Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 69

So, by my power of spiritual energy, Will I transport myself across the river, Even though the waters on this southern bank Stood up as high and firm as (Mount) Semeru."[255:1]

He then floats through the air across the stream.

In the _Lalita Vistara_ Buddha is called the "Great Physician" who is to "dull all human pain." At his appearance the "sick are healed, the deaf are cured, the blind see, the poor are relieved." He visits the sick man, Su-ta, and heals soul as well as body.

At Vaisali, a pest like modern cholera was depopulating the kingdom, due to an acc.u.mulation of festering corpses. Buddha, summoned, caused a strong rain which carried away the dead bodies and cured every one. At Gaudhara was an old mendicant afflicted with a disease so loathsome that none of his brother monks could go near him on account of his fetid humors and stinking condition. The "Great Physician" was, however, not to be deterred; he washed the poor old man and attended to his maladies.

A disciple had his feet hacked off by an unjust king, and Buddha cured even him. To convert certain skeptical villagers near Sravasti, Buddha showed them a man walking across the deep and rapid river without immersing his feet. Purna, one of Buddha's disciples, had a brother in imminent danger of shipwreck in a "black storm." The "spirits that are favorable to Purna and Arya" apprised him of this and he at once performed the miracle of transporting himself to the deck of the ship.

"Immediately the black tempest ceased, as if Sumera arrested it."[255:2]

When Buddha was told that a woman was suffering in severe labor, unable to bring forth, he said, Go and say: "I have never knowingly put any creature to death since I was born; by the virtue of this obedience may you be free from pain!" When these words were repeated in the presence of the mother, the child was instantly born with ease.[256:1]

Innumerable are the miracles ascribed to Buddhist saints, and to others who followed their example. Their garments, and the staffs with which they walked, are supposed to imbibe some mysterious power, and blessed are they who are allowed to touch them.[256:2] A Buddhist saint who attains the power called "_perfection_," is able to rise and float along through the air.[256:3] Having this power, the saint exercises it by mere determination of his will, his body becoming imponderous, as when a man in the common human state determines to leap, and leaps. Buddhist annals relate the performance of the miraculous suspension by Gautama Buddha, himself, as well as by other _saints_.[256:4]

In the year 217 B. C., a Buddhist missionary priest, called by the Chinese historians Shih-le-fang, came from "the west" into Shan-se, accompanied by eighteen other priests, with their sacred books, in order to propagate the faith of Buddha. The emperor, disliking foreigners and exotic customs, imprisoned the missionaries; but an angel, genii, or spirit, came and opened the prison door, and liberated them.[256:5]

Here is a third edition of "Peter in prison," for we have already seen that the Hindoo sage Vasudeva was liberated from prison in like manner.

_Zoroaster_, the founder of the religion of the Persians, opposed his persecutors by performing miracles, in order to confirm his divine mission.[256:6]

_Bochia_ of the Persians also performed miracles; the places where he performed them were consecrated, and people flocked in crowds to visit them.[256:7]

_Horus_, the Egyptian Saviour, performed great miracles, among which was that of raising the dead to life.[256:8]

_Osiris_ of Egypt also performed great miracles;[256:9] and so did the virgin G.o.ddess _Isis_.

Pilgrimages were made to the temples of Isis, in Egypt, by the sick.

Diodorus, the Grecian historian, says that:

"Those who go to consult in dreams the G.o.ddess Isis recover perfect health. Many whose cure has been despaired of by physicians have by this means been saved, and others who have long been deprived of sight, or of some other part of the body, by taking refuge, so to speak, in the arms of the G.o.ddess, have been restored to the enjoyment of their faculties."[257:1]

_Serapis_, the Egyptian Saviour, performed great miracles, princ.i.p.ally those of healing the sick. He was called "The Healer of the World."[257:2]

_Marduk_, the a.s.syrian G.o.d, the "Logos," the "Eldest Son of Hea;" "He who made Heaven and Earth;" the "Merciful One;" the "Life-Giver," &c., performed great miracles, among which was that of raising the dead to life.[257:3]

_Bacchus_, son of Zeus by the virgin Semele, was a great performer of miracles, among which may be mentioned his changing water into wine,[257:4] as it is recorded of Jesus in the Gospels.

"In his gentler aspects he is the giver of joy, the healer of sicknesses, the guardian against plagues. As such he is even a law-giver and a promoter of peace and concord. As kindling new or strange thoughts in the mind, he is a giver of wisdom and the revealer of hidden secrets of the future."[257:5]

The legends related of this G.o.d state that on one occasion Pantheus, King of Thebes, sent his attendants to seize Bacchus, the "vagabond leader of a faction"--as he called him. This they were unable to do, as the mult.i.tude who followed him were too numerous. They succeeded, however, in capturing one of his disciples, Acetes, who was led away and shut up fast in prison; but while they were getting ready the instruments of execution, _the prison doors came open of their own accord, and the chains fell from his limbs_, and when they looked for him he was nowhere to be found.[257:6] Here is still another edition of "Peter in prison."

_aesculapius_ was another great performer of miracles. The ancient Greeks said of him that he not only cured the sick of the most malignant diseases, _but even raised the dead_.

A writer in Bell's Pantheon says:

"As the Greeks always carried the encomiums of their great men beyond the truth, so they feigned that aesculapius was so expert in medicine as not only to cure the sick, but even to raise the dead."[258:1]

Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian, speaking of aesculapius, says:

"He sometimes appeared unto them (the Cilicians) in dreams and visions, and sometimes restored the sick to health."

He claims, however, that this was the work of the DEVIL, "who by this means did withdraw the minds of men from the knowledge of the _true_ SAVIOUR."[258:2]

For many years after the death of aesculapius, miracles continued to be performed by the efficacy of faith in his name. Patients were conveyed to the temple of aesculapius, and there cured of their disease. A short statement of the symptoms of each case, and the remedy employed, were inscribed on tablets and hung up in the temples.[258:3] There were also a mult.i.tude of eyes, ears, hands, feet, and other members of the human body, made of wax, silver, or gold, and presented by those whom the G.o.d had cured of blindness, deafness, and other diseases.[258:4]

Marinus, a scholar of the philosopher Proclus, relates one of these remarkable cures, in the life of his master. He says:

"Asclipigenia, a young maiden who had lived with her parents, was seized with a grievous distemper, incurable by the physicians. All help from the physicians failing, the father applied to the philosopher, earnestly entreating him to pray for his daughter. Proclus, full of faith, went to the temple of aesculapius, intending to pray for the sick young woman to the G.o.d--for the city (Athens) was at that time blessed in him, and still enjoyed the undemolished temple of THE SAVIOUR--but while he was praying, a sudden change appeared in the damsel, and she immediately became convalescent, for the _Saviour_, aesculapius, as being G.o.d, easily healed her."[258:5]

Dr. Conyers Middleton says:

"Whatever proof the primitive (Christian) Church might have among themselves, of the miraculous gift, yet it could have but little effect towards making proselytes among those who pretended to the same gift--possessed more largely and exerted more openly, than in the private a.s.semblies of the Christians.

For in the temples of _aesculapius_, all kinds of diseases were believed to be publicly cured, by the pretended help of that deity, in proof of which there were erected in each temple, columns or tables of bra.s.s or marble, on which a distinct narrative of each particular cure was inscribed.

Pausanias[258:6] writes that in the temple at Epidaurus there were many columns anciently of this kind, and six of them remaining to his time, _inscribed with the names of men and women who had been cured by the G.o.d_, with an account of their several cases, and the method of their cure; and that there was an old pillar besides, which stood apart, dedicated to the memory of Hippolytus, _who had been raised from the dead_.

Strabo, also, another grave writer, informs us that these temples were constantly filled with the sick, imploring the help of the G.o.d, and that they had tables hanging around them, in which all the miraculous cures were described. There is a remarkable fragment of one of these tables still extant, and exhibited by Gruter in his collection, as it was found in the ruins of aesculapius's temple in the Island of the Tiber, in Rome, which gives an account of two blind men restored to sight by aesculapius, in the open view,[259:1] and with the loud acclamation of the people, acknowledging the manifest power of the G.o.d."[259:2]

Livy, the most ill.u.s.trious of Roman historians (born B. C. 61), tells us that temples of _heathen G.o.ds_ were rich in the number of offerings _which the people used to make in return for the cures and benefits which they received from them_.[259:3]

A writer in _Bell's Pantheon_ says:

"Making presents to the G.o.ds was a custom even from the earliest times, either to deprecate their wrath, obtain some benefit, or acknowledge some favor. These donations consisted of garlands, garments, cups of gold, or whatever conduced to the decoration or splendor of their temples. They were sometimes laid on the floor, sometimes hung upon the walls, doors, pillars, roof, or any other conspicuous place.

Sometimes the occasion of the dedication was inscribed, either upon the thing itself, or upon a tablet hung up with it."[259:4]

No one custom of antiquity is so frequently mentioned by ancient historians, as the practice which was so common among the _heathens_, of making votive offerings to their deities, and hanging them up in their temples, many of which are preserved to this day, viz., images of metal, stone, or clay, as well as legs, arms, and other parts of the body, _in testimony of some divine cure effected in that particular member_.[259:5]

Horace says:

"----Me tabula sacer Votiva paries indicat humida Suspendisse potenti Vestimenta maris Deo." (Lib. 1, Ode V.)

It was the custom of offering _ex-votos_ of _Priapic_ forms, at the church of Isernia, in the _Christian_ kingdom of Naples, during the last century, which induced Mr. R. Payne Knight to compile his remarkable work on Phallic Worship.

Juvenal, who wrote A. D. 81-96, says of the G.o.ddess _Isis_, whose religion was at that time in the greatest vogue at Rome, that the painters get their livelihood out of her. This was because "the most common of all offerings (made by the heathen to their deities) were _pictures_ presenting the history of the miraculous cure or deliverance, vouchsafed upon the vow of the donor."[260:1] One of their prayers ran thus:

"Now, G.o.ddess, help, for thou canst help bestow, _As all these pictures round thy altars show_."[260:2]

In _Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ may be found the following:

"Patients that were cured of their ailments (by _aesculapius_, or through faith in him) hung up a tablet in his temple, recording the name, the disease, and the manner of cure. _Many of these votive tablets are still extant._"[260:3]

Alexander S. Murray, of the department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, speaking of the miracles performed by _aesculapius_, says:

"A person who had recovered from a local illness would dictate a sculptured representation of the part that had been affected. _Of such sculptures there are a number of examples in the British Museum._"[260:4]

Justin Martyr, in his _Apology_ for the Christian religion, addressed to the Emperor Hadrian, says:

"As to _our_ Jesus curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were crippled from birth, this is little more than what you say of your _aesculapius_."[260:5]

At a time when the Romans were infested with the plague, having consulted their sacred books, they learned that in order to be delivered from it, they were to go in quest of _aesculapius_ at Epidaurus; accordingly, an emba.s.sy was appointed of ten senators, at the head of whom was Quintus Ogulnius, and the worship of aesculapius was established at Rome, A. U. C. 462, that is, B. C. 288. But the most remarkable coincidence is that the worship of this G.o.d continued with scarcely any diminished splendor, for several hundred years after the establishment of Christianity.[260:6]

Hermes or Mercury, the Lord's Messenger, was a wonder-worker. The staff or rod which Hermes received from Phoibos (Apollo), and which connects this myth with the special emblem of Vishnu (the Hindoo Saviour), was regarded as denoting his heraldic office. It was, however, always endowed with magic properties, and had the power even of raising the dead.[261:1]