According to Christian dogma, the Incarnation of Christ had become necessary,
on account of Sin, which was introduced into the world by the Fall of Man.
These two dogmas cannot be separated. If there was no Fall, there was no need
of an Atonement, and no Redeemer was required.
Jesus Christ saves men as he helps them, by his teachings and example, to live
pure and upright lives.
As far as we can judge, Jesus himself did not assert that he was equal to, or
a part of, the Supreme God. Indeed, whenever occasion arose, he asserted his
inferiority to the Father. He made himself inferior in knowledge, when he
declared, that of the day and hour of the Judgment, nQ_man knew, neither the
angels in Heaven nor the Son, no one except the Father. He made himself
inferior in power, when he said that seats on his right hand and on his left,
in the Kingdom of Heaven, were not his to give. He made himself inferior in
virtue, when he desired a certain man not to address him as Good Master, for
there was none good but God. The words of his prayer at Gethsemane, " all
things are possible unto thee," imply that all things were not possible to
himself ; while its conclusion, " not what I will, but what thou wilt,"
indicates submission to a superior. The cry of agony, " My God ! My God ! why
hast thou forsaken me ? " would have been quite unmeaning, if the person
forsaken and the person forsaking had been one and the same.
As was the case with Sakya Muni, and many others, the sun-myths were
incorporated into the history of Jesus Christ.
There is much circumstantial evidence to show that Jesus was an Essene, and
that the Essenes were Buddhists. At the time of Christ's birth, the Jews were
divided into three sects the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sadducees, the
last only being purely Mosaic, and the first two being very like the Buddhists.
That Buddhism had been planted in the dominions of the Seleucidae and Ptolemies
(Palestine belonging to the former) before the beginning of the third century
B.C. is proved by a passage in the Edicts of Asoka, grandson of the famous Chan-
dragupta, the Sandracottus of the Greeks. These edicts are engraven on a rock
at Girnur, in Guzerat. The great missionary effort of Buddhism took place in
the time of Asoka, about B.C. 307, and it was not likely that the west would be
neglected when the eastern countries received such attention as they did. The
Buddhist missionaries, without doubt, made their way to the Hebrews, who had
always shown a great aptitude to adopt the faith of outsiders, and persuaded
many of them to listen to the teachings of Siddhartha ; but they were unable to
convert them sufficiently to induce them to give up the Law of Moses. (See Note
15.)
The Essenes were a sect of unusual and singular piety, their exemplary virtues
eliciting the unbounded admiration of even the Greeks and Romans. Severe
asceticism, a rare benevolence to one another and to mankind in general, were
their most striking characteristics. Their fundamental laws were, to love God
and their neighbor, and do to others as they would have others do to them. They
lived in communities or monasteries, and had all things in common, merely
appointing a steward to manage the common bag.
They advocated celibacy, but had no law prohibiting marriage ; though if any
among them wedded, they were obliged to enter another class of the brotherhood.
Their numbers were continually being augmented by additions from outside.
When a person wished to enter the community, he was taken upon trial ; and, if
approved, he was obliged to take an oath that he would fear God and be just
towards all men. He sold all that he possessed, and gave the proceeds to the
brotherhood. They resembled, in their habits and customs, a fraternity of monks
of a working, rather than a mendicant order. They were all upon the same
level, the exercise of authority one over another being prohibited. They
abhorred slavery, and called no man on earth Master, yet they served one
another. When going upon missions of mercy, they provided neither silver nor
gold, but depended entirely upon the hospitality of other members of the
brotherhood. When going upon perilous journeys, they took weapons of defence,
but repudiated offensive war. They abjured swearing. They conversed on such
parts of philosophy only as concerned God and man, and conversed not at all on
secular subjects before the rising of the Sun, but prayed devoutly, with their
faces turned to the._£a§t. They did not lay up treasures on earth, and despised
money, fame, and pleasures, as they thought these things had a tendency to
enchain men to earthly enjoyments, a peculiarly Buddhist tenet. They consid-
ered the use of ointment as defiling, which was certainly not a Hebraic
doctrine. They gave thanks before and after eating; and before entering the
refectory they bathed in pure water and put on white garments. They ate only
enough to sustain life. They put the greatest stress upon being meek and lowly
in heart, and commended the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemaker.
The Essenes combined the healing of the body with that of the soul ; and the
Greek name by which they were known, Therapeutae (Essene is the Assyrian word
for Therapeutae), signifies healer, or doctor^ and designated the sect as
professing to be endowed with the miraculous gift of healing, more especially
with respect to diseases of the mind. They did not offer animal sacrifices, but
strove to present their bodies " a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto
God." It was their great aim to become so pure and holy as to be temples of the
Holy Spirit, and to be able to prophesy. They reverenced Moses and had respect
for the Sabbath. They practised endurance as a duty, and bore all tortures with
equanimity. They fully believed in a future state of existence, in which the
soul, liberated from the body, mounts upwards to a Paradise where there are no
storms, no cold, no intense heat, and where all are constantly refreshed by
gentle oceanbreezes. Pliny tells us that the usages of the Essenes differed
from those of all other nations.
It will be evident to those familiar with the Gospels that the tenets of the
Essenes and the teachings of Jesus are almost identical. Jesus differed from
them, however, in some respects, as any large nature is apt to differ from
others. He repudiated the extremes of the Essenes. They were ascetics, but he
ate and drank the good things of life. They considered themselves defiled by
contact with those less holy than themselves; but he associated with publicans
and sinners.
Every Jew was obliged to be a member of one of the three sects named above, and
it is but natural to suppose that Jesus would have been more in sympathy with
the Essenes than with the other two Jewish sects. It is a significant fact that
he frequently rebuked the Sadducees and Pharisees, but never denounced the
Essenes.
As we have seen, the Essenes were ascetics and celibates, while the purely
Mosaic of Jews were neither. It is true that fasting is occasionally men
tioned in the Old Testament, as a sign of grief or of abasement, but never as a
means of gaining salvation in a future life, for immortality was unknown to
Moses and the Jews ; while celibacy is everywhere spoken of in the Old
Testament as a misfortune, and an abundance of wives is regarded as a proof of
divine favor. '¦
The Jews were encouraged in having a plurality of wives, but they were nowhere
directed or, recommended to live on charity. The Priests and Levites were not
ordered to go about the country expounding or teaching the Law. Consequently,
when asceticism, preaching, and celibacy began to be advocated, between the
time of Antiochus and Jesus, the inference is that they were introduced from
without, and by those of the only religion which inculcated them as articles of
faith and practice.
It appears singular that there should be no mention of the Essenes in the
JN"ew Testament, considering the fact that the other two Jewish sects were so
frequently spoken of. This can only be accounted for on the ground that the
multitude of references in the New Testament to a class called the Brethren,
refer to the Essenes. The Essenes were a brotherhood, and knew each other as
brethren, as the Free Masons, who claim descent from the Essenes, do at the
present day. We are told that the disciples were first called Christians at
Antioch. They must have had a name previous to that, and we know they ad
dressed each other as brethren.
As De Quincey says : " If the Essenes were not the early Christians in
disguise, then was Christianity, as a knowledge, taught independently of
Christ, nay, in opposition to Christ." ^ This would explain the very singular
fact that Josephus has not mentioned Christ or the early Christians. The
Essenes disappeared from history shortly after the time assigned as the
crucifixion of Christ, and it is supposed that they have come down in history
as Christians. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, the celebrated ecclesiastical
historian, considered them Christians. He says : " It is very likely that the
commentaries [Scriptures] which were among them [the Essenes] were the Gospels,
and the works of the apostles, and certain expositions of the ancient prophets,
such as partly that Epistle unto the Hebrews and also the other Epistles of
Paul do contain." i
Eusebius, in quoting from Philo concerning the Essenes, seems to take it for
granted that they and the Christians were one and the same ; and from the
manner in which he writes, it would appear that it was generally understood so.
He says that Philo called them *' worshippers," and concludes by saying : "
But whether he himself gave them this name, or whether at the beginning they
were so called when as yet the name of Christians was not everywhere
published, I think it not needful curiosity to sift out." 2
Epiphanius, a Christian bishop and writer of the fourth century, in speaking of
the Essenes, says : " They who believed on Christ were called Jessaei [or
Essenes] before they were called Christians. They derived their constitution
from the signification of the name 'Jesus/ which in Hebrew signifies the same
as Therapeutes, that is, a saviour or physician." ^ Godfrey Higgins says :
The Essenes were called physicians of the soul, or Therapeutae ; being resident
both in Judaea and Egypt, they probably spoke or had their sacred books in
Chaldee. They were Pythagoreans, as is proved by all their forms, ceremonies,
and doctrines, and they called themselves sons of Jesse. ... If the
Pythagoreans, or Conenobitae, as they were called by Jamblicus, were Buddhists,
the Essenes were Buddhists. The Essenes called Koinobii lived in Egypt, on the
lake of Parembole or Maria, in monasteries. These are the very places in
which we formerly found the Gymnosophists or Samaneans, or Buddhist priests, to
have lived, which Gymnosophists are placed also by Ptolemy in northeastern
India.
Their [the Essenes] parishes, churches, bishops, priests, deacons, festivals
are all identically the same [as the Christians]. They had apostolic founders,
the manners which distinguished the immediate apostles of Christ, scriptures
divinely inspired, the same allegorical mode of interpreting them which has
since obtained among Christians, and the same order of performing public
worship. They had missionary stations or colonies of their community
established in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and
Thessalonica, precisely such and in the same circumstances, as were those to
whom Saint Paul addressed his letters in those places. All the fine moral
doctrines which are attributed to the Samaritan Nazarite, and I doubt not
justly attributed to him, are to be found among the doctrines of the ascetics.-
^
In reference to this subject, Arthur Lillie says :
It is asserted by calm thinkers like Dean Mansel, that within two generations
of the time of Alexander the Great, the missionaries of Buddha made their
appearance at Alexandria. This theory is confirmed in the east by the Asoka
monuments, in the west by Philo. He expressly maintains the identity in creed
of the higher Judaism and that of the Gymnosophists of India who abstained
from the " sacrifice of living animals," in a word, the Buddhists. It would
follow from this that the priestly religions of Babylonia, Palestine, Egypt,
and Greece were undermined by certain kindred mj^stical societies organized
by Buddha's missionaries under the various names of Therapeutes, Essenes, Neo-
Pythagoreans, Neo-Zoroastrians, etc. Thus Buddhism prepared the way for
Christianity.^
