Confucius.
This great Chinese sage and religious founder was born 551 B. C. His followers believed him to be divine. His birth was attended by prodigies. Magi and angels visited him, while celestial music filled the air. His disciples invented a genealogy for him, giving him a princely descent from Hoang-ti, a Chinese monarch, just as the Christian Evangelists at a later period invented genealogies for Christ, giving him a princely pedigree from David. Concerning his deification the “International Encyclopedia” says: “By the irony of fate he was deified after his death, and, like Buddha, Confucius, who had little belief in the supernatural, became a divinity.”
As Boulger states, “His name and his teachings were perpetuated by a band of devoted disciples, and the book which contained the moral and philosophical axioms of Confucius passed into the classical literature of the country and stood in the place of a Bible for the Chinese” (History of China, p. 16).
Of all the great religious systems which have appeared since the dawn of history Buddhism and Confucianism, as originally presented, from a rational standpoint, stand pre-eminent. In both the supernatural is almost entirely absent. Both are godless religions, and both have been, for the most part, bloodless religions. The adherents of both have practiced in the highest degree what the adherents of their great rival have only professed: “On earth peace, good will toward men.” Both systems, like primitive Christianity, have been corrupted; but the system of Confucius has suffered less than that of Buddha. The religious, or rather ethical, system taught by Confucius, is the religion of the intellectual aristocracy of China, and, to a great extent, the religion of the most enlightened everywhere.
Christian scholars have been surprised to find in the writings of Confucius some of the best teachings attributed to Christ. The Golden Rule has been ascribed to the Christian founder. And yet this rule is the very essence of Confucianism and was borrowed from it. In a presentation of the teachings of the Chinese sage, Rev. James Legge of Oxford University, the highest European authority on China and Confucius, says: “Foremost among these we must rank his distinct enunciation of the Golden Rule, deduced by him from his study of man’s mental condition. Several times he gave that rule in express words: ‘What you do not like when done to yourself do not to others.’”
To retain for Christ a portion of the credit due Confucius, Christians assert that the Chinese moralist merely taught the negative form of this rule, the abstaining from doing to others what we dislike to have them do to us, while Christ taught the positive form, the doing to others what we desire them to do to us. Regarding this Mr. Legge says: “It has been said that he only gave the rule in a negative form; but he understood it also in its positive and most comprehensive form, and deplored on one occasion at least, that he had not himself always attained to taking the initiative in doing to others as he would have them do to him.”
Another analogy may be noticed. The religion of Confucius enjoins absolute obedience to national rulers. This, too, is a prominent tenet of the Christian religion. As the result of this, Confucianism became and has remained the state religion of China, while Christianity became and has remained the state religion of Europe.