CHAPTER V.

HOLY PERSONS.

Although for the ordinary and regular communications from the divine Being to man the established priesthoods might suffice, yet occasions arise when there is need of a plenipotentiary with higher authority and more extensive powers. What is required of these exceptional ambassadors is not merely to repeat the doctrines of the old religion, but to establish a new one. In other words, they are the original founders of the great religions of the world. Of such founders there is but a very limited number.

Beginning with China, and proceeding from East to West, we find six:—

1. CONFUCIUS, or KHUNG-FU-TSZE, the founder of Confucianism. 2. LAÒ-TSÉ, the founder of Taouism. 3. SAKYAMUNI, or GAUTAMA BUDDHA, the founder of Buddhism. 4. ZARATHUSTRA, or ZOROASTER, the founder of Parseeism. 5. MOHAMMED, or MAHOMET, the founder of Islamism. 6. JESUS CHRIST, the founder of Christianity.

All these men, whom for convenience sake I propose to call _prophets_, occupy an entirely exceptional position in the history of the human race. The characteristics, or marks, by which they may be distinguished from other great men, are partly external, belonging to the views of others about them; partly internal, belonging to their own view about themselves.

1. The first external mark by which they are distinguished is, that within his own religion each of these is recognized as the highest known authority. They alone are thought of as having the right to change what is established. While all other teachers appeal to them for the sanction of their doctrines, there is no appeal from them to any one beyond. What they have said is final. They are in perfect possession of the truth. Others are in possession of it only in so far as they agree with them. No doubt, the sacred books are equally infallible with the prophets; but the sacred books of religions founded by prophets derive their authority in the last resort from them, and are always held to be only a written statement of their teaching. Thus, the sacred books of China are partly of direct Confucian authorship; partly by others who recognize him as their head. The only sacred book of the Tao-tsé is by their founder himself. The sacred books of the Buddhists are supposed discourses of the Buddha. The Avesta is the reputed work of Zarathustra. The Koran is the actual work of Mahomet. And lastly, the New Testament is all of it written in express subordination to the authority of Christ, to which it constantly appeals. These books, then, are infallible, because they contain the doctrines of their founders.

The same thing is true where there is an infallible Church. The Church never claims the same absolute authority as it concedes to its prophet. Its infallibility consists in its power to interpret correctly the mind of him by whom it was established. He it is who brought the message from above which no human power could have discovered. It is the Church's function to explain that message to the world; and, where needed, to deduce such inferences therefrom as by its supernatural inspiration it perceives to be just. Beyond this, the power of the Church does not extend.

A second external mark, closely related to the first, is, that the prophet of each religion is, within the limits of that religion, the object of a more or less mythical delineation of his personality. His historical form is, to some extent, superseded by the form bestowed upon him by a dogmatic legend. According to that legend there was something about his nature that was more than human. He was in some way extraordinary. The myths related vary from a mere exaltation of the common features of humanity, to the invention of completely supernatural attributes. But their object is the same: to represent their prophet as more highly endowed than other mortals. Even where there is little of absolute myth, the representation we receive is one-sided; we know nothing of the prophet's faults, except in so far as we may discover them against the will of the biographers. To them he appears all-virtuous. These remarks will be abundantly illustrated when we come to consider the life of Jesus, and to compare it with that of his compeers.

2. The internal mark corresponds to the first external mark, of which it is indeed the subjective counterpart. These prophets conceive themselves deputed to teach a faith, and they virtually recognize in the performance of this mission no human authority superior to their own. In words, perhaps, they do acknowledge some established authority; but in fact they set it aside. No Church or priesthood has the smallest weight with them, as opposed to that intense internal conviction which appears to them an inspiration. Hence it was observed of Jesus, that he taught with authority, and not as the scribes. Without being able themselves to give any explanation of the fact, they feel themselves endowed with plenary power to reform. And it is not, like other reformers, in the name of another that they do this; they reform in their own right, and with no other title than their own profound consciousness of being not only permitted, but charged to do it.

Nevertheless, it must not be imagined that the prophets sweep away everything they find in the existing religion. On the contrary, it will be found on examination that they always retain some important element or elements of the older faith. Without this, they would have no hold on the popular mind of their country, from which they would be too far removed to make themselves understood. Thus, Allah was already recognized as God by the Arabians in the time of Mahomet, whose reform consisted in teaching that he was the only God. Thus, the Messiah was already expected by the Jews in the time of Jesus, whose reform consisted in applying the expectation to himself. Prophets take advantage of a faith already in existence, and making that the foundation of a new religion, erect upon it the more special truths they are inspired to proclaim.

No prophet can construct a religion entirely from his own brain. Were he to do so, he would be unable to show any reason why it should be accepted. There would be no feeling in the minds of his hearers to which he could appeal. A religion to be accepted by any but an insignificant fraction, must find a response not only in the intellects, but in the emotions of those for whom it is designed.

This, it appears to me, is the weak point of Positivism. Auguste Comte, having abolished all that in the general mind constitutes religion at all, attempted to compose a faith for his disciples by the merely arbitrary exercise of his own ingenuity. He perhaps did not consider that in all history there is no example of a religion being invented by an individual thinker. It is like attempting to sell a commodity for which there is no demand. Even if his philosophical principles should be accepted by the whole of Europe, there can be no reason why the special observances he recommends should be adopted, or the special saints whom he places in the calendar be adored. Those who receive his philosophy will have no need for his ceremonies. While even if ceremonies cannot be entirely dispensed with, it is not the mere fact of a solitary thinker planning it in his own mind that can ever ensure the adoption of a ritual.

Very different has been the procedure of the prophets of whom we are now to speak. Intellectually, they were no doubt far inferior to the founder of the Positive Philosophy. But emotionally, they were fitted for the part which he unsuccessfully endeavored to play. They entered into the religious feelings of their countrymen, and gave those feelings a higher expression than had yet been found for them. Instinctively fixing on some conspicuous part of the old religion, they made that the starting-point for the development of the new. They reformed, but the reformation linked itself to some conviction that was already deeply rooted in the nature of their converts. They assumed boundless authority; but it was authority to proclaim a pre-existing truth, not to spin out of their purely personal ideas of fitness a system altogether disconnected from the past evolution of religion, and to impose that system upon the remainder of mankind.

SECTION I.—CONFUCIUS.[11]

The life of the prophet of China is not eventful. It has neither the charm of philosophic placidity and retirement from the world which belongs to that of Laò-tsé, nor the romantic interest of the more varied careers of Sakyamuni, Christ, or Mahomet. For Confucius, though a philosopher, did not object, indeed rather desired, to take some share in the government of his country, but his wishes received very little gratification. Rulers refused to acquiesce in his principles of administration, and he was compelled to rely for their propagation mainly on the oral instruction imparted to his disciples. His life, therefore, bears to some extent the aspect of a failure, though for this appearance he himself is not to blame. Another cause, which somewhat diminishes the interest we might otherwise take in him, is his excessive attention to proprieties, ceremonies, and rites. We cannot but feel that a truly great man, even in China, would have emancipated himself from the bondage of such trifles. Nevertheless, after all deductions are made, enough remains to render the career and character of Confucius deserving of attention, and in many respects of admiration.

Descended from a family which had formerly been powerful and noble, but was now in comparatively modest circumstances, he was born in B.C. 551, his father's name being Shuh-leang Heih, and his mother's Ching-Tsae. The legends related of his nativity I pass over for the present. His father, who was an old man when he was born, died when the child was in his third year; and his mother in B.C. 528. At nineteen, Confucius was married; and at twenty-one he came forward as a teacher. Disciples attached themselves to him, and during his long career as a philosopher, we find him constantly attended by some faithful friends, who receive all he says with unbounded deference, and propose questions for his decision as to an authority against whom there can be no appeal. The maxims of Confucius did not refer solely to ethics or to religion; they bore largely upon the art of government, and he was desirous if possible of putting them in actual practice in the administration of public affairs. China, however, was in a state of great confusion in his days; there were rebellions and wars in progress: and the character of the rulers from whom he might have obtained employment was such, that he could not, consistently with the high standard of honor on which he always acted, accept favors at their hands. One of them proposed to grant him a town with its revenues; but Confucius said: "A superior man will only receive reward for services which he has done. I have given advice to the duke Ting (see below), but he has not obeyed it, and now he would endow me with this place! very far is he from understanding me" (C. C., vol. i., Prolegomena, p. 68). In the year 500 the means were at length put within his reach of carrying his views into practice. He was made "chief magistrate of a town" in the state of Loo; and this first appointment was followed by that of "assistant-superintendent of works," and subsequently by that of "minister of crime." In this office he is said to have put an end to crime altogether; but Dr. Legge rightly warns us against confiding in the "indiscriminating eulogies" of his disciples. A more substantial service attributed to him is that of procuring the dismantlement of two fortified towns which were the refuge of dangerous and warlike chiefs. But his reforming government was brought to an end after a few years by the weakness of his sovereign, duke Ting, who was captivated by a present of eighty beautiful and accomplished girls, and one hundred and twenty horses, from a neighboring State. Engrossed by this present, the duke neglected public affairs, and the philosopher felt bound to resign.

We need not follow him during the long wanderings through various parts of China which followed upon this disappointment. After traveling from State to State for many years, he returned in his sixty-ninth year to Loo, but not to office. In the year 478 his sad and troubled life was closed by death.

Our information respecting the character of Confucius is ample. From the book which Dr. Legge has entitled the "Confucian Analects," a collection of his sayings made (as he believes) by the disciples of his disciples, we obtain the most minute particulars both as to his personal habits and as to the nature of his teaching. The impression derived from these accounts is that of a gentle, virtuous, benevolent, and eminently honorable man; a man who, like Socrates, was indifferent to the reward received for his tuition, though not refusing payment altogether; who would never sacrifice a single principle for the sake of his individual advantage; yet who was anxious, if possible, to benefit the kingdom by the establishment of an administration penetrated with those ethical maxims which he conceived to be all-important. Yet, irreproachable as his moral character was, there is about him a deficiency of that bold originality which has characterized the greatest prophets of other nations. Sakyamuni revolted against the restrictions of caste which dominated all minds in India. Jesus boldly claimed for moral conduct a rank far superior to that of every ceremonial obligation, even those which were held the most sacred by his countrymen. Mahomet, morally far below the Chinese sage, evinced a far more independent genius by his attack on the prevalent idolatry of Mecca. Confucius did nothing of this kind. His was a mind which looked back longingly to antiquity, and imagined that it discovered in the ancient rulers and the ancient modes of action, the models of perfection which all later times should strive to follow. Nor was this all. He was so profoundly under the influence of Chinese ways of thinking, as to attach an almost ludicrous importance to a precise conformity to certain rules of propriety, and to regard the exactitude with which ceremonies were performed as matter of the highest concern. In fact, he could not emancipate himself from the traditions of his country; and his principles would have resulted rather in making his followers perfect Chinamen than perfect men.

A far more serious charge is indeed brought against him by Dr. Legge—that of insincerity (C. C., vol. i.—Prolegomena— p. 101). I hesitate to impugn the opinion of so competent a scholar; yet the evidence he has produced does not seem to me sufficient to sustain the indictment. Granting that he gave an unwelcome visitor the excuse of sickness, which was untrue, still, as we are ignorant of the reasons which led him to decline seeing the person in question, we cannot estimate the force of the motives that induced him to put forward a plea in conformity with the polite customs of his country. It does not appear, moreover, that he practiced an intentional deceit. And though on one occasion he may have violated an oath extorted by rebels who had him in their power, therein acting wrongly (as I think), it is always an open question how far promises made under such circumstances are binding on the conscience. Whatever failings, however, it may be necessary to admit, there can be no question of the preëminent purity alike of his life and doctrine. His is a character which, be its imperfections what they may, we cannot help loving; and there have been few, indeed, who would not have been benefited by the attempt to reach even that standard of virtue which he held up to the admiration of his disciples.

A few quotations from the works in which his words and actions are preserved, will illustrate these remarks. In the tenth Book of the Analects (C. C., vol. i. p. 91-100), his manners, his garments, his mode of behavior under various circumstances, are elaborately described. There are not many personages in history of whom we have so minute a knowledge. We learn that "in his village" he "looked simple and sincere, and as if he were not able to speak." His reverence for his superiors seems to have been profound. "When the prince was present, his manner displayed respectful uneasiness; it was grave, but self-possessed." When going to an audience of the prince, "he ascended the dais, holding up his robe with both his hands, and his body bent; holding in his breath also, as if he dared not breathe. When he came out _from the audience_ (the italics, here and elsewhere, are in Legge), as soon as he had descended one step, he began to relax his countenance, and had a satisfied look. When he had got to the bottom of the steps, he advanced rapidly to his place, _with his arms_ like wings, and on occupying it, his manner _still_ showed respectful uneasiness." He was rather particular about his food, rejecting meat unless "cut properly," and with "its proper sauce."

Whatever he might be eating, however, "he would offer a little of it in sacrifice." "When any of his friends died, if the deceased had no relations who could be depended on for the necessary offices, he would say, 'I will bury him.'" "In bed, he did not lie like a corpse." And it is satisfactory to learn of one who was such a respecter of formalities, that "at home he did not put on any formal deportment." Notwithstanding this, he does not appear to have been on very intimate terms with his son, to whom he is reported to have said that unless he learned "the odes" he would not be fit to converse with; and that unless he learned "the rules of propriety" his character could not be established. The disciple, who was informed by the son himself that he had never heard from his father any other special doctrine, was probably right in concluding that "the superior man maintains a distant reserve towards his son" (Lun Yu, xvi. 13).

But with his beloved disciples Confucius was on terms of affectionate intimacy which does not seem to have been marred by "the rules of propriety." For the death of one of them at least he mourned so bitterly as to draw down upon himself the expostulation of those who remained (Ibid., xi. 9). The picture of the Master, accompanied at all times by his faithful friends, who hang upon his lips, and eagerly gather up his every utterance, is on the whole a pleasant one. "Do you think, my disciples," he asks, "that I have any concealments? I conceal nothing from you. There is nothing that I do which is not shown to you, my disciples;—that is my way" (Ibid., vii. 23). And with all the homage he is constantly receiving, Confucius is never arrogant. He never speaks like a man who wishes to enforce his views in an authoritative style on others; never threatens punishment either here or hereafter to those who dissent from him.

"There were four things," his disciples tell us, "from which the Master was entirely free. He had no foregone conclusions, no arbitrary predeterminations, no obstinacy, and no egoism" (Lun Yu, ix. 4). And his conduct is entirely in harmony with this statement. It is as a learner, rather than a teacher, that he regards himself. "The Master said, 'When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities, and follow them; their bad qualities, and avoid them'" (Ibid., vii. 21). Or again: "The sage and the man of perfect virtue, how dare I _rank myself with them_? It may simply be said of me, that I strive to become such without satiety, and teach others without weariness" (Ibid., vii. 33). "In letters I am perhaps equal to other men, but _the character_ of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have not yet attained to" (Ibid., vii. 32).

Notwithstanding this modesty, there are traces—few indeed, but not obscure—of that conviction of a peculiar mission which all great prophets have entertained, and without which even Confucius would scarcely have been ranked among them. The most distinct of these is the following passage:—"The Master was put in fear in K'wang. He said, 'After the death of king Wan, was not the cause of truth lodged here _in me_? If Heaven had wished to let this cause of truth perish, then I, a future mortal, should not have got such a relation to that cause. While Heaven does not let the cause of truth perish, what can the people of K'wang do to me?'" (Lun Yu, ix. 5). These remarkable words would be conclusive, if they stood alone. But they do not stand alone. In another place we find him thus lamenting the pain of being generally misunderstood, which is apt to be so keenly felt by exalted and sensitive natures. "The Master said, 'Alas! there is no one that knows me.' Tse-kung said, 'What do you mean by thus saying—that no one knows you?' The Master replied, 'I do not murmur against Heaven. I do not grumble against men. My studies lie low, and my penetration rises high. But there is Heaven;—that knows me!'" (Ibid., xiv. 37). Men might reject his labors and despise his teaching, but he would complain neither against Heaven nor against them. If he was not known by men, he was known by Heaven, and that was enough. On another occasion, "the Master said, 'Heaven produced the virtue that is in me, Hwan T'uy—what can he do to me?'"[12]

These passages are the more remarkable, because Confucius was not in the ordinary sense a believer in God. That is, he never, throughout his instructions, says a single word implying acknowledgment of a personal Deity; a Creator of the world; a Being whom we are bound to worship as the author of our lives and the ruler of our destinies. He has even been suspected of omitting from his edition of the Shoo-king and the She-king everything that could support the comparatively theistic doctrine of his contemporary, Laò-tsé (By V. von Strauss, T. T. K., p. xxxviii). That his high respect for antiquity would have permitted such a procedure is, to say the least, very improbable; and Dr. Legge is no doubt right in acquitting him of any willful suppression of, or addition to, the ancient articles of Chinese faith (C. C., vol. i. Prolegomena, p. 99). For our present purpose it is enough to note that he avoided all discussion on the higher problems of religion; and contented himself with speaking, and that but rarely, of a vague, and hardly personal Being which he called Heaven. Thus, in a book attributed (perhaps erroneously) to his grandson, he is reported as saying, "Sincerity is the very way of Heaven" (Chung Yung, xx. 18). Of king Woo and the duke of Chow, two ancient worthies, he says: "By the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth they served God" (where he seems to distinguish between Heaven and God, whom I believe he never mentions but here); "and by the ceremonies of the ancestral temple they sacrificed to their ancestors. He who understands the ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth, and the meaning of the several sacrifices to ancestors, would find the government of a kingdom as easy as to look into his palm" (Ibid., xix. 6). Elsewhere, he remarks that "he who is greatly virtuous will be sure to receive the appointment of heaven" (Ibid., xvii. 5). Again: "Heaven, in the production of things, is surely bountiful to them, according to their qualities" (Ibid., xvii. 3). Nothing very definite can be gathered from these passages, as to his opinions concerning the nature of the power of which he spoke thus obscurely. Yet it would be rash to find fault with him on that account. His language may have been, and in all probability was, the correct expression of his feelings. His mind was not of the dogmatic type; and if he does not teach his disciples any very intelligible principles concerning spiritual matters, it is simply because he is honestly conscious of having none to teach.

There are, indeed, indications which might be taken to imply the existence of an esoteric doctrine. "To those," he says, "whose talents are above mediocrity, the highest subjects may be announced. To those who are below mediocrity, the highest subjects may not be announced" (Lun Yu, vi. 19). We are further told that Tsze-kung said, "the Master's _personal_ displays _of his principles_, and _ordinary_ descriptions of them may be heard. His discourses about _man's_ nature, and the way of Heaven, cannot be heard" (Ibid., v. 12). This last passage appears to mean that they were not open to the indiscriminate multitude, nor perhaps to all of the disciples. But we may reasonably suppose that the intimate friends who recorded his sayings were considered by him to be above mediocrity, and were the depositaries of all he had to tell them on religious matters.

Yet this, little as it was, may not always have been rightly understood. Once, for example, he says to a disciple, "Sin, my doctrine is that of an all-pervading unity." This is interpreted by the disciple (in the Master's absence) to mean only that his doctrine is "to be true to the principles of our nature, and the benevolent exercise of them to others" (Ibid., iv. 15). I can hardly believe that Confucius would have taught so simple a lesson under so obscure a figure; and it is possible that the reserve that he habitually practiced with regard to his religious faith may have prevented a fuller explanation. "The subjects on which the Master did not talk were—extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings" (Lun Yu, vii. 20). And although, in the Doctrine of the Mean (a work which is perhaps less authentic than the Analects) we find him discoursing freely on spiritual beings, which, he says, "abundantly display the powers that belong to them" (Chung Yung, 16), there are portions of the Analects which confirm the impression that he did not readily venture into these extra-mundane regions. Heaven itself, he once pointed out to an over-curious disciple, preserves an unbroken silence (Lun Yu, xvii. 19). Interrogated "about serving the spirits of the dead," he gave this striking answer: "While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?" And when "Ke Loo added, 'I venture to ask about death?' he was answered, 'While you do not know life, how can you know about death?'" (Ibid., xi. 11). Another instance of a similar reticence is presented by his conduct during an illness. "The Master being very sick, Tsze-Loo asked leave to pray for him. He said, 'May such a thing be done?' Tsze-Loo replied, 'It may. In the prayers it is said, Prayer has been made to the spirits of the upper and lower worlds.' The Master said, 'My praying has been for a long time'" (Ibid., vii. 34). I am unable to see "the satisfaction of Confucius with himself," which Dr. Legge discovers in this reply. To me it appears simply to indicate the devout attitude of his mind, which is evinced by many other passages in his conversation. In short, though we may complain of the indefinite character of the faith he taught, and wish that he had expressed himself more fully, there can scarcely be a doubt that Confucius had a deeply religious mind; and that he looked with awe and reverence upon that power which he called by the name of "Heaven," which controlled the progress of events, and would not suffer the cause of truth to perish altogether.

It is true, however, that he confined himself chiefly, and indeed almost entirely, to moral teaching. His main object undoubtedly was to inculcate upon his friends, and if possible to introduce among the people at large, those great principles of ethics which he thought would restore the virtue and well-being of ancient times. Those principles are aptly summarized in the following verse: "The duties of universal obligation are five, and the virtues wherewith they are practiced are three. The duties are those between sovereign and minister, between father and son, between husband and wife, between elder brother and younger, and those belonging to the intercourse of friends. Those five are the duties of universal obligation. Knowledge, magnanimity, and energy, these three are the virtues universally binding; and the means by which they carry the duties into practice is singleness" (Chung Yung, xx. 7). In the Analects, "Gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness," are said to constitute perfect virtue (Lun Yu, xvii. 6).

It is as an earnest and devoted teacher, both by example and by precept, of these and other virtues, that Confucius must be judged. And in order to assist the formation of such a judgment, let us take his doctrine of Reciprocity, to which I shall return in another place. "Tsze-kung asked, saying, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?' The Master said, 'Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others'" (Lun Yu, xv. 23). On a kindred topic he thus delivered his opinion: "Some one said, 'What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?' The Master said, 'With what, then, will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness'" (Ibid., xiv. 26).

If in the above sentence he may be thought to fall short of the highest elevation, there are some among his apothegms, the point and excellence of which have, perhaps, never been surpassed. Take for instance these:—"The superior man is catholic and no partizan. The mean man is a partizan and not catholic." "Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous" (Ibid., ii. 14, 15). Or these:—"I will not be afflicted at men's not knowing me; I will be afflicted that I do not know men" (Ibid., i. 16). "A scholar, whose mind is set on truth, and who is ashamed of bad clothes and bad food, is not fit to be discoursed with" (Ibid., iv. 9). "The superior man is affable, but not adulatory; the mean is adulatory, but not affable" (Ibid., xiii. 23). "Where the solid qualities are in excess of accomplishments, we have rusticity; where the accomplishments are in excess of the solid qualities, we have the manners of a clerk. When the accomplishments and solid qualities are equally blended, we then have the man of complete virtue" (Lun Yu, vi. 16). Lastly, I will quote one which, with a slight change of terms, might have emanated from the pen of Thomas Carlyle: "There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe:—He stands in awe of the ordinances of heaven; he stands in awe of great men; he stands in awe of the words of sages. The mean man does not know the ordinances of heaven, and _consequently_ does not stand in awe of them. He is disrespectful to great men. He makes sport of the words of sages" (Ibid., xvi. 8).

These, and various other recorded sayings, go far to explain, if not to justify, the unbounded admiration of his faithful follower, Tsze-kung: "Our Master cannot be attained to, just in the same way as the heavens cannot be gone up to by the steps of a stair. Were our Master in the position of the prince of a State, or the chief of a family, we should find verified the description _which has been given of a sage's rule_:—he would plant the people, and forthwith they would be established; he would lead them on, and forthwith they would follow him; he would make them happy, and forthwith _multitudes_ would resort to _his dominions_; he would stimulate them, and forthwith they would be harmonious. While he lived, he would be glorious. When he died, he would be bitterly lamented. How is it possible for him to be attained to?" (Ibid., xix. 25.)

SECTION II.—LAÒ-TSÉ.[13]

Concerning the life of Laò-tsé, the founder of the smallest of the three sects of China (Confucians, Buddhists, and Taouists), we have only the most meagre information. Scarcely anything is known either of his personal character or of his doctrine, except through his book. His birth-year is unknown to us, and can only be approximately determined by means of the date assigned to his famous interview with his great contemporary, Confucius. This occurred in B. C. 517, when Laò-tsé was very old. He may, therefore, have been born about the year B. C. 600.[14] All we can say of his career is, that he held an office in the State of Tseheu, that of "writer (or historian) of the archives." When visited by Confucius, who was the master of a rival school, he is said to have addressed him in these terms:—"Those whom you talk about are dead, and their bones are mouldered to dust; only their words remain. When the superior man gets his time, he mounts aloft; but when the time is against him, he moves as if his feet were entangled. I have heard that a good merchant, though he has rich treasures deeply stored, appears as if he were poor; and that the superior man, whose virtue is complete, is yet to outward seeming stupid. Put away your proud air and many desires; your insinuating habit and wild will. These are of no advantage to you. This is all which I have to tell you." After this interview, Confucius thus expressed his opinion of the older philosopher to his disciples:—"I know how birds can fly, how fishes can swim, and how animals can run. But the runner may be snared, the swimmer may be hooked, and the flyer may be shot by the arrow. But there is the dragon. I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the clouds and rises to heaven. To-day I have seen Laò-tsé, and can only compare him to the dragon" (C. C., vol. i. Proleg. p. 65.—T. T. K., p. liii.—L. T.., p. iv).

Troubles in the State in which he held office induced him to retire, and to seek the frontier. Here the officer in command requested him to write a book, the result of which request was the Taò-tĕ-Kīng. "No one knows," says the Chinese historian, "where he died. Laò-tsé was a hidden sage" (T. T. K., p. lvi).

To this very scanty historical information we may add such indications as Laò-tsé himself has given us of his personality. One of these is contained in the twentieth chapter of his work, in which he tells us that while other men are radiant with pleasure, he is calm, like a child that does not yet smile. He wavers to and fro, as one who knows not where to turn. Other men have abundance; he is as it were deprived of all. He is like a stupid fellow, so confused does he feel. Ordinary men are enlightened; he is obscure and troubled in mind. Like the sea he is forgotten, and driven about like one who has no certain resting-place. All other men are of use; he alone is clownish like a peasant. He alone is unlike other men, but he honors the nursing mother (T. T. K., ch. xx).

It is obvious that an estimate so depreciatory is not to be taken literally. To understand its full significance, it should be compared to the magnificent description in Plato's Theætetus of the outward appearance presented by the philosopher, who, in presence of practical men, is the jest alike of "Thracian handmaids," and of the "general herd;" who is "unacquainted with his next-door neighbor;" who is "ignorant of what is before him, and always at a loss;" and who is so awkward and useless when called on to perform some menial office, such as "packing up a bag, or flavoring a sauce, or fawning speech." Yet this philosopher, like Laò-tsé, "honors his nursing Mother;" he moves in a sphere of thought where men of the world cannot follow him, and where they in their turn are lost (Theætetus, 174-176). Just such a character as that drawn by Plato, Laò-tsé seems to have been. Living in retirement, and devoted to philosophy, he appeared to his contemporaries an eccentric and incompetent person. Yet he says that they called him great (Ch. lxvii), which seems to imply that his reputation was already founded in his life-time.

One other reference to himself must not be omitted, for it evinces the sense he had of the nature of his work in the world. "My words," so he writes in his paradoxical manner, "are very easy to understand, very easy to follow,—no one in the world is able to understand them, no one is able to follow them. The words have an author, the works have one who enjoins them; but he is not understood, therefore I am not understood" (Ch. lxx). On this Stanislas Julien observes, "There is not a word of Laò-tsé's that has not a solid foundation. In fact, they have for their origin and basis Tao and Virtue" (L. V. V. p. 269, n. 2). These expressions, then, suffice to show that Laò-tsé was not destitute of that sense of inspiration of which other great prophets have been so profoundly conscious.

SECTION III.—GAUTAMA BUDDHA.[15]

SUBDIVISION 1. _The Historical Buddha._

Were we to write the history of the Buddha according to the fashion of Buddhist historians, we should have to begin our story several ages before his birth. For the theory of his disciples is, that during many millions of years, through an almost innumerable series of different lives, he had been preparing himself for the great office of the savior of humanity which he at length assumed. Only by the practice of incredible self-denial, and unbounded virtue, during all the long line of human births he was destined to undergo, could he become fitted for that consummate duty, the performance of which at last released him forever from the bonds of existence. For the total extinction of conscious life, not its continuation in a better sphere, is, or at any rate was, the goal of the pious Buddhist. And it was the crowning merit of the Buddha, that he not only sought this reward for himself, but qualified himself by ages of endurance to enlighten others as to the way in which it might be earned.

But we will not encumber ourselves with the pre-historic Buddha, the tales of whose deeds are palpable fictions, but will endeavor to unravel the thread of genuine fact which probably runs through the accepted life of Sakyamuni in his final appearance upon earth. And here we are met with a preliminary difficulty. That life is not guaranteed by any trustworthy authority. It cannot be traced back to any known disciple of Buddha. It cannot be shown to have been written within a century after his death, and it may have been written later. Ancient, however, it undoubtedly is. For the separation of northern from southern Buddhism occurred at an early period in the history of the Church, probably about two hundred years after the death of its founder; and this life is the common property of all sections of Buddhists. It was consequently current before that separation. But its antiquity does not make it trustworthy. On the contrary, it is constructed in accordance with an evident design. Every incident has a definite dogmatic value, and stands in well-marked dogmatic relations to the rest. There is nothing natural or spontaneous about them. Everything has its proper place, and its distinct purpose. And it is useless to attempt to deal with such a life on the rationalistic plan of sifting the historical from the fabulous; the natural and possible from the miraculous and impossible elements. The close intermixture of the two renders any such process hopeless. We are, in fact, with regard to the life of Gautama Buddha, much in the position that we should be in with regard to the life of Jesus Christ, had we no records to consult but the apocryphal gospels.

Nevertheless, while holding that his biography can never now be written, it is by no means my intention to imply that it is impossible to know anything about him. On the contrary, a picture not wholly imaginary may unquestionably be drawn of the character and doctrines of the great teacher of the Asiatic continent. Let us venture on the attempt.

An imposing array of scholars agrees in fixing the date of his death in B.C. 543, and as he is said to have lived eighty years, he would thus have been born in B.C. 623. Without entering now into the grounds of their inference, I venture to believe that they have thrown him back to a too distant date. I am more inclined to agree with Köppen, who would place his death from B.C. 480 to 460, or about two centuries before the accession of the great Buddhist king Asoka. Westergaard, it is true, would fix this event much later, namely about B.C. 370. Supposing the former writer to be correct in his conclusions, the active portion of the Buddha's life would fall to the earlier years of the fifth century B.C., and possibly to the conclusion of the sixth. His birth, about B.C. 560-540, occurred in a small kingdom of the north of India, entitled Kapilavastu. Of what rank his parents may have been, the accounts before us do not enable us to say. The tradition according to which they were the king and queen of the country, I regard with Wassiljew as in all probability an invention intended to shed additional glory upon him. The boy is said to have been named Siddhartha, though possibly this also was one of the many titles bestowed on him by subsequent piety. At an early age he felt—as so many young men of lofty character have always done—the hollowness of worldly pleasures, and withdrew himself from men to lead a solitary and ascetic life. After he had satisfied the craving for self-torture, and subdued the lusts of the flesh, he came forth, full of zeal for the redemption of mankind, to proclaim a new and startling gospel. India was at that time, as always, dominated by the system of caste. The Buddha, boldly breaking through the deepest prejudices of his countrymen, surrounded himself with a society in which caste was nothing. Let but a man or even a woman (for it is stated that at his sister's request he admitted women) become his disciple, agree to renounce the world, and lead the life of an ascetic, and he or she at once lost either the privileges of a high caste, or the degradations of a low one. Rank depended henceforth exclusively upon capacity for the reception of spiritual truth; and the humblest individual might, by attending to and practicing the teacher's lessons, rise to the highest places in the hierarchy. "Since the doctrine which I teach," he is represented as saying in one of the Canonical Books, "is completely pure, it makes no distinction between noble and commoner, between rich and poor. It is, for example, like water, which washes both noblemen and common people, both rich and poor, both good and bad, and purifies all without distinction. It may, to take another illustration, be compared to fire, which consumes mountains, rocks, and all great and small objects between heaven and earth without distinction. Again, my doctrine is like heaven, inasmuch as there is room within it, without exception, for whomsoever it may be; for men and women, for boys and girls, for rich and poor" (W. u. T., p. 282). This was the practical side of Sakyamuni's great reform. Its theoretical side was this. Life was regarded by Indian devotees, not as a blessing, but as an unspeakable misery. Deliverance from existence altogether, not merely transposition to a happier mode of existence, was the object of their ardent longing. The Buddha did not seek to oppose this craving for annihilation, but to satisfy it. He addressed himself to the problem, How is pain produced, and how can it be extinguished? And his meditations led him to what are termed "the four truths"—the cardinal dogma of Buddhism in all its forms. The four truths are stated as follows:—

1. The existence of pain. 2. The production of pain. 3. The annihilation of pain. 4. The way to the annihilation of pain.

The meaning of the truths is this:—Pain exists; that is, all living beings are subject to it; its production is the result of the existence of such beings; its annihilation is possible; and lastly, the way to attain that annihilation is to enter on the paths opened to mankind by Gautama Buddha. In other words, the way to avoid that awful series of succeeding births to which the Indian believed himself subject, was to adopt the monastic life; to practice all virtues, more especially charity; to acquire a profound knowledge of spiritual truths; and, in fine, to follow the teaching of the Buddha. Renounce the world, and you will—sooner or later, according to your degree of merit—be freed from the curse of existence; this seems to sum up, in brief, the gospel proclaimed with all the fervor of a great discovery by the new teacher. After about forty-five years of public life devoted to mankind, he died at the age of eighty, at Kusinagara, deeply mourned by a few faithful disciples who had clustered around him, and no doubt regretted by many who had found repose and comfort in his doctrines, and had been strengthened by his example. The names of his principal disciples become almost as familiar to a reader of Buddhist books as those of Peter, James, and John, to a Christian. Maudgalyâyana and Sariputtra, the eminent evangelists, and Ananda, the beloved disciple, the close friend and servant of the Buddha, are among the most prominent of this little group. With them rested propagation of the faith, and the vast results, which in two centuries followed their exertions, prove that they were not remiss. The stories of the thousands who embraced the proffered salvation in the life-time of the Buddha are pious fancies. It was the apostles and Fathers of the Church who, while developing his doctrines and largely adding to their complexity and number, almost succeeded in rendering his religion the dominant creed of India.

Such is, in my opinion, the sum total of our positive knowledge with regard to the life lived, and the truths taught, by this great figure in human history. The two points to which I have adverted—namely, the formation of a society apart from the world in which caste was nothing, and the hope held out of annihilation by the practice of virtues and asceticism—are too fundamental and too ancient to be derived from any but the founder. After all, ecclesiastical biographers, while they adorn their heroes with fictitious trappings, do not invent them altogether. A man from whose tuition great results have flowed, cannot be a small man; something of those results must needs be due to the impulse he has given. And if the Buddha must have taught something, must have inaugurated some reform, what is he more likely to have taught, than the way to the annihilation of pain? what reform more likely to have inaugurated than the creation of a society held together by purely spiritual ties? Both are absolutely essential to Buddhism as we know it. Both are closely connected. For Buddhism would have had nothing to offer without the hope of extinction; and this hope, while leading to the practice of an austere and religious life, can itself be fulfilled only by that life; implying as it does a detachment from the bonds of carnality which hold us to this scene of suffering. Thus, these corner-stones of Buddhism—flowing as they must have done from a master-mind—may, with the highest probability, be assigned to its author.

On one other point there is no reason to call in question the testimony of the legend. We need not doubt he really was the pure, gentle, benevolent, and blameless man which that legend depicts him to have been. Even his enemies have not attempted (I believe) to malign his character. He stands before us as one of the few great leaders of humanity who seem endowed with every virtue, and free from every fault.

SUBDIVISION 2. _The Mythical Buddha._

Buddhistic authorities divide the life of their founder into twelve great periods, under which it will be convenient to treat of it:—

1. His descent from heaven. 2. His incarnation. 3. His birth. 4. His display of various accomplishments. 5. His marriage, and enjoyment of domestic life. 6. His departure from home, and assumption of the monastic character. 7. His penances. 8. His triumph over the devil. 9. His attainment of the Buddhaship. 10. His turning the Wheel of the Law. 11. His death. 12. His cremation, and the division of his relics.

1. Following, then, the guidance of the accepted legend, we must begin with his resolution to be born on earth for the salvation of the world. After thousands of preparatory births, he was residing in a certain heaven called Tushita, that being one of the numerous stages in the ascending series of the abodes of the blessed. At length, the end of his sojourn in this heaven arrived. He determined to quit the gods who were his companions there, and to be born on earth. Careful consideration convinced him that the monarch Suddhodana, and his queen, Maya Devi, alone possessed these preëminent qualifications which entitled them to become the parents of a Buddha. Suddhodana lived in the town of Kapila, and belonged to the royal family of the Sakyas, the only family which the Bodhisattva (or destined Buddha) had discovered by his examination to be free from faults by which it would have been disqualified to receive him as one of its members. His wife, in addition to the most consummate beauty, was distinguished for every conjugal and feminine virtue. Here, then, was a couple worthy of the honor about to be conferred upon their house.

2. At this critical moment Maya had demanded, and obtained, the permission of the king to devote herself for a season to the practice of fasting and penance. While engaged in these austerities, she dreamt that a beautiful white elephant approached her, penetrated her side, and entered her womb. At this very time, Bodhisattva actually descended in the shape of a white elephant, and took up his abode within her body. On waking, she related the dream to her husband, who called upon the official Brahmins to interpret it. They declared it to be of good augury. The queen, they said, carried in her womb a being who would either be a "Wheel King," or Sovereign of the whole world; or if he took to a monastic career, would become a Buddha. All things went well during Maya's pregnancy. According to all accounts she underwent none of the discomforts incidental to that state. One writer states that "her soul enjoyed a perfect calm, the sweetest happiness; fatigue and weariness never affected her unimpaired health." Another remarks that she enjoyed "the most perfect health, and was free from fainting fits." An additional gratification lay in the fact, that she was able to see the infant Bodhisattva sitting calmly in his place within her person.

3. Ten months having passed (a Buddha always takes ten), the queen expressed a desire to walk in a beautiful garden called Lumbini; and, with the king's ready permission, proceeded thither with her attendants. In this garden the hour of her delivery came on. Standing under a tree (the _ficus religiosa_), which courteously lowered its branches that she might hold on by them during labor, she gave birth to the child who was afterwards to be the first of humankind. Gods from heaven received him when born, and he himself at once took several steps forward, and exclaimed: "This is my last birth—there shall be to me no other state of existence: I am the greatest of all beings." Ananda, his cousin, and afterwards his disciple, was born at the same moment. Maya, notwithstanding her excellent health, died seven days after her child's birth. This was not from any physical infirmity, but because it is the invariable rule that the mother of a Buddha should die at that exact time. The reason of this, according to the Lalitavistara, is, that when the Buddha became a wandering monk her heart would break. Other respectable authorities assert, that the womb in which a Bodhisattva has lain is like a sanctuary where a relic is enshrined. "No human being can again occupy it, or use it" (P. A., No. III. p. 27). Maya was born again in one of the celestial regions, and the infant was confided to her sister, his aunt Prajapati, or Gautami, who was assisted in the care of her charge by thirty-two nurses. He was christened Sarvarthasiddha, usually shortened into Siddhartha. He is also known as Gautama Buddha, by which name he is distinguished from other Buddhas: as Sakyamuni, the hermit of the Sakya race; as the Tathâgata, he who walks in the footsteps of his predecessors; as Bhagavat, Lord; and by other honorific titles.

Soon after the birth of the Bodhisattva, he was visited and adored by a very eminent Rishi, or hermit, known as Asita (or Kapiladevila), who predicted his future greatness, but wept at the thought that he himself was too old to see the day when the law of salvation would be taught by the infant whom he had come to contemplate.

4. When the appropriate age for the marriage of the young prince arrived, a wife, possessing all the perfections requisite for so excellent a husband, was sought. She was found in a maiden named Gopa (or Yasodhara), the daughter of Dandapani, one of the Sakya race. An unexpected obstacle, however, arose. The father of the lovely Gopa complained that Siddhartha's education had been grossly neglected, and that he was wanting alike in literary accomplishments and in muscular proficiency—things which were invariably demanded of the husbands of Sakya princesses. It does, indeed, appear that Suddhodana had taken little pains to cultivate his son's abilities, and that he had mainly confined himself to the care of his personal safety by surrounding him with attendants. Accordingly, he asked the prince whether he thought he could exhibit his skill in those branches of knowledge, the mastery of which Dandapani had declared to be a necessary condition of his consent. Siddhartha assured his father that he could; and in a regular competitive examination, which was thereupon held, he completely defeated the other princes, not only in writing, arithmetic, and such matters, but in wrestling and archery. In the last art, especially, he gained a signal victory, by easily wielding a bow which none of the others could manage.

5. Gopa was now won, and conducted by her husband to a magnificent palace, where, surrounded by a vast harem of beautiful women, he spent, some years of his life in the enjoyment of excessive luxury. But worldly pleasure was not to retain him long in its embrace.

6. A crisis in his life was now approaching. Suddhodana had been warned that Siddhartha would assume the ascetic character if four objects were to meet his sight; an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a recluse. Suddhodana, who would have much preferred his son being a universal monarch to his becoming a Buddha, anxiously endeavored to guard him from coming across these things. But all was in vain. One day, when driving in the town, he perceived a wrinkled, decrepit, and miserable old man. Having inquired of the coachman what this strange creature was, and having learnt from him that he was only suffering the general fate of humanity, the Bodhisattva was much affected; and, full of sad thoughts, ordered his chariot to be turned homewards. Meeting on two other occasions, likewise when driving, with a man emaciated by sickness, and with a corpse, he was led to still further reflections on the wretchedness of the conditions under which we live. Prepared by these meditations, he yielded completely to the tendencies aroused within him when, on a fourth excursion, he came across a monk. The aspect of this man—his calmness, his dignity, his downcast eyes, his decent deportment—filled him with desire to abandon the world like him.

The die was cast. Nothing could now retain the Bodhisattva, at this time a young man of nine-and-twenty, from the course that approved itself to his conscience. In vain did his father cause his palace to be surrounded with guards. In vain did the ladies of the harem (acting under instructions) deploy their most ravishing arts to captivate and to amuse him. His resolution was finally fixed by a singular circumstance. The beautiful damsels who ministered to him had sought to engage his attention by an exhibition of the most graceful dancing, accompanied by music, displaying their forms before his eyes as they executed their varied movements. But the Bodhisattva, deep in his meditations, was wholly unaffected. He fell asleep; and the women, baffled in their attempts and wearied out, soon followed his example. But in the course of the night the prince awoke. And then the sight of these girls, slumbering in all sorts of ungainly and ungraceful postures, utterly disgusted him. Summoning a courtier, named Chandaka, he ordered him at once to prepare his favorite horse Kantaka, that he might quit the city of his fathers, and lead the life of a humble recluse. But before thus abandoning his home, there was one painful parting to be gone through. One tie still held him to the world. His wife had just become a mother. Anxious to see his infant son, Rahula, before his departure, he gently opened the door of his wife's apartment. He found her sleeping with one hand over the head of the child. He would fain have taken a last look at his little boy, but fearing that if he withdrew the mother's hand she would awake and hinder his departure, he retired without approaching the bed. In the dead of night, mounted on Kantaka, and with the one attendant whom he had taken into the secret, he managed to leave Kapilavastu unperceived, never to return to it again till he had attained the full dignity of a Buddha.

7. Having sent back Chandaka with the horse, the Bodhisattva commenced, alone and unaided, a course of austerities fitted to prepare him for his great duty. He tried Brahminical teachers, but was soon dissatisfied with their doctrine. Five of the disciples of one of these teachers followed him for six years in the homeless and wandering life he now began. He adopted the most rigid asceticism, reducing his body to the last degree of feebleness and emaciation. But this too discovered itself to his mind as an error. He took to eating again, and regained his strength, whereupon the five disciples left him, viewing him as a man who had weakly abandoned his principles.

8. After this period of gradual approach to the required perfection the Bodhisattva went to Bodhimanda, the place appointed for his reception of the Buddhaship. Here he had to withstand a furious attack by the demon Mara, who first endeavored to annihilate him by his armies, and then to seduce him by the fascination of his three daughters. But Gautama withstood his male and female adversaries with equal calmness and success. Of the latter he had possibly had enough in his princely palace.

9. All these trials having been surmounted, he placed himself under the Bodhi (or Intelligence) tree, and there, engaging in the most intense meditations, gradually reached the intellectual and moral height towards which he had long been climbing. He was now in possession of Bodhi, or that complete and perfect knowledge which constitutes a Buddha. He was thus fit to teach the law of salvation, but the Lalitavistra represents him as still doubting for a moment whether he should engage in a task which he feared would be thankless and unavailing. Men, he thought, would be incapable of receiving so sublime a doctrine, and he would incur fatigue and make exertions in vain. Silence and solitude recommended themselves at this moment to his spirit. But from a resolution so disastrous he was turned aside by the intercession of the god Brahma.

10. He proceeded accordingly to "turn the Wheel of the Law," or to preach to others, during the forty-five remaining years of his long life, the truths he had arrived at himself. The current lives speak, in their exaggerated manner, of his magnificent receptions by the kings whose countries he visited, and of the thousands of converts whom he made by his preaching, or who, in technical language, obtained Nirvâna through him. His father and other members of his family were among his followers. But among the first-fruits of his teaching were the five Brahmins who had abandoned him when he had relaxed in his ascetic habits. These, on first perceiving him, spoke of him with contempt as a glutton and a luxurious fellow spoilt by softness. But his personal presence filled them with admiration, and they at once acknowledged his perfect wisdom. During this time the two orders of monks and nuns, with their strict regulations enforcing continence and temperance, were founded. Gautama's aunt and nurse, Prajapati, was the first abbess; the Buddha, who had intended to exclude women from his order, having consented to admit them at her request. Rahula, his son, received the tonsure.

11. After he had firmly established his law in the hearts of many devoted disciples, the Buddha "entered Nirvâna" at the age of eighty, at Kusinagara. That his death was deeply mourned by the friends who had hung upon his lips, and drawn their knowledge of religious truth from him, need not be related.

12. A pompous account is given of his funeral rites, of which it will be sufficient to mention here that his body was laid upon a pyre, and burnt after the manner of burning in use for Chakravartins, or Universal Monarchs. The princes of Kusinagara wished to keep his relics to themselves; but seven kings, each of whom demanded a share, made threatening demonstrations against them, and after some quarrelling it was agreed to distribute the relics among the whole number. They were therefore divided into eight portions, the royal family of each country taking one. A dagoba, or monument, was erected over them in each of the capitals governed by these royal Buddhists.

Of the numerous stories that are told with regard to the effects of the Buddha's preaching, of the amazing miracles he is said to have performed, and of the wonders reported to have happened at his death and his cremation, there will be an opportunity of speaking in another place. For the present, it is enough to relate the legend of his life in its main features, according to the version piously believed by the millions of human beings who—in China, Tartary, Mongolia, Siam, Burmah, Thibet, and Ceylon—look to him as their law-giver and their savior.

SECTION IV.—ZARATHUSTRA.[16]

Slaves, condemned to make bricks without straw, would hardly have a more hopeless task than he who attempts to construct, from the materials now before him, a life of Zarathustra. Eminent as we know this great prophet to have been, the details of his biography have been lost forever. His name and his doctrines, with a few scattered hints in the Gâthâs, are all that remain on record concerning the personality of a man who was the teacher of one great branch of the Aryan race, and whose religion, proclaimed many centuries, possibly even a thousand years, before Christ taught in Galilee, was a great and powerful faith in the days when Marathon was fought, and is not even now extinct. We will gather from these fragmentary sources what knowledge we can of the Iranian prophet, but we will refuse to fill up the void created by the absence of historical documents with ingenious hypotheses or subtle speculations.

Something approaching to a bit of biography is to be found in the opening verses of the fifth Gâthâ, which are to this effect:—

"It is reported that Zarathustra Spitama possessed the best good; for Ahura Mazda granted him all that may be obtained by means of a sincere worship, forever, all that promotes the good life, and he gives the same to all those who keep the words and perform the actions enjoined by the good religion.

"Thus may Kava Vistaspa, Zarathustra's companion, and the most holy Frashaostra, who prepare the right paths for the faith which He who Liveth gave unto the priests of fire, faithfully honor and adore Mazda according to his (Zarathustra's) mind, with his words and his works!

"Pourutschista, the Hetchataspadin, the most holy one, the most distinguished of the daughters of Zarathustra, formed the doctrine, as a reflection of the good mind, the true and wise one."[17]

Here we find an allusion to the interesting fact that the Zarathustra had a daughter who contributed to the formation of the Parsee creed. The phrase, most distinguished of the daughters, probably does not mean that the prophet was the father of several daughters, but merely that this one was celebrated as his coadjutor. Spiegel has in vain endeavored to discover the name of this lady's husband, but it seems to be doubtful whether anything is known of her matrimonial relations. The fact which it concerns us to notice is, that already in these primitive ages we have a female saint appearing on the scene. In addition to St. Pourutschista, mention is made of two disciples, who were evidently leaders in the apostolic band. The evangelic ardor of Frashaostra is touched upon in the preceding Gâthâ, where it is stated that "he wished to visit my Highlands (_i. e._, Bactria) to propagate there the good religion," and Ahura Mazda is implored to bless his undertaking. Rava Vistaspa is celebrated in the same place as having obtained knowledge which the living Wise One himself had discovered (Yaspa li. 16, 17. Parsees, p. 161). The names of both are well known, being frequently mentioned in the Gâthâs. They appear to have been intimate associates of the prophet. Thus a supposed inquiry is addressed to Zarathustra, "Who is thy true friend in the great work? who will publicly proclaim it?" and the answer is, "Kava Vistaspa is the man who will do this" (Yasna, xlvi. 14). And Frashaostra is spoken of as having received from God, in company with the speaker (probably the prophet himself), "the distinguished creation of truth" (Ibid., xlix. 8). It is added, "for all time we will be thy messengers," or in other words, Evangelists.

Not only do we obtain from the Gâthâs a glimpse of Zarathustra attended by zealous disciples, eager to proclaim the good tidings he brought: we learn something also of the opposition he encountered from the adherents of the older faith. And since he actually names himself in the course of one of these compositions, which bears every appearance of genuineness and antiquity, we need not doubt the authenticity of the picture therein given of his relations to these opponents. They were the adherents of the old Devas, the gods whom Zarathustra dethroned;—polytheists, averse to this unheard-of introduction of monotheism into their midst. And they formed, at least during a part of the prophet's life-time possibly during the whole of it, by far the stronger party, for he refers to them in these terms:—

"To what country shall I go? where shall I take refuge? what country gives shelter to the master (Zarathustra) and his companion? None of the servants pay reverence to me, nor do the wicked rulers of the country. How shall I worship thee further, living Wise One?

"I know that I am helpless. Look at me being amongst few men, for I have few men (I have lost my followers or they have left me); I implore thee weeping, thou living God who grantest happiness as a friend gives _a present_ to his friend. The good of the good mind is in thy own possession, thou True One!...

"The sway is given into the hands of the priests and prophets of idols, who, by their _atrocious_ actions, endeavor to destroy the life of man....

"To him who makes this very life increase by means of truth to the utmost for me, who am Zarathustra myself, to such an one the first (earthly) and the other (spiritual) life will be granted as a reward together with all good things to be had on the imperishable earth. Thou, living Wise One, art the very owner of all these things to the greatest extent; thou, who art my friend, O Wise One!" (Yasna. xlv. 1, 2, 11, 19.)

And elsewhere we come across this exclamation: "What help did Zarathustra receive, when he proclaimed the truths? What did he obtain through the good mind?" (Ibid., xlix. 12.)

And the piteous question is put to Ahura Mazda: "Why has the truthful one so few adherents, while all the mighty, who are unbelievers, follow the Liar in great numbers?" (Ibid., xlvii. 4.)

These simple and natural verses point to a prophet who was—for a time at least—without honor in his own country. Whereas the later representations of his career depict him as the triumphant revealer of a new faith, before whose words of power the "Devas," or god of polytheism, flee in terror and dismay, we meet with him here in the character of a persecuted and lonely man, unsupported by the authorities of his nation, opposed by a powerful majority, and imploring, in the distress and desolation of his mind, the all-powerful assistance of his God. Such is the reality; how widely it differs from the fiction we have already seen. But as is always the case with great prophets, who are rejected in their own days and honored after their death, the reality is forgotten; the fiction is universally accepted.

Little need be said of the doctrines taught by Zarathustra. His main principle is belief in the one great God, Ahura Mazda, whom he substitutes for the many gods of the ancient Aryans. He was in fact the author of a monotheistic reformation. The worshipers of these deities are often referred to in opprobrious terms, more especially as "liars," or "adherents of lies," while the devotees of Ahura are spoken of as the good, or as those who are in possession of the truth. It is only through the spirit of lying that the godless seek to do harm; through the true and wise God they cannot do it (Yasna, xlvii. 4). This God, the friend of the prophet, is honored in language of deep and simple adoration; not with the mere vapid epithets of praise which become common in the later sections of the Zend-Avesta. Zarathustra feels himself entirely under his protection, and describes himself ready to preach whatever truths this great Spirit may instruct him to declare.

Beyond this great central dogma—which he announces with all the fervor of a discoverer—there is nothing of a very distinctive kind in his theology. The doctrine of a separate evil spirit opposed to Ahura Mazda does not hold in the Gâthâs that place which it afterwards obtained in the sacred literature of the Parsee. Dr. Haug considers that Zarathustra held merely a philosophical dualism, the two principles of existence—bad and good—being united in the supreme nature of the ultimate Deity. From this great and all-wise Being every good thing emanates. He is the inspirer of his prophet; the teacher of his people; the counselor in the many perplexing questions that harass the minds of his worshipers. To him the pious souls resort in trouble; by him both earthly possessions and spiritual life are granted to those who rightly seek him. Ahura Mazda is the true God; and there is no other God but Ahura Mazda.

SECTION V.—MAHOMET.[18]

The last man who has obtained the rank of a prophet is Mohammed, or Mahomet, the son of Abdallah and Amina. Since his time none has succeeded in founding a great, and at the same time an independent religion. Many have wrought changes in preëxisting materials; but no one has built from the foundation upwards. The religion of Mahomet, though compounded of heathen, Judaic, and Christian elements, is not a mere reformation of any of the faiths in which these constituents were found. It depends for its original sanction upon none of these, but derives its _raison d'etre_ exclusively from the direct inspiration of its author.

This prophet was born at Mecca in 571, and was the posthumous child of Abdallah, by his wife Amina. His mother died when he was six years old, and he was then taken charge of by his grandfather Abd-al-Mottalib, who, dying in two years, left the child to the care of his son Abu Talib. Mahomet was poor, and had to work for his living in a very humble occupation. In process of time, however, he obtained a comfortable employment in the service of a rich widow, named Khadija, who was engaged in business, and whom he served in the capacity of a commercial traveler; or at first perhaps in a lower situation. His mercenary relation to her was soon superseded by a tenderer bond. He married her in 595, she being then thirty-eight or thirty-nine years of age, and fifteen years older than himself. She was evidently a woman of strong character, and retained an unbroken hold upon the affection of Mahomet until her death in 619. He subsequently married many wives, of whom Ayisha was the most intimate with him; but none of them appears to have exercised so much influence upon his character as Khadija.

She it was who was the first to believe in the divine inspiration which her husband began to disclose in the year 612, at the mature age of forty; and she it was who encouraged and comforted the rising prophet during his early years of trouble and persecution. His first revelation was received by him in 612. It purported to be dictated by the angel Gabriel, who was Mahomet's authority for the whole of the Koran.

"Recite thou," thus spoke his heavenly instructor, "in the name of thy Lord who created;—created man from clots of blood:—Recite thou! For thy Lord is the most beneficent, who hath taught the use of the pen;—hath taught man that which he knoweth not" (K., p. 1.—Sura xcvi).

After this first reception of the word of God, Mahomet passed through that period of extreme depression and gloom which appears to be the universal lot of thoughtful characters, and which Mr. Carlyle has designated "the Everlasting No." For many months he received no more revelations, and in his despondency he entertained a wish to throw himself down from high mountains, but was prevented by the appearance of the angel Gabriel. In time another communication came to strengthen him in his work; and revelations now began to pour down abundantly. His earliest disciples, besides his wife and his daughters, were his cousin Ali, and the slave Zayd, whom he had adopted as a son. By and by he obtained other important converts, among whom were Abu Bakr, Zobayr, and Othman, afterwards the Chalif.

His earliest revelations were inoffensive to the Meccans; and it was only when he began to preach distinctly the unity of God, the resurrection, and responsibility to the Deity, that opposition was aroused. Persecution followed upon disapproval. Some of Mahomet's followers were compelled to take refuge in Abyssinia, and he himself told the Meccans instructive legends of nations whom God had destroyed for their wickedness in rejecting the prophets who had been sent to them. In 616, however, Mahomet was guilty of a relapse, for he published a revelation recognizing three Meccan idols, Lat, Ozza, and Manah, as intercessors with Allah. In consequence of this concession to their faith, the Korayschites—his own tribe—fell down on their faces in adoration of Allah, and the exiles in Abyssinia returned to their native land. But the prophet was soon ashamed of the weakness by which he had purchased public support. The verse was struck out of the Koran, and the passing recognition of idolatry attributed to the suggestion of the devil. Tradition assigns to this occasion the following verses:

"We have not sent any apostle or prophet before thee, among whose desires Satan injected not some wrong desire; but God shall bring to nought that which Satan had suggested. Thus shall God affirm his revelations, for God is Knowing-Wise! That he may make that which Satan hath injected, a trial to those in whose hearts is a disease, and whose hearts are hardened" (K. p. 593—Sura xxii. 51, 52).

After his renewed profession of Monotheism, Mahomet and his followers were naturally subjected to renewed persecutions. Conversions, however, did not cease; and that of Omar, in 617, was of great importance to the nascent community. Yet matters were at last pushed to extremities by the unbelievers. Mahomet's family, the Haschimites, were excluded from all commercial and social intercourse by the other Korayschites, and compelled to withdraw into their own quarter. This state of quarantine probably lasted from the autumn of 617 to that of 619. At its conclusion Mahomet lost his wife Khadija, and his uncle Abu Talib, who had given him protection.

He was now exposed to many insults and much annoyance. The insecurity in which he lived at Mecca forced him to seek supporters elsewhere. Now the Caaba or holy stone at Mecca was the scene of an annual pilgrimage from the surrounding country. Mahomet made use of the advent of the pilgrims in 621 to enlist in his cause six inhabitants of Medina, who are reported to have bound themselves to him by the following vow:—Not to consider any one equal to Allah; not to steal; not to be unchaste; not to kill their children; not willfully to calumniate; to obey the prophet's orders in equitable matters. Paradise was to be the guerdon of the strict observance of this vow, which from the place where it was taken was called the first Akaba. In the following year, 622, Mahomet met seventy-two men of Medina by night at the same ravine, and the oath now taken was the second Akaba. The believers swore to receive the prophet and to expend their property and their blood in his defense. Twelve of the seventy-two disciples were selected as elders, the prophet following therein the example of Christ.

A place of refuge from the hostility of their countrymen was now open to the rising sect. All the Moslems who were able and willing gradually found their way to Medina. At length none of the intending emigrants remained at Mecca but the prophet himself and his two friends Abu Bakr, and Ali. The designs of the Korayschites against Mahomet's life failed, and he effected his escape to a cave at some little distance from Mecca, and in the opposite direction from Medina. Here he remained in concealment with Abu Bakr for three days, the daughter of the latter bringing food for both. After this time a guide brought three camels with which they proceeded in safety to Medina. The prophet reached Koba, a village just outside it, on the 14th of September 622. He remained here three days, and received the visits of his adherents in Medina every day. This was the celebrated Hegira, or flight, from which the Mussulman era is dated.

In the course of a year, the majority of the inhabitants of Medina had adopted Islam, and a little later those who remained heathens were either compelled or persuaded to embrace, or at least to submit to, the new creed and its apostle. The Jews alone retained their ancient religion. But while Mahomet was thus successful with Medina, he was still exposed to the bitter hostility of Mecca. War between the two cities was the result of the hospitality accorded to him by the former. Mahomet, who now united in his person the temporal and spiritual supremacy in his adopted home, did not shrink from the contest, but carried it on with vigor and success. In the year 624, having gone in pursuit of a Meccan caravan, he met the army of the Korayschites at Badr, and defeated them; although he had not much more than three hundred men, while they commanded from nine hundred to one thousand. In the following year indeed the Moslems were defeated in the battle of Ohod; but in 627 the siege of Medina, undertaken by Abu Sofyân at the head of ten thousand men, was raised after three weeks without serious loss on either side.

Notwithstanding the enmity of its inhabitants, Mecca still retained in the eyes of Mahomet and his disciples its ancient prerogative of sanctity. The Kibla, or point towards which the Moslem was to turn in prayer, had for a time been Jerusalem; but Mahomet had restored this privilege to his native town two years after the Hegira. There too was the sacred stone, no less venerated by the pious worshiper of Allah than by the adherents of Lat, Ozza and Manah; and thither it was that the religious pilgrimage had to be performed, for Mahomet had no intention of giving up this part of his ancestral faith. He was desirous in the spring of 628 of performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Koreish, however, came out to meet him with an army, determined to preclude his entrance to the city. The design was therefore abandoned; but an important treaty was concluded between Mahomet and Sohayl, who acted as envoy from Mecca. By this compact both parties agreed to abstain from all hostilities for ten years; Mahomet was to surrender fugitives from Mecca, but the Meccans were not to surrender fugitives from him; no robbery was to be practiced; it was open to any one to make an alliance with either party; Mahomet and his followers were to be permitted to enter Mecca for three days in the following year for the festival. After making this agreement Mahomet, yielding to circumstances, performed the ceremonies of the festival at Hodaybiya near Mecca and then withdrew.

The treaty caused great dissatisfaction among the Moslems, as well it might; and the humiliation was heightened when the prophet, shortly after making it, was compelled to fulfil its provisions by giving up certain proselytes who had fled to him, from Mecca. Nevertheless his power continued to grow, and a tribe residing near Mecca took advantage of the treaty to conclude an alliance with him.

Mahomet now began to place himself on a level with crowned heads. In 628 he had a seal made with the inscription upon it: "Mahomet the messenger of God." Furnished with this official seal, he despatched six messengers with letters to the Emperor Heraclius; to the King of Abyssinia; to the Shah of Persia; to Mokawkas, lord of Alexandria; to Harith the Ghassanite chief; and to Hawda in Yamama, a province of Arabia. The purport of all these missives was an exhortation to the various sovereigns and chiefs to embrace the new religion, and a promise that God would reward them if they did, with a warning that they would bear the guilt of their subjects if they did not.

In the same year Mahomet besieged the town of Chaybar, whose inhabitants were Jews. Many of them were killed; the rest were permitted to withdraw with their families. Kinana, their chief, was executed; and his wife Cafyya was added to the already numerous harem of the victor.

The following year, 629, witnessed the performance by the Moslems of the pilgrimage to Mecca for the first time since the Hegira. The prophet summoned those who had accompanied him to Hodaybiya the year before to go with him now. The Koreish, according to the stipulations of the treaty, left the city; the Moslems entered it, performed their devotions, and retired after three days. This year was also marked by a signal victory over a Ghassanite chief, who had executed a Mussulman envoy.

In January, 630, taking advantage of the invitation of an allied tribe who had quarreled with Mecca, Mahomet quitted Medina with a large army for the purpose of taking that city. The exploit was facilitated by the desertion of the general of the Koreish, Abu Sofyân, who privately escaped to the Moslem camp and made his confession of faith. Next day the forces of the prophet entered Mecca with scarcely any resistance. In the following year he laid down the terms upon which the conquered city was to be dealt with. Abu Bakr, accompanied by 300 Moslems, was sent to Mecca as leader of the pilgrims. Ali was charged to make the proclamation to the people which is found in the 9th Sura of the Koran.

"An Immunity from God and his Apostle to those with whom ye are in league, among the Polytheist Arabs! (those who join gods with God). Go ye, therefore, at large in the land four months: but know that God ye shall not weaken; and that those who believe not, God will put to shame—And a proclamation on the part of God and his Apostle to the people on the day of the greater pilgrimage, that God is free from any engagement with the votaries of other gods with God as is his Apostle! If therefore ye turn to God it will be better for you; but if ye turn back then know that ye shall not weaken God: and to those who believe not, announce thou a grievous punishment. But this concerneth not those Polytheists with whom ye are in league, and who shall have afterwards in no way have failed you, nor aided any one against you. Observe, therefore, engagement with them through the whole time of their treaty: for God loveth those who fear him. And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush: but if they shall convert, and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for God is gracious, merciful. If any one of those who join gods with God ask an asylum of thee, grant him an asylum, that he may hear the Word of God, and then let him reach his place of safety. This, for that they are people devoid of knowledge" (K., p. 611.—Sura ix. 1-6).

Without quoting the proclamation at full length, we may observe that in substance the terms granted were these. Those of the heathen with whom treaties had been made were informed that they should be free for four months. These are the "sacred months" alluded to in the text, and which had always been observed as a time of truce by the heathen Arabs, but which Mahomet deprived of their privilege. After this period was past the Moslems might kill the heathens or take them prisoners wherever they might find them. With other heathens, with whom there was no treaty in existence, Allah announced that he would have nothing further to do. Moreover, the heathen were excluded by this proclamation from approaching the holy places of Mecca in future. "O believers!"—such are the words of this last decree—"only they who join gods with God are unclean! Let them not, therefore, after this year, come near the sacred Temple" (K., p. 615.—Sura ix. 28).

The prophet was now at the climax of his power. All Arabia was his; both materially and spiritually subdued beneath his authority. The city of his birth, which had spurned him as one of her humble citizens, was now compelled to receive him as her lord. No triumph could be more complete; and it is a rare, if not a unique, example of a new religion being persecuted, imperilled, well-nigh crushed, rescued, strengthened, contending for supremacy, and supreme, within the life-time of its founder. But that life-time was now approaching its end. Mahomet in 632 celebrated the last festival he was destined to witness with the utmost pomp. He went with all his wives to Mecca, and thousands of believers assembled around him there. He preached to them from his camel. He sacrificed one hundred camels. On the 8th of June, 632, he expired in the hut of Ayischa of a remittent fever from which he had been suffering a short time.

The character of the prophet Mahomet is an open question. Between the glowing admiration bestowed upon him by Carlyle, and the sneering depreciation of Sprenger, there lie numerous intermediate possibilities of opinion. His sincerity, his veracity, his humanity, his originality, are all topics of discussion admitting of varied treatment. The old and simple method of treating Mahomet as an impostor scarcely merits notice. Among serious students of his life it may be pronounced extinct. But between positive imposture and a degree of truthfulness equal to that which all would concede to Confucius, or to Jesus, there are many degrees, and a man may be more or less sincere in many particulars which do not involve the fundamental honesty of his conduct. It is in such particulars that the character of Mahomet is most open to suspicion. Few, I believe, would be able to read the earlier Meccan Suras, instinct as they are with a spirit of glowing devotion to a new idea, without entire conviction of the sincerity of their author. Nor can we reasonably doubt that he himself fully believed in the inspiration he professed to receive. The Koran is written precisely in that loose, rambling, and irregular style, which would indicate that its author was above the laws of human composition. If (as is said by some) there is beauty in the original Arabic, that beauty entirely evaporates in translation. The man whose work it is gave utterance to the thoughts of the moment as they were borne in upon him, in his opinion by an external power. But while he no doubt conceived himself as the instrument of the divine being, it is also exceedingly probable that in his later life he abused the weapon which he had thus got into his possession. That is to say, instead of waiting patiently for the revelation, and allowing Allah to take his own time, he in all likelihood put forth as revealed whatever happened to suit the political purpose of the day, and that at whatever moment was convenient to himself. In other words, he may have become less of a passive, and more of an active agent in the composition of the Koran. Take, for example, the two following Suras, belonging to his earliest period, as specimens of the inspired poetic style:—"Say: O ye unbelievers! I worship not that which ye worship, and ye do not worship that which I worship; I shall never worship that which ye worship, neither will ye worship that which I worship. To you be your religion; to me my religion." "Say: He is God alone: God the eternal! He begetteth not, and is not begotten; and there is none like unto him" (K., pp. 12, 13.—Suras cix., cxii).

Contrast these fervent exclamations with such a passage as this, from one of the latest Suras:—

"This day have I perfected your religion for you, and have filled up the measure of my favors upon you: and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion; but whoso without willful leanings to wrong shall be forced by hunger to transgress, to him, verily, will God be indulgent, merciful. They will ask thee what is made lawful for them. Say: Those things which are good are legalized to you, and the prey of beasts of chase which ye have trained like dogs, teaching them as God hath taught you. Eat, therefore, of what they shall catch for you, and make mention of the name of God over it, and fear God: Verily, swift is God to reckon: This day, things healthful are legalized to you, and the meats of those who have received the Scriptures are allowed to you, as your meats are to them. And you are permitted to marry virtuous women of those who have received the Scriptures before you, when you shall have provided them their portions, living chastely with them without fornication, and without taking concubines" (K., p. 632.—Sura v. 5-7).

The doctrine of direct inspiration, applied to matters like these, is almost a mockery. Yet Mahomet may have continued to think that God assisted him in the task of laying down laws for the believers, and we cannot accuse him of positive insincerity, even though his revelations were no longer the spontaneous outpourings of an overflowing heart.

A more difficult question is raised when we inquire how much of his teaching was borrowed from others, and whether there was any one who acted as his prompter in the novel doctrines he announced. Now there is evidence enough, some of it supplied by the Koran itself, that Mahomet was preceded by a sect called Hanyfites, who rejected the idolatry of their countrymen and held monotheistic doctrines. He spoke of himself as belonging to this sect, of which the patriarch Abraham was considered the representative and founder. Abraham is referred to in the Koran with the epithet "Hanyf," and as one of those who do not join gods with God (_E.g._, Sura iii. 89; vi. 162; xvi. 121). A dozen or so of the contemporaries of the prophet renounced idolatry before him, and were Hanyfites. Three of these became Christians, and a fourth, by name Zayd, professed to be neither Jew nor Christian, but to follow the religion of Abraham. Zayd was acknowledged as his forerunner by Mahomet himself. But besides these sources of conversion which lay open to the prophet, it is plain from the Koran itself that he had had much intercourse with a person (or persons) of the Jewish faith. Mahomet was not a scholar, and his continual allusions to events in Jewish history plainly indicate a personal source. Moreover, the narratives are given in that somewhat perverted form which we should expect to find if they were derived from loose conversation rather than from study. His belief in the unity of God is not therefore a peculiarity which cannot be explained by reference to the circumstances in which his youth was passed. What was original with him was not the doctrine so much as the intensity with which it took possession of his mind, and the fervor which allowed him no rest until he had done his best to impart to others the profound conviction he entertained of this great truth.

Mahomet in fact began his public career as a simple preacher. The resistance he met with at home, and the necessity of relying for self-preservation on the swords of the men of Medina, converted him from a prophet to a potentate. The change was not one which he could avoid without sacrificing all chances of success; but it does appear to have exercised an unfortunate influence upon his character. As the governor of Medina he became tyrannical and even cruel. Among the worst features of his life is his conduct to the Jews after his attempts at conciliation had been shown to be fruitless. For instance, a Jewish tribe, the Banu Kaynoka, with whom a treaty of friendship had been concluded, were expelled from Medina. Another tribe of the same religion, the Banu Nadhyr, were blockaded in their quarter, and driven to capitulate, on condition of being allowed to leave Medina with their movable property. On the very day upon which the siege by Abu Sofyân in 627 came to an end, Mahomet blockaded the Banu Koraytza, also Jews, and compelled them to surrender at discretion. All the men, six hundred in number, were put to death, and the women were sold as slaves; a punishment which, even on the supposition that the tribe was hostile to the prophet, was unpardonably severe. In the ensuing year he marched against Chaybar, a town inhabited by Jews, besieged and took it. All the Jews taken in arms were put to death, whereupon the rest surrendered on condition of being permitted to withdraw with their families and their portable goods, exclusive of weapons and the precious metals. Kinana, their leader, was executed, and it is a suspicious circumstance that Mahomet married his widow Cafyya. Nor were these the worst of the prophet's misdeeds. He even stooped to sanction, if not to order, private assassination. Shortly after his victory at Badr, a woman and an old man, both of whom had rendered themselves offensive by their anti-Mussulman verses, were murdered in the night; and in both instances the murderers received the protection and countenance of the prophet and his followers.

Unbridled authority had in fact corrupted him. All those who did not adhere to his cause committed in his eyes the crime of opposing the will of God. To a man empowered by a special commission like his, the ordinary restraints of morality could not apply. Hence also, if he required a larger number of wives than was permitted to any other Moslem, a special revelation was produced to justify the excess. This was one of the weakest points in the prophet's character. Instead of setting an example to the community, he was driven to justify his self-indulgence by means which were nothing short of a perversion of religion to his own ends. There would have been nothing reprehensible, considering his age and country, in his indulgence in polygamy, had he observed any kind of moderation as to its extent. Where he happened to take a fancy to a woman, and that woman did not object to him, the moral sense of his countrymen would not have revolted by his taking her to wife. But it was revolted by the unrestricted freedom with which he added wife to wife, and concubine to concubine; a freedom so great as to degenerate into mere debauchery. He married women whom he had never seen, and who were sometimes already married. Mere beauty seems to have justified in his own eyes the addition of a new member to his harem, and there could be no pretence of real affection in the case of the women whom, without previous acquaintance, he took to his matrimonial bed. Exclusive of Khadija, the total number of his wives was thirteen, of whom nine survived him. He had also three concubines.

That his procedure scandalized the faithful is shown by the necessity he felt of defending it by the pliant instrument of revelation. Not only did he obtain from God a special law entitling him to exceed the usual number of wives; other peculiarities in his conduct were justified, either by an _ex post facto_ decision applicable to all, or by an appeal to his extraordinary rights in his character of prophet. He had, for example conceived a desire to possess Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son Zayd. Zayd obligingly divorced her, and received the greatest favor from the prophet for this friendly conduct. Zaynab made it a condition of her compliance that the union with Mahomet should be sanctioned by revelation, and this sanction was of course procured. Marriage with an adopted son's wife was somewhat shocking, and the following reference in the Koran indicates the manner in which the affair was regarded:

"And, remember, when thou saidst to him unto whom God had shown favor [_i. e._, to Zayd], and to whom thou also hadst shown favor, 'Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear God;' and thou didst hide in thy mind what God would bring to light, and didst fear man; but more right had it been to fear God. And when Zayd had settled concerning her to divorce her, we married her to thee, that it might not be a crime in the faithful to marry the wives of their adopted sons, when they have settled the affair concerning them. And the behest of God is to be performed. No blame attacheth to the prophet where God hath given him a permission" (K., p. 566.—Sura xxxiii. 38,39).

In another case he wished to induce a cousin, who was already married, though only to a heathen husband living at Mecca, to become his wife; but she, believer as she was, refused to be untrue to her conjugal duties. He permitted himself also to accept the love of women who simply surrendered themselves to him without the sanction of their relations, conduct which placed them in a highly disadvantageous position, since in case of dismissal by her husband, a woman thus informally married was not entitled to the dowry which other married women would receive, nor could she claim the protection of her family. "Among the heathen Arabs," observes Sprenger, "a man who accepted such a favor would have been killed by the woman's family" (L. L. M., vol. iii. p. 84). But for the case of the cousin and for the case of such obliging female devotees the Koran had its suitable provisions:—

"O Prophet! we allow thee thy wives whom thou hast dowered, and the slaves whom thy right hand possesseth out of the booty which God hath granted thee, and the daughters of thy uncle, and of thy paternal and maternal aunts who fled with thee _to Medina_, and any believing woman who hath given herself up to the prophet, if the prophet desired to wed her—a privilege for thee above the rest of the faithful.... Thou mayest decline for the present whom thou wilt of them, and thou mayest take to thy _bed_ whom thou wilt, and whomsoever thou shalt long for of those thou shalt have before neglected; and this shall not be a crime in thee. Thus will it be easier to give them the desire of their eyes, and not to put them to grief, and to satisfy them with what thou shalt accord to each of them. God knoweth what is in your hearts, and God is knowing, gracious."

By a combination of qualities which is not uncommon, he added to an unrestricted license in his own favor an equally unrestricted jealousy concerning others. He could not bear the thought that any other man might possibly enjoy one of his wives even after his death. His followers were told that they "must not trouble the Apostle of God, nor marry his wives after him, for ever. This would be a grave offense with God." In the same paltry spirit he orders them, when they would ask a gift of any of his wives, to ask it from behind a veil. "Purer will this be for your hearts and for their hearts." Lest any stranger should trouble this uneasy husband by obtaining a sight of his wives' naked faces, he required them invariably to wear a veil in public, and never to expose themselves unveiled except to near male relations, slaves, or women (K., p. 569.—Sura xxxiii. 51, 53, 55).

Texts like these exhibit the degeneracy of the prophet's character in his later days. He wanted the stimulus of adversity to keep him pure. But he had done his work, and that work was on the whole a good one. Not indeed that there was anything very original or striking in the doctrines he announced. The Koran rings the changes on the unity of God, his power, his mercy, and his other well-known qualities; on the resurrection, with its delights for the faithful and its terrible judgments for the wicked; and on the vast importance of belief in the prophet and submission to his decrees. But this religion, though containing no elements that did not already exist in its two parents, Judaism and Christianity, was an improvement on the promiscuous idolatry which it superseded. It was less sensual and more abstract; and its moral tone was higher. Greater still than the improvement in the creed of the Arabs was the improvement in their material _status_. Unity of faith brought with it unity of action. From a number of scattered, independent, and often hostile tribes, the Arabs became a powerful and conquering nation. Other peoples were in course of time converted, and the religion of Mahomet was in the succeeding centuries carried in triumph over vast districts where the name of Christ had hitherto reigned supreme. Districts of heathen Africa have also accepted it. Were the prophet able to speak to us now, he would be entitled to say that the manifest blessing of Allah had rested upon the work he had begun in obscurity and persisted in through persecution; and that the partiality of heaven was evident from the fact that Christianity had never succeeded, and had no prospect of succeeding, in regaining the vast territory in Europe and in Africa from which Islam has expelled it.

SECTION VI.—JESUS CHRIST.

When we endeavor to write the life of Jesus Christ, the greatest of the prophets, we are beset by peculiar difficulties arising from the nature of the materials. While in the case of the Buddha we receive from authorities a life which, though largely composed of fiction, is at least uniform and consistent, in the case of Jesus we have biographies from several sources, all of them partly historical, partly legendary, and each in some respects at issue with all the rest. Hence the labor of sifting fact from fiction, as also that of reproducing and classifying the fictitious element itself, is far more difficult. In sifting fact from fiction we have to judge, among two, three, or four versions of an occurrence, which is likely to be the most faithful statement of the truth, and within this statement itself how much we may accept, how much we must reject. And in reproducing and classifying the fictitious element we have not merely to relate a simple story, but to combine into our narrative varying, and sometimes conflicting, forms of the same fundamental myth.

Hence further subdivision will be needed in the case of Jesus than was requisite in treating the lives of any of the other prophets. We may in fact discern in the gospels three distinct strata: a stratum of fact; a stratum of miracle and marvel; and a stratum (in John) of mere imagination _within_ the realm of natural events. Correspondently to these divisions in the sources we will treat Jesus first as historical; secondly, as mythical; thirdly, as ideal. The historical Jesus is the actual human figure who remains after abstraction has been made of the miraculous and legendary portions of his biography. The mythical Jesus, who is found in the three first gospels, is the human subject of legendary narratives; the ideal Jesus, who is found in John, is a completely superhuman conception.

Finally, it may be needful to remark that the names affixed to the several gospels are merely traditional, and that in using them as a brief designation for these works, no theory as to their actual authorship is intended to be implied. The gospels (excepting perhaps the fourth) were the work of many authors, though ultimately compiled and edited by a single hand. Who this editor was is of little moment; and who the original authors were we never can discover. So that the gospels are to all intents and purposes anonymous; but it will be convenient, after noting this fact, to continue to describe them by their current titles.

SUBDIVISION 1.—_The Historical Jesus._

In attempting to sketch the outline of the actual life of Jesus—and anything more than an outline must needs be highly conjectural—there are some general principles which it is advisable to follow. Recollecting that we have to deal with biographers who have mingled in promiscuous confusion the supernatural with the natural, impossibilities with probabilities, fables with facts, it becomes our duty to endeavor to separate these heterogeneous elements according to some consistent plan. That this can ever be perfectly accomplished is not to be expected. The figure of Jesus must ever move in twilight, but we may succeed in reducing the degree of unavoidable obscurity.

The first of the maxims to be observed will be furnished by a little consideration of the kind of thing likely to be the earliest committed to writing, as also to be the most accurately handed down by tradition. This, it appears to me, would be sayings, rather than doings. Nothing in the life of Jesus is more characteristic and remarkable than his oral instruction; this would impress itself deeply upon the minds of his hearers, and nothing, we may fairly conjecture, would be so soon committed to writing either by them or by their followers. Moreover, the records of discourses and parables would be, in the main, more accurate than those of events; slight differences in the words attributed to a speaker being (except in special cases) less material than divergences in the manner of portraying his actions. Historical confirmation of this hypothesis is not wanting. There is the well-known statement of Papias that Matthew wrote down the "sayings" of Christ in Hebrew [Syro-Chaldaic]. And if we look for internal evidence, we find it in the far greater agreement among the synoptical gospels as to the doctrines taught by Jesus than as to the incidents of his career. The incidents bear traces of embellishment undergone in passing from mouth to mouth from which the doctrines are free. In some cases, moreover, there is concurrence as to the doctrines taught along with divergence as to the place where, and the circumstances under which, they were delivered. Added to which considerations there is the all-important fact that the events in the life of Christ are often of a supernatural order, while his discourses (excepting those in John) present nothing irreconcilable with his position in regard either to his epoch, his presumable education, or his nationality.

Giving this preference to sayings in general, over doings in general, we may next establish an order of preference among doings themselves. Of these, some are natural and probable; others unnatural and improbable; others again supernatural and impossible. The first kind will, of course, be accepted rather than the second; while the third kind must be rejected altogether. And as a corollary from this general principle, it follows that where one narrative gives a simpler version than another of the same event or series of events, the simpler version is to be preferred.

A third rule of the utmost importance is that when any statement is opposed, either directly or by its implications, to subsequent tradition, that statement may be confidently received. For when the whole course of opinion in the Christian Church has run in a given direction, the preservation in one of our Gospels of an alleged or implied fact conflicting with the established view, is an unmistakable indication that the truth has been rescued from destruction in a case where succeeding generations would gladly have suppressed it.

A fourth maxim, which is likely to be useful, is that wherever we can perceive traces of faults or blemishes in the character of Christ, we may presume them to have actually existed. For his biographers were deeply interested in making him appear perfect, and they would have been anxious wherever possible to conceal his weaknesses. Where, therefore, they suffer such human frailties to be perceived, their unconscious testimony is entitled to great weight. For although they themselves either do not see or do not acknowledge that what they record is really evidence of faultiness at all, yet it is plain that circumstances conveying such an impression to impartial minds are not likely to have been invented. The conduct ascribed to Jesus might be capable of justification from his peculiar mission or his peculiar conception of his duties, but admiring disciples would not wantonly burden him with a load not rightly his. Yet this principle, though unquestionable in the main, must be tempered with the qualification that there are cases where his followers may have misunderstood and misrepresented him. It must be added that a similar presumption of truth attaches to the record of faults or blunders in the conduct of the disciples, whose characters their disciples were likewise anxious to exalt.

In the fifth place, it is a reasonable supposition that the less complete the outline of the life of Jesus contained in any Gospel, the more authentic is that Gospel. Gaps in the story told by one writer which, in another writer, have been filled up, are strong indications of actual gaps in the life as known to the first Christians. While it is true that the compiler of one Gospel might, from ignorance or from design, omit some historical fact which the compiler of another would insert, yet it is unlikely that whole years would be passed over in silence, or remarkable events left out, where any genuine knowledge of those years or those events was possessed by the biographer. But nothing is more natural than that a space, subsequently felt to be a serious and almost intolerable void, should in process of time be removed by the exercise of the imagination craving to fill the empty canvas with living figures. Nor even where there is no positive blank, is it surprising that many actions conformable to the notion formed of Christ should be fitted into his career, and made to take their places alongside of others of a more unquestionable nature. We shall therefore prefer the scantiest account of the life of Jesus to the fullest.

A careful comparison of the first three Gospels—which alone can pretend to an historical character—will establish the fact that the second, ascribed to Mark, is the most trustworthy, or to speak accurately, the least untrustworthy, according to these canons. For in the first place, it absolutely omits many of the most noteworthy events comprehended by the other Gospels in the life of Jesus. Secondly, it sometimes gives a natural version of a circumstance which appears in the others as supernatural; or a comparatively simple version of a circumstance which the others have converted into something mystical. It surpasses the others in statements, and still more in omissions, implying divergence from well-established subsequent tradition; and in general the far greater scantiness of detail, the failure to fill up blanks as the other Evangelists have done, the almost fragmentary character of this Gospel, are points telling largely in its favor. That, however, we have the earliest, or anything approaching the earliest form of the life of Jesus in Mark it would be a great error to assume. As much as Mark differs from Matthew and Luke, so much at least did the primitive story differ from his, and in the same direction. Nay, it must have differed far more, for by the time the second Gospel was committed to its present form, a cloud of marvels had already surrounded the person of Jesus, and obscured his genuine figure. Through the mist of this cloud we must endeavor to discern such of his lineaments as have not been totally and forever hidden from our scrutinizing gaze.

Very little is known of the parents of Jesus, and even that little has rather to be inferred from casual references than gathered from direct statements. Joseph, his father, was a carpenter or builder, but his status is nowhere clearly defined. He and his family appear, however, to have been well known in their native country, and he was probably, therefore, not a mere workman, but a tradesman in comfortable circumstances.[19] At any rate, he was the father of a considerable family, consisting of five sons and of more than one daughter (Mt. xiii. 55, and xii. 46; Mk. vi. 3, and iii. 31; Lu. viii. 19). The names of the brothers of Jesus,—James, Joses, Simon, and Judas,—have been preserved, while those of his sisters are unknown.

Whether there is not some confusion here, may indeed be doubted, for we hear also of another Mary, the mother of James and Joses (Mk. xv. 40; Mt. xxvii. 56), and it is possible (as M. Renan supposes), that the names of her children have been substituted for those of the genuine brothers of Christ which had been forgotten. Paul certainly mentions James, the Lord's brother (Gal. i. 19), and it would be natural to interpret this literally. But the question does not admit of any positive decision. Of the actual existence, however, of both brothers and sisters there can be no reasonable doubt; for they are spoken of as personages who were familiar to their neighbors, while the very fact that they play no part in the subsequent history is a guarantee that they have not been invented for a purpose. Little is known of his mother Mary, her genuine form having been transfigured at a very early period by the Christian legend. The first and third Gospels have made her the subject of a story which would force us—if we accept it at all—to consider Jesus as her illegitimate child, born of some other father than Joseph. But there is no adequate ground to ascribe to her such laxity of conduct. For aught we can discern to the contrary, she seems to have borne a fair reputation among her countrymen, who undoubtedly, according to the incidental and therefore unbiased testimony of all four Evangelists, believed Jesus to have been the son of Joseph, begotten, like the rest of his family, in wedlock (Mt. xiii. 55; Mk. vi. 3; Lu. iv. 22; Jo. vi. 42.)

Beyond the fact that Joseph and Mary occupied a respectable position in Nazareth, we can say little of them. The lineage of both was plainly unknown to the compilers of the Gospels, since Joseph has been endowed with two different fathers, while the parentage of Mary has not even been alluded to. All that we can venture to assert is, that neither of them were reputed to be of the family of David, for Jesus took pains to prove that the Messiah need not, as was commonly believed, be descended from that monarch (Mt. xxii. 41-46; Mk. xii. 35-37; Lu. xx. 41-44). There would have been no occasion for his ingenious suggestion that David, by calling the Messiah Lord, disproved the theory that this Lord must be his son, unless he had felt that his belonging to a family which could not claim such a pedigree might be used as an argument against his Messianic character. We may confidently conclude then that his lineage was obscure.

That his birth took place at Nazareth is abundantly obvious from the very contrivances resorted to in Matthew and Luke to take his parents to Bethlehem for that event. According to either of these narratives one fact is plain: that the habitual dwelling-place of the family was Nazareth; while Matthew has preserved the valuable information that he was called a Nazarene (Mt. ii. 23), a statement which is confirmed by the manner in which he is alluded to in John, as "Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph" (Jo. i. 45). Jesus therefore passed in his life-time for a native of Nazareth, and as it does not appear that he ever contradicted the current assumption, as moreover the only two authorities which are at issue with this assumption are also at issue with one another on all but the bare fact of the birth at Bethlehem, we need not hesitate to draw the inference that he was born at Nazareth.

In his youth the son of Joseph was apprenticed to his father's trade, and he may have practiced it for many years before he took to his more special vocation of a public teacher. He was at any rate known to his neighbors as "the carpenter," and his abandonment of that calling for one in which he seemed to pretend to a position of authority over others, caused both astonishment and indignation among his old acquaintances.

His public career was closely preceded by that of an illustrious prophet, by whom he must have been profoundly influenced—John the Baptist. Very little of the doctrine of John has been preserved to us, his fame having been eclipsed by that of his successor. But that little is sufficient to evince the great similarity between his teaching and that of Jesus. He was in the habit of baptizing those who resorted to him in the Jordan, and of inculcating repentance, because the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Mt. iii. 2). Now precisely the same tone was adopted by Jesus after the captivity of John. Repentance was inculcated on account of the approaching advent of the kingdom of heaven, and a mode of instruction similar to that of John was practiced. Both these prophets, affected no doubt by the troubled condition of Judea, enjoined the simple amendment of the lives of individuals as the means towards a happier state of things. Both attracted crowds around them by the force and novelty of their preaching. Jesus, according to a probable interpretation of the narrative, was so much impressed by the lessons of his predecessor, and by the baptism received from him, that he for a time retired to a solitary place, living an ascetic life, and pondering the stirring questions that must have burnt within him. During this retirement Jesus could mature his designs for the future, and on emerging from it he was able at once to take up the thread of John the Baptist's discourses. Possibly John himself had perceived the high capacity of the young Nazarene, and had appointed him to the prophetic office. But the story of his baptism by John has been unfortunately so surrounded with mythical circumstances, that the true relations between these teachers can no longer be discerned.

Meditating in the wilderness on the words of John the Baptist, and on the state of his country, the notion may have entered the mind of Jesus that he himself was the destined Messiah. While the power he felt within him may have given birth to the idea, the idea once born would react upon his nature and increase the power within him. But whether the conception of his own Messiahship arose now or at some other period, it is plain that he was animated by it during his public career, and that it gave to all his teaching its peculiar tone of independent authority. How far he was completely convinced of his own claim to the Messianic title will be considered in another place; it is sufficient to say here that he was plainly anxious that this claim should be acknowledged, and the rights it conferred upon him recognized.

On emerging from his retreat, he began the public promulgation of his doctrines; at first, however, with caution and reserve, and keeping within the lines marked out by John the Baptist. Attracted by the young enthusiast, a select band of followers gathered around him, and while he inspired them with implicit trust, they no doubt inspired him in their turn with higher confidence. The reticence which modesty or hesitation had produced gradually melted away, and he began boldly to put forth pretensions which, while they repelled and scandalized many, drew others into a closer companionship and a more implicit submission. Simon and Andrew, James and John, were the first, or among the first, of his disciples. Eight others joined him at about the same period of his life, their names being Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas (Mk. iii. 14-19; Mt. x. 1-4). While these formed the inner circle, we must suppose that he had many other admirers and followers, who were either less intimate with him, or less constant in their attendance. And there may even have been others of equal intimacy with the twelve apostles, whose names have not been handed down to us. For all the apostles did not enjoy an equally close and unreserved friendship with their master. Three of their number—Simon, James, and John—stood towards him in an altogether special and peculiar relationship. They are far more prominent than any of the other nine. They were selected to accompany Jesus when others were left behind. They formed an inmost circle within the circle of his more constant companions. Them alone he is said to have distinguished by names of his own invention. On Simon he conferred the name of Peter. To James and John, the sons of Zebedee, he applied the familiar nickname of Boanerges, or sons of thunder, which seems to indicate that they were distinguished by the fervor of their zeal (Mk. iii. 16, 17).

The admirers of Jesus were scarcely, if at all, less numerous among the female than among the male sex. Indeed, he seems to have exercised a very marked fascination over women. When he went to Jerusalem, he was followed by many women from Galilee, who had been accustomed to contribute to his wants, and to give him that personal attention which kindly women know so well how to confer. Mary Magdalene whom he had healed of some mental ailment, Mary the mother of James, Salome the mother of the sons of thunder, were among the most devoted of these, while two sisters, Mary and Martha, Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, are also mentioned (Mk. xv. 40, 41; Lu. viii. 2, 3, x. 38, 39). If we may believe one of the Evangelists, who stands alone in this respect, the homage of women was particularly agreeable to Jesus, who received it with words of the highest praise (Lu. vii. 36-50, x. 38-42). That some among these many female followers were drawn to him by the sentiment of love is, at least, highly probable. Whether Jesus entertained any such feeling towards one of them it is impossible to guess, for the human side of his nature has been carefully suppressed in the extant legend.

Supported then by adherents of both sexes, Jesus entered upon his career of a public teacher. His own house was at Capernaum (Mt. iv. 13), but he wandered from place to place in the exercise of his vocation, staying, no doubt, with friends and disciples. It is not necessary to follow him in these peregrinations, of which only the vaguest accounts have been preserved by the Evangelists. But two remarkable circumstances deserve to be noted; namely, that his own family rejected his pretensions, and that he met with no success in his own district. Of the former, in addition to the negative evidence furnished by the fact that neither Mary nor the brothers of Jesus are mentioned among the believers, we have the positive evidence of John that his brothers did not believe (Jo. vii. 5), confirmed by the statement in the other Gospels that his family attempted to see him during the earlier part of his career, and that Jesus positively refused to have anything to do with them (Mk. iii. 31-35; Mt. xii. 46-50; Lu. viii. 19-21). This desire on the part of the family to confer with him, and the manner in which Jesus, disavowing all special ties, adopts all who "do the will of God" as mother, brother and sister, admits of but one construction. Mary and her other children were anxious to draw him away from the rash and foolish mode of life—as they deemed it—on which he had entered, and Jesus, understanding their design, avoided an unpleasant interview by simply declining to be troubled with them. And if, as is highly probable, it was they who thought him mad (Mk. iii. 21), we have further proof that neither his mother nor any of the other members of his family can be counted among his converts, at any rate during his life-time. The second circumstance, his complete failure in his own neighborhood, is attested by a saying of his own, recorded by all four Evangelists. A prophet, he is reported to have said, is without honor in his own country, among his own kin, and in his own house (Mk. vi. 4). To which it was added that he was unable to perform any work of power there, beyond curing a few sick people. And these cures evidently did not impress the skeptical Nazarenes, for we are told that "he marveled because of their unbelief" (Mk. vi. 5, 6).

Leaving, therefore, these hard-hearted neighbors, he proceeded to address the people of Galilee and Judea in discourses which excited great attention; sometimes inculcating moral truths in plain but eloquent language, sometimes preferring to illustrate them by little stories, the application of which he either made himself or left to his hearers to discover. Had these stood alone, they would have sufficed to give him a high reputation. But he did not depend on words alone for his success among the people. The peculiar condition of Palestine at this epoch gave him a favorable opportunity of supplementing words by deeds. The trials and sufferings they had undergone, both from the Herodian family and the Romans; the constant outrage to their deepest feelings afforded by the presence of an alien soldiery; the insults, humiliations, and cruelties they endured at the hands of their conquerors, had wrought the people up to a state of almost unbearable tension and extreme excitement. That under the pressure of such a state of things nervous disorders should be widely prevalent, is not to be wondered at. And these affections, as is well known, are peculiarly infectious, easily spreading through a whole village and raging in a whole country (See, for example, Hæcker's Epidemics, _passim_). Hysteria, moreover, takes many forms. Now it may show itself as species of madness; now as the imagination of some positive disease. Here it may be violent and outrageous; there morbid and gloomy. Another peculiarity is its tendency to increase the more, the greater the attention paid to it by friends and onlookers. To be an object of interest to those around is enough to inflame the symptoms of the hysterical patient. And when this interest took shape in a belief that he was inhabited by some bad spirit—which was equally the theory of the Jews in the time of Christ, and of Christians up to the middle ages—it was natural that the evil should be magnified to the highest degree. There are, however, some individuals who exercise a peculiar power over sufferers of this description. Their looks, their touch, their words, are all soothing. By addressing the victims of hysteria in tones of authority, by taking their hands, or otherwise endeavoring to calm their excited nerves, these physicians of nature may put a stop to the pain, or expel the illusion. In modern days they would be called mesmerists, and though the peculiarities of temperament to which they owe their mesmeric faculty are not yet understood, their influence is well known to those who have examined into the subject.

Among the Jews, the subjects of these current maladies were said to be possessed by devils. And it was a common profession to cast out these so-called devils,[20] for we are told that it was practiced by the adherents of the Pharisees. What means they employed we do not know. Probably they were not of the mesmeric order, but consisted in charms and exorcisms which, being believed by the patients to have the power of curing them, actually had it. At any rate, the fact remains that Jesus and the Pharisees are reputed to have possessed a similar influence over the demons, and if we accept the statement as true in the one case we cannot consistently reject it in the other. It remains to be considered, however, whether the evidence is such as to induce us to believe it in either. Now it is quite true that a great many absurd and impossible miracles are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels. But considering the important place occupied in his life—as it has come down to us—by his cures of sick people; considering the possibility above suggested that many of these might have taken place by known methods; considering too the extremely easy field which Palestine presented for their application, it would appear more likely that there might be a basis of truth in the numerous accounts of sudden recoveries effected by him, than that they were all mere inventions. We may then assume, without here entering into details, that a number of unfortunate people, thought to be possessed by devils, either met him on his way, or were brought to him by relations, and were restored to health by the authoritative command addressed to the evil spirit to depart; mingled with the sympathetic tone and manner towards the tormented subject of possession. Individual examples of these apparently miraculous cures may be open to doubt from the very inaccurate character of the records, and for this reason it will be better for the present to admit the general fact without binding ourselves to this or that special instance of its occurrence.

Possessing this power himself, and ignorant of its source, Jesus attempted to communicate it to his disciples. It is expressly stated that he gave them power to heal sicknesses and cast out devils (Mk.