ORIGINALITY
ORIGINALITY
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step was taken from the thoug;ht, ' He iinist rise again,' to the belief, ' He has risen.' The news spread among the Jewish com- nmnities scattered throughout the Roman Empire, and from them to the Roman world in the midst of which they lived, that the Christ, who was to come to inaugurate the kingdom of the God of the Jews in place of that of the Romans, had actually appeared, that He had been crucified, and had risen from the dead, and was to reappear to destroy the sinners, and to raise up from the dead all the righteous, and reunite them in an eternal life with those who were still alive. With faith in Christ and His resurrection, the Gentile converts to the new faith accepted also the worship of the one God alone, and the denial of idolatry ; while in their turn they set aside, in the name of Christ, the more repugnant elements of Judaism, particularly circumcision. This purified Judaism purified itself more and more as it spread among the Gentiles, and became permeated by the spirit of Greek philosophy. The two spirits came in time to be confounded.
Such is Havet's account of the origin of Chris- tianity. Although his theories are not so extreme as those of Bauer, his attempt to assign Hellenic culture as the main source from which Christianity has sprung serves, equally with Bauer's, to illus- trate to what desperate expedients such a theory is reduced in order to give itself even some measure of plausibility. Both essays result in the attempt to explain Christianity without the Person of Christ ; for though Havet does not, like Bauer, deny the existence of Christ altogether, there are few Chris- tians who will recognize, in the Jewish fanatic whom he presents to us, the Saviour whom they worship. We must allow to both authors — to Havet especi- ally— a certain merit, in so far as they demonstrate how well Greek thought had prepared the soil for the seeds of Christian truth. As contributions to the study of the early history of the Christian Church and the development of Christian doctrine, their works may prove of value ; but as accounts of the origin of Christianity itself, we cannot assign to them any worth (Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, Eng. tr. i. 52 f.). They virtually recognize the imj^rac- ticability of any attempt to trace the indebtedness of the historical Jesus to Hellenic culture. What- ever parallels they may bring forward to any of the recorded utterances of Jesus, they make no attempt to show in what way He could have been brought into contact with the literature from which He is supposed to have derived inspiration. Only by critical theories regarding the Gospels which would deprive them of all historical worth, can they find room to introduce that Hellenic influence which they seek to trace.
ii. Christianity and Buddhism.— From the side of Buddhism, also, attacks have been made on the originality of Christianity. It is an undoubted fact, that long before the Christian era Buddhist doctrine had penetrated to distant regions, and the possibility of the indebtedness of the Christian Gospels to the Buddha legend is not so remote as to be dismissed without careful consideration. Various attempts have been made to prove that much of tlie material in the Gospel narratives may be traced to Buddhist sources — notably by Bunsen, Seydel, Lillie, and more recently by Stix, I'fleiderer, and van den Bergh van Eysinga (for titles of Avorks see below in list of Literature). Among the earlier group of writers, Seydel is generally recognized to be the most sciiolarly ; and we may devote our attention cliiefly to him. In his book. Das Evan- gdiuiti Jesn in seinen Verhdltnissen zu Buddha- sage und Buddha-lehrc, he endeavours to construct a 'Buddhist-Christian Gospel Harmony' by draw- ing up a list of the jjarallels that may be traced between tlie two religions.
In all, Seydel collects .')1 such parallels, which he proceeds to arrange in 3 groups. In the first he places those resemblances which may be accidental ; in the second, those cases in which we are forced to conclude that there has been borrowing on one side or the other. The third group contains parallels in which it is clear not only that there has been borrowing, but on which side the borrowing has taken place. This last group contains only five parallels, and in each case Seydel concludes that the verdict must be given in favour of Buddhism. They are as
follows :— (1) the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple, compared with that of Buddha ; (2) the fast of Jesus and of Buddha ; (3) the pre-existeiice of Jesus and of Buddha ; (4) the fig-tree as the place of Buddha's first coiner.sion, compared with Jesus' interview with Nathanael (Jn l-mt-) ; (5) the question of the disciples regarding the man who was born blind (Jn 92), which seems to imply a former state of existence whose sinful- ness might account for present affliction. The verdict in favour of Buddhism in this third group of parallels strengthens the probability that in the second group also it is Christianity that is the debtor. In this group the number of parallels runs" to 23, 12 of which Seydel regards as of greater cogencv than the rest. Among the Gospel facts which he introduces in this first division of his second group may be mentioned the annunciation to Mary, the gifts to the newborn child, the temptation, and the Beati- tudes. Lastly, even in the first group of 23 parallels, which Seydel admits may be wholly accidental, he believes that in view of the conclusions reached by an examination of the two other groups, there is a possibility that in at least 15 cases the Gospels may have been subject to Buddhist influence.