Christ, on the other hand, made known to his disciples, that He was with His Father from everlasting, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’ Then in the fulness of time, He was sent into the world by His Father, and was born of a pure virgin, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the likeness and fashion of men.
Next let us note a vast contrast in the fact that Christ was sent from heaven to be born on earth in a poor and humble station, to be reared in a cottage, to be trained to toilsome labour as a working-man; whereas the Buddha came down to be born on earth in a rich and princely family; to be brought up amid luxurious surroundings, and finally to go forth as a mendicant-monk, depending upon others for his daily food and doing nothing for his own support.
Then, again, Christ as He grew up showed no signs of earthly majesty in his external form, whereas the Buddha is described as marked with certain mystic symbols of universal monarchy on his feet and on his hands, and taller and more stately in frame and figure than ordinary human beings (see pp. [476], [501]).
Then, when each entered on his ministry as a teacher, Christ was despised and rejected by kings and princes, and followed by poor and ignorant fishermen, by common people, publicans, and sinners; Buddha was honoured by kings and princes, and followed by rich men and learned disciples.
Then Christ had all the treasures of knowledge hidden in Himself, and made known to His disciples that He was Himself the Way, and the Truth,—Himself their Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption. Buddha declared that all enlightenment and wisdom were to be attained by his disciples, not through him, but through themselves and their own intuitions; and that, too, only after long and painful discipline in countless successive bodily existences.
Then in regard to the miracles which both the Bible and the Tripiṭaka describe as attestations of the truth of the teaching of each, contrast the simple and dignified statement that ‘the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached unto them[288],’ with the following description of the Buddha’s miracles in the Mahā-vagga (I. 20, 24)[289]: ‘At the command of the Blessed One the five hundred pieces of fire-wood could not be split and were split, the fires could not be lit up and were lit up, could not be extinguished and were extinguished. Besides he created five hundred vessels with fire. Thus the number of these miracles amounts to three thousand five hundred.’
Then, although each made use of missionary agency, the one sent forth his high-born learned monks as missionaries to the world at the commencement of his own career, giving them no divine commission; the other waited till the close of His own ministry, and then said to His low-born, unlearned disciples, ‘As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you’ (St. John xx. 21).
Then, when we come to compare the death of each, the contrast reaches its climax; for Christ was put to death violently by wicked men, and died in agony an atoning death, suffering for the sins of the world at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind in Jerusalem about one hundred and twenty disciples after a short ministry of three years. Whereas the Buddha died peacefully among his friends, suffering from an attack of indigestion at the age of eighty, leaving behind many thousands of disciples after forty-five years of teaching and preaching.
And what happened after the death of each? Christ, the Holy One, saw no corruption, but rose again in His present glorified body, and is alive for evermore—nay, has life in Himself ever flowing in life-giving streams towards His people. The Buddha is dead and gone for ever; his body, according to the testimony of his own disciples, was burnt more than 400 years before the Advent of Christ, and its ashes were distributed everywhere as relics.
Even according to the Buddha’s own declaration, he now lives only in the doctrine which he left behind him for the guidance of his followers.