To account for the presence of so much material in the Gospels borrowed from Buddhist sources, Se3del formulates the h3po- thesis that, in addition to the two sources generally recognized as underlying the Synoptic Gospels— the collection of Sayings, and the original Mark— there must also have existed a third source, a poetic - apocalyptic Gospel, in which the Christian material must have been worked up after the pattern of the Buddhist Gospels, with the incorporation of nuich that was derived from Buddhist sources. This poetic source was used by all the Synoptists and by the Fourth Evangelist as well. That it has been lost is to be explained by the fact that the available material which it afforded had been incorporated in the Gospels, whose more historical form and genuine Christian doctrine caused the early poetical work to be quite forgotten.
Seydel claims a certain apologetic value for his investigations. If he has shaken our faith in much in the Gospel narratives which he has shown to be derived from Buddhism, we may comfort ourselves, he thinks, with the reflexion that those features in the life of Jesus to which he has found no analogy in Buddhist tradition, — such, e.g., as the Passion and certain fundamental doctrines and personal characteristics of Jesus, — are thus indirectly eon- firmed. In what remains after we have taken away what maybe traced to Buddhism, we have a kernel of historical fact which is unassailable.
When we turn to examine the various parallels upon which Seydel bases his contention, we find that the resemblance between the Christian and the Buddhist material is frequently exaggerated ; that but little attention is paid to the underlying difference between the two sides, which in many cases is much more striking than the apparent re- semblance ; and that, even where the resemblance is strongest, Seydel has not made out his case, viz., that the fact which he instances from the Gospels is so unintelligible on Christian jjremises, that borrow- ing from an external source is the only feasible explanation. We shall endeavour to justify this contention in the case of the five parallels upon which Seydel lays the greatest stress.
(1) The Presentation in the Temple. Here Seydel's point is that such pfesentation of the infant Jesus was not required, and that Luke's appeal to the Law (2-i) is a mere device to in- troduce an incident borrowed from a foreign source. We admit that it was not necessary that the infant should be presented in person on the occasion of its being ransomed ; but we have only to read the account of the presentation of the infant Buddha, which Seydel thinks may have suggested this incident, with its description of how 100,000 gods drew the waggon which bore him, of how the earth trembled as he entered the temple, of how the images of the gods left their places to throw themselves at his feet, to convince ourselves that among the various motives which might be assigned for the departure from the strict letter of the Law in the case of Jesus, a more unlikely one could hardly be conceived than a desire to institute a parallel with this fan- tastic story, to which the simple Gospel narrative offers the most striking contrast.
(2) Seydel finds the 40 days' fast of Jesus in the wilderness in- explicable in view of the contrast He Himself drew between His own conduct and the asceticism jiractised by John the Baptist, and suggests that this incident is borrowed from the example of Buddha. But if any parallel at all is required, we do not need to go so far afield. The 40 da\ s' fast of Moses (Ex 34-'s, Dt 9S) and that of Elijah (1 K 19**) at once suggest themselves as parallels which do not take us beyond the limits of Jewish history.
(3) Seydel finds a parallel to Christ's words to the Jews, ' Before Abraham was, I am ' (Jn 85«), in Buddha's assertion of his pre-existence. But the resemblance at once disappears when we realize what is the kind of pre-existence Buddha claims for himself, — not like that of the Johannine Logos who
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has been with God from the beginning (Jn Vf-), but that of a being who has undergone countless different forms of incarna- tion.
(4) It was while sitting under the Bodlii-tree, which was a kind of fig-tree, that Gautama attained Budda-hood, and im- mediately thereafter converted two brothers, who became his first disciples. Se\del finds a parallel to this in the words of J^sus to Natlianaei, 'When thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee ' (.Jn l'"*). But beyond the facts that a fig-tree and a dis- ciple are mentioned in both cases, there is no resemblance between them. It was not Jesus, but Xathanael, who v.as sitting under the fig-tree; there is no suggestion of the 'enlighten- ment ' of Jesus ; and the disciple in connexion witli whom the fig-tree is mentioned was not, as in Buddha's case, the first who was called.
(5) The question of the disciples with regard to the man who was bom blind, ' Master, who did sin, tliis man or his parents, that he was bom blind ? ' (Jn 9-) is brought forward by Sejdel as impljing belief in the Buddhist doctrine of re-birth, according to which we are punished here for sins committed in a former state of existence. But the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul was not unknown to the Jews (cf. Wis 8-"), and it is ques- tionable, further, whether even this doctrine is necessary to explain the question of the disciples. They may have been thinking of some sin committed in the womi) (cf. Gen 25'-*2), or may have regarded the blindness of the man as punishment in anticipation of the sins he would commit (cf. B. Weiss in Meyer's Kommentar, ad Inc.).