later Teacher which has been a stumbling-block to many: "For so shalt thou heap coals of fire upon his head." This has been understood to mean, that in the Hinnom burnings of the "second death," the enemy's body should be heaped with coals in precise proportion to the amount of the disciples' "forgiveness" of him in life; a forgiveness, therefore, which was but a hypocritically disguised diabolic vengeance, and which, however it might harmonize with the character of certain disciples, was ill in keeping with the lamblike spirit of the Master. But, interpreting this dark saying by the light of the previous words of Gautama, we see that the meaning of both Teachers was, simply, that so plainly expressed in the Sutra; (viz.); that the wanton malice of slander will surely, in the end, be its own sufficient punishment. If however, the lofty character here attributed to Yaishooa and his teaching, is to be maintained in its integrity, it can only be by rejecting as spurious, certain deliverances put into his mouth in the Gospels, whose spirit is exactly the reverse of the pure unselfishness and the all-embracing love which we glean from the general tenor of his life and language. Among these are the concluding verses of Matt. xix., where he promises the apostles that "in the regeneration" they "shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," and that all others who had made sacrifices for his sake shall receive back their treasures "an hundredfold," besides inheriting "everlasting life." These promises, providing for the gratification of ambition and covetousness in the renewed or regenerated life, remind one of the cheap promises and vulgar incentives of a Mohammed, and are directly in contradiction to the general noble and unselfish tenor of Christ's lessons, particularly to the rebukes he repeatedly I The same contradiction exists between his meek, forgiving character, and his frequent denunciations of vengeance. The latter are, however, properly to be attributed to the role of the Messiah, which he felt called to fulfil, -with its oldHebrew bloody vengeances upon rebels and enemies, and not to his natural impulses. administered to the low and grasping ambition of some among the apostles. It is probable that they are unwarranted additions, made by some of these or their successors, perhaps by the commonplace and bigoted minds which secretly sought for themselves the chief places in the Messiah's kingdom, "to sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left," ("Mark" x. 37, etc.,) and invented the twelve gates of solid pearl by which the twelve tribes should re-enter the golden Jerusalem, and the primacy in that regenerated city and heavenly "kingdom" on Mount Zion, David's hill, of the hundred-and-forty-four thousand Few-celibates or "virgin" monks, twelve thousand from each of the tribes; (Rev. vii. 4, etc., also xiv. 1, 4, xxi. 12, 21). The number assigned to the companions whom Yaishooa selected has been generally thought, from the former of the above passages, (Matt. xix.,) to be derived from that of the tribes. But when we consider the very great number of traditions, evidently derived by early Christianity, through the Essenes, etc., from Booddhism, it can hardly be doubted that the twelve apostles were in reality, in the first instance, a reproduction of the "twelve great disciples" of Gautama, especially when we find that the second sending of seventy disciples, (corresponding in number to the [by the Jews so-called] "seventy nations of the earth,") is perfectly similar to the second sending by Gautama of seventy disciples to the seventy outside nations. Twelve and seventy were favorite Hindu numbers for precisely the same mystic reasons which made them favorites. with the Jews. It was therefore prescriptive that the new incarnation should have twelve favorite companions, and it was the correspondence between this number and that of the tribes (doubtless) which led to the assignment of the twelve tribal judges' thrones in the text, to the apostles. Whether the number of this little band was always really twelve as tradition demanded, is somewhat doubtful from the fact that we find several of their names dupli cated, and also from the parable of the "king's ten servants." But it is time to return to our history, or rather our attempt to extract something like a consecutive story from the confused mass of anecdotes dumped down as it were, in a heap, by the synoptic Gospels. There is, (as has been said,) in their narratives, when collated, a certain amount of agreement and of consecutiveness visible, and derived doubtless from the real order of the facts, though the authors seem to have taken slight pains to preserve these important qualities. CHAPTER XVIII. SYNTHESIS CONTINUED. - THE FIRST OR GALILEAN PERIOD OF THE TEACHING OF YAISHOOA.- COLLATION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. THE amount of agreement, and of disagreement, respectively, between these three histories, as to the order of events in the life of Christ after the inception of his mission, will be best seen in a tabular statement. The more salient events and the epochs of agreement are printed in larger type. 3. Preaches and works mira- 3. Removes to Capernaum, 3. 4. Sermon on the Mount, 4. Heals "Simon's" ("Pe- 4. chaps. v., vi., and vii. ter's") wife's mother. to kill him. Removes to Capernaum, 5. Heals leper. Enjoins si- 5. Heals leper. Enjoins si- 5. Miraculous draught, lence. lence, 40, etc. chap. v. The language of "Luke," though unintentionally, here bears out the supposition that Yaishooa had failed in some attempt to perform miracles at Nazareth (which "Mark" more plainly shows by stating, "he could there do no mighty work "); for, after saying that his townsfolk "wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth," we suddenly find Yaishooa apologizing for not doing, or for inability to do, the things they had "heard done in Capernaum," by quoting the proverb, "No After selecting five disciples from among those of the Baptist, Christ went, the fourth Gospel tells us with considerable probability, to attend a wedding at Cana near Nazareth. The five disciples who accompanied him there were "Andrew," 66 Simon" called "Peter," an unnamed disciple who was probably "John," "Philip," and "Nathanael" or "Bartholomew." From Cana, "John" states, he went to dwell at Capernaum. So far the fourth Gospel gives a clear, and excepting the miracle alleged to have been wrought at Cana, a credible, account of his movements. But from this point "John" is, for a long time, of no further assistance to us, as he gives no account whatever, of Christ's long labors in Galilee, before the Jerusalem period. After the legend of the "temptation," which the synoptics introduce in the place of the more probable visit to Cana, Matthew" makes Christ at once remove his residence from Nazareth to Capernaum, by the "sea" of Galilee, on the border between "Zebulon" and "Naphthali," on hearing of the Baptist's imprisonment. "Mark" and "Luke," with more probability, bring in this removal a little later. They both make Christ go at first into some unspecified part of Galilee and begin to preach, "after that" as "Mark" says, "John was put in prison." After this short preaching tour in Galilee, which may very well have included "John's" visit to Cana, (and possibly an unrecorded one to Capernaum also,) "Luke" tells with much minuteness the story, omitted from this place by all the other Gospels, and by them but very slightly referred to, of Christ's unsuccessful preaching at his native place, Nazareth. From the language of "Luke," and still more distinctly from that of "Mark," we may justly infer that he had failed in the attempt to work a miracle there; "he prophet is accepted in his own country," etc. It is plain that he either could not or would not perform the miracles at Nazareth that he had "done in Capernaum;" that he attributed his inability to the want of faith of his townspeople; and that he was very indignant at this want of faith, and denounced it in unmeasured terms; hence the violent quarrel between him and the Nazarenes. |