Gautama. Jesus.
Sage of the Sakya. The Word.
Teacher. The Truth.
The All-knowing.
The Lion of the Sakya. The Captain of Salvation.
The Conqueror.
Lord of the World. Lord of lords.
The Blessed. Blessed and only Potentate.
The Excellent. God, Blessed for evermore.
The Enlightened. The Light.
The Dayspring.
The Daystar.
The Morning Star.
Saviour.
Great, Good, Chief Shepherd.
Lamb of God.
The Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Son of Man.
Son of God.
Emmanuel.
♦Gautama and Jesus♦
There is quite sufficient resemblance between Gautama and Jesus in
character and teachings, and in the circumstances of their lives so far
as they are known to us, to give much interest to a comparative study;
and of such studies there are very many.
♦The Buddha and the Christ♦
But they do not come before the world as Gautama and Jesus, they are the
Buddha and the Christ. As Dr. Oldenberg has said: “What makes a Buddha
a Buddha is, as his name indicates, his knowledge. He does not possess
his knowledge, like a Christ, by virtue of a metaphysical superiority of
his nature, surpassing everything earthly; but he has gained it, or more
strictly speaking, has won it, by a struggle. The Buddha is at the same
time the Jina, _i. e._ the conqueror. The history of the struggle for
the Buddhahood must therefore precede the history of the Buddha.”
♦No true parallel♦
♦Christ is all♦
This essential distinction ends all parallel. The Buddha claimed
through travail and sorrow to have discovered his gospel of the Path
to emancipation from the Self-life. The Christ came from the Father,
according to the vision of the Seers, to bring a gospel of recovered
sonship; and, through travail, sorrow, death, and rising (for it was
impossible that the grave should hold Him), to reveal the Way back
into the true life. To the Christian “_Christ is absolutely true, the
Point whence we start, and where we must end. From Christ and to Christ
includes the whole circle of our knowledge and the whole circle of our
uncertainty. All truth and all ways to truth must end in Him Who is The
Truth and The Way. Being in Him, what is unknown cannot baffle us, for
He knows it in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge._”
“_Christ is all, and in all._”