fourth Gospel. This can be explained by the assumption of a cominon source of revelation; but then the serious question must be considered, why the doctrine of the Angel-Messiah, supposing it to have been revealed, and which we find in the East and in the West, is not contained in any of the Scriptures of the Old Testament which can possibly have been written before the Babylonian Captivity, nor in the first three Gospels. Can the systematic keeping-back of essential truth be attributed to God or to man?”ı Beside the work referred to above as being translated by Prof. Beal, there is another copy originally composed in verse. This was translated by the learned Fonceau, who gives it an antiquity of two thousand years," although the original treatise must be attributed to an earlier date." In regard to the teachings of Buddha, which correspond so strikingly with those of Jesus, Prof. Rhys Davids, says: "With regard to Gautama's teaching we have more reliable authority than we have with regard to his life. It is true that none of the books of the Three Pitakas can at present be satisfactorily traced back before the Council of Asoka, held at Patna, about 250 B. c., that is to say, at least one hundred and thirty years after the death of the teacher; but they undoubtedly contain a great deal of much older matter." Prof. Max Müller says: "Between the language of Buddha and his disciples, and the language of Christ and his apostles, there are strange coincidences. Even some of the Buddhist legends and parables sound as if taken from the New Testament ; though we know that many of them existed before the beginning of the Christian Era." Just as many of the myths related of the Hindoo Saviour Crishna were previously current regarding some of the Vedic gods, so likewise, many of the myths previously current regarding the god Sumana, worshiped both on Adam's peak, and at the cave of Dambulla, were added to the Buddha myth. Much of the legend which was transferred to the Buddha, had previously existed, and had clustered around the idea of a Chakrawarti. Thus we see that the legend of Christ Buddha, as with the legend of Christ Jesus, existed before his time." We have established the fact then-and no man can produce better authorities-that Buddha and Buddhism, which correspond in such a remarkable manner with Jesus and Christianity, were long anterior to the Christian era. Now, as Ernest de Bunsen says, this remarkable similarity in the histories of the founders and their religion, could not possibly happen by chance. Whenever two religious or legendary histories of mythological personages resemble each other so completely as do the histories and teachings of Buddha and Jesus, the older must be the parent, and the younger the child. We must therefore conclude that, since the history of Buddha and Buddhism is very much older than that of Jesus and Christianity, the Christians are incontestably either sectarians or plagiarists of the religion of the Buddhists. CHAPTER XXX. THE EUCHARIST OR LORD'S SUPPER. We are informed by the Matthew narrator that when Jesus was eating his last supper with the disciples, "He took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." According to Christian belief, Jesus instituted this "Sacra ment" as it is called-and it was observed by the primitive Christians, as he had enjoined them; but we shall find that this breaking of bread, and drinking of wine,-supposed to be the body and blood of a god—is simply another piece of Paganism imbibed by the Christians. The Eucharist was instituted many hundreds of years before the time assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus. Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome, and one of the most illustrious of her statesmen, born in the year 106 B. C., mentions it in his works, and wonders at the strangeness of the rite. "How can a man be so stupid," says he, "as to imagine that which he eats to be a God?" There had been an esoteric meaning attached to it from the first establishment of the mysteries among the Pagans, and the Eucharistia is one of the oldest rites of antiquity. The adherents of the Grand Lama in Thibet and Tartary offer to their god a sacrament of bread and wine.* 1 Matt. xxvi. 26. See also, Mark, xiv. 22. At the heading of the chapters named in the above note may be seen the words: "Jesus keepeth the Passover (and) instituteth the Lord's Supper." According to the Roman Christians, the Eucharist is the natural body and blood of Christ Jesus verè et realiter, but the Protestant sophistically explains away these two plain words verily and indeed, and by the grossest abuse of language, makes them to mean spirit. ually by grace and efficacy. "In the sacrament of the altar," says the Protestant divine, "is the natural body and blood of Christ verè et realiter, verily and indeed, if you take these terms for spiritually by grace and efficacy; but if you mean really and indeed, so that thereby you would include a lively and movable body under the form of bread and wine, then in that sense it is not Christ's body in the sacrament really and indeed." See Inman's Ancient Faiths, vol. ii. p. 203, and Anacalypsis, i. 232. P. Andrada La Crozius, a French missionary, and one of the first Christians who went to Nepaul and Thibet, says in his "History of India :" 'Their Grand Lama celebrates a species of sacrifice with bread and wine, in which, after taking a small quantity himself, he distributes the rest among the Lamas present at this ceremony." In certain rites both in the Indian and the Parsee religions, the devotees drink the juice of the Soma, or Haoma plant. They consider it a god as well as a plant, just as the wine of the Christian sacrament is considered both the juice of the grape, and the blood of the Redeemer.' Says Mr. Baring-Gould: Among the ancient Hindoos, Soma was a chief deity; he is called 'the Giver of Life and of health,' the 'Protector,' he who is 'the Guide to Immortality.' He became incarnate among men, was taken by them and slain, and brayed in a mortar. But he rose in flame to heaven, to be the Benefactor of the World,' and the Mediator between God and Man.' Through communion with him in his sacrifice, man, (who partook of this god), has an assurance of immortality, for by that sacrament he obtains union with his divinity." The ancient Egyptians as we have seen-annually celebrated the Resurrection of their God and Saviour Osiris, at which time they commemorated his death by the Eucharist, eating the sacred cake, or wafer, after it had been consecrated by the priest, and become veritable flesh of his flesh. The bread, after sacerdotal rites, became mystically the body of Osiris, and, in such a manner, they ate their god. Bread and wine were brought to the temples by the worshipers, as offerings." The Therapeutes or Essenes, whom we believe to be of Buddhist origin, and who lived in large numbers in Egypt, also had the ceremony of the sacrament among them.' Most of them, however, being temperate, substituted water for wine, while others drank a mixture of water and wine. Pythagoras, the celebrated Grecian philosopher, who was born about the year 570 B. C., performed this ceremony of the sacrament." He is supposed to have visited Egypt, and there availed himself of all such mysterious lore as the priests could be induced to impart. He and his followers practiced asceticism, and peculiarities of diet and clothing, similar to the Essenes, which has led some scholars to 1 "Leur grand Lama célèbre une espèce de sacrifice avec du pain et du vin dont il prend une petite quantité, et distribue le reste aux Lamas presens à cette cérémonie." (Quoted in Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 118.) 2 Viscount Amberly's Analysis, p. 46. 3 Baring-Gould: Orig. Relig. Belief, vol. i. p. 401. • See Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 163. See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 179. See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 60. believe that he instituted the order, but this is evidently not the case. The Kenite "King of Righteousness," Melchizedek, "a priest of the Most High God," brought out BREAD and WINE as a sign or symbol of worship; as the mystic elements of Divine presence. In the visible symbol of bread and wine they worshiped the invisible presence of the Creator of heaven and earth.' To account for this, Christian divines have been much puzzled. The Rev. Dr. Milner says, in speaking of this passage: "It was in offering up a sacrifice of bread and wine, instead of slaughtered animals, that Melchizedek's sacrifice differed from the generality of those in the old law, and that he prefigured the sacrifice which Christ was to institute in the new law from the same elements. No other sense than this can be elicited from the Scripture as to this matter; and accordingly the holy fathers unanimously adhere to this meaning." This style of reasoning is in accord with the TYPE theory concerning the Virgin-born, Crucified and Resurrected Saviours, but it is not altogether satisfactory. If it had been said that the religion of Melchizedek, and the religion of the Persians, were the same, there would be no difficulty in explaining the passage. Not only were bread and wine brought forth by Melchizedek when he blessed Abraham, but it was offered to God and eaten before him by Jethro and the elders of Israel, and some, at least, of the mourning Israelites broke bread and drank "the cup of consolation," in remembrance of the departed, "to comfort them for the dead." It is in the ancient religion of Persia-the religion of Mithra, the Mediator, the Redeemer and Saviour-that we find the nearest resemblance to the sacrament of the Christians, and from which it was evidently borrowed. Those who were initiated into the mysteries of Mithra, or became members, took the sacrament of bread and wine.* M. Renan, speaking of Mithraicism, says: "It had its mysterious meetings: its chapels, which bore a strong resemblance to little churches. It forged a very lasting bond of brotherhood between its initiates: it had a Eucharist, a Supper so like the Christian Mysteries, that good Justin Martyr, the Apologist, can find only one explanation of the apparent identity, namely, that Satan, in order to deceive the human race, determined to imitate the Christian ceremonies, and so stole them." 1 See Bunsen's Keys of St. Peter, p. 55, and Genesis, xiv. 18, 19. 2 St. Jerome says: Melchizédek in typo Christi panem et vinum obtulit: et mysterium Christianum in Salvatoris sanguine et corpore dedicavit." See Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 227. See King's Gnostics and their Remains, p. xxv., and Higgins' Anacalypsis, vol. ii. pp. 58, 59. Renan's Hibbert Lectures, p. 85. |