctly of the
sacredness of human nature, as restored and glorified
in Christ; it lays new stress on the material part
of man, as wedded to his individual spirit, and as
destined with that spirit to live on for ever; and
thus, while Buddhism plants us in a sepulchre and
extols it as our place of refuge from all human
sorrows and all burdens of the flesh, the Gospel rolls
away the stone from the door of the sepulchre; it
makes us free indeed, and points us to the ultimate
‘ redemption of the body' and the glorification of our
whole humanity.
It is far, however, from my wish, in charging
Buddhism with those fearful consequences, to deny
or question the amount of social benefit resulting
from its propagation in some parts of central and
eastern Asia. Popular Buddhism, intermingled, as
it is, with older maxims and more positive tradi-
tions, is far better than the nihilistic Buddhism of
philosophy: and, accordingly, in this, as in some
CHAP. IV.
J3tddhism,
as a popw-
lar religion.
1 Gabriel, Théodicée Pratique, p. 84. Paris, 1855.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 357
other cases where the territory invaded by the new CHAP. IV.
religion was before in the possession of a ruder and T
more sanguinary creed, it may have doubtless proved
an engine for exalting the character of millions who
embraced it, and, to some extent, may have prepared
a way for Christianity." But that far more powerful
agencies are still required among them is apparent,
from the utter inability of Buddhism,” even where it
most predominates, to satisfy the reclamation of
man's conscience, and to banish the hereditary demon-
worship and the vulgar deprecation of the serpent.”
(4) There is one more special point of view in One-sided-
which the truths of Christianity may be most forcibly ...
contrasted with the best and brightest products of specul-
eastern speculation. All these varied products, estim- attoºs.
ated at their highest value, were but faint approxim-
ations to the sum of living and life-giving verities
transmitted to us from the Founder of the Christian
Church. When brought into comparison with the
1 Upham has the following note
on a passage in the Sacred Books
of Ceylon, II. 54, which inculcates
the greatest tenderness in treating
animals: ‘Although the present
state of Buddhism properly ex-
cites our strongest interest and
exertions to turn its followers
from the blindness and selfishness
of its modern tenets to the bright-
mess of the Christian revelation:
yet, in this passage, as well as in
the simple offerings of fragrant
perfumes and flowers, contrasted
with the cannibalism and serpent-
and demon-rites it supplanted, the
Buddhist doctrine must be es-
teemed to have been a great bless-
ing and amelioration.’ Wuttke,
in like manner, rejoices to record
the humanising influence of Bud-
dhism when introduced, in con-
nexion with other creeds, among
the brutal hordes of Chingiskhan
(I. 248). Tennent makes the
same admission in reference to
all the countries of eastern and
central Asia. He says (Christian-
7ty in Ceylon, pp. 203, 204) that
it was “an active agent in the
promotion of whatever civilisa-
tion afterwards enlightened those
races by whom its doctrines were
embraced.’ -
* “Der Hülle ist geblieben, der
Geist gewichen: der Buddhismus
ist jetzt eine Mumie.” Wuttke,
II. 590.
° e. g. Tennent, as above, p. 232.
358
Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. IV. Gospel, they are poor and meagre, partial and one-
sided. He who watches some of the more mighty
fluctuations of the Hindú spirit, in its effort to escape
from speculative difficulties and solve the awful riddles
by which it is oppressed, will see it here and there
approaching, if not touching, a great line of thought,
which, when pursued, might possibly have issued in
the scriptural solution; yet ere long the cheering
hopes which progress of this kind might foster are
all doomed to disappointment. The speculator seems
to be diverted from his proper object by the inter-
vention of some fresh chimera or some puerile conceit;
he loses his mental balance, and the fruit of all his
metaphysics is a maimed or transcendental theory
of the universe repugnant to his moral instincts.
Thus, how much soever we may be disposed to chafe
at these phenomena of heathenism, the fact remains
indisputable, that if we add together and combine all
single truths elicited by the profoundest thinkers in
the various schools of Brähmanic philosophy, such
contributions are all very far from making up the
circle of Christian theism; they cover only some few
corners of the field of revelation."
For example, He whom Christians worship is a
Being higher far, and far more truly God-like, than
the worthiest of Hindú conceptions. These, indeed,
are not unwilling to recognise the main distinction
PIºwdſ,
ideas of
God and
the 2007-
werse ;
1 Cf. Dean Trench’s Hulsean
Lectures (1846), p. 58: “And thus
each of the great divisions of the
Gentile world had but a fragment,
even in thought, of the truth:
the Greek world, the exaltation of
manhood; the Oriental, the glori-
ous humiliation of Godhead': and
thus, each of these, even as a
speculation, was maimed and im-
perfect. These systems, so far
from providing what men needed,
had not satisfactorily and on every
side even contemplated what he
needed; much less had they given
it.”
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 359
drawn in Holy Scripture between the subject and CHAP. IV.
the object, the finite and the infinite. They all
regard the perfect extrication of material from im-
material as the end and aim of true philosophy.
While rejecting or ignoring the idea of created spirits,”
as distinct from emanations, they are all in favour of
the doctrine of a great and universal Soul, the sub-
stance, the reality. Some, moreover, have contended
that this Great Soul is one, or simple; others, that
it is resolvable into parts, and therefore multiform
and manifold; yet all of them agree in treating it
as the original and self-dependent Something, over
and beyond which is no other entity; they are alike
desirous to exalt it far above the possibility of future
contact with the transient and phenomenal. To this
supreme and all-embracing Spirit the Wédántins
assign not only an etermal subsistence, but also many
of the specific properties which enter into our idea
of personality, as intelligence, volition, and the like. .
Yet here the many points of similarity between how op-
their system and the Christian are exhausted, and ...
we enter on a startling contrast. The Védántins, itv.
on the one hand, labour to identify the glorious
Spirit of the universe with His own production, and,
in order to effect this, question the reality of the
external world, and treat it as illusive; on the other
hand, they totally repudiate the idea of individual
existence, or of personality attaching to all rational
creatures, and securing to each man the power of
self-determination. A second school, or the Nyāya,
: See Aphorisms of the Yoga, North British Review, No. 49,
ed. Ballantyne, Part I. p. 63. D. 224.
* See a recent article in the g
360 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP, IV, recognises the personal character of God more fully;
it ascribes to Him such attributes as will, activity,
and intelligence; but no account whatever is taken
by it of His moral government, His fatherhood, His
providence, His justice, or His mercy. In this
School, again, where true subsistency is granted to
the world of matter, and where finite souls are re-
cognised, the origin of both is carried backward to
eternity, while all the mental and corporeal faculties
possessed by human beings in one stage of their
existence are in no case held to be essential parts
of them, and, as such, infinite in duration. The
Sánkhya system, as we saw already, occupied, in
some particulars, a middle place among the jarring
tenets of Hindú philosophers. It regarded matter
as a real aggregate of qualities; it recognised a
spiritual essence gifted with a species of volition ;
it pleaded even for the personal distinctness of all
human souls; yet, on the other hand, it went so
far as to attribute the government of the world
entirely to the operation of physical agents, and
made Spirit, whether human or Divine, a mere
spectator in some gorgeous and gigantic drama. In-
deed, the one school of Hindú philosophy among
whose tenets the idea of a Divine providence was
clearly and consistently developed, is the latest modi-
fication" of the Sánkhya system; and even this, I
should again remark, might be indebted for its higher
characteristics to some intercourse with Christianity.
A fresh- Another instance of the general inability of Hin-
**, ºf dāism to contemplate religious truth under more than
one-sided-
%20SS. one of its manifold aspects was furnished by the
* Above, p. 216.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 361
Bhagavad-Gitat; which, when its large and compre- CHAP. IV.
hensive spirit is remembered, might be deemed the
least of all amenable to this censure. I have before
alluded to the stern and naked Pantheism which it
preaches; but the want of balance in its author is
no less strikingly apparent in discussing moral ques-
tions. So long as he is aiming merely to destroy the
errors of an older creed, so long as he exposes the
narrowness, the spiritual pride, the dreamy indolence,
and inefficiency of the Yoga-system, his criticism is
often most acute, his logic overwhelming; but as
soon as ever he attempts to cure the evil he complains
of, it is manifest that the remedy is utterly inade-
quate: it is a tissue of self-contradictions, a huge
mass of unrealities. The genuine devotee, the Karma-
gyogin, is to suffer and to act in every case without emo-
tion and without regard to consequences. He must
pluck up all within him that may serve to foster the
illusions of the human and that interferes with the
development of the divine: affections, be they pure
or impure; instincts, whether high and noble or un-
worthy and corrupted; sympathies, inwoven though
they be with all the innermost fibres of his being;
and when at last he yields assent to the unnatural
conclusion that the real dignity of man consists in
utter abnegation of self-consciousness, he rises to the
fulness of his ultimate condition,-absorbed in breath-
less calm and frigid apathy, a stranger to the im-
pulses of nature, dead to all the duties and enjoy-
ments of religion.
But, further, it is prominently brought before us Degeneracy
in the annals of Hindúism, that the highest minds ...”
e JBráhman-
have always been most prone to drift away from the ism.
362
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP. IV, positions of their own acquiring, and have gradually
relaxed their hold on the more spiritual portions of
the ancient creed. For instance, all the loftier
thoughts of God were once connected with a special
veneration of the first member of the Hindú triad.
Sacerdotal Aryans stood in a peculiarly close relation
to Brahmá; they were esteemed the privileged off-
spring of his head; and, therefore, if the great idea
of unity was ever to be vindicated from the ravages
of Polytheism, the natural way to such a restoration
was by passing upward from the Bráhman to Brahmá,
and thence to Brahma, the pure Spirit of the uni-
verse; the lower emanation serving as an index to
the higher, and this again directly guiding to the
Source of all created being and the simple Origin
of all things. But so far, were Bráhmans, as an
order, from desiring such recovery, that they gradu-
ally abandoned their belief in one divine Adminis-
trator of the world;’ and, instead of seeking refuge
in the worship of Vishnu, whose milder incarnations
were attracting to his altars the more gentle souls
of the community, the members of the Sacerdotal
class selected for their patron-god that very inmate
of the pantheon who had long been dreaded as the
primary cause of desolation, and is worshipped as the
animal” divinity of modern Hindústán. The Brāh-
* Elphinstone's India, pp. 9o, * This peculiarity is sufficiently
Io 1. ‘The opinion of the vulgar,”
he remarks, ‘is more rational than
that of their teachers: they [the
vulgar] mix up the idea of the
Supreme Being with that of the
deity who is the particular object
of their adoration, and suppose
him to watch over the actions
of men, and to reward the good
and punish the wicked.” f
indicated by the fact that Siva,
since the 8th or 9th century of
our era (cf. above, p. 189, n. 1)
has been worshipped under the
symbol of the phallus (or linga),
intimating perhaps that his de-
structive powers have always
reference to some future repro-
duction. *}s
Hindúism and Revealed Religion. 363
man is, in other words, the special votary of Siva, Char. IV.
of him who is invested by popular imagination with T
most hideous and appalling attributes, of him who
is described in their Puráñas, ‘wandering about,
surrounded by ghosts and goblins, inebriated, naked,
and with dishevelled hair, covered with the ashes
of a funeral pile, ornamented with human skulls and
bones, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.' I
should also add, for the completion of this melancholy
picture, that the votaries of Siva, and still more of
Dévi, his consort, who is singly venerated by a large
proportion of the people in Bengal, are ready to
undergo excruciating tortures in honour of their
divinity. “Some stab their limbs and pierce their
tongues with knives, and walk in procession with
Swords, arrows, and even living serpents, thrust
through the wounds; while others are raised into
the air by a hook fixed in the flesh of their backs,
and are whirled round by a moveable lever, at a
height which would make their destruction inevitable,
if the skin were to give way.” - •
(5) But, turning from these dark and ghastly The remedy
spectacles, which seem to be among the ripest pro- º
ducts of the pagan mind of India, it is most con-ity.
solatory to reflect that there is still within our reach
the grand corrective and the sovereign antidote.
While heathen systems are unequal to the work
of rectifying the infatuations of the human spirit and
of cancelling human guilt, while, even at the best,
the authors of those systems can only here and there
1 Elphinstone, p. 89. It is also times been found in close alliance
very remarkable that Siva-wor- with Buddhism: Stuhr, I, 209,
ship, notwithstanding the appar- * Ibid. p. 9o,
ent incompatibility, has in later
364 Christ and other Masters.
CHAP. IV. find out some fragmentary truth, but are all powerless
T in determining its precise relation to other verities or
binding them together in one definite body of belief,
the Gospel has at length successfully encountered the
great problem; it has furnished what must ever be
regarded, even from a “rational” point of view, the
only fitting and profound solution.
It does not, indeed, profess to clear away all
shades of intellectual difficulty: the imparting of a
merely speculative satisfaction was never made a
primary object in the plan of its great Author. It
is even ready to acknowledge, by the lips of an
Apostle, that, if measured not by present, but ulte-
rior standards of illumination, we see only ‘through
a glass,' while that which we behold is still en-
compassed with ‘enigmas' (1 Cor. xiii. 12). Yet,
compared with all the previous legacies of God, the
Gospel is a boon immeasurably vast, incalculably pre-
cious. On the one side, it has clearly taken into its
account of man, not some, but all the factors of his
complex being, and, in harmony with this conception,
it asserts, as no anterior system had been able to assert,
the primal dignity of human nature, and, still more,
the permanence of human personality. On the other
side, the Gospel harmonizes and collects together in
one focus all the scattered and enfeebled rays of truth
concerning God and His relation to the creature. It
produces them in their original unity and fulness, not
as fragments isolated from the other truths which
are essential to their rightful action and their just
* That this view of Christianity the philosophic missionary of the
is neither novel nor unworthy, 13th century; on whom see Ne-
may be seen in the Ars Generalis ander, Ch. Hist. VII. 83 sq.
of the excellent Raymund Lull,
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
365
interpretation, but as one coherent, living, and organic CHAP. IV.
whole. In this, indeed, we recognise a leading aim
and characteristic of the Gospel. It is far from
seeking to establish the reality of spirit by denying
the reality of matter. It is far from elevating human
Souls in such a way as to annihilate the human
body. In the world of thought it does not so insist
on the objective as to question or deny the sub-
jective. It does not so discover God in nature as
to miss Him in the province of the supernatural or
exclude Him from His temple in the mind and heart
of man. It does not so maintain the power and
privileges of the corporate as to cripple or suppress
the action of the individual. It never so proclaims
the monarchy of God as to deprive the human agent
of his self-determination, and thus make him irre-
sponsible. It never so expatiates on the details of
the future kingdom as to dazzle our imperfect under-
standing or blind us to the duties of our present lot.
There is, in other words, a marvellous and majestic
balance in the doctrines which the Gospel has been
authorised to bring before us; and the point round
which that balance is effected, or as seen from which
all other elements in the Christian system have
derived their mutual fitness, is the glorious truth,”
announcing how the Word, who is with God and
is God, has verily assumed our human nature, and
how God in Him is ‘reconciling the world unto Him-
1 ‘We say that the divine ideas
which had wandered up and down
the world, till oftentimes they had
well-nigh forgotten themselves
and their origin, did at length
clothe themselves in flesh and
blood: they became incarnate
with the Incarnation of the Son
of God. In His life and person,
the idea and the fact at length
kissed each other, and were hence-
forward Wedded for evermore.’
Dean Trench, Hulsean Lectures,
(1846), p. 20.
366
Christ and other Masſers.
CHAP, IV, self, not imputing unto them their trespasses.’ The
Incarnation, while it forms the turning-point of uni-
versal history, is more especially the life and marrow
of all Christian dogmas. Wheresoever it has been
distinctly apprehended by the reason and digested in
the soul of man, there is an end of creature-worship.
Those ineradicable instincts of our nature which had
driven so many of the pensive spirits of the ancient
world to fashion for themselves elaborate theories of
transmigration, and, through consciousness of their
demerit, to persist in torturing out the remnants of
their evil passions, find in Christ their proper object
and their permanent satisfaction. He whose life
is ‘hid with Christ in God’ is able to approach the
throne of grace with holy confidence; he looks for-
ward to the world invisible with awe indeed, but
with no abject shrinking, and no slavish terror; his
unswerving hope is to be there ‘accepted in the
Beloved, who has gone as our Forerunner to the
inmost glories of the sanctuary; ‘who ever liveth
to make intercession for us.’ ‘Taking to Himself
our flesh, and by His incarnation making it His own
flesh, He hath now of His own, although from us,
what to offer unto God for us.”
“In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily; and ye are filled up in Him.” Thus argued
the great Doctor of the Gentiles, who, in writing to
the Phrygian Church (Col. ii.), was under the neces-
sity of checking one of the most early manifestations
of that ethnic spirit which 'ere long expanded into
Gnosticism, and threatened to degrade the Gospel of
his heavenly Master into one of the effete philosophies.
St. Pazºſ’s
mode of
treating
heathenish
interpola-
tions.
* Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. li. 3.
Hindúism and Revealed Religion.
367
The object of the misbeliever at Colossae was not, CHAP. IV.
perhaps, so definite as this; he may have merely
sought to blend with Christianity a number of Ju-
daical observances, whose meaning had been swallowed
up in evangelic institutions. Yet his aim was also
to resuscitate the past and reinaugurate the reign of
shadows. He was anxious, in a spirit of assumed
humility, and as the fruit of visions claimed especially
for himself, to introduce the worship of the angels
and of other finite emanations, like the Indian dévas;
while, to finish the incongruous compound, he was
pleading for a class of disciplinary tenets which, in
the rigour of their asceticism, would lift him almost
to a level with the self-destroying yogin of the East.
But how, in such a case, did the Apostle combat
the pretensions of ‘philosophy and vain deceit’? He
reasoned with still greater urgency for the trans-
cendent Headship of the Word Incarnate, for that
“truth of truths’ which, lying at the very core of
Christianity, was the first to suffer from attacks of
the confirmed believer in a spurious Gnosis.’ So it
was at Ephesus, where, not many years after, a denial
of the Incarnation was more openly united with un-
christian dread of all material forms of being, and
commended to the undiscerning by extreme asceticism
of life (1 Tim. iii. 16—iv. 5). The fautors of that
early error were, accordingly, warned by the Apostle
of the consequences that were sure to flow from their
attempted intermixtures. They were taught how
every project for combining with a supernatural revel-
ation the theosophy of the Essene, or the self-torture
of the Hindú hermit, was derogatory to the honour
1 Thiersch, Ch. Hist. I. 139.
368,
Chrisł and other Masters.
CHAP. IV.
of our blessed Lord, was utterly at variance with
the genius of the perfect system. He had planted.
They were taught how Christians had been raised,
by fellowship with Christ, far higher than the
shadowy ordinances of the old oeconomy, and, still
more, could have no need of supplementary illumin-
ation from extraneous sources. They were taught
how Christians, cleaving to the Head, could never
be dependent on the intercession of created spirits,
nor on aught so secondary and so intermediate.
They were taught how the ascetical extravagances
to which they had been tempted were but “elements
of the world'; traditions emanating not from heaven,
but from the breast of unregenerate man, and, there-
fore, alien to the Law of Christ. They were ad-
monished, most of all, (and would that such an ad-
monition may be echoed on to every period of the
Church beset by like temptations!) that, as Christ,
and Christ alone, is the Fulfilment of all ancient
hopes, the Substance of all ancient shadows, so all
Christian progress, whether in the apprehension by
the Church of things revealed to us already, or in
wider publication of good tidings to the heart-sick
millions still ‘without,' must have its origin, its root,
and its sustaining principle in Him ‘from whom all
the body, having nourishment ministered and knit
together by the joints and bands, increaseth with the
increase of God.”
APPENDIX I,
The Nishādam or non-Aryan Tribes of Hindústán, and some
account of their Religion.
IT is now admitted on all hands that certain primary strata APPEND. I.
of population, by whatever name they may be called, had long T
extended over all parts of India, when they were attacked
and gradually dispersed by the incursions of the Aryan settlers.
Remnants of such original population are still found in all the
various mountain-tribes, and more especially among the natives
of the Dekhan, to the south of the great Windhya-chain. In
the age of Manu, or rather at the time when laws and institutes
which bear his name were promulgated, the Aryan had not
been able to push further southward than the 22nd degree of
north latitude, and beyond him lay a mass of human beings,
who are there described as ‘barbarians living in forests, and
speaking an unknown tongue.” (See Journal of the Asiatic
Society, XIII, 277,278.) Abundant traces of their presence have
been also brought to light by the publication of the Védas.
In these ancient documents, one ordinary name for all who
ventured to resist the onward march of the invaders, or the
men of ‘Aryan colour, is that of ‘Dasyus' (cf. above, p. 187,
n. 1). The same uncouth and “irreligious’ tribes are also
characterized as amagnitra : ‘ those who do not tend the fire,’
or ‘fail to worship Agni.' Another appellation of a similar
import, is kravyād, or ‘flesh-eaters,’ (kpeopáyot). In the follow-
ing period, as represented in the literature of the Brähmańas,
the aboriginal population are thrown into the ‘same category
with thieves and criminals, who attack men in forests, throw
them into wells, and rum away with their goods’ (Prof. Max
Müller in Bunsen’s Univ. Hist. I. 346). In the Puráñas ‘the
WOL. I. 24
370 Appendia. -
APPEND. I. inhabitants of the Windhya mountain,’ called Nishádas, are said
T to be ‘characterized by the exterior tokens of depravity” (Vishàº,
JPur. ed. Wilson, p. 100). ‘The Matsya says, there were born
outcast or barbarous races, Mléchchas, as black as collyrium.
The Bhāgavata describes an individual of dwarfish stature, with
short arms and legs, of a complexion as black as a crow, with
projecting chim, broad flat mose, red eyes, and tawny hair; whose
descendants were mountaineers and foresters. The Padma has
a similar description, adding to the dwarfish stature and black
complexion, a wide mouth, large ears, and a protuberant belly.
It also particularizes his posterity as Nishádas, Kirátas, Bhillas,
Dahanakas, Bhramaras, Pulindas, and other barbarians, or
Mléchchas, living in woods and on mountains.’ ‘These passages
intend, continues Prof. Wilson (Ibid. p. 101, m.), ‘and do not
much exaggerate, the uncouth appearance of the Goands, Koles,
Bhils, and other uncivilized tribes, scattered along the forests
and mountains of central India, from Behar to Kandesh, and
who are not improbably the predecessors of the present occu-
pants of the cultivated portions of the country. They are
always very black, ill-shapen and dwarfish, and have countenances
of a very African character.’ To these must also be applied the
language of Herodotus, where he speaks of black and savage
Indians (cf. Lassen, I. 389).
As the Aryans by the force of conquest gradually extended
their original frontiers, they would either subjugate the old
inhabitants entirely and reduce them to the state of Šádras,
serfs and menials, or else would push them all into the moun-
tain-fastnesses, or lastly drive them forward to the southern
part of the Peninsula.
1. In the first case, the position of the rude Nishádas would
become most wretched and humiliating. As early as the laws
of Manu (ch. x.) it was ordained that— *.
Their abode must be outside the towns.
Their property must be restricted to dogs and asses.
Their clothes should be those left by the dead.
Their ornaments, rusty iron.
They must roam from place to place.
No respectable person must hold intercourse with them.
Appendia.
371
They are to aid as public executioners, retaining the APPEND. I.
clothes, &c. of the criminals.
A class of serfs, who answer in the main to this description,
still exist in almost every province of Hindústán : and the
following contrasts, for which we are indebted to the pen of
General Briggs (Journal of the Asiatic Society, XIII. 282, 283),
may serve to indicate how widely the aborigines had always
differed from the Aryan conquerors.
1.
2.
Hindús are divided into castes.
The aborigines have no such distinctions.
Hindú widows are forbidden to marry.
The widows of the aborigines not only do so, but usually
with the younger brother of the late husband—a practice
they follow in common with the Scythian tribes.
The Hindús venerate the cow and abstain from eating
beef.
The aborigines feed alike on all flesh.
The Hindús abstain from the use of fermented liquors.
The aborigines drink to excess; and conceive no cere-
mony, civil or religious, complete without.
The Hindús partake of food prepared only by those of
their own caste.
The aborigines partake of food prepared by any one.
. The Hindús abhor the spilling of blood.
The aborigines conceive no religious or domestic cere-
mony complete without the spilling of blood and offering
up a live victim.
. The Hindús have a Brähmanical priesthood.
The indigenes do not venerate Brähmans. Their own
priests (who are self-created) are respected according to
their mode of life and their skill in magic and sorcery,
in divining future events and in curing diseases: these
are the qualifications which authorise their employment
in skaying sacrificial victims and in distributing them.
ſhe Hindús burn their dead.
The aborigines bury their dead, and with them their
arms, sometimes their cattle, as among the Scythians.
On such occasions a victim ought to be sacrificed to
atone for the sins of the deceased.
372
Appendia.
APPEND. I.
9. The Hindú civil institutions are all municipal.
The aboriginal institutions are all patriarchal.
10. The Hindús have their courts of justice composed of
equals.
The aborigines have theirs composed of heads of tribes
or families, and chosen for life.
11. The Hindús brought with them (more than three thou-
sand years ago) the art of writing and science.
The indigenes are not only illiterate, but it is forbidden
for the Hindús to teach them.
2. But although a great majority of aborigines in northern
India had been thus imperfectly blended with the Aryan
strangers who subdued them, others have retained a large
amount of Savage independence in the mountain-fastnesses to
which they had retreated (e.g. the Bhils, the Mirs, the Khulis,
the Goands; cf. Prichard, Researches, IV. 166 sq.). Every
year is adding to our knowledge of their general habits as well
as of their language and religion: and it is gratifying to notice
that the best informed of modern writers on the subject are
more and more agreed as to the Oneness of the stamp impressed
on all the aborigines of India, however multiform and scattered
at the present day. That general stamp is said to be ‘Mongo-
lian’ (Prof. Max Müller, as above, p. 348). The various tribes
appear to have issued, like their Aryan successors, from the
northern parts of Hindústán, and to have all spoken a language
belonging to the Tamil (or Turanian) as distinguished from the
Sanskrit (or Indo-European) stock. Recent occurrences have
brought the English government into collision with one of these
hill-tribes, the Sontāls, who are scattered over the country in
considerable numbers from Cattack to Bhagalpur (see Journal
of the Asiatic Society, as above, p. 285): but the most copious
and interesting account of the religious character and condition
of the whole group, is furnished in a memoir by Captain (now
Major) S. C. Macpherson (Ibid. pp. 216–274). The title of his
paper is An Account of the Religion of the Khonds in Orissa
(i. e. Uria-desa, “land of the Urias,” lying between the eastern
mountains of the Dekhan and the sea-coast). After citing
numerous legends in illustration of the doctrines there current,
Appendia. 373
Major Macpherson has exhibited the main features of the APPEND. I.
Khond religion in the following summary (p. 273): “The - ------
Supreme Being and sole source of good, who is styled the God
of light [Boora Pennu or Bella Pennul created for himself
a consort, who became the Earth-Goddess [Tari Pennu or Bera
Pennuj and the source of evil: and thereafter, he created the
earth, with all it contains, and man. The Earth-Goddess,
prompted by jealousy of the love borne to man by his Creator,
rebelled against the God of Light, and introduced moral and
physical evil into the world. The God of Light arrested the
action of physical evil, while he left man perfectly free to
receive or to reject moral evil, defined to be “disobedience
towards God, and strife amongst men.” A few of mankind
entirely rejected moral evil, the remainder received it. The
former portion were immediately deified; the latter were con-
demned to endure every form of physical suffering, with death,
deprivation of the immediate care of the Creator, and the
deepest moral degradation. Meanwhile, the God of Light and
his rebel consort contended for superiority, until the elements
of good and evil became thoroughly commingled in man and
throughout nature.
‘Up to this period the Khonds hold the same general belief,
but from it they divide into two sects, directly opposed upon
the question of the issue of the contest between the two an-
tagonist powers. -
• One sect holds that the God of Light completely conquered
the Earth-Goddess, and employs her, still the active principle of
evil, as the instrument of his moral rule. That he resolved to
provide a partial remedy for the consequences of the introduc-
tion of evil, by enabling man to attain to a state of moderate
enjoyment upon earth, and to partial restoration to communion
with the Creator after death. And that, to effect this purpose,
he created those classes of subordinate deities, and assigned to
them the office—first, of instructing man in the arts of life,
and regulating the powers of nature for his use, upon the con-
dition of his paying to them due worship; secondly, of ad-
ministering a system of retributive justice through subjection
to which, and through the practice of virtue during successive
lives upon earth, the soul of man might attaim to beatification.
374
Appendia.
APPEND. I. The other sect hold, upon the other hand, that the Earth-
Goddess remains unconquered; that the God of Light could
not, in opposition to her will, carry out his purpose with respect
to man's temporal lot; and that man, therefore, owes his eleva-
tion from the state of physical suffering into which he fell
through the reception of evil, to the direct exercise of her power
to confer blessings, or to her permitting him to receive the good
which flows from the God of Light, through the inferior gods,
to all who worship them. With respect to man's destiny after
death, they believe that the God of Light carried out his
purpose. And they believe that the worship of the Earth-
Goddess by human sacrifice, is the indispensable condition on
which these blessings have been granted, and their continuance
may be hoped for; the virtue of the rite availing not only for
those who practise it, but for all mankind.”
In addition to these human sacrifices, which still continue
to be offered annually, in order to appease the wrath of Tari
and propitiate her in favour of agriculture, there is a fearful
amount of infanticide among the Khond people. “It exists in
some of the tribes of the sect of Boora to such an extent, that
no female infant is spared, except when a woman's first child
is female; and that villages containing a hundred houses may
be seen without a female child' (Ibid. p. 270).
3. But, in addition to the wild and barbarous mountaineers
whose creed is sketched in the foregoing extract, there was
always a large body of Nishādan, or non-Aryan, tribes of India
who retained their former hold on nearly all the southern part
of the Peninsula, and ultimately, with the aid of Aryan in-
fluence, reached a high degree of civilization. ‘We find the
Dekhan occupied entirely by aboriginal races, with only a small
and late sprinkling of Brähmanic blood. Civilization there
is Brähmanic, and the native languages are full of Sanskrit
vocables; but the grammar has resisted, and language has thus
retained its independence’ (Prof. Max Müller, as above, p. 432).
Mr. Caldwell, in his able work entitled A Comparative
Grammar of the Drávidian [Tamil], or South-Indian
JFamily of Languages, Lond. 1856, has disputed some of
the current theories respecting this section of the non-Aryan
races of India. He doubts whether the Drávidians were in
\ , ſ
Appendiº.
375
origin identical with the Áryanised Sádras of Northern Hindú- APPEND. I.
stán (p. 70), and is inclined to argue, from ‘the difference which
appears to exist between the Drávidian languages and the Scy-
thian under-stratum of the northern vernaculars,' that ‘the
Drávidian idioms belong to an older period of the Scythian
speech—the period of the predominance of the Ugro-Finnish
languages in Central and Higher Asia, anterior to the westward
migration of the Turks and Mongolians.’ He is also convinced
that the ‘Drávidians never had any relations with the primitive
Aryans but those of a peaceable and friendly character; and
that, if they were expelled from Northern India, and forced
to take refuge in Gondwana and Dända-Kárhaya, the great
Drávidian forest, prior to the dawn of their civilization, the
tribes that subdued and thrust them southwards must have
been Pre-Aryans.'
Mr. Caldwell, however, does not wish to disguise the fact,
that even if the Drávidians had not sunk as low as the Puráñas
seem to intimate, when branding them with the name of rāk-
shasas, or monkeys, or vile sinners who ate raw meat and
human flesh, they were for a long time ‘ destitute of letters and
unacquainted with the higher arts of life’ (p. 77). In their
religious worship, also, these Drávidians differed widely from
the creed and usages of the Brähmans: and, what is especially
worthy of our motice, Mr. Caldwell has distinctly shewn the
similarity between the former and the practices observed for
ages among the Scythian tribes of Northern Asia.
‘The system which prevails in the forests and mountain-
fastnesses throughout the Drávidian territories, and also in the
extreme south of the Peninsula amongst the low caste tribes,
and which appears to have been still more widely prevalent at
an early period, is a system of demonolatry, or the worship of
evil spirits by means of bloody sacrifices and frantic dances.
This system was introduced within the historical period from
the Tamil country into Ceylon, where it is now mixed up with
Buddhism. On comparing this Drávidian system of demonolatry
and sorcery with ‘Shamanism'—the superstition which prevails
amongst the Ugrian races of Siberia and the hill-tribes on the
* In E.T.Turnerelli's work on Kazan, the Tchouvash and other aboriginal
II. 116 sq., We have some account of tribes of the neighbourhood. They
9
376
Appendia.
APPEND. I.
south-western frontier of China, which is still mixed up with
the Buddhism of the Mongols, and which was the old religion
of the whole Tatar race before Buddhism and Mohammedanism
were disseminated amongst them—we cannot avoid the conclu-
sion that those two superstitions, though practised by races so
widely separated, are not only similar but identical.
“I shall here point out the principal features of resemblance
between the Shamanism of High Asia and the demonolatry of
the Drávidians, as still practised in many districts in Southern
India. -
‘(1) The Shamanites are destitute of a regular priesthood.
Ordinarily the father of the family is the priest and magician;
but the office may be undertaken by any one who pleases, and
at any time laid aside. •
‘Precisely similar is the practice existing amongst the Shá-
nárs and other rude tribes of Southern India. Ordinarily it is
the head of the family, or the head-man of the hamlet or com-
munity, who performs the priestly office: but any worshipper,
male or female, who feels so disposed, may volunteer to officiate,
and becomes for the time being the representative and inter-
preter of the demon.
‘(2) The Shamanites acknowledge the existence of a su-
preme God; but they do not offer him any worship. The
same acknowledgment of God’s existence and the same neglect
of his worship characterize the religion of the Drávidian demon-
olaters.
‘(3) Neither amongst the Shamanites nor amongst the pri-
mitive un-brahmanized demonolaters of India is there any trace
of belief in the metempsychosis.
' ' (4) The objects of Shamanite worship are not gods or
heroes, but demons, which are supposed to be Cruel, revenge-
ful, and capricious, and are worshipped by bloody sacrifices and
wild dances. The officiating magician or priest excites himself
to frenzy, and then pretends, or supposes himself, to be possessed
by the demon to which worship is being offered; and after the
were said to be of Finnish origin. stantly appeased by sacrifice (p. 133).
They recognise two principles, of good Their chief priest (Jomaa) unites in his
and evil; the good Cenius requiring own person the offices of priest, sooth-
no worship, and rarely receiving amy, sayer, sorcerer, and physician.
the evil Genius (Keremet) being con-
Appendia. - 377
rites are over he communicates, to those who consult him, the APPEND. I.
information he has received. -*-*s-
‘The demonolatry practised in India by the more primitive
Drávidian tribes is not only similar to this, but the same.
Every word used in the foregoing description of the Shamanite
worship would apply equally well to the Drávidian demonolatry;
and in depicting the ceremonies of the one race we depict those
of the other also.”
APPEN. II.
APPENDIX II.
Coincidences between Lamaism and Mediaeval Christianity.
Mr. H. T. Prinsep, in his recent work on Tibet, Tartary, and
Mongolia, 2nd ed. Lond. 1852, has, with the aid of MM. Huc
and Gabet's Voyages dams la Tartarie, &c., revived a question
of some importance touching the origin of various parallelisms
between Buddhism, as organized in those districts, and certain
forms or usages of Mediaeval Christianity. Some, at least, of
these phenomena had excited the astonishment of Latin mission-
aries as far back as the middle of the thirteenth century, who
explained them on the supposition that Lamaism was not so
much one phase of Buddhism as a remnant of the influence
exercised in those remote districts by the missions of the ‘Nes-
torian' Church." In 1661 two Jesuits, Grueber and Dorville, in
their return from China, penetrated far into Tibet and brought
accounts of extraordinary resemblances between the faith of
Lassa and of Rome. Mr. Davis still more recently drew atten-
tion to them in his Remarks on the Religion and Social In-
stitutions of the Bouteas (Roy. Asiat. Spe. II. 491 sq.), selecting
for particular comment ‘The celibacy of the clergy and the
monastic life of the societies of both sexes; to which might be
added, their strings of beads, their manner of chanting prayers,
their incense, and their candles.” Other writers have again
1 The resemblances were afterwards
explained on the hypothesis of dia-
bolical counterfeits. ‘Father Bury, a
Portuguese missionary, when he beheld
the [Chinese] bonzes tonsured, using
rosaries, praying in an unknown tongue,
and kneeling before images, exclaims
in astonishment, There is not a piece
of dress, not a sacerdotal function, not
a ceremony of the Church of Rome,
which the devil has not invented a
copy of in this country.” Kesson, The
Cross and the Dragon, p. 185, Lond.
1854. Medhurst (China, p. 217, Lond.
1857) points out the coincidences be-
tween Romanism and Chinese Bud-
dhism in respect of ceremonial. He
also mentions the image of a virgin
(‘queen of heaven’), having a child in
her arms and holding a cross.
Appendia. 379
insisted on the strong resemblance between the hierarchy of the APPEN. II.
Lamas and that of western Christendom, particularly as we find T
it in the Middle Ages; the resemblance extending even to minor
points of discipline and articles of dress. But such topics appear
to have assumed no great importance in the eyes of Europe
until Volney, and others like him, resolved to find in them
a novel engine for subverting Christianity.
The question was then asked, By what hypothesis can we
explain the striking correspondence between two systems which
appear to be in other respects so totally independent P Is
it the result of actual intercourse, or is it merely an extensive
specimen of the way in which internal affinities of thought and
sentiment will often clothe themselves in forms analogous if not
identical? When the number, the variety, and the minuteness"
of the parallelisms in question are duly weighed, the latter
hypothesis will hardly commend itself to the acceptance of
historical critics; and accordingly I shall adopt the former.
But here again, it must be asked: Did Buddhism, in this
matter, borrow from Christianity or Christianity from Bud-
dhism P Let us first hear Mr. Prinsep's answer. Starting from
the fact, that Gautama Buddha flourished long anterior to
the propagation of the Gospel, and asserting further, on what
authority I know not, that the principles of Buddhism were
quite familiar in some parts of western Asia, not to say of
Europe, under the guise of Pythagoreanism or Mithraism; this
writer is prepared to argue that the early Christians were
indebted to Buddhist converts for no small part of their eccle-
siastical organisation. -
“To a mind,” he says, “already impressed with Boodhistic
belief and Boodhistic doctrines, the birth of a Saviour and
Redeemer for the western world, recognised as a new Boodh by
wise men of the east, that is, by Magi, Sramamas, or Lamas,
who had obtained the Arhat sanctification, was an event
expected, and therefore readily accepted, when declared and
1 The points of resemblance specified hand on the head of the faithful, the
by the French missionaries are, the rosary, celibacy of the clergy, spiritual
use of the cross, the mitre, the dal- retirement, the worship of saints, fasts,
matic, the hood, the office of two processions, litanies, and holy water.
choirs, the psalmody, the exorcisms, Prof. Wilson in Journal of As. Soo.
the censer of five chains, the benedic- XVI. 263.
tion of the lamas by placing the right
380
Appendia.
APPEN. II. announced. It was no abjuration of an old faith [ſ] that the
teacher of Christianity asked of the Boodhists, but a mere
qualification of an existing belief by the incorporation into
it of the Mosaic account of the creation, and of original sin
and the fall of man. The Boodhists of the west, accepting
Christianity on its first announcement, at once introduced the
rites and observances which for centuries had already existed
in India. From that country Christianity derived its monastic
institutions, its forms of ritual and of Church-service, its
councils or convocations to settle schisms on points of faith, its
worship of relics, and working of miracles through them, and
much of the discipline, and of the dress of the clergy, even to
the shaven heads of the monks and friars.” Now if Christianity
were thus fused with Buddhism ‘ on its first announcement,’ we
might surely have expected to find some definite notice, in the
early Christian writers, of so marvellous an amalgamation; but
instead of any single whisper on the subject, the tone in which
these writers reprehend all forms of heathemism, is rigorous and
uncompromising, and St. Paul (as we have seen) had warned the
Phrygian converts in particular against the least indulgence of
a spirit such as that here contemplated.
The present view is also strengthened by our survey of the
fundamental principles involved in Buddhism and in Christian-
ity. Those principles are quite incapable of intermixture: they
are mutually repulsive and annihilative. I am accordingly
disposed to think that during all the time that Christianity
was warring against Gnostic errors, or in other words until the
doctrines taught by the Apostles were completely vindicated
and established, it was totally impossible for a system such as
Buddhism to affect in any sensible degree the institutions of
the primitive Church. The jealousy with which she guarded
the deposit of the faith would surely have impelled her to resist
all compromise with heathemish observances, associated as they
must have been at first with heathem doctrines. That such
jealousy, however, was relaxing in the fourth century of our era
is too plainly manifest in the writings of the period; and I think
it therefore not improbable, that together with the rapid growth
of the ascetic and monastic spirit may have come a disposition
to accept some portions of the rites and ceremonies which pre-
Appendia. 381
existed in the heathen monasteries of the East." The same re-APPEN. II.
mark may possibly be extended to some other usages, as proces- Tº
sions of images, worship of relics, pilgrimages, indulgences, and
the like, which always have their root in ethnic rather than in
Christian modes of thought. But whatever may be ultimately
determined with regard to the precise development of these con-
ceptions in the bosom of the Christian Church, it is, I think,
extremely probable that some at least of the minute resem-
blances between the Buddhism of Tibet and Mediaeval Christ-
ianity are directly traceable to the effect of Christian missions.
Although the rise of Buddhism was very long anterior to the
earliest of those missions, and although many of its peculiarities
are far more ancient than the origin of Christianity itself, that
form which we entitle Lamaism” is found to be comparatively
modern,-not older than the 13th century of the present era.
Buddhism, it is true, had been propagated in Tibet six hundred
years before (Wuttke, II. 559); but it was only under Kublai-
Rham (A.D. 1260) that the adherents of that system were reduced
under the dominion of a regular hierarchy by the appointment
of the first Grand Lama, and the transfer of the spiritual govern-
ment of Buddhism to his hands (Ibid. I. 215 sq., II. 591 : Abel-
Rémusat, Mélanges Asiatiques, I. 136, 137, Paris, 1825). At
this juncture, when the ancient forms and usages might naturally
be made to undergo extensive alterations and be invested with
a pomp befitting the inauguration of the new hierarchy, we
know for certain that Tibet had been brought into immediate
communication with teachers of Christianity and also with the
ritual system of the Western Church. The Khans had at their
court not only Jews, Muhammadans, and Buddhists, but Latin
and Nestorian missionaries (see, for example, the graphic account
in the Travels of Marco Polo, ed. Wright, pp. 167, 168, Lond.
1854; and other evidences in Neander, Ch. Hist. VII. 70 sq.):
and in the fourteenth century of our era, the arrival of a strange
1 Lassen, in the third volume of his
Indische Altert. pp. 441, 442 (Leipzig,
1857), expresses himself in favour of
this view. He concludes : “Ein Ein-
fluss des Buddhismus ist fermer nicht
zu verkennen in der bei den christ-
lichen Priestern gebräuchlichen Ton-
sur, so wie in dem Gebrauche der
Glocken, welcher bei den Buddhisten
viel filter ist, als bei den Christen und
in dem Gebrauche von Rosenkränzen,
da es feststeht, dass die Inder bei ibren
Gebeten sich der aavamáló, gemannten
ICrânze bedienten.”
* Lama = a superior,’ from la (bla)
= ‘above.” The more accurate form
Would be blama. Schott, p. 32, n. 2.
382
Appendia.
APPEN. II. Lama, who came ‘from the far west’ is said to have actually
wrought such changes in the aspect of religious worship in
Tibet.” Wuttke (II. 559) conjecturing, after Huc and Gabet,
that this very Lama was himself a Christian, remarks with
reference to him : ‘Er ànderte an den Grundlehren des Bud-
dhismus nichts, verschärfte aber die Disciplin, finderte den Kultus
und führte neue Liturgien ein ; und die katholischen Missionäre
Hue und Gabet fanden die Ahnlichkeit mit dem katholischen
JKult höchst auffallend.’ The special processes by which these
innovations might have been in almost every case effected are
admirably sketched by Abel-Rémusat as above, pp. 138, 139:
‘A l’époque oil les patriarches bouddhistes s'établirent dans le.
Tibet, les parties de la Tartarie qui avoisinent cette contrée
étaient remplies de chrétiens. Les Nestoriens y avaient fondé
des métropoles et converti des mations entières. Plus tard les
conquêtes des enfams de Tchingkis y appelèrent des étrangers
de tous les pays; des Géorgiens, des Arméniens, des Russes,
des Français, des musulmans, envoyés par le khalife de Bagdad;
des moimes catholiques, chargés de missions importantes par
le souverain pontife et par St. Louis. Ces dermiers portaient
avec eux des Ormeniens d'église, des autels, des reliques, powr
veoir, dit Joinville, Se ils pourražent affraire ces gens à nostre
créance. Ils célébrèrent les cérémonies de la religion devant
les princes tartares. Ceux-ci leur donnèrent un asile dans leur
tentes, et permirent qu'on élevät des chapelles jusque dans
l'enceinte de leurs palais. Un archevêque italien, Établi dans
la ville impériale par ordre de Clément W., y avait bàti une
église, où trois cloches appelaient les fidèles aux offices, et il
avait couvert les murailles de peintures représentant des sujets
pieux. Chrétiens de Syrie, romains, schismatiques, musulmans,
idolátres, tous vivaient mêlés et comfondus à la cour des empe-
reurs mongols, toujours empressés d'accueillir de nouveaux
cultes, et même de les adopter, pourvu qu'on n'exigeåt de leur
part aucume conviction, et surtout qu'on ne leur imposât aucume
contrainte. On sait que les Tartares passaient volontiers d’une
secte à l'autre, embrassaient aisément la foi, et y remonçaient de
* This Lama was the preceptor of he had overcome the scruples of the
Tsong Kaba, who founded the monas- Grand Lama. See Wilson, Journ. of
tery of Khal-dan, near Lhassa, in 1409, the As. Soc. xvi. 263.
and introduced the new ritual, after
Appendix.
| 383
même pour retomber dans l'idolâtrie. C'est au milieu de ces APPEN. II.
variations que fut fondé au Tibet le nouveau siége des patri-
arches bouddhistes. Doit-on s'étonner qu'intéressés à multiplier
le nombre de leurs sectateurs, occupés à donner plus de magni-
ficence au culte, ils se soient approprié quelques usages litur-
giques, quelques-unes de ces pompes étrangères qui attiraient
la foule; qu'ils aient introduit même quelque chose de ces insti-
tutions de l'Occident que les ambassadeurs du khalife et du
souverain pontife leur vantaient également, et qui les circon-
stances les disposaient à imiter ? La coïncidence des lieux, celle
des époques autorisent cette conjecture, et mille particularités,
que je ne puis indiquer ici, la convertiraient en démonstration.'
These observations of Abel-Rémusat, it will be noticed, are
all intended to apply especially to points of ritual; and so far
we may agree with him in thinking that an imitative people
were at such an epoch not unlikely to adopt the usages of
western missionaries : but when other writers, following in his
footsteps, argue on this ground that all external resemblances
whatever between the pagan East and Christian West are
similarly due to Latin and Nestorian missions of the Middle
Ages, they enter, as it seems to me, upon a hopeless under-
taking.
END OE VOLUME I.
CAMBRIDGE : PlR.INTED BY JONATELAN PALMER.
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