_The Apostles of the Bloodless Altar._
There are two Zoroasters, or rather a sort of dual personality.
One of these Zoroasters lived six thousand years B.C. according to
Darmesteter, and the other about five hundred years B.C. The earlier
Zoroaster swathed Persia in a network of silly rites and regulations.
A culprit who "threw away a dead dog" was to receive a thousand blows
with the horse goad, and one thousand with the Craosha charana. A
culprit who slew a dog with a "prickly back" and a "woolly muzzle"
was to receive a similar punishment. ("Fargard," xxx.) This Zoroaster
was particular about the number of gnats, ants, lizards, that the
devout had to kill. ("Fargard," xiv.) This Zoroaster proclaimed a god
who loved to see on his altar a "hundred horses, a thousand cows, ten
thousand small cattle," and so on. ("Khordah Avesta," xii.) But the
second Zoroaster proclaimed a bloodless altar, and sought to tear the
network of the first Zoroaster to shreds. What was the meaning of this?
Simply that the Buddhist Wanderers had by this time invaded Persia, and
had fastened their doctrines upon the chief local prophet. This was
their habit. A study of this second religion, the religion of Mithras,
will help us to some of the secrets of Buddhist propagandism.
Mr. Felix Oswald cites Wassiljew as announcing that the Buddhist
missionaries had reached Western Persia, B.C. 450. This date would,
of course, depend on the date of Buddha's life and Buddha's death.
The latter is now definitely fixed by Buhler's translation of Asoka's
Rupnath rock-inscription, B.C. 470. Wassiljew, citing Daranatha,
announces that Madeantica, a convert of Ananda, Buddha's leading
disciple, reached Ouchira in Cashmir. From Cashmir Buddhism passed
promptly to Candahar and Cabul. (p. 40). Thence it penetrated quickly
to Bactra, and soon invaded "all the country embraced by the word
Turkistan, where it flourished until disturbed by Mahomet."
Tertullian has two passages which describe the religion of Mithras.
* * * * *
He says that the devil, to "pervert the truth," by "the mystic rites
of his idols vies even with the essential portions of the sacraments
of God. He too baptises some--that is, his own believers and faithful
followers. He promises the putting away of sins by a laver (of his
own), and, if my memory still serves me, Mithras there (in the
kingdom of Satan) sets his mark on the foreheads of his soldiers,
celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of the
resurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown." (Pres. v., Hœr.
chap. xl.)
Here is another passage.
"Some soldier of Mithras, who at his initiation in the gloomy
cavern,--in the camp, it may well be said, of darkness,--when at the
sword's point a sword is presented to him as though in mimicry of
martyrdom, and thereupon a crown is put upon his head, is admonished to
resist and cast it off, and, if you like, transfer it to his shoulders,
saying that Mithras is his crown. He even has his virgins and his
ascetics (continentes). Let us take note of the devices of the devil,
who is wont to ape some of God's things." ("De Corona," xv.)
From this it is plain that the worshippers of Mithras had the simple
rites of Buddhists and Christians, baptism and the bloodless altar;
also an early Freemasonry, which some detect veiled in the Indian
life of Buddha. Thus the incident of the sword and crown in the
Mithraic initiation is plainly based on the menacing sword of Mâra in
the "Lalita Vistara" and the crown that he offered Buddha. In modern
masonry it is feigned that Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomon's
temple, made three efforts to escape from three assassins. These are
plainly Old Age, Disease, and Death. He sought to evade the first at
the east of the temple, in the same way that Buddha tried to escape
by the eastern gate. The second and third flights of Hiram and Buddha
were to the same points of the compass. Then Buddha escaped the lower
life through the Gate of Benediction, and Hiram was killed. The
disciples of Mithras had, in the comedy of their initiation, "seven
tortures,"--heat, cold, hunger, thirst, fire, water, etc.,--experiences
by no means confined to histrionics in the experience of Buddha's
Wanderers. A modern mason goes through the comedy of giving up his
gold and silver and baring his breast and feet, a form that once
had a meaning. Mithras was born in a cave; and at Easter there was
the ceremony called by Tertullian the "image of the resurrection."
The worshippers, Fermicus tells us ("De Errore," xxiii.), placed by
night a stone image on a bier in a cave and went through the forms of
mourning. The dead god was then placed in a tomb, and after a time
withdrawn from it. Then lights were lit, and poems of rejoicing sounded
out, and the priest comforted the devotees. "You shall have salvation
from your sorrows!" Dupuis naturally compares all this to the _cierge
pascal_ and Catholic rites. In Jerusalem the Greek pontiff goes into
the cave called Christ's sepulchre and brings out miraculous fire
to the worshippers, who are fighting and biting each other outside,
imaging unconsciously Buddha's great battle with Mâra and the legions
of hell, its thunder and lightning and turmoil, followed by a bright
coruscation, and by the angels who greeted his victory. This sudden
illumination, which is the chief rite of Freemasonry, of Mithraism, and
of Christianity, has oddly enough been thrown overboard by the English
Church.
That Mithraism was at once Freemasonry and Buddhism is proved by its
great spread. Buddhism was the first missionary religion. Judaism and
the other old priestcrafts were for a "chosen people." At the epoch of
Christ, Mithraism had already honeycombed the Roman paganism. Experts
have discovered its records in Arthur's Oon and other British caves.
A similar Freemasonry was Pythagoreanism in Greece. Colebrooke, the
prince of Orientalists, saw at once that its philosophy was purely
Buddhist. Its rites were identical with those of the Mithraists and
Essenes. These last must now be considered. They have this importance,
that they are due to a separate propagandism. Alexandria was built by
the great invader of India, to bridge the east and the west. And an
exceptional toleration of creeds was the result.
Neander divides Israel at the date of Christ into three sections:--
1. Pharisaism, the "dead theology of the letter."
2. Sadduceeism, "debasing of the spiritual life into worldliness."
3. Essenism, Israel mystical--a "co-mingling of Judaism with the old
Oriental theosophy."
Concerning this latter section, Philo wrote a letter to a man named
Hephæstion, of which the following is a portion:--
"I am sorry to find you saying that you are not likely to visit
Alexandria again. This restless, wicked city can present but few
attractions, I grant, to a lover of philosophic quiet. But I cannot
commend the extreme to which I see so many hastening. A passion for
ascetic seclusion is becoming daily more prevalent among the devout
and the thoughtful, whether Jew or Gentile. Yet surely the attempt to
combine contemplation and action should not be so soon abandoned. A
man ought at least to have evinced some competency for the discharge
of the social duties before he abandons them for the divine. First the
less, then the greater.
"I have tried the life of the recluse. Solitude brings no escape from
spiritual danger. If it closes some avenues of temptation, there are
few in whose case it does not open more. Yet the Therapeutæ, a sect
similar to the Essenes, with whom you are acquainted, number many
among them whose lives are truly exemplary. Their cells are scattered
about the region bordering on the farther shore of the Lake Mareotis.
The members of either sex live a single and ascetic life, spending
their time in fasting and contemplation, in prayer or reading. They
believe themselves favoured with divine illumination--an inner light.
They assemble on the Sabbath for worship, and listen to mystical
discourses on the traditionary lore which they say has been handed
down in secret among themselves. They also celebrate solemn dances
and processions of a mystic significance by moonlight on the shore
of the great mere. Sometimes, on an occasion of public rejoicing,
the margin of the lake on our side will be lit with a fiery chain of
illuminations, and galleys, hung with lights, row to and fro with
strains of music sounding over the broad water. Then the Therapeutæ
are all hidden in their little hermitages, and these sights and sounds
of the world they have abandoned make them withdraw into themselves
and pray.
"Their principle at least is true. The soul which is occupied with
things above, and is initiated into the mysteries of the Lord,
cannot but account the body evil, and even hostile. The soul of man
is divine, and his highest wisdom is to become as much as possible
a stranger to the body with its embarrassing appetites. God has
breathed into man from heaven a portion of His own divinity. That
which is divine is invisible. It may be extended, but it is incapable
of separation. Consider how vast is the range of our thought over the
past and the future, the heavens and the earth. This alliance with
an upper world, of which we are conscious, would be impossible, were
not the soul of man an indivisible portion of that divine and blessed
spirit. Contemplation of the divine essence is the noblest exercise
of man; it is the only means of attaining to the highest truth and
virtue, and therein to behold God is the consummation of our happiness
here."
Here we have the higher Buddhism, which seeks to reach the plane of
spirit, an "alliance with the upper world" by the aid of solitary
reverie. That Philo knew where this religion had come from is, I think,
proved by another passage.
"Among the Persians there is the order of Magi who deeply investigate
the works of nature for the discovery of truth, and in leisure's quiet
are initiated into and expound in clearest significance the divine
virtues.
"In India, too, there is the sect of the Gymnosophists, who, in
addition to speculative philosophy, diligently cultivate the ethical
also, and have made their life an absolute ensample of virtue.
"Palestine, moreover, and Syria are not without their harvest of
virtuous excellence, which region is inhabited by no small portion of
the very populous nation of the Jews. There are counted amongst them
certain ones, by name Essenes, in number about four thousand, who
derive their name, in my opinion, by an inaccurate trace from the term
in the Greek language for holiness (Essen or Essaios--Hosios, holy),
inasmuch as they have shown themselves pre-eminent by devotion to the
service of God; not in the sacrifice of living animals, but rather in
the determination to make their own minds fit for a holy offering."
(Philo, "Every virtuous man is free.")
Plainly here the Essenes are pronounced of the same faith as the
Gymnosophists of India, who abstain from the bloody sacrifice, that is
the Buddhists.
I will now jot hastily down the points of contact between one of these
monasteries described by Philo and a Buddhist monastery. In the centre
is the sanctuary. Round it, in an enclosure "four square," are ranged
the cells of the monks. The monks in Thibet, according to the Abbé Huc,
may be divided into three categories.
1. Those who live in monasteries and perform the religious services,
and also, like the Essenes described by Josephus, farm the convent land.
2. Hermits, in caves, like Banos dreaming holy dreams.
3. Wandering missionaries (Parivrajakas) who, like the "Apostles"
described in the recently discovered "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,"
are not allowed to remain more than a day in the same place.
In the Buddhist Lent the community goes into a hastily built group of
mud huts in the jungle. Each of these is tenanted by a monk and two
novices. Each has a "guest chamber" for a sick man, or a wandering
beggar. This throws light on much. Let us continue our parallelism.
Enforced vegetarianism, community of goods, rigid abstinence from
sexual indulgence, also a high standard of purity, were common to both
the Buddhists and the Therapeuts.
Neither community allowed the use of wine.
Long fastings were common to both.
With both, silence was a special spiritual discipline.
The Therapeut left "for ever," says Philo, "brothers, children, wives,
father and mother," for the contemplative life.
Like the Buddhists, the Therapeuts had nuns vowed to chastity.
The preacher and the missionary, two original ideas of Buddhism, were
conspicuous amongst the Therapeuts. This was in direct antagonism to
the spirit of Mosaism.
The Therapeut was a healer of the body as well as the soul.
Turning to the kindred society of the Essenes we get a few additional
points of contact.
The Essenes, like the Buddhist monks, had ridiculous laws relating to
spitting and other natural acts, those of the Essenes being regulated
by a superstitious veneration for the Sabbath day, those of the
Buddhists, by a superstitious respect for a pagoda.
In Buddhist monasteries a rigid obedience, together with a quite
superstitious respect for the person of a superior, is enacted.
In Buddhaghosa's Parables is a puerile story of a malicious Muni,
who, when an inferior monk had gone out of a hut where the two
were sleeping, lay across the doorway in order to make the novice
inadvertently commit the great sin of placing his foot above his
superiors head. The penalty of such an act is that the offender's
head ought to be split into seven pieces. With the Essenes similar
superstitions were rife. If an Approacher accidentally touched the hem
of the garment of an Associate, all sorts of purifications had to be
gone through.
The principle of thrift and unsavouriness in dress was carried to
extremes by both Essenes and Buddhists. The sramana (ascetic) was
required to stitch together for his _kowat_ the refuse rags acquired
by begging. The Essenes were expected to wear the old clothes of their
co-religionists until they tumbled to pieces.
In the Thibetan "Life of Buddha," by Rockhill, it is announced that
when the great teacher first cast off his kingly silks he donned a foul
dress that had been previously worn by ten other saints. This throws
light on the story of Elisha.
Dr. Ginsburg ("The Essenes," p. 13) shows that the Essenes had eight
stages of progress in inner or spiritual knowledge.
1. Outward or bodily purity by baptism.
2. The state of purity that has conquered the sexual desire.
3. Inward and spiritual purity.
4. A meek and gentle spirit which has subdued all anger and malice.
5. The culminating point of holiness.
6. The body becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost, and the mystic
acquires the gift of prophecy.
7. Miraculous powers of healing, and of raising the dead.
8. The mystic state of Elias.
The Buddhists have likewise eight stages of inner progress, the
Eightfold Holy Path. The first step, "Those who have entered the
stream, the Naírañjana, the mystic river of Buddha," is precisely
the same as the first Essene step. Then follow advances in purity,
holiness, and mastery of passion. In the last two stages the Buddhists,
like the Essenes, gained supernatural powers, to be used in miraculous
cures, prophecies, and other occult marvels. It must be mentioned that
the Essenes were circumcised as well as the other Jews.
The word "Essenes," according to some learned philologists, means
the "Bathers," or "Baptisers," baptism having been their initiatory
rite. Josephus tells us that this baptism was not administered until
the aspirant had remained a whole year outside the community, but
"subjected to their rule of life."
I will here give the rite of Buddhist baptism (abhisheka) when a
novice is about to become a monk. It consists of many washings,
borrowed plainly by the early Buddhists from the Brahmins, and brings
to mind the frequent use of water attributed to the Hemero Baptists
or disciples of John. It may be mentioned that in some Buddhist
countries--Nepal, for instance--the various monkish vows are now taken
only for form sake. This makes the letter, retained after the spirit
has departed, all the more valuable.
The neophyte having made an offer of scents and unguents (betel-nut,
paun, etc.) to his spiritual guide (guru), the latter, after certain
formalities, draws four circles in the form of a cross, in honour of
the Tri Ratna (trinity), on the ground, and the neophyte, seated in a
prescribed position, recites the following text: "I salute Lord Buddha,
Dharma, and Sangha, and entreat them to bestow on me the Pravrajya
Vrata." The first and second days of the ceremonial are consumed in
prayers and formalities carried on by the guide and his pupil alone.
On the second day another mystical cross is drawn on the ground, the
Swastica. A pot containing water and other mystic ingredients, a gold
lotus, and certain confections and charms, figure in these early rites.
At last it is poured on the neophyte's head. This is the baptism.
Previous to this there is a confession of sins and much catechising.
The catechumen's name is changed at the baptism, and his head is
shaved. A light is lit which reminds one of the φωτισμός of the early
Christians. Besides their baptism, the Essenes and Therapeuts had a
mystery (sacramentum), an oblation of bread. Part of this was placed
upon the bloodless altar, and part eaten. The Buddhists with their
wheat and rice do exactly the same thing.
Two other points remain, the most important of all.
The Buddhists have a Trinity, Buddha or Swayambhu, the Self-Existent,
Dharma or Prajnâ, which is the same word as Philo's Sophia Wisdom.
From these two the Father and the Mother have been produced. Sangha,
literally Union, the union of matter and spirit, like St. Paul's
Christ, Humanity--ideal Humanity.
That a nation so "stiff-necked" as the Jews in the matter of their
one God, should have accepted a Trinity, shows certainly a foreign
influence.
The second point is stronger still. The Buddhist teachers in Persia
and Egypt in days before Christ; in Japan, in Islâm, during the Middle
Ages; in Europe now,--have had and have one method of procedure.
They say practically, "Religion as we conceive it has only one
lesson--knowledge of God. This is to be acquired not externally through
creeds and priests, but internally by the education and purification of
the soul. Keep your Bibles if the weaker brethren insist on them, but
explain that they are symbols, not history. Keep your prophets, your
Moses, your Mahomet, your Zoroaster, and fasten our teaching on him.
Keep your hob-goblins and folklore, but give up your bloody altar."
Now, in the view of the Jew, God had made a covenant with Israel, which
was to last as long as the sun, the moon, and the stars. In return for
the "offerings of the Lord made by fire" (Levit. xxiv. 9) on the temple
altar of Jerusalem, Israel was to triumph over its foes and receive
every temporal blessing. The advice of the Buddhist was practically
that the Jewish half of the bargain was to be broken, but that the
Bible, the document containing the contract, was to be retained. _A
priori_ could any one have guessed that advice of this sort could be
taken?
And yet we see the Essenes "allegorize" the bloody altar out of their
Bible, but cling to the document more fondly than ever. The early
Christians and Justin and Irenæus do the same. Scripture for the early
Church was the Old Testament.