Chapter VII (2)

“Chastity, honesty, meekness, and mercy,” are thus the four theological virtues of all Druzes, besides several others demanded from the initiates: “murder, theft, cruelty, covetousness, slander,” the five sins, to which several other sins are added in the sacred tablets, but which we must abstain from giving. The morality of the Druzes is strict and uncompromising. Nothing can tempt one of these Lebanon Unitarians to go astray from what he is taught to consider his duty. _Their ritual being unknown to outsiders_, their would-be historians have hitherto denied them one. Their “Thursday meetings” are open to all, but no interloper has ever participated in the rites of initiation which take place occasionally on Fridays in the greatest secresy. Women are admitted to them as well as men, and they play a part of great importance at the initiation of men. The probation, unless some extraordinary exception is made, is long and severe. Once, in a certain period of time, a solemn ceremony takes place, during which all the elders and the initiates of the highest two degrees start out for a pilgrimage of several days to a certain place in the mountains. They meet within the safe precincts of a monastery said to have been erected during the earliest times of the Christian era. Outwardly one sees but old ruins of a once grand edifice, used, says the legend, by some Gnostic sects as a place of worship during the religious persecutions. The ruins above ground, however, are but a convenient mask; the subterranean chapel, halls, and cells, covering an area of ground far greater than the upper building; while the richness of ornamentation, the beauty of the ancient sculptures, and the gold and silver vessels in this sacred resort, appear like “a dream of glory,” according to the expression of an initiate. As the lamaseries of Mongolia and Thibet are visited upon grand occasions by the holy shadow of “Lord Buddha,” so here, during the ceremonial, appears the resplendent ethereal form of Hamsa, the Blessed, which instructs the faithful. The most extraordinary feats of what would be termed magic take place during the several nights that the convocation lasts; and one of the greatest mysteries--faithful copy of the past--is accomplished within the discreet bosom of our mother earth; not an echo, nor the faintest sound, not a glimmer of light betrays without the grand secret of the initiates.

Hamsa, like Jesus, was a mortal man, and yet “Hamsa” and “Christos” are synonymous terms as to their inner and hidden meaning. Both are symbols of the _Nous_, the divine and higher soul of man--his spirit. The doctrine taught by the Druzes on that particular question of the duality of spiritual man, consisting of one soul mortal, and another immortal, is identical with that of the Gnostics, the older Greek philosophers, and other initiates.

Outside the East we have met one initiate (and only one), who, for some reasons best known to himself, does not make a secret of his initiation into the Brotherhood of Lebanon. It is the learned traveller and artist, Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York City. This gentleman has passed many years in the East, four times visited Palestine, and has travelled to Mecca. It is safe to say that he has a priceless store of facts about the beginnings of the Christian Church, which none but one who had had free access to repositories closed against the ordinary traveller could have collected. Professor Rawson, with the true devotion of a man of science, noted down every important discovery he made in the Palestinian libraries, and every precious fact orally communicated to him by the mystics he encountered, and some day they will see the light. He has most obligingly sent us the following communication, which, as the reader will perceive, fully corroborates what is above written from our personal experience about the strange fraternity incorrectly styled the Druzes:

“34 BOND ST., NEW YORK, June 6, 1877.

“... Your note, asking me to give you an account of my
initiation into a secret order among the people commonly
known as Druzes, in Mount Lebanon, was received this
morning. I took, as you are fully aware, an obligation at
that time to conceal within my own memory the greater part
of the ‘mysteries,’ with the most interesting parts of the
‘instructions;’ so that what is left may not be of any
service to the public. Such information as I can rightfully
give, you are welcome to have and use as you may have
occasion.

“The probation in my case was, by _special dispensation_,
made one month, during which time I was ‘shadowed’ by a
priest, who served as my cook, guide, interpreter, and
general servant, that he might be able to testify to the
fact of my having strictly conformed to the rules in diet,
ablutions, and other matters. He was also my instructor
in the text of the ritual, which we recited from time to
time for practice, in dialogue or in song, as it may have
been. Whenever we happened to be near a Druze village, on
a Thursday, we attended the ‘open’ meetings, where men
and women assembled for instruction and worship, and to
expose to the world generally their religious practices.
I was never present at a Friday ‘close’ meeting before my
initiation, nor do I believe any one else, man or woman,
ever was, except by collusion with a priest, and that is
not probable, for a false priest forfeits his life. The
practical jokers among them sometimes ‘fool’ a too curious
‘Frank’ by a sham initiation, especially if such a one is
suspected of having some connection with the missionaries
at Beirut or elsewhere.

“The initiates include both women and men, and the
ceremonies are of so peculiar a nature that both sexes
are required to assist in the ritual and ‘work.’
The ‘furniture’ of the ‘prayer-house’ and of the
‘vision-chamber’ is simple, and except for convenience may
consist of but a strip of carpet. In the ‘Gray Hall’ (the
place is never named, and is underground, _not far_ from
Bayt-ed-Deen) there are some rich decorations and valuable
pieces of ancient furniture, the work of Arab silversmiths
five or six centuries ago, inscribed and dated. The day of
initiation must be a continual fast from daylight to sunset
in winter, or six o’clock in summer, and the ceremony is
from beginning to end a series of trials and temptations,
calculated to test the endurance of the candidate under
physical and mental pressure. It is seldom that any but the
young man or woman succeeds in ‘winning’ all the ‘prizes,’
since _nature will sometimes exert itself_ in spite of the
most stubborn will, and the neophyte fail of passing some
of the tests. In such a case the probation is extended
another year, when another trial is had.

“Among other tests of the neophyte’s self-control are the
following: Choice pieces of cooked meat, savory soup,
pilau, and other appetizing dishes, with sherbet, coffee,
wine, and water, are set, as if accidentally, in his way,
and he is left alone for a time with the tempting things.
To a hungry and fainting soul the trial is severe. But a
more difficult ordeal is when the seven priestesses retire,
all but one, the youngest and prettiest, and the door
is closed and barred on the outside, after warning the
candidate that he will be left to his ‘reflections,’ for
half an hour. Wearied by the long-continued ceremonial,
weak with hunger, parched with thirst, and a sweet
reaction coming after the tremendous strain to keep his
animal nature in subjection, this moment of privacy and of
temptation is brimful of peril. The beautiful young vestal,
timidly approaching, and with glances which lend a double
magnetic allurement to her words, begs him in low tones to
‘bless her.’ Woe to him if he does! A hundred eyes see him
from secret peep-holes, and only to the ignorant neophyte
is there the appearance of concealment and opportunity.

“There is no infidelity, idolatry, or other really bad
feature in the system. They have the relics of what was
once a grand form of nature-worship, which has been
contracted under a despotism into a secret order, hidden
from the light of day, and exposed only in the smoky glare
of a few burning lamps, in some damp cave or chapel under
ground. The chief tenets of their religious teachings are
comprised in seven ‘tablets,’ which are these, to state
them in general terms:

“1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of deity.

“2. The essential excellence of truth.

“3. The law of toleration as to all men and women in
opinion.

“4. Respect for all men and women as to character and
conduct.

“5. Entire submission to God’s decrees as to fate.

“6. Chastity of body and mind and soul.

“7. Mutual help under all conditions.

“These tenets are not printed or written. Another set is
printed or written to mislead the unwary, but with these we
are not concerned.

“The chief results of the initiation seemed to be a kind
of mental illusion or sleep-waking, in which the neophyte
saw, or thought he saw, the images of people who were
known to be absent, and in some cases thousands of miles
away. I thought (or perhaps it was my mind at work) I saw
friends and relatives that I knew at the time were in New
York State, while I was then in Lebanon. How these results
were produced I cannot say. They appeared in a dark room,
when the ‘guide’ was talking, the ‘company’ singing in
the next ‘chamber,’ and near the close of the day, when
I was tired out with fasting, walking, talking, singing,
robing, unrobing, seeing a great many people in various
conditions as to dress and undress, and with great mental
strain in resisting certain physical manifestations that
result from the appetites when they overcome the will, and
in paying close attention to the passing scenes, hoping
to remember them--so that I may have been unfit to judge
of any new and surprising phenomena, and more especially
of those apparently magical appearances which have always
excited my suspicion and distrust. I know the various
uses of the magic-lantern, and other apparatus, and took
care to examine the room where the ‘visions’ appeared to
me the same evening, and the next day, and several times
afterwards, and knew that, in my case, there was no use
made of any machinery or other means besides the voice of
the ‘guide and instructor.’ On several occasions afterward,
when at a great distance from the ‘chamber,’ the same
or similar visions were produced, as, for instance, in
Hornstein’s Hotel at Jerusalem. A daughter-in-law of a
well-known Jewish merchant in Jerusalem is an initiated
‘sister,’ and can produce the visions almost at will on any
one who will live strictly according to the rules of the
Order for a few weeks, more or less, according to their
nature, as gross or refined, etc.

“I am quite safe in saying that the initiation is so
peculiar that it could not be printed so as to instruct
one who had not been ‘worked’ through the ‘chamber.’ So it
would be even more impossible to make an exposé of them
than of the Freemasons. The real secrets are acted and not
spoken, and require several initiated persons to assist in
the work.

“It is not necessary for me to say how some of the notions
of that people seem to perpetuate certain beliefs of the
ancient Greeks--as, for instance, the idea that a man has
two souls, and many others--for you probably were made
familiar with them in your passage through the ‘upper’
and ‘lower chamber.’ If I am mistaken in supposing you an
‘initiate,’ please excuse me. I am aware that the closest
friends often conceal that ‘sacred secret’ from each other;
and even husband and wife may live--as I was informed
in Dayr-el-Kamar was the fact in one family there--for
twenty years together and yet neither know anything of
the initiation of the other. You, undoubtedly, have good
reasons for keeping your own counsel.

“Yours truly,
“A. L. RAWSON.”

Before we close the subject we may add that if a stranger ask for admission to a “Thursday” meeting he will never be refused. Only, if he is a Christian, the _okhal_ will open a _Bible_ and read from it; and if a Mahometan, he will hear a few chapters of the _Koran_, and the ceremony will end with this. They will wait until he is gone, and then, shutting well the doors of their convent, take to their own rites and books, passing for this purpose into their subterranean sanctuaries. “The Druzes remain, even more than the Jews, a peculiar people,” says Colonel Churchill,[658] one of the few fair and strictly impartial writers. “They marry within their own race; they are rarely if ever converted; they adhere tenaciously to their traditions, and they baffle all efforts to discover their cherished secrets.... The bad name of that caliph whom they claim as their founder is fairly compensated by the pure lives of many whom they honor as saints, and by the heroism of their feudal leaders.”

And yet the Druzes may be said to belong to one of the least esoteric of secret societies. There are others far more powerful and learned, the existence of which is not even suspected in Europe. There are many branches belonging to the great “Mother Lodge” which, mixed up with certain communities, may be termed secret sects within other sects. One of them is the sect commonly known as that of Laghana-Sastra. It reckons several thousand adepts who are scattered about in small groups in the south of the Dekkan, India. In the popular superstition, this sect is dreaded on account of its great reputation for magic and sorcery. The Brahmans accuse its members of atheism and sacrilege, for none of them will consent to recognize the authority of either the _Vedas_ or _Manu_, except so far as they conform to the versions in their possession, and which they maintain are professedly the only original texts; the Laghana-Sastra have neither temples nor priests, but, twice a month, every member of the community has to absent himself from home for three days. Popular rumor, originated among their women, ascribes such absences to pilgrimages performed to their places of fortnightly resort. In some secluded mountainous spots, unknown and inaccessible to other sects, hidden far from sight among the luxurious vegetation of India, they keep their bungalows, which look like small fortresses, encircled as they are by lofty and thick walls. These, in their turn, are surrounded by the sacred trees called _assonata_, and in Tamül _arassa maram_. These are the “sacred groves,” the originals of those of Egypt and Greece, whose initiates also built their temples within such “groves” inaccessible to the profane.[659]

It will not be found without interest to see what Mr. John Yarker, Jr., has to say on some modern secret societies among the Orientals. “The nearest resemblance to the Brahmanical Mysteries, is probably found in the very ancient ‘_Paths_’ of the Dervishes, which are usually governed by twelve officers, the oldest ‘Court’ superintending the others by right of seniority. Here the master of the ‘Court’ is called ‘_Sheik_,’ and has his deputies, ‘Caliphs,’ or successors, of which there may be many (as, for instance, in the brevet degree of a Master Mason). The order is divided into at least four columns, pillars, or degrees. The first step is that of ‘Humanity,’ which supposes attention to the written law, and ‘annihilation in the _Sheik_.’ The second is that of the ‘Path,’ in which the ‘_Murid_,’ or disciple, attains spiritual powers and ‘self-annihilation’ into the ‘Peer’ or founder of the ‘Path.’ The third stage is called ‘Knowledge,’ and the ‘_Murid_’ is supposed to become inspired, called ‘annihilation into the Prophet.’ The fourth stage leads him even to God, when he becomes a part of the Deity and sees Him in all things. The first and second stages have received modern subdivisions, as ‘Integrity,’ ‘Virtue,’ ‘Temperance,’ ‘Benevolence.’ After this the Sheik confers upon him the grade of ‘Caliph,’ or Honorary Master, for in their mystical language, ‘the man must die before the saint can be born.’ It will be seen that this kind of mysticism is applicable to Christ as founder of a ‘Path.’”

To this statement, the author adds the following on the Bektash Dervishes, who “often initiated the Janizaries. They wear _a small marble cube spotted with blood_. Their ceremony is as follows: Before reception a year’s probation is required, during which false secrets are given to test the candidate; he has two godfathers _and is divested of all metals and even clothing_; from the wool of a sheep a cord is made for his neck, and a girdle for his loins; he is led into the centre of a square room, presented as a slave, and seated upon a large stone with twelve escallops; his arms are crossed upon his breast, his body inclined forward, his right toes extended over his left foot; after various prayers he is placed in a particular manner, with his hand in a peculiar way in that of the Sheik, who repeats a verse from the _Koran_: ‘Those who on giving thee their hand swear to thee an oath, swear it to God, the hand of God is placed in their hand; whoever violates this oath, will do so to his hurt, and to whoever remains faithful God will give a magnificent reward.’ Placing the hand below the chin is their sign, perhaps in memory of their vow. All use the double triangles. The Brahmans inscribe the angles with their trinity, and they possess also the Masonic sign of distress as used in France.”[660]

From the very day when the first mystic found the means of communication between this world and the worlds of the invisible host, between the sphere of matter and that of pure spirit, he concluded that to abandon this mysterious science to the profanation of the rabble was to lose it. An abuse of it might lead mankind to speedy destruction; it was like surrounding a group of children with explosive batteries, and furnishing them with matches. The first self-made adept initiated but a select few, and kept silence with the multitudes. He recognized his God and felt the great Being within himself. The “Âtman,” the Self,[661] the mighty Lord and Protector, once that man knew him as the “_I am_,” the “_Ego Sum_” the “_Ahmi_,” showed his full power to him who could recognize the “_still small voice_.” From the days of the primitive man described by the first Vedic poet, down to our modern age, there has not been a philosopher worthy of that name, who did not carry in the silent sanctuary of his heart the grand and mysterious truth. If initiated, he learnt it as a sacred science; if otherwise, then, like Socrates repeating to himself, as well as to his fellow-men, the noble injunction, “O man, know thyself,” he succeeded in recognizing his God within himself. “Ye are gods,” the king-psalmist tells us, and we find Jesus reminding the scribes that the expression, “Ye are gods,” was addressed to other mortal men, claiming for himself the same privilege without any blasphemy.[662] And, as a faithful echo, Paul, while asserting that we are all “the temple of the living God,”[663] cautiously adds, that after all these things are only for the “wise,” and it is “unlawful” to speak of them.

Therefore, we must accept the reminder, and simply remark that even in the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the _Codex Nazaræus_, we detect throughout the same idea. Like an undercurrent, rapid and clear, it runs without mixing its crystalline purity with the muddy and heavy waves of dogmatism. We find it in the _Codex_, as well as in the _Vedas_, in the _Avesta_, as in the _Abhidharma_, and in _Kapila’s Sânkhya Sûtras_ not less than in the _Fourth Gospel_. We cannot attain the “Kingdom of Heaven,” unless we unite ourselves indissolubly with our _Rex Lucis_, the Lord of Splendor and of Light, our Immortal God. We must first conquer immortality and “take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence,” offered to our material selves. “The first man is of the earth earthy; the _second_ man _is from heaven_.... Behold, I show you a _mystery_,” says Paul (_1 Corinthians_, xv. 47). In the religion of Sakya-Mum, which learned commentators have delighted so much of late to set down as purely _nihilistic_, the doctrine of immortality is very clearly defined, notwithstanding the European or rather Christian ideas about Nirvana. In the sacred Jaïna books, of Patuna, the dying Gautama-Buddha is thus addressed: “Arise into _Nirvi_ (Nirvana) from this decrepit body into which thou hast been sent. Ascend into _thy former abode_, O blessed Avatar!” This seems to us the very opposite of Nihilism. If Gautama is invited to reäscend into his “former abode,” and this abode is Nirvana, then it is incontestable that Buddhistic philosophy does _not_ teach final annihilation. As Jesus is alleged to have appeared to his disciples after death, so to the present day is Gautama believed to descend from Nirvana. And if he has an existence there, then this state cannot be a synonym for _annihilation_.

Gautama, no less than all other great reformers, had a doctrine for his “elect” and another for the outside masses, though the main object of his reform consisted in initiating all, so far as it was permissible and prudent to do, without distinction of castes or wealth, to the great truths hitherto kept so secret by the selfish Brahmanical class. Gautama-Buddha it was whom we see the first in the world’s history, moved by that generous feeling which locks the whole humanity within one embrace, inviting the “poor,” the “lame,” and the “blind” to the King’s festival table, from which he excluded those who had hitherto sat alone, in haughty seclusion. It was he, who, with a bold hand, first opened the door of the sanctuary to the pariah, the fallen one, and all those “afflicted by men” clothed in gold and purple, often far less worthy than the outcast to whom their finger was scornfully pointing. All this did Siddhârtha six centuries before another reformer, as noble and as loving, though less favored by opportunity, in another land. If both, aware of the great danger of furnishing an uncultivated populace with the double-edged weapon of _knowledge which gives power_, left the innermost corner of the sanctuary in the profoundest shade, who, that is acquainted with human nature, can blame them for it? But while one was actuated by prudence, the other was forced into such a course. Gautama left the esoteric and most dangerous portion of the “secret knowledge” untouched, and lived to the ripe old age of eighty, with the certainty of having taught the essential truths, and having converted to them one-third of the world; Jesus promised his disciples the knowledge which confers upon man the power _of producing far greater miracles than he ever did himself_, and he died, leaving but a few faithful men, only half way to knowledge, to struggle with the world to which they could impart but what they _half_-knew themselves. Later, their followers disfigured truth still more than they themselves had done.

It is not true that Gautama never taught anything concerning a future life, or that he denied the immortality of the soul. Ask any intelligent Buddhist his ideas on Nirvana, and he will unquestionably express himself, as the well-known Wong-Chin-Fu, the Chinese orator, now travelling in this country, did in a recent conversation with us about _Niepang_ (Nirvana). “This condition,” he remarked, “we all understand to mean a final reünion with God, coïncident with the perfection of the human spirit by its ultimate disembarrassment of matter. It is the very opposite of personal annihilation.”

Nirvana means the certitude of personal immortality in _Spirit_, not in _Soul_, which, as a finite emanation, must certainly disintegrate its particles a compound of human sensations, passions, and yearning for some objective kind of existence, before the immortal spirit of the _Ego_ is quite freed, and henceforth secure against further transmigration in any form. And how can man ever reach this state so long as the _Upadāna_, that state of longing for _life_, more life, does not disappear from the sentient being, from the _Ahancara_ clothed, however, in a sublimated body? It is the “Upādana” or the intense desire which produces WILL, and it is _will_ which develops _force_, and the latter generates _matter_, or an object having form. Thus the disembodied _Ego_, through this sole undying desire in him, unconsciously furnishes the conditions of his successive self-procreations in various forms, which depend on his mental state and _Karma_, the good or bad deeds of his preceding existence, commonly called “merit and demerit.” This is why the “Master” recommended to his mendicants the cultivation of the four degrees of Dhȳana, the noble “Path of the Four Truths,” _i.e._, that gradual acquirement of stoical indifference for either life or death; that state of spiritual self-contemplation during which man utterly loses sight of his physical and dual individuality, composed of soul and body; and uniting himself with his third and higher immortal self the _real and heavenly man_ merges, so to say, into the divine Essence, whence his own spirit proceeded like a spark from the common hearth. Thus the Arhat, the holy mendicant, can reach Nirvana while yet on earth; and his spirit, totally freed from the trammels of the “psychical, terrestrial, _devilish_ wisdom,” as James calls it, and being in its own nature omniscient and omnipotent, can on earth, through the sole power of his _thought_, produce the greatest of phenomena.

“It is the missionaries in China and India, who first started this falsehood about Niepang, or Nïepana (Nirvana),” says Wong-Chin-Fu. Who can deny the truth of this accusation after reading the works of the Abbé Dubois, for instance? A missionary who passes forty years of his life in India, and then writes that the “Buddhists admit of no other God but the body of man, and have no other object but the satisfaction of their senses,” utters an untruth which can be proved on the testimony of the laws of the Talapoins of Siam and Birmah; laws, which prevail unto this very day and which sentence a sahân, or _punghi_ (a learned man; from the Sanscrit _pundit_), as well as a simple Talapoin, to death by decapitation, for the crime of unchastity. No foreigner can be admitted into their _Kyums_, or Viharas (monasteries); and yet there are French writers, otherwise impartial and fair, who, speaking of the great severity of the rules to which the Buddhist monks are subjected in these communities, and without possessing one single fact to corroborate their skepticism, bluntly say, that “notwithstanding the great laudations bestowed upon them (Talapoins) by certain travellers, merely on the _strength of appearances_, I do not believe at all in their chastity.”[664]

Fortunately for the Buddhist talapoins, lamas, sahâns, upasampadas,[665] and even samenaïras,[666] they have popular records and facts for themselves, which are weightier than the unsupported personal opinion of a Frenchman, born in Catholic lands, whom we can hardly blame for having lost all faith in clerical virtue. When a Buddhist monk becomes guilty (which does not happen once in a century, perhaps) of criminal conversation, he has neither a congregation of tender-hearted members, whom he can move to tears by an eloquent confession of his guilt, nor a Jesus, on whose overburdened, long-suffering bosom are flung, as in a common Christian dust-box, all the impurities of the race. No Buddhist transgressor can comfort himself with visions of a Vatican, within whose sin-encompassing walls black is turned into white, murderers into sinless saints, and golden or silvery lotions can be bought at the confessional to cleanse the tardy penitent of greater or lesser offenses against God and man.

Except a few impartial archæologists, who trace a direct Buddhistic element in Gnosticism, as in all those early short-lived sects we know of very few authors, who, in writing upon primitive Christianity, have accorded to the question its due importance. Have we not facts enough to, at least, suggest some interest in that direction? Do we not learn that, as early as in the days of Plato, there were “Brachmans”--read Buddhist, Samaneans, Saman, or Shaman missionaries--in Greece, and that, at one time, they had overflowed the country? Does not Pliny show them established on the shores of the Dead Sea, for “thousands of ages?” After making every necessary allowance for the exaggeration, we still have several centuries B.C. left as a margin. And is it possible that their influence should not have left deeper traces in all these sects than is generally thought? We know that the Jaïna sect claims Buddhism as derived from its tenets--that Buddhism existed before Siddhârtha, better known as Gautama-Buddha. The Hindu Brahmans who, by the European Orientalists, are denied the right of knowing anything about their own country, or understanding their own language and records better than those who have never been in India, on the same principle as the Jews are forbidden, by the Christian theologians, to interpret their own Scriptures--the Brahmans, we say, have authentic records. And these show the incarnation from the Virgin Avany of the first Buddha--_divine light_--as having taken place more than some thousands of years B.C., on the island of Ceylon. The Brahmans reject the claim that it was an avatar of Vishnu, but admit the appearance of a reformer of Brahmanism at that time. The story of the Virgin Avany and her divine son, Sâkya-muni, is recorded in one of the sacred books of the Cinghalese Buddhists--the _Nirdhasa_; and the Brahmanic chronology fixes the great Buddhistic revolution and religious war, and the subsequent spread of Sâkya-muni’s doctrine in Thibet, China, Japan, and other places at 4,620 years B.C.[667]

It is clear that Gautama-Buddha, the son of the King of Kapilavastu, and the descendant of the first Sakya, through his father, who was of the Kshatriya, or warrior-caste, did not invent his philosophy. Philanthropist by nature, his ideas were developed and matured while under the tuition of Tir-thankara, the famous guru of the Jaïna sect. The latter claim the present Buddhism as a diverging branch of their own philosophy, and themselves, as the only followers of the first Buddha who were allowed to remain in India, after the expulsion of all other Buddhists, probably because they had made a compromise, and admitted some of the Brahmanic notions. It is, to say the least, curious, that three dissenting and inimical religions, like Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jaïnism, should agree so perfectly in their traditions and chronology, as to Buddhism, and that our scientists should give a hearing but to their own unwarranted speculations and hypotheses. If the birth of Gautama may, with some show of reason, be placed at about 600 B.C., then the preceding Buddhas ought to have some place allowed them in chronology. The Buddhas are not gods, but simply individuals overshadowed by the spirit of Buddha--the divine ray. Or is it because, unable to extricate themselves from the difficulty by the help of their own researches only, our Orientalists prefer to obliterate and deny the whole, rather than accord to the Hindus the right of knowing something of their own religion and history? Strange way of discovering truths!

The common argument adduced against the Jaïna claim, of having been the source of the restoration of ancient Buddhism, that the principal tenet of the latter religion is opposed to the belief of the Jaïnas, is not a sound one. Buddhists, say our Orientalists, deny the existence of a Supreme Being; the Jaïnas admit one, but protest against the assumption that the “He” can ever interfere in the regulation of the universe. We have shown in the preceding chapter that the Buddhists do not deny any such thing. But if any disinterested scholar could study carefully the Jaïna literature, in their thousands of books preserved--or shall we say hidden--in Rajpootana, Jusselmere, at Patun, and other places;[668] and especially if he could but gain access to the oldest of their sacred volumes, he would find a perfect identity of philosophical thought, if not of popular rites, between the Jaïnas and the Buddhists. The Adi-Buddha and Adinâtha (or Adiswara) are identical in essence and purpose. And now, if we trace the Jaïnas back, with their claims to the ownership of the oldest cave-temples (those superb specimens of Indian architecture and sculpture), and their records of an almost incredible antiquity, we can hardly refuse to view them in the light which they claim for themselves. We must admit, that in all probability they are the only true descendants of the primitive owners of old India, dispossessed by those conquering and mysterious hordes of white-skinned Brahmans whom, in the twilight of history, we see appearing at the first as wanderers in the valleys of Jumna and Ganges. The books of the Srawacs--the only descendants of the Arhâtas or earliest Jaïnas, the naked forest-hermits of the days of old, might throw some light, perhaps, on many a puzzling question. But will our European scholars, so long as they pursue their own policy, ever have access to the _right_ volumes? We have our doubts about this. Ask any trustworthy Hindu how the missionaries have dealt with those manuscripts which unluckily fell into their hands, and then see if we can blame the natives for trying to save from desecration the “gods of their fathers.”

To maintain their ground Irenæus and his school had to fight hard with the Gnostics. Such, also, was the lot of Eusebius, who found himself hopelessly perplexed to know how the Essenes should be disposed of. The ways and customs of Jesus and his apostles exhibited too close a resemblance to this sect to allow the fact to pass unexplained. Eusebius tried to make people believe that the Essenes were the first Christians. His efforts were thwarted by Philo Judæus, who wrote his historical account of the Essenes and described them with the minutest care, long before there had appeared a single Christian in Palestine. But, if there were no _Christians_, there were Chr_e_stians long before the era of Christianity; and the Essenes belonged to the latter as well as to all other initiated brotherhoods, without even mentioning the Christnites of India. Lepsius shows that the word _Nofre_ means Chrēstos, “good,” and that one of the titles of Osiris, “Onnofre,” must be translated “the goodness of God made manifest.”[669] “The worship of Christ was not universal at this early date,” explains Mackenzie, “by which I mean that Christolatry had not been introduced; but the worship of _Chrēstos_--the Good Principle--had preceded it by many centuries, and even survived the general adoption of Christianity, as shown on monuments still in existence.” ... Again, we have an inscription which is pre-Christian on an epitaphial tablet (Spon. _Misc. Erud._, Ant., x. xviii. 2). Υακινθε Λαρισαιων Δημοσιε Ηρως Χρηστε Χαιρε, and de Rossi (_Roma Sotteranea_, tome i., tav. xxi.) gives us another example from the catacombs--“Ælia Chreste, in Pace.”[670] And, _Kris_, as Jacolliot shows, means in Sanscrit “sacred.”

The meritorious stratagems of the trustworthy Eusebius thus proved lost labor. He was triumphantly detected by Basnage, who, says Gibbon, “examined with the utmost critical accuracy the curious treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutæ,” and found that “by proving it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, he has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius and a crowd of modern Catholics, that the Therapeutæ were neither Christians nor monks.”

As a last word, the _Christian_ Gnostics sprang into existence toward the beginning of the second century, and just at the time when the Essenes most mysteriously faded away, which indicated that they were the identical Essenes, and moreover pure _Christists_, viz.: they believed and were those who best understood what one of their own brethren had preached. In insisting that the letter Iota, mentioned by Jesus in _Matthew_ (v. 18), indicated a secret doctrine in relation to the ten æons, it is sufficient to demonstrate to a kabalist that Jesus belonged to the Freemasonry of those days; for Ι, which is Iota in Greek, has other names in other languages; and is, as it was among the Gnostics of those days, a pass-word, meaning the SCEPTRE of the FATHER, in Eastern brotherhoods which exist to this very day.

But in the early centuries these facts, if known, were purposely ignored, and not only withheld from public notice as much as possible, but vehemently denied whenever the question was forced upon discussion. The denunciations of the Fathers were rendered bitter in proportion to the truth of the claim which they endeavored to refute.

“It comes to this,” writes Irenæus, complaining of the Gnostics, “they neither consent to Scripture nor tradition.”[671] And why should we wonder at that, when even the commentators of the nineteenth century, with nothing but fragments of the Gnostic manuscripts to compare with the voluminous writings of their calumniators, have been enabled to detect fraud on nearly every page? How much more must the polished and learned Gnostics, with all their advantages of personal observation and knowledge of fact, have realized the stupendous scheme of fraud that was being consummated before their very eyes! Why should they accuse Celsus of maintaining that their religion was all based on the speculations of Plato, with the difference that his doctrines were far more pure and rational than theirs, when we find Sprengel, seventeen centuries later, writing the following?--“Not only did they (the Christians) think to discover the dogmas of Plato in the books of Moses, but, moreover, they fancied that, by introducing Platonism into Christianity, they would _elevate the dignity of this religion and make it more popular among the nations_.”[672]

They introduced it so well, that not only was the Platonic philosophy selected as a basis for the trinity, but even the legends and mythical stories which had been current among the admirers of the great philosopher--as a time-honored custom required in the eyes of his posterity such an allegorical homage to every hero worthy of deification--were revamped and used by the Christians. Without going so far as India, did they not have a ready model for the “miraculous conception,” in the legend about Periktionè, Plato’s mother? In her case it was also maintained by popular tradition that she had immaculately conceived him, and that the god Apollo was his father. Even the annunciation by an angel to Joseph “in a dream,” the Christians copied from the message of Apollo to Ariston, Periktionè’s husband, that the child to be born from her was the offspring of that god. So, too, Romulus was said to be the son of Mars, by the virgin Rhea Sylvia.

It is generally held by all the symbolical writers that the Ophites were found guilty of practicing the most licentious rites during their religious meetings. The same accusation was brought against the Manichæans, the Carpocratians, the Paulicians, the Albigenses--in short, against every Gnostic sect which had the temerity to claim the right to think for itself. In our modern days, the 160 American sects and the 125 sects of England are not so often troubled with such accusations; times are changed, and even the once all-powerful clergy have to either bridle their tongues or prove their slanderous accusations.

We have carefully looked over the works of such authors as Payne Knight, C. W. King, and Olshausen, which treat of our subject; we have reviewed the bulky volumes of Irenæus, Tertullian, Sozomen, Theodoret; and in none but those of Epiphanius have we found any accusation based upon direct evidence of an eye-witness. “They say;” “_Some_ say;” “We have heard”--such are the general and indefinite terms used by the patristic accusers. Alone Epiphanius, whose works are invariably referred to in all such cases, seems to chuckle with delight whenever he couches a lance. We do not mean to take upon ourselves to defend the sects which inundated Europe at the eleventh century, and which brought to light the most wonderful creeds; we limit our defense merely to those Christian sects whose theories were usually grouped under the generic name of _Gnosticism_. These are those which appeared immediately after the alleged crucifixion, and lasted till they were nearly exterminated under the rigorous execution of the Constantinian law. The greatest guilt of these were their syncretistic views, for at no other period of the world’s history had truth a poorer prospect of triumph than in those days of forgery, lying, and deliberate falsification of facts.

But before we are forced to believe the accusations, may we not be permitted to inquire into the historical characters of their accusers? Let us begin by asking, upon what ground does the Church of Rome build her claim of supremacy for her doctrines over those of the Gnostics? Apostolic succession, undoubtedly. The succession _traditionally_ instituted by the direct Apostle Peter. But what if this prove a fiction? Clearly, the whole superstructure supported upon this one imaginary stilt would fall in a tremendous crash. And when we do inquire carefully, we find that we must take the word of Irenæus _alone_ for it--of Irenæus, who did not furnish one single valid proof of the claim which he so audaciously advanced, and who resorted for that to endless forgeries. He gives authority neither for his dates nor his assertions. This Smyrniote worthy has not even the brutal but sincere faith of Tertullian, for he contradicts himself at every step, and supports his claims solely on acute sophistry. Though he was undoubtedly a man of the shrewdest intellect and great learning, he fears not, in some of his assertions and arguments, to even appear an idiot in the eyes of posterity, so long as he can “carry the situation.” Twitted and cornered at every step by his not less acute and learned adversaries, the Gnostics, he boldly shields himself behind blind faith, and in answer to their merciless logic falls upon imaginary tradition invented by himself. Reber wittily remarks: “As we read his misapplications of words and sentences, we would conclude that he was a lunatic if we did not know that he was something else.”[673]

So boldly mendacious does this “holy Father” prove himself in many instances, that he is even contradicted by Eusebius, more cautious if not more truthful than himself. He is driven to that necessity in the face of unimpeachable evidence. So, for instance, Irenæus asserts that Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, was a direct hearer of St. John;[674] and Eusebius is compelled to show that Papias never pretended to such a claim, but simply stated that he had received his _doctrine from those who had known John_.[675]

In one point, the Gnostics had the best of Irenæus. They drove him, through mere fear of inconsistency, to the recognition of their kabalistic doctrine of atonement; unable to grasp it in its allegorical meaning, Irenæus presented, with Christian theology as we find it in its present state of “original sin _versus_ Adam,” a doctrine which would have filled Peter with pious horror if he had been still alive.

The next champion for the propagation of Apostolic Succession, is Eusebius himself. Is the word of this Armenian Father any better than that of Irenæus? Let us see what the most competent critics say of him. And before we turn to modern critics at all, we might remind the reader of the scurrilous terms in which Eusebius is attacked by George Syncellus, the Vice-Patriarch of Constantinople (eighth century), for his audacious falsification of the Egyptian Chronology. The opinion of Socrates, an historian of the fifth century, is no more flattering. He fearlessly charges Eusebius with perverting historical dates, in order to please the Emperor Constantine. In his chronographic work, before proceeding to falsify the synchronistic tables _himself_, in order to impart to Scriptural chronology a more trustworthy appearance, Syncellus covers Eusebius with the choicest of monkish Billingsgate. _Baron Bunsen has verified the justness if not justified the politeness of this abusive reprehension._ His elaborate researches in the rectification of the _Egyptian List of Chronology_, by Manetho, led him to confess that throughout his work, the Bishop of Cæsarea “had undertaken, in a very _unscrupulous_ and arbitrary spirit, to mutilate history.” “Eusebius,” he says, “is the originator of that systematic theory of synchronisms which has so often subsequently maimed and mutilated history in its procrustean bed.”[676] To this the author of the _Intellectual Development of Europe_ adds: “Among those who have been the most guilty of this offense, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop of Cæsarea ... should be designated!”[677]

It will not be amiss to remind the reader that it is the same Eusebius who is charged with the interpolation of the famous paragraph concerning Jesus,[678] which was so miraculously found, in his time, in the writings of Josephus, the sentence in question having till that time remained perfectly unknown. Renan, in his _Life of Jesus_, expresses a contrary opinion. “I believe,” says he, “the passage respecting Jesus to be authentic. _It is perfectly in the style of Josephus_; and, _if_ this historian had made mention of Jesus, it is _thus_ that he must have spoken of him.”

Begging this eminent scholar’s pardon, we must again contradict him. Laying aside his cautious “_if_,” we will merely show that though the short paragraph may possibly be genuine, and “perfectly in the style of Josephus,” its several parentheses are most palpably later forgeries; and “_if_” Josephus had made any mention of Christ at all, it is _not_ thus that he would “have spoken of him.” The whole paragraph consists of but a few lines, and reads: “At this time was _Iasous_, a ‘WISE MAN,’[679] if, at least, _it is right to call him a man_! (ἄνδρα) for he was a doer of surprising works, and a teacher of such men as receive “the truths” with pleasure.... _This was the_ ANOINTED (!!). And, on an accusation by the first men among us, having been condemned by Pilate to the cross, they did not stop loving him who loved them. For _he appeared to them on the third day alive_, and the divine prophets having said these and many other wonderful things concerning him.”

This paragraph (of sixteen lines in the original) has two unequivocal assertions and one qualification. The latter is expressed in the following sentence: “If, at least, it is right to call him a man.” The unequivocal assertions are contained in “This is the ANOINTED,” and in that Jesus “appeared to them _on the third day alive_.” History shows us Josephus as a thorough, uncompromising, stiff-necked, orthodox Jew, though he wrote for “the Pagans.” It is well to observe the false position in which these sentences would have placed a true-born Jew, if they had really emanated from him. Their “Messiah” was then and is still expected. The Messiah is the _Anointed_, and _vice versa_. And Josephus is made to admit that the “first men” among them have accused and crucified _their_ Messiah and Anointed!! No need to comment any further upon such a preposterous incongruity,[680] even though supported by so ripe a scholar as Renan.

As to that patristic fire-brand, Tertullian, whom des Mousseaux apotheosizes in company with his other demi-gods, he is regarded by Reuss, Baur, and Schweigler, in quite a different light. The untrustworthiness of statement and inaccuracy of Tertullian, says the author of _Supernatural Religion_, are often apparent. Reuss characterizes his Christianism as “_âpre_, _insolent_, _brutal_, _ferrailleur_.” It is without unction and without charity, sometimes even _without loyalty_, when he finds himself confronted with opposition. “If,” remarks this author, “in the second century all parties except certain Gnostics were intolerant, Tertullian was the most intolerant of all!”

The work begun by the early Fathers was achieved by the sophomorical Augustine. His supra-transcendental speculations on the Trinity; his imaginary dialogues with the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the _disclosures_ and covert allusions about his ex-brethren, the Manicheans, have led the world to load Gnosticism with opprobrium, and have thrown into a deep shadow the insulted majesty of the one God, worshipped in reverential silence by every “heathen.”

_And thus is it that the whole pyramid of Roman Catholic dogmas rests not upon proof, but upon assumption._ The Gnostics had cornered the Fathers too cleverly, and _the only salvation of the latter was a resort to forgery_. For nearly four centuries, the great historians nearly cotemporary with Jesus had not taken the slightest notice either of his life or death. Christians wondered at such an unaccountable omission of what the Church considered the greatest events in the world’s history. Eusebius saved the battle of the day. Such are the men who have slandered the Gnostics.

The first and most unimportant sect we hear of is that of the _Nicolaïtans_, of whom John, in the _Apocalypse_, makes the voice in his vision say that he hates their doctrine.[681] These Nicolaïtans were the followers, however, of Nicolas of Antioch, one of the “seven” chosen by the “twelve” to make distribution from the common fund to the proselytes at Jerusalem (_Acts_ ii. 44, 45, vi. 1-5), hardly more than a few weeks, or perhaps months, after the Crucifixion;[682] and a man “of honest report, _full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom_” (verse 3). Thus it would appear that the “Holy Ghost and wisdom” from on high, were no more a shield against the accusation of “hæresy” than though they had never overshadowed the “chosen ones” of the apostles.

It would be but too easy to detect what kind of heresy it was that offended, even had we not other and more authentic sources of information in the kabalistic writings. The accusation and the precise nature of the “abomination” are stated in the second chapter of the book of _Revelation_, verses 14, 15. The sin was merely--_marriage_. John was a “virgin;” several of the Fathers assert the fact on the authority of tradition. Even Paul, the most liberal and high-minded of them all, finds it difficult to reconcile the position of a married man with that of a faithful servant of God. There is also “a difference between a wife and a virgin.”[683] The latter cares “for the things of the Lord,” and the former only for “how she may please her husband.” “If any man think that he behaveth uncomely towards his virgin ... let them marry. Nevertheless, he that standeth steadfast in his heart, and hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed ... that he will keep _his virgin_, doeth well.” So that he who marries “doeth well ... but he that giveth her not in marriage _doeth better_.” “Art thou loosed from a wife?” he asks, “seek not a wife” (27). And remarking that according to his judgment, both will be happier if they do not marry, he adds, as a weighty conclusion: “And I think also that I have the spirit of God” (40). Far from this spirit of tolerance are the words of John. According to his vision there are “but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were _redeemed_ from the earth,” and “these are they which were not defiled with women; for _they were virgins_.”[684] This seems conclusive; for except Paul there is not one of these primitive _Nazari_, there “set apart” and vowed to God, who seemed to make a great difference between “sin” within the relationship of legal marriage, and the “abomination” of adultery.

With such views and such narrow-mindedness, it was but natural that these fanatics should have begun by casting this _iniquity_ as a slur in the faces of brethren, and then “bearing on progressively” with their accusations. As we have already shown, it is only Epiphanius whom we find giving such minute details as to the Masonic “grips” and other signs of recognition among the Gnostics. He had once belonged to their number, and therefore it was easy for him to furnish particulars. Only how far the worthy Bishop is to be relied upon is a very grave question. One need fathom human nature but very superficially to find that there seldom was yet a traitor, a renegade, who, in a moment of danger turned “State’s evidence,” who would not lie as remorselessly as he betrayed. Men never forgive or relent toward those whom they injure. We hate our victims in proportion to the harm we do them. This is a truth as old as the world. On the other hand, it is preposterous to believe that such persons as the Gnostics, who, according to Gibbon, were the wealthiest, proudest, most polite, as well as the most learned “of the Christian name,” were guilty of the disgusting, libidinous actions of which Epiphanius delights to accuse them. Were they even like that “set of tatterdemalions, almost naked, with fierce looks,” that Lucian describes as Paul’s followers,[685] we would hesitate to believe such an infamous story. How much less probable then that men who were Platonists, as well as Christians, should have ever been guilty of such preposterous rites.