* In Matthew viii. 30-32, we are told that there were two
men who were possessed with the devils which subsequently
entered the herd of swine;—in Mark v. 11-13, the spirits
are represented as being concentrated in one person, and in
Luke viii. 32-33, the tale appears in the same guise as in
Mark—only the man is made to call himself "Legion," on
account of the multitude of devils living inside him. In
cases of this kind one need not be rigidly particular, for
it signifies little whether the spirits were one thousand in
one man or two thousand in two—the wonder is that spirits
could talk—fly away from man to pig, or commit suicide in
the bodies of the swine when they might have done the same
thing in one or two men. It is clear from the miracle that
certain devils change their habits when they take up their
habitation in porcine instead of human beings.
At this period of our parallel we may profitably examine the New Testament, and ascertain whether we cannot extract from it a tolerably fair account of the life and teaching of Jesus, without including therein a single act of thaumaturgy. We fearlessly assert, not only that we can, but that the miracles are not an essential part of his doctrine. For example, we learn that Jesus was the son of a woman betrothed to a carpenter, who became pregnant ere yet the ceremony of marriage was gone through. Her affianced husband did not make her frailty an excuse for annulling the contract, possibly for a good, and to him a sufficient reason. He married the already fruitful Mary, and her child passed amongst the neighbours as being the son of Joseph. This we learn from Matt. xiii. 55, where we find the people saying, "Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas, and his sisters, are they not all with us?" a statement repeated in similar terms, Mark vi. 3. This short account is important, since it completely destroys the papal doctrine that Mary was "ever virgin," for she bore at least four other sons than her first born, and two daughters. At no period was Jesus regarded either by the family or by the neighbours as illegitimate, nor is there any reason to believe that Joseph looked upon him otherwise than as his own son. Indeed, in Luke ii. 42-48, the carpenter distinctly appears to act as if he recognized Jesus as his own offspring—in verse 48, Mary says, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing," asserting as plainly as words could speak, that Joseph had begotten Jesus. It is true that the youth replied, "Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?" but the story adds the important information, that the couple did not understand the saying.
It is clear to us, that if the legend of the impregnation of Mary by the Holy Ghost, after that event had been previously announced to her, and if, as we are told in Matt. i. 20, Joseph had been informed by "the angel of the Lord" that the foetus in Mary's womb was begotten by the Holy Ghost, it would not have been possible for Joseph and his wife to have misunderstood the words of Jesus. The very wonder which they expressed demonstrates the belief of the parents that there was nothing unusual in the conception. The father Joseph knew that he had borne his share in the event, and Mary knew that she had not conversed with any other man; consequently, for her son to indicate another father than Joseph, naturally mystified her. We therefore cannot allow the assertion to pass, that the conception and birth of Jesus was in itself a miracle. But as we shall revert to the subject in a separate chapter, we will say no more about it here.
After living and working with his parents for some years, Jesus was attracted by the preaching of his cousin John, whose doctrines were essentially Buddhistic and Essenian. Like the Hindoos, he used water as an emblem of purification, and urged his hearers to repentance and good conduct. What motives urged John to become "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," we have no means of judging, but the gospel narratives tell us that he, like Jesus, believed in the almost immediate destruction of the world. His text was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus adopted the view, and promulgated it more extensively. His text was the same as that of his cousin, but more expanded. "The kingdom of heaven means glory to the righteous, and everlasting life; misery and everlasting destruction to the wicked. The time is near, hasten to escape from the coming vengeance." The earnestness of Jesus, his acquaintance with the prophets, his self-denial and his constant kindness, endeared him to the common people. The same virtues had a like effect in the case of Buddha. Amongst villagers and poverty-stricken fishermen he soon won his way, and every one had some story to tell of him, which increased in wonder as it passed from mouth to ears, and from these to the tongue of the listeners. Those who know how an ordinary circumstance may gradually become described as miraculous, even in England, can well imagine how the miracles of Jesus and Siddartha were produced.
In time Jesus endeavoured to induce the magnates of Jerusalem to adopt his doctrine, and to trust in repentance for salvation rather than in sacrifice, but the enthusiast could not overcome the ritualists, and they at once began to weigh their power against the influence of Jesus upon the multitude. After a time the priests were convinced that supremacy rested with them, and the man who preached a religion of the heart, was sacrificed by the adherents of ceremonial. Such a fight is common, as we see around us. The Evangelicals and the Ritualists of to-day, resemble the followers of Jesus and of Moses. When the latter appeared in the guise of powerful Romanist rulers, they put down the former, but now when the former are the strongest, they endeavour to depress the latter.
After the death, or the withdrawal of Jesus from public life—for we have no belief in the legends of his resurrection—considering that his apparent decease was a prolonged fainting fit, for had he been dead blood would not have followed a spear wound as it did—the disciples of Jesus spread his fame largely. Whilst Jesus was with them they clung to him; when he was no more, each man became a preacher, and then Christianity spread until it met with Buddhism in Egypt, and thus became developed in a peculiar direction. Then came the gospels, which made Jesus a second Sakya. Although we can readily conceive that Jesus, like his paltry successor, Joe Smith, the Mormon, captivated the minds of hundreds without performing any supernatural deed, and that his "elders" vastly increased the number of those who believed in him, yet it is clear, that ancient and modern theologians were and are anxious to establish the reality of the thaumaturgy attributed to Jesus, that they may appeal to it to demonstrate that he was the son of God, an incarnation of a portion of the creative mind—"the word," or logos, having the same relationship to Jehovah, the "I Am," the Self-Existent One, as Buddha, "the understanding" had to "Brahma," The Supreme One.
Accepting this issue for the sake of argument, we affirm once again that, as the miracles of Sakya and of the son of Mary are equally unreliable, or equally true, Buddha was as much a true son of God as Christ was, or that Jesus was no more an incarnation of Jehovah, than Siddartha was of Brahma. Jehovah and Brahma being merely different names for the same great Being. That miracles are not necessary to the spread of a new faith, the history of modern Presbyterianism and Mormonism distinctly proves. For further remarks, we refer the reader to the article Miracle in the preceding volume. We will postpone to a subsequent page what we have to say respecting the asceticism of the Buddhists, and that which was prevalent in the early Christian church. For the present, we resume our account of Sakya Muni's teaching as described by St. Hilaire.
Founded upon his doctrine of absolute humility, he established the custom of confession amongst his apostles or disciples, and amongst those who venerated his teaching, though they did not' become his immediate followers. This confession was not that simply auricular one enforced by Ritualists, but it was made twice a month, at the new and the full moon, before the great Sramana and the congregation, in a clear voice. Powerful kings are reported to have followed this practice.
It will not require more than a minute's reflection to see that the Buddhistic system of confession was far superior—as regards the end in view—than that which has been adopted by Romanists and Ritualists. Sakya and James (ch. v. 16) advised the practice in question, that the sinner might be humiliated in his own eyes, and deterred from the necessity of having again to acknowledge a fall from virtue before a congregation of the faithful. Popes and Protestant Ritualists, on the contrary, use confession for the purpose of inquiring into the character of every penitent, and the practice is adopted by the sinner, not with the view of repentance, but to wipe out periodically a sin which is habitually renewed.
If confessions were made before a congregation, instead of to a priest in a closet, or some other secret spot, there would not then be current so many scandalous stories as there are—too true, alas, in many instances—respecting women who have been debauched under the guise of religion, and priests who have prostituted the ordinances of their church, until they have made them pander to vice, and act as seeds to produce immorality.