book i, ch. 19, about A.D. 331, speaks of a treaty which had been in

existence a short time before, between the Romans and the Indians, but which had been recently violated. He also, in the same chapter, states that there were Christians amongst the Roman merchants in India--no town or locality being given, however, so that we cannot test his assertion--but that they did not then unite to worship. We find also, from the same chapter, that up to that period there were no Christian Indians known.

Coupling the foregoing fragments of history together, we may safely assert that India, generally, was Buddhist in A.D. 400, and that, according to Pliny, the Romans, or, rather, the Alexandrians, had been in yearly communication with the country, for at least three centuries, at the time of Constantine. As it appears that there were Roman merchants in India, so we presume that there were Hindoo traders resident in Egypt. The presumption is, that these were Buddhists, and that they were attended, or followed, by missionary Buddhist priests. Absolute proof of this there is none.

We now turn to Gibbon's history, and inquire into the period when monastic asceticism first began to prevail in Egypt, the necessary residence of our presumed Hindoo traffickers. We find (see _Decline and Fall_, chapter 37) that Anthony, an Egyptian, and unable to write in Greek, living in the lower parts of Thebais, distributed his patrimony, deserted his family and native home, lived amongst tombs, or in a ruined tower, then in the desert, and then in some lonely spot, near the Red Sea, where he found shade and water. It certainly seems clear that he took the son of Maya, rather than the child of Mary, as his exemplar. At and after this time, the rage for asceticism spread amongst the inhabitants of Eastern Africa as conspicuously as it had done in Oriental Asia at the time of Asoka. It is difficult to read the chapter of Gibbon's history to which we refer, and a history of Buddhism, without regarding Egypt, and her miserable ascetics, in the same light as we look upon the folks of Hindustan and Thibet. If Jesus of Nazareth had dictated such a life, surely his early followers would have been more conspicuous in their habitual mortifications than their later disciples were. The son of man--the child of Mary--"came eating and drinking," and was called "a gluttonous man and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners" (Luke vii. 34; Matt, xi. 19). Not so the son of Maya. The Apostles of Jesus had power to lead about a wife or a sister, and they did so. Neither Paul nor Peter shunned woman's society, nor did they practise poverty; nay, they worked with their own hands, lest they should have to live on alms (2 Thess. iii. 8), and they collected money for poor saints from the wealthier brethren. There was no asceticism here, nor can we find, in any part of the New Testament, a text upon which a system of austerity can be founded.

We might, perhaps, think comparatively little of the parallel which we have drawn between Buddhism, and Christianity, did we not recognize the fact, that almost everyone of the later developments of the latter had, for centuries before, found a place in the former, even including, as we have mentioned, the dogma of the immaculate conception.

To the preceding considerations we may add another, which, as Ivanhoe said of himself, "is of lesser renown and lower rank, and assumed into the honourable company less to aid their enterprise than to make up their number." Standing alone it may have small power, but as a link in a chain it is important. We refer to the abundant testimony which we possess of the strength of Grecian influence upon the tenets of Christianity. Without laying any stress upon the fact that the whole of the New Testament extant is written in Greek, we may advert to the current belief amongst thoughtful scholars, that the so-called Gospel of St. John was written by some Alexandrian Greek about 150 A.D., or by one who was imbued with the philosophy of Plato. Sharpe has distinctly shown that the doctrine of the trinity was held in Ancient Egypt, and first adopted, then promulgated, by the Egyptian or Alexandrian divines. The influence of Greek ideas upon Philo Judæus is very conspicuous.

We may now turn our attention to one statement about the Athenians, viz., "that they and the strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else than to tell and to hear some new thing," and that they were so particular--in this respect resembling the Ancient Peruvians--in adopting foreign gods, that they had an altar to the Unknown Deity (Acts xvii). To this we must add what Sozomen says of them (_Ecclesiastical History_, book ii. chap. 24)--that the most celebrated philosophers amongst the Greeks took pleasure in exploring unknown cities and regions. Plato, the friend of Socrates, dwelt for a time amongst the Egyptians, in order to acquaint himself with their manners and customs. He likewise sailed to Sicily, to examine its craters.... These craters were likewise explored by Empedocles. Democritus of Coos relates that he visited many cities, and countries, and nations, and that eighty years of his life were spent in travelling in foreign lands. Besides these philosophers, thousands of wise men amongst the Greeks, ancient and modern, habituated themselves to travel. Solon, it is well known, travelled to the court of Croesus, and it is affirmed that Pythagoras visited India. Sozomen makes the above statement to explain how it was that Merope of Tyre, with two young relatives, visited India, the two latter becoming its first two bishops.

Nothing is more probable than that Greeks, who had resided for a time in India, on their return, believing that as they had recognized in Hindostan an earnest form of Christianity, differing from the Alexandrian standard only in a few minor points, thought it right to introduce into western religion Buddhist practices--first into Egypt, _via_ Alexandria, and thence into Europe. We certainly cannot prove that they did it, but there is a very good reason for believing so. The doctrines of Jesus emanated, we believe, from some early Asokâ's missionaries; whilst the doctrines of the Alexandrians and the Ascetics, came from subsequent Buddhists, who placed their stamp on Christianity once more.

Thus we have been led, by a strict inquiry into every extant testimony known, to believe that the faith taught by Siddartha, was held for at least 250--and most probably, 500 years, before our era. Still further, we have been led to believe, from the extraordinary energy and success of Buddhist missionaries in the three centuries before Christ--a success before which all Christian missionary enterprise pales--that emissaries from Asokâ's colleges of priests, penetrated westward with the Greeks as far as the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and forced some devout Jews to modify their belief. But, though it is probable that the Hindoo teachers introduced the morality inculcated by Sakya Muni, it seems certain that they could not induce their Hebrew disciples to abandon their implicit trust in those writings which they had been induced to think were absolutely inspired or written by direct command of the Almighty--consequently, Christianity must be regarded not as pure Buddhism, but a form of it modified by Jewish traditions. But when those who embraced the religion of Jesus, had learned to distrust the literal truth of the Old Testament, and had the certainty that the prophesies about the immediate destruction of the world were false, they came again into contact with Buddhist teaching, and were content to forego Judaism. They did not, however, give up Jesus as the Saviour. Instead of believing with Sakya, that man suffered for his own sin, they clung to the legend of Adam and Eve, and affirmed that suffering was introduced into the whole world by this very original couple. Instead of Nirvana, their heaven was Ouranos--the sky above them. Instead of an abode where all the senses were at rest, they adopted the idea of a golden city, with a river of crystal running through it; brilliant with jewels, and guarded by gates and walls in which all the good should spend their time in singing and music. The Christians adopted all the Asceticism, dirt, and love of vermin, that the disciples of Sakya, and even Siddartha himself, delighted in--but they nevertheless clung to the idea that the world was sure to be destroyed, and that Jesus would come again. It is indeed, difficult to reconcile the belief, that he who washed his disciples' feet, and praised a woman for cleaning and anointing his own, sanctioned an idea which, throughout centuries, urged religionists to be filthy; yet we must do so if we are orthodox. We have, indeed, similar anomalies now. Devout Christians tell us that this world ought to be made a preparation for another; and that the main joy of heaven will be an indefinite increase of knowledge. Yet these same people affirm, sometimes in distinct terms, that an extension of scientific attainments, and a constant inquiry into the will of God, as expressed in the works of His hands, are snares of the Devil, and so to be avoided by all good people. The Orthodox as a rule believe--though few venture to affirm it, that Jehovah loves the fools the best, and that ignorance is godliness.