WAS CHRIST A PLAGIARIST?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11740, 18 September 1902, Page 7

WAS CHRIST A PLAGIARIST?

To the Editor. Sir, —"Old Settler" and "Omega" endeavour to confute Max Muller by Mas Muller, but their attempts do not help them. "Old Settler" quotes also Rhys David to the effect that "the Buddhist Scriptures were collected and compiled into a sacred canon at a council at Patna in 237 8.C." But surely "Old Settler" knows that there are two sacred canons of Buddhist Scriptures, one held by Northern and one oy Southern -Buddhism, and: between these two there was scarcely any intercourse. Now the southern canoti known as the "TriPitaka" was determined at a council held about 250 8.0. This collection is written not in the ancient Sanscrit, but in Pali. The antiquity of the Pali texts I before indicated ; but in this most ancient collection there are scarcely any details; of Buddha's life, and none whatever that are of a peculiarly Christian character. It is in the northern canon that the alleged likeness to Christianity is foundl, and it is of these MSS. that Professor Max Muller declares scarcely one ia more than 600 years old. This ia the_ answer to Mr Talbot's letter. We accept Max Muller's facts, but we do not accept his inferences because they are abundantly disproved by other evidence. All the likenesses alleged by the Professor occur in the Buddrist MSS. -which he himself admits are of a later date than the most ancient codices of the New Testa-ment-Scriptures. If we are to believe "Old Settler," "Omega." and Mr Talbot, the Buddhist teachings were well known at or before the beginning of the Christian era. But if this is so, how is it that in the classic writers of that period, .who: sought for wisdom from all sources, there are no unmistakable references to these teachings ? In Strabo Arrian and Pliny there are a few references to Indian customs, but it is the wildest assumption to claim! that distinctive Buddhist teachings were known by these writers. How much more absurd then to suppose that information which had not reached the great intellectual- and commercial centres of the day could have reached and moulded the life "of the peasant population of a Judean village. The great opponent of Christianity,the Roman philosopher Celsus (2nd century) searched all history, philosophy, and every known religion for his well-known attack on Christianity ; and if Buddhism had been known in his day, h.e .certainly have seized upon its alleged likeness to Christianity. The genius of the two religions is utterly opposed. In Paul's day Christianity resisted Gnosticism (vide Epistle to Coiossians), and we know how persistently the early Fathers resisted the Persian mysticism as the work of the Devil. Your correspondents ridicule the suggestion that Buddhism has incorpoi a^ed Into itself from Christianity. But we have unquestioned evidence that before thtt Buddhist .MSS. were in existence, when its teachings were transmitted from mouth to mouth, Christian missionaries were at woi'k in Northern India. Moreover, some of the plagiarism is so comically palpable that no one acquainted with it would think of questioning it. Here is an example: Oaie of the Uegenda which has often been presented as a parallel to the story of the temptation of Christ represents Buddha as repelling the temptation of Mara by quoting texts of 'Scripture, and the Scripture he quotes is the Dhammapada. The blunder here ia amusing, first because the Dhainmapada was compiled hundreds of years after Buddha's time; and, second, there were no Scriptiires in Buddha's* time, for nothing was written, until two or three centuries later ; and, third, Buddha is made to quote his own subsequent teaching, for the Dhammapada claims to consist of the sacred words of the enlightened one. With much of what "Omega" writes concerning the antiquity of Sanscrit and the beauty and antiquity of many of the hymns of the Rig Veda I am quite in agreement.' but that is altogether aside ftom the question at issue. Mr Talbot's impeded suggestion that the advocates of Orthodoxy are unacquainted with the works he quotes is quite gratuitous, and is on a par with the assertions that are repeatedly made that( we have gulped down our creed on the mere ipse dixifc of some church without independent inquiry. It may, perhaps', interest Mr Talbot to know that some of us have fought our way through seas of doubt, and have happily come, after long and jpainful research, to rest upon the solid ground of faith, not in a system, but in a personal, liying Christ who "answers more questions, satisfies more aspirations, responds to more necessities, and supplies better motives for service" than can anywhere else be found. —I am. etc.. ARTHUR DBWDNEY. •>P.S. —I do not intend to follow "Omega" into a discussion of the age and authorship of the books of the Old Testament. That is impossible in -our limited space. But I do say that his assertion re the Creation story is entirely ex parte.—A.D.