no mention of the Saviour in the chronicles of those who were blessed
in being his contemporaries. One indiscreet remark of Josephus has
been recognized as the interpolation of a later hand, well-intentioned
perhaps, but misguided. Jesus glows in the Gospels. Yet they that
awaited the day when, in a great aurora borealis, the Son of man
should appear, had passed from earth before one of the evangels was
written.
It was a hundred years later before the texts that comprise the New
Testament were complete. It was nearly two hundred before they were
definitive. In the interim many gospels appeared. Attributed
indifferently to each of the Twelve, one was ascribed to Judas. There
was a Gospel to the Hebrews, a Gospel to the Egyptians. There were
evangels of Childhood, of Perfection and of Mary.
These primitive memoirs were based on oral accounts of occurrences
long anterior. Into them entered extraneous beauties, felicities of
phrase and detail, which, with naif effrontery, were put into the
mouth of one apostle or another, even into that of Jesus. The
ascription was regarded as highly commendable. It was but a way of
glorifying the Lord. Besides, the scenarii of these pious evocations
the prophets had traced in advance.
"Rejoice, daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy
King cometh unto thee; he is just and having salvation, lowly and
riding upon an ass."
That king of the poor whom Zachariah had foreseen, the stumbling block
of Israel that Isaiah had foretold, the Son, mentioned by Hosea, whom
Jahveh had called out of Egypt, was the Saviour, ascending in glory as
Elijah had done. A passage incorrectly rendered by the Septuagint
indicated a virginal birth. That also was suggestive.
The little biographies in which these developments appeared were
intended for circulation only among an author's narrow circle of
immediate friends, at most to be read aloud in devout reunions. If,
ultimately, of the entire collection, four only were retained, it is
probably because these best expressed existing convictions. Though,
irrespective of their beauties, Irenaeus said that there had to be four
and could be but four, for the reason that there are four seasons,
four winds, four corners of the earth, and the four revelations of
Adam, Noah, Moses, and Jesus.
It is not on that perhaps arbitrary deduction that their validity
resides, but rather because the parables and miracles which they
recite became the spiritual nourishment of a world. To their title of
eternal verities they have other and stronger claims. They have
consoled and they have ennobled. Elder creeds may have done likewise,
but these lacked that of which Christianity was the unique possessor,
the marvel of a crucified god.
Saviours there had been. Mithra was a redeemer. Zoroaster was born of
a virgin. Persephone descended into hell. Osiris rose from the dead.
Gotama was tempted by the devil. Moses was transfigured. Elijah
ascended into heaven. But in no belief is there a parallel for the
crucifixion, although in Hindu legend, Krishna, a divinity whose
mythical infancy a mythical prototype of Herod troubled, died, nailed
by arrows to a tree.
In Oriental lore Krishna is held to have been the eighth avatar of
Vishnu, of whom Gotama was the ninth. Krishna was therefore anterior
to the Buddha, at least in myth. But it would be a grave impropriety
to infer that with the legend concerning him the narrative of the
crucifixion has any other connection than the possible one of having
suggested it. The _Bhagavad-Purana_, in which the legend occurs, is
relatively modern, though the legend itself may, like the _Tripitaka_,
have existed orally, for centuries, before it was finally committed to
writing.
There can, however, be no impropriety in recalling analogies that
exist between the Saviour and one whom the Orient holds also divine.
These analogies, set forth in the first chapter of the present volume,
are, it may be, wholly fortuitous, though Pliny stated that, centuries
before his day, disciples of Gotama were established on the Dead Sea
and, from a passage in Josephus, it seems probable that the Essenes
were Buddhists, in the same degree perhaps that the Pharisees were
Parsis. But the point is also obscure. It is immaterial as well. The
Gospels were not written in Jerusalem but mainly in Rome, where
crucifixions were common, as they were, for that matter, throughout
the East, but where, too, all religions were acclimated and the
supernatural was at home.
Rome had witnessed the _tours de force_ of Apollonios of Tyana. Those
of Simon the Magician had also been beheld. Rome had seen, or, it may
be, thought she believed she had seen, Vespasian cure the halt and the
blind with a touch. The atmosphere then was charged with the
marvellous. The temples were filled with prodigies, with strange gods,
beckoning chimeras, credulous crowds.
There was something superior. Rome was the depository of the legends
and lore of the world. A haunt of the Muses, the sensual city was a
hermitage of philosophy as well. These things collectively represented
a great literary feast, of which not all the courses have descended to
us, though, as is not impossible, a lost dish or two, transmuted, by
the alchemy of faith, from dross into gold, the Gospels may perhaps
contain.
In that case there is cause for great thankfulness. Moreover, assuming
the transmutation, no impiety can be implied. It was as usual and as
indicated as were papyrus and the stylus. It is common to-day for a
poet, before spreading his own wings, to contemplate those of another.
Inspiration is infectious.
A page of verse, whether Hindu, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, or Latin,
was as useful then. Dante fed on the troubadours. They are lost and
forgot. He divinely stands greater than the tallest of them all. In a
measure the same may be true of those from whom the Gospels came. Yet
with a very notable difference. The _Divina Commedia_ was written for
all time. So too were the Gospels. But not intentionally. They were
written to prepare man for the immediate termination of the world.
With the most perfect propriety, therefore, anything serviceable could
have been utilized and probably was. The devout had but to lift their
eyes. In the words of Isaiah, there, before them, were the treasures
of nations; there were the camels and dromedaries bearing from every
side incense and gold; there were the sons of strangers to build up
their walls.
The sons were many, the treasures as great. Even otherwise there was
the Law, there too were the Prophets. Moses fasted for forty days.
Elisha performed a miracle of the loaves, if he did not that of the
fishes. Job saw the Lord walking upon the sea. Jeremiah said: "Seek
and ye shall find." Isaiah bid those that sorrowed come and be
consoled. In the poem of that poet the servant of the Lord had vinegar
when he thirsted, he was spat upon and for his garments lots were
cast.
In an effort to fill in a picture of which the central figure had
passed from the real to the ideal, these things may have been
suggestive. So also, perhaps, was the _Talmud_. The redaction of that
chaos began in the second century. But the Vedas, the Homeric poems,
the Tripitaka as well, existed in memory long before they were
committed to writing. The same is true of the _Talmud_. Orally it
existed prior to the Christ. Considered as literature, if it may be so
considered, it is the reverse of endearing. But of the many maxims
that it contains there are some of singular charm. Among others is the
Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.[65] The origin of that,
as already indicated, is traceable to the _Tripitaka_, which,
parenthetically, were so well known in Babylon that Gotama was there
regarded as a Chaldean seer. That abridgement of the Law which is
called the Golden Rule is also in the _Talmud_,[66] as also, before the
_Talmud_ was, it was in the _Tripitaka_. The injunction to love one's
enemies is equally in both. So is the very excellent suggestion that
one should consider one's own faults before admonishing a brother
concerning his defects. But the perhaps subtle intimation that the
desire to commit adultery is as reprehensible as the act, and the
rather extravagant statement that it is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven, these, originally, were perhaps uniquely Talmudic.
Currently cited with multiple others they were all so many common
sayings, which, strung together in the Gospels, became a rosary of
most perfect pearls.
[Footnote 65: Talmud Babli: Baba bathra, 11 _a_.]
[Footnote 66: Schabbath, 37 _a_.]
In a passage of Irenaeus it is stated that the _Gospel according to St.
Matthew_ was arranged by the Church for the benefit of the Jews who
awaited a Messiah descended from David. A Syro-Chaldaic evangel, known
as the _Gospel to the Hebrews_, had then appeared. So also had the
_Gospel according to St. Mark_. But these offered no evidence that
Jesus was the one they sought. Another was then prepared. Written in
Greek and bearing the authoritative name of Matthew, it traced from
David, Joseph's descent.
The narrative continued: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this
wise. When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came
together, she was found with child by the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her
husband being a just man and not willing to make her a publick
example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on
these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a
dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee
Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy
Ghost."
The genealogy completed, though perhaps inadequately, since Jesus, not
being a son of Joseph, could not have descended from David, the Church
continued: "Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Behold a virgin shall be
with child and shall bring forth a son and call his name Emmanuel."
The prophecy mentioned occurs in Isaiah vii, 14. In the King James
version it is as follows: "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a
son and shall call his name Immanuel." But the Aramaic reading is:
"Behold an _'alma_ shall conceive." _'Alma_ means young woman. The
Septuagint, in translating it, employed the term [Greek: parthenos],
or maiden. In _Matthew_ the term was retained.
Matthew, at the time, had long been dead. Even had he been living it
is improbable that he could write in Greek. Unfortunately there were
others who could not only write Greek but read Hebrew. In particular,
there was a rabbi Aquila who retranslated Isaiah with no other purpose
than the malign object of definitely re-establishing the exact
expression which the old poet had used.[67]
[Footnote 67: Renan: Les Evangiles.]
It was presumably in these circumstances that the _Evangel of Mary_
was advanced. Among other elucidations, the work contained
professional testimony of the immaculacy that was claimed.
Additionally, in reparation of the earlier oversight, the Virgin was
genealogically descended from the royal line.
That, however, is apocryphal, and if, regarding the other genealogy,
exegesis has since obscured the luminousness of the method adapted by
the Church, the latter's intention was none the less irreproachable,
and that alone imports. Before it, before the miracle of the nativity
and the divine episodes of the transfiguration, crucifixion,
resurrection, and ascension, reverently the Occident has knelt. They
are indeed divine. If they did not occur in Judea, they have occurred
ever since. Continuously, in the hearts of the devout, they are
repeated.
Unhappily there were heretics then as now. To the Gnostics, Jesus was
an aeon that had never been. To the Docetists, he was a phantasm. There
are always brutes that can believe but in the reality of things. There
are others to whom the symbolic is dumb. In the Gospels there is much
that is figurative, there is more that is ineffable, there are
suggestions sheerly ideal.
"In my Father's house are many mansions," the Saviour declared. In his
own ministry there are as many lights. He was a vagrant and he created
pure sentiment. He was a nihilist and he inspired a new conception of
life. He said he had not come to destroy and he changed the face of
the earth. He remitted the sins of a harlot and condemned both
marriage and love. There are other antitheses, deeper contradictions.
These perhaps are more apparent than real. Behind them there may have
been the co-ordination of a central thought. Of many gospels but few
remain. Among the lost evangels was one that Valentinian said was
imparted only to the more spiritual of the disciples. It may be that
in it a main idea was elucidated and, perhaps, as a consequence, the
meaning of the esoteric proclamation: "Before Abraham was I am."
Yet though now the authoritative explanation be lacking, its
significance seems to run beneath the texts. At the first apparition
of Jesus, the chief preoccupation of those that stood about was what
prophet of the old days had returned in the new. Some thought him
Elijah. Others Jeremiah. Antipas feared that he was the Baptist
revived. Jesus himself asked the disciples whom he was said to be.
Later he assured them that the awaited return of Elijah had been
accomplished in John. That assurance, together with the perplexities
regarding him and the esoteric announcement which he made concerning
himself, can hardly indicate anything else than a belief in
reincarnation.
The belief, common to all antiquity, though not necessarily valid on
that account, is not discernible in Hebrew thought, perhaps for the
reason that it is not perceptible in Babylonian. Yet the myth of Eden
barely conceals it. It is almost obvious in the allegory of Beth-el.
Solomon said: "I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or
ever earth was." If the idea contained in that statement was not a
part of the philosophy attributed to the Christ, it might have been.
The amount of beauty stored in it is more enormous than in any other.
To the materialist the beauty is meaningless. To the mathematician it
has the value of a zero from which the periphery has gone. But at the
Pillars of Hercules early geographers put on their maps: _Hic deficit
orbis_--Here ends the world. They had no suspicion that beyond that
world there stretched another twice as great. Materialists may be
equally naif. On the other hand, they may not be. The theory of
reincarnation is one that transcends the limits of experience.
Of the many tenets of the belief there are but two with which the
matter-of-fact agrees. One of them concerns the conservation of
energy, the other the negation of death. Theory and practice unite in
admitting that the supply of energy is invariable. Constantly it is
transformed and as constantly transposed, but whether it enter into
fungus or star, into worm or man, the loss of a particle never occurs.
Death consequently is but the constituent of a change. When it comes,
that which was living assumes a state that has in it the potentiality
of another form. A tenement has crumbled and a tenant gone forth.
Though just where is the riddle.
In the thousand and one nights that were less astronomic than our own,
it was thought that the riddle was answered. Poets had erected an
edifice of verse and called it Creation. In the strophes of the epic
the earth was a flat and stationary parallelogram. About the earth,
and uniquely for its benefit, sun, moon and stars paraded. Above was a
deity one or multiple. Below were places of vivid discomfort. To the
latter, or to the former, the soul of man proceeded. There were no
other resorts. Creation had its limits.
Poets younger yet more gray have presented a different conception. In
the glare of a million million of suns they have sent the earth
spinning like a midge. Beyond the uttermost horizon they have strewn
other systems, other worlds; beyond the latter, more. Wherever
imagination in its weariness would set a limit, there is space begun.
There too is energy. Throughout the stretch of universes the same
force pulsates that is recognizable here. A deduction is obvious.
Throughout infinity are sentient beings, perhaps our brothers, perhaps
ourselves.
The obvious, very frequently, is misleading. But the dream of
precipitation into that wonderful tornado of worlds has the merit of
more colourful idealism than that which was formerly displayed. Taken
but as an hypothesis, it holds suggestions ampler than any other
conveys. It intimates that just as the butterfly rises from the
chrysalis, so does the spiritual rise from the flesh. It indicates
that just as the sun cannot set, so is it impossible for death to be.
There are topics about which words hover like enchanted bees. Death is
one of them. Mediaevally it was represented by a skeleton to which
prose had given a rictus, poetry a scythe, and philosophy wings. From
its eyries it swooped spectral and sinister. Previously it was more
gracious. In Greece it resembled Eros. Among its attributes was
beauty. It did not alarm. It beckoned and consoled. The child of
Night, the brother of Sleep, it was less funereal than narcotic. The
theory of it generally was beneficent. But not enduring. In the change
of things death lost its charm. It became a sexless nightmare-frame of
bones topped by a grinning skull. That perhaps was excessive. In
epicurean Rome it was a marionette that invited you to wreathe
yourself with roses before they could fade. In the Muslim East it was
represented by Azrael, who was an angel. In Vedic India it was
represented by Yama, who was a god. But mediaevally in Europe the
skeleton was preferred. Since then it has changed again. It is no
longer a spectral vampire. It has acquired the serenity of a natural
law. Regarding the operation of that law there are perhaps but three
valid conjectures. Rome entertained all of them. There, there was a
tomb on which was written _Umbra_. Before it was another on which was
engraved _Nihil_. Between the two was a portal behind which the _Nec
plus ultra_ stood revealed.
The portal, fashioned by the philosophy of ages, still is open, wider
than before, on vaster horizons and unsuspected skies. Through it one
may see the explication of things; the reason why men are not born
equal, why some are rich and some are poor, why some are weak and some
are strong, why some are wise and many are not. One may see there too
the reason of joys and sorrows, the cause of tears and smiles. One may
see also how the soul changes its raiment and how it happens to have a
raiment to change. One may see all these things, and others besides,
in the revelation that this life, being the refuse of many deaths, has
acquired merits and demerits in accordance with which are present
punishments and rewards.
In proportion as these are utilized or disregarded, so perhaps is
retrogression induced or progress achieved. But not in Hades or yet in
Elysium. These were the inventions of man for his brother. So also was
the very neighbourly heaven which the early Church devised. But
because that has gone from the sidereal chart, it does not follow that
there is no such place. Because there is nothing alarming under the
earth, it does not follow that hell has ceased to be. On the contrary.
Both are constant, though it be but in the heart.
In the light of reincarnation it is probable that neither can occur
there without anterior cause. But probably too it is the preponderance
of either that creates the mystery of life, as it may also foreshadow
the portent of death.
Death, it may be, is not merely a law but a place, perhaps a garage
which the traveller reaches on a demolished motor, but whence none can
proceed until all old scores are paid. Pending payment, there, perhaps
the soul must wait. But the bill of its past acquitted, it may be that
then it shall be free to pursue on trillions of spheres the
diversified course of endless life--free to pass from world to world,
from beatitude to bliss, from transformation to transfiguration, from
the transitory to the eternal; weaving, meanwhile, a garland of
migrations that stretch from sky to sky, marrying its memoirs with
those of the universe, and, finally, from some ultimate zenith,
reviewing, as it casts them aside, the masks of concluded
incarnations.
The prospect, overwhelming in beauty, is really divine. The divine is
always utopian. But there is the supreme Alhambra of dream. It exceeds
any other, however excessive another may be. It is the _Nec plus
ultra_. Into it all may wander and never weary of the wonders that are
there. It may be unrealizable, but for that very reason it must be
also ideal.
FINIS HISTORIAE DEORUM
End of Project Gutenberg's The Lords of the Ghostland, by Edgar Saltus