Let us examine some of the alleged parallels. They may be divided into three classes:
1. Those which are merely fanciful. Nine-tenths of the whole number are of this class. They are such as would never occur to a Hindu on hearing the gospel truth. Only one who had examined the two records in the keen search for parallels, and whose wish had been the father of his thought, would have seen any resemblance. I shall not occupy much time with these.
2. Those resemblances which are only accidental. It may be an accident of similar circumstances or similar causes; it may be a chance resemblance in the words employed, while there is no resemblance in the thoughts expressed.
3. Those coincidences which spring from natural causes. For an example of these, the closing chapter of the Apocalypse speaks of Christ as "the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End." It is a natural expression to indicate his supreme power and glory as Creator and final Judge of all things. In a similar manner Krishna is made to say, "I am Beginning, Middle, End, Eternal Time, the Birth and the Death of all. I am the symbol A among the characters. I have created all things out of one portion of myself." There are two meanings in Krishna's words. He is in all things pantheistically, and he is the first and best of all things. In the tenth chapter he names with great particularity sixty-six classes of things in which he is always the first: the first of elephants, horses, trees, kings, heroes, etc. "Among letters I am the vowel A." "Among seasons I am spring." "Of the deceitful I am the dice."
The late Dr. Mullens calls attention to the fact that the Orphic Hymns declare "Zeus to be the first and Zeus the last. Zeus is the head and Zeus the centre." In these three similar forms of description one common principle of supremacy rules. The difference is that in the Christian revelation and in the Orphic Hymns there is dignity, while in Krishna's discourse there is frivolous and vulgar particularity. Let us notice a few examples of the alleged parallels more particularly.
In Chapter IX. Krishna says: "Whatever thou doest, whatever thou eatest, whatever thou offerest in sacrifice, etc., commit that to me." This is compared with 1 Corinthians x. 31: "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Also to Colossians x. 17: "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."
Even if there were no pantheistic differential at the foundation of these utterances, it would not be at all strange if exhortations to an all-embracing devotion should thus in each case be made to cover all the daily acts of life. But aside from this there is a wide difference in the fundamental ideas which these passages express. Paul's thought is that of loving devotion to an infinite Friend and Saviour; it is such an offering of loyalty and love as one conscious being can make to another and a higher. But Krishna identifies the giver with the receiver, and Arjuna is taught to regard the gift itself as an act of God. The phrase "commit that to me" is equivalent to "ascribe that to me." In the context we read: "Of those men, who thinking of me in identity (with themselves), worship me, for them always resting in me, I bear the burden of acquisition and preservation of possessions. Even those the devotees of other gods, who worship in faith, they worship me in ignorance." In other words, the worshipper is to make no difference between himself and the Infinite. He is to refer all his daily acts to the Infinite as the real actor, his own personal ego being ignored. This is not Paul's idea; it is the very reverse of it. It could give comfort only to the evil-doer who desired to shift his personal responsibility.
Let us consider another alleged resemblance. In the fifth chapter Krishna declares that whoever knows him "attains rest." This is presented as a parallel to the words in Christ's prayer: "This is life eternal that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
In both passages the knowledge of God is made the chief blessing to be sought, but in the one case knowledge means only a recognition of the Infinite Ego as existing in one's personal ego: it is a mere acceptance of that philosophic theory of life. Thus one of the Upanishads declares that "whoever sees all things in God, and God in all things, sees the truth aright;" his philosophy is correct. On the other hand, what Christ meant was not the recognition of a pantheistic theory, but a real heart-knowledge of the Father's character, a loving experience of his divine mercy, his fatherly love, his ineffable glory. The one was cold philosophy, the other was experience, fellowship, gratitude, filial love.
What pantheism taught was that God cannot be known practically—that He is without limitations or conditions that we can distinguish Him from our finiteness only by divesting our conception of Him of all that we are wont to predicate of ourselves. He is subject to no such limitations as good or evil. In Chapter IX., Krishna says: "As air existing in space goes everywhere and is unlimited, so are all things in me…. I am the Vedic rite, I am the sacrifice, I am food, I am sacred formula, I am immortality, I am also death; also the latent cause and the manifest effect." To know the God of the Bhagavad Gita is to know that he cannot be known. "God is infinite in attributes," says Mr. Chatterji, "and yet devoid of attributes. This is the God whom the Bhagavad Gita proclaims."