Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 119

The similarity of the sentiments of the Essenes, or Therapeutae, to those of the Church of Rome, induced the learned Jesuit, Nicolaus Serarius, to seek for them an honorable origin. He contended therefore, that they were Asideans, and derived them from the Rechabites, described so circ.u.mstantially in the thirty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah; at the same time, he a.s.serted that the first Christian monks were Essenes.[422:2]

Mr. King, speaking of the _Christian_ sect called Gnostics, says:

"Their chief doctrines had been held for centuries before (their time) in many of the cities of Asia Minor. There, it is probable, they first came into existence as 'Mystae,' _upon the establishment of a direct intercourse with India under the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies_. The colleges of _Essenes_ and Megabyzae at Ephesus, the Orphics of Thrace, the Curetes of Crete, _are all merely branches of one antique and common religion, and that originally Asiatic_."[422:3]

Again:

"The introduction of _Buddhism_ into Egypt and Palestine _affords the only true solution of innumerable difficulties in the history of religion_."[422:4]

Again:

"That Buddhism had actually been planted in the dominions of the Seleucidae and Ptolemies (Palestine belonging to the former) before the beginning of the third century B. C., is _proved to demonstration_ by a pa.s.sage in the Edicts of Asoka, grandson of the famous Chandragupta, the Sandracottus of the Greeks. These edicts are engraven on a rock at Girnur, in Guzerat."[422:5]

Eusebius, in quoting from Philo concerning the Essenes, seems to take it for granted that _they and the Christians were one and the same_, and from the manner in which he writes, it would appear that it was generally understood so. He says that Philo called them "Worshipers,"

and concludes by saying:

"But whether he himself gave them this name, or whether at the _beginning_ they were so called, _when as yet the name of Christians was not everywhere published_, I think it not needful curiosity to sift out."[422:6]

This celebrated ecclesiastical historian considered it very probable that the writings of the Essenic Therapeuts in Egypt had been incorporated into the gospels of the New Testament, and into some Pauline epistles. His words are:

"It is very likely that the commentaries (Scriptures) which were among them (the Essenes) were the Gospels, and the works of the apostles, and certain expositions of the ancient prophets, such as partly that epistle unto the Hebrews, and also the other epistles of Paul do contain."[423:1]

The princ.i.p.al doctrines and rites of the Essenes can be connected with the _East_, with Parsism, and especially with _Buddhism_. Among the doctrines which Essenes and Buddhists had in common was that of the _Angel-Messiah_.[423:2]

G.o.dfrey Higgins says:

"The _Essenes_ were called physicians of the soul, or _Therapeutae_; being resident both in Judea and Egypt, they probably spoke or had their sacred books in Chaldee. They were _Pythagoreans_, as is proved by all their forms, ceremonies, and doctrines, and they called themselves sons of Jesse. If the Pythagoreans or Con.o.bitae, as they are called by Jamblicus, were Buddhists, the Essenes were Buddhists. The Essenes lived in Egypt, on the lake of Parembole or Maria, in _monasteries_.

These are the very places in which we formerly found the _Gymnosophists_, or _Samaneans_, or _Buddhist_ priests to have lived; which Gymnosophistae are placed also by Ptolemy in north-eastern India."

"Their (the Essenes) parishes, churches, bishops, priests, deacons, festivals are all identically the same (as the Christians). They had apostolic founders; the manners which distinguished the immediate apostles of Christ; scriptures divinely inspired; the same allegorical mode of interpreting them, which has since obtained among Christians, and the same order of performing public worship. They had missionary stations or colonies of their community established in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Phillippi, Colosse, and Thessalonica, precisely such, and in the same circ.u.mstances, as were those to whom St. Paul addressed his letters in those places. All the fine moral doctrines which are attributed to the Samaritan Nazarite, and I doubt not justly attributed to him, are to be found among the doctrines of these ascetics."[423:3]

And Arthur Lillie says:

"It is a.s.serted by calm thinkers like Dean Mansel that within two generations of the time of Alexander the Great, the missionaries of Buddha made their appearance at _Alexandria_.[423:4] This theory is confirmed--in the east by the Asoka monuments--in the west by Philo. He expressly maintains the ident.i.ty in creed of the higher Judaism and that of the _Gymnosophists_ of India who abstained from the 'sacrifice of living animals'--in a word, the BUDDHISTS. It would follow from this that the priestly religion of Babylonia, Palestine, Egypt, and Greece were undermined by certain kindred mystical societies organized by Buddha's missionaries under the various names of Therapeutes, Essenes, Neo-Pythagoreans, Neo-Zoroastrians, &c. _Thus Buddhism prepared the way for Christianity._"[424:1]

The Buddhists have the "eight-fold holy path" (Dhammapada), eight spiritual states leading up to Buddhahood. The first state of the Essenes resulted from baptism, and it seems to correspond with the first Buddhistic state, those who have entered the (mystic) stream. Patience, purity, and the mastery of pa.s.sion were aimed at by both devotees in the other stages. In the last, magical powers, healing the sick, casting out evil spirits, etc., were supposed to be gained. Buddhists and Essenes seem to have doubled up this eight-fold path into four, for some reason or other. Buddhists and Essenes had three orders of ascetics or monks, but this cla.s.sification is distinct from the spiritual cla.s.sifications.[424:2]

The doctrine of the "_Anointed Angel_," of the man from heaven, the Creator of the world, the doctrine of the atoning sacrificial death of Jesus by the blood of his cross, the doctrine of the Messianic antetype of the Paschal lamb of the Paschal omer, and thus of the resurrection of Christ Jesus, the third day, according to the Scriptures, these doctrines of Paul can, with more or less certainty, be connected with the Essenes. It becomes almost a certainty that Eusebius was right in surmising that _Essenic writings have been used by Paul and the evangelists_. Not Jesus, but Paul, is the cause of the separation of the Jews from the Christians.[424:3]

The probability, then, that that sect of vagrant quack-doctors, the Therapeutae, who were established in Egypt and its neighborhood many ages before the period a.s.signed by later theologians as that of the birth of Christ Jesus, were the original fabricators of the writings contained in the New Testament, becomes a certainty on the basis of evidence, than which history has nothing more certain, furnished by the unguarded, but explicit, unwary, but most unqualified and positive statement of the historian Eusebius, that "_those ancient Therapeutae were Christians, and that their ancient writings were our gospels and epistles_."

The Essenes, the Therapeuts, the Ascetics, the Monks, the Ecclesiastics, and the Eclectics, are but different names for one and the self-same sect.

The word "_Essene_" is nothing more than the Egyptian word for that of which Therapeut is the Greek, each of them signifying "healer" or "doctor," and designating the character of the sect as professing to be endued with the miraculous gift of healing; and more especially so with respect to diseases of the mind.

Their name of "_Ascetics_" indicated the severe discipline and exercise of self-mortification, long fastings, prayers, contemplation, and even making of themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, as did Origen, Melito, and others who derived their Christianity from the same school; Jesus himself is represented to have recognized and approved their practice.

Their name of "_Monks_" indicated their delight in solitude, their contemplative life, and their entire segregation and abstraction from the world, which Jesus, in the Gospel, is in like manner represented as describing, as characteristic of the community of which he was a member.

Their name of "_Ecclesiastics_" was of the same sense, and indicated their being called out, elected, separated from the general fraternity of mankind, and set apart to the more immediate service and honor of G.o.d.

They had a flourishing university, or corporate body, established upon these principles, at Alexandria in Egypt, long before the period a.s.signed for the birth of Christ Jesus.[425:1]

From this body they sent out missionaries, and had established colonies, auxiliary branches, and affiliated communities, in various cities of Asia Minor, which colonies were in a flourishing condition, before the preaching of St. Paul.

"_The very ancient and Eastern doctrine of an Angel-Messiah had been applied to Gautama-Buddha, and so it was applied to Jesus Christ by the Essenes of Egypt and of Palestine, who introduced this new Messianic doctrine into Essenic Judaism and Essenic Christianity._"[425:2]

In the Pali and Sanscrit texts the word _Buddha_ is always used as a _t.i.tle_, not as a name. It means "The Enlightened One." Gautama Buddha is represented to have taught that he was only one of a long series of Buddhas, who appear at intervals in the world, and who all teach the same system. After the death of each Buddha his religion flourishes for a time, but finally wickedness and vice again rule over the land. Then a _new_ Buddha appears, who again preaches the lost _Dharma_ or truth.

The names of twenty-four of these Buddhas who appeared previous to Gautama have been handed down to us. The _Buddhavansa_, or "History of the Buddhas," the last book of the _Khuddaka Nikaya_ in the second Pitca, gives the lives of all the previous Buddhas before commencing its account of Gautama himself; and the Pali commentary on the _Jatakas_ gives certain details regarding each of the twenty-four.[426:1]

An _Avatar_ was expected about every six hundred years.[426:2] At the time of Jesus of Nazareth an Avatar was expected, not by some of the Jews alone, but by most every eastern nation.[426:3] Many persons were thought at that time to be, and undoubtedly thought themselves to be, _the_ Christ, and the only reason why the name of Jesus of Nazareth succeeded above all others, is because the _Essenes_--who were expecting an Angel-Messiah--espoused it. Had it not been for this almost indisputable fact, the name of Jesus of Nazareth would undoubtedly not be known at the present day.

Epiphanius, a Christian bishop and writer of the fourth century, says, in speaking of the Essenes:

"They who believed on Christ were called JESSaeI (or Essenes), _before they were called Christians_. These derived their const.i.tution from the signification of the name Jesus, which in Hebrew signifies the same as _Therapeutes_, that is, a saviour or physician."

Thus we see that, according to Christian authority, the Essenes and Therapeutes are one, and that the Essenes espoused the cause of Jesus of Nazareth, accepted him as an Angel-Messiah, and became known to history as _Christians_, or believers in the Anointed Angel.

This ascetic _Buddhist_ sect called Essenes were therefore expecting an Angel-Messiah, for had not Gautama announced to his disciples that another Buddha, and therefore another angel in human form, another organ or advocate of the wisdom from above, would descend from heaven to earth, and would be called the "Son of Love."

The learned Thomas Maurice says:

"From the earliest post-diluvian age, to that in which the Messiah appeared, together with the traditions which so expressly recorded the fall of the human race from a state of original rect.i.tude and felicity, there appears, from an infinite variety of hieroglyphic monuments and of written doc.u.ments, to have prevailed, from generation to generation, _throughout all the regions of the higher Asia_, an uniform belief that, in the course of revolving ages, _there should arise a sacred personage, a mighty deliverer of mankind from the thraldom of sin and of death_. In fact, the memory of the grand original promise, that the seed of the woman should eventually crush the serpent, was carefully preserved in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the _Asiatics_; it entered deeply into their symbolic superst.i.tions, and was engraved aloft amidst their mythologic sculptures."[427:1]

That an Angel-Messiah was generally expected at this time may be inferred from the following facts: Some of the Gnostic sects of Christians, who believed that Jesus was an emanation from G.o.d, likewise supposed that there were several _aeons_, or emanations from the Eternal Father. Among those who taught this doctrine was _Basilides_ and his followers.[427:2]

SIMON MAGUS was believed to be "He who should come." Simon was worshiped in Samaria and other countries, as the expected Angel-Messiah, as a G.o.d.

Justin Martyr says:

"After the ascension of our Lord into heaven, certain _men_ were suborned by demons as their agents, who said that they were G.o.ds (_i. e._, _the_ Angel Messiah). Among these was _Simon_, a certain Samaritan, whom nearly all the Samaritans and a few also of other nations, worshiped, confessing him as a Supreme G.o.d."[427:3]

His miracles were notorious, and admitted by all. His followers became so numerous that they were to be found in all countries. In Rome, in the reign of Claudius, a statue was erected in his honor. Clement of Rome, speaking of Simon Magus, says that:

"He wishes to be considered an exalted person, and to be considered 'the Christ.' He claims that he can never be dissolved, a.s.serting that he will endure to eternity."

Monta.n.u.s was another person who evidently believed himself to be an Angel-Messiah. He was called by himself and his followers the "Paraclete," or "Holy Spirit."[428:1]

Socrates, in his Ecclesiastical History, tells us of one _Buddhas_ (who lived after Jesus):

"Who afore that time was called Terebynthus, which went to the coasts of Babylon, inhabited by Persians, and there published of himself many false wonders: that he was born of a virgin, that he was bred and brought up in the mountains, etc."[428:2]

He was evidently one of the many fanatics who believed themselves to be the Paraclete or Comforter, the "Expected One."

Another one of these _Christs_ was _Apollonius_. This remarkable man was born a few years before the commencement of the Christian era, and during his career, sustained the role of a philosopher, religious teacher and reformer, and a worker of miracles. He is said to have lived to be a hundred years old. From the history of his life, written by the learned sophist and scholar, Philostratus, we glean the following:

Before his birth a G.o.d appeared to his mother and informed her that he himself should be born of her. At the time of her delivery, the most wonderful things happened. All the people of the country acknowledged that he was the "Son of G.o.d." As he grew in stature, his wonderful powers, greatness of memory, and marvelous beauty attracted the attention of all. A great part of his time was spent, when a youth, among the learned doctors; the disciples of Plato, Chrysippus and Aristotle. When he came to man's estate, he became an enthusiastic admirer and devoted follower of Pythagoras. His fame soon spread far and near, and wherever he went he reformed the religious worship of the day.

He went to Ephesus, like Christ Jesus to Jerusalem, where the people flocked about him. While at Athens, in Greece, he cast out an evil spirit from a youth. As soon as Apollonius fixed his eyes upon him, the demon broke out into the most angry and horrid expressions, and then swore he would depart out of the youth. He put an end to a plague which was raging at Ephesus, and at Corinth he raised a dead maiden to life, by simply taking her by the hand and bidding her arise. The miracles of Apollonius were extensively believed, _by Christians as well as others_, for centuries after his time. In the fourth century Hierocles drew a parallel between the two Christs--Apollonius and Jesus--which was answered by Eusebius, the great champion of the Christian church. In it he admits the miracles of Apollonius, but attributes them to sorcery.