CHAPTER XVI.

LIFE AND TEACHING OF YAISHOOA CONTINUED. - THE "BAPTIST" AND HIS INFLUENCE.- GENERAL OUTLINE OF CHRIST'S DOCTRINES.

THE Connecting link between Booddhism and Christianity seems to have been the Jewish sect of the Essenes, which arose at the period of the highest Booddhist missionary activity, about 200-150 years before Christ,'and numbered several thousands at the period of his birth. These people, in their habits and practices and in some of their opinions, were Booddhistic, while their hierarchy was similar to, and afterwards imitated by, that of the Christians. Their principal settlements were in Southern Palestine, but they also had a monastic establishment on Mount Carmel, to which the subsequent Roman-Catholic order of Carmelite monks was in some degree affiliated. These Essenes,' originally the "straitest sect" of the Pharisees, (that with which Paul was associated,) carried their notions of purity, spirituality, and separateness from the world so far, that they were looked.

Almost precisely the period at which the Sthaviras or elders of the third Booddhist council, under the impulse given by the pious Booddhist emperor of India, Aṣoka or Dharmasoka, called Piyadasi or "the endowed with love," were carrying to the utmost the propaganda of Booddhism, and sending missionaries to "Gāndhāra " (or Candahar in Afghanistan,) to Bactria, to "Ujāna," and to " Yavana;" that is, to Asia Minor and North Syria, known to them as "Yavana,” (Javan, Yavan, Heb.,) or "Ionia," and throughout the late satrapies of Alexander's empire. Some effect from this propaganda must have been felt in the Carmel region, even though no actual record of such intercourse remain. Asoka, it may be remembered, was the grandson of Alexander's contemporary, Chandragupta or "Sandracottus."

2 For "Essenes," consult Josephus, Philo, Neander, Bellermann, etc. They did not disallow marriage, but encouraged celibacy as the holier state, as did Gautama, and also Christ and Paul.

upon with no favorable eye by the orthodox Jews. They lived in communities like the Booddhist and Christian monasteries; but, unlike these, supported themselves by their labors in agriculture, etc. A special profession of theirs was the healing disease by the simple arts of the period.' They made it a matter of principle to eat only in company of their brethren. Like the Booddhists, they wore only a single linen or woollen garment of a white or light yellow color, which was not changed until worn out. But excepting in this particular, their personal habits were those of extreme and religious cleanliness, with the frequent use of ablutions, like the Booddhists. Like these also, the more devout and zealous among them would, now and again, retire from the community into solitary life, dressing and living as hermits, and only occasionally mingling among men to warn, reprove, and urge them to holier life. In this respect they merely kept up the old Hebrew customs of the Nazarite, Nazirite or Nazorete hermits. Many of these Essenic Nazarites or Nazirites, or Nazoretes, (Nassoreans,) had their cells on Carmel, and the "lilyvillage," Nazareth itself, was probably connected with the latter form of their name.

The whole country along the coast of Carmel and eastward to the Sea of Galilee seems to have been considered by the orthodox Jews a "dark" and more or less heretical region, because of its neighborhood to, and interfusion with the Phoenicians, and its grafting upon the old faith many outlandish and un-Hebraic notions. Yet though thus looked upon in Judæa, the inhabitants seem to have held a very good opinion of their own spiritual status,

Their affiliated sect in Egypt was called the "Therapeutae" or "Healers," (see Bellermann and others). The Essenes, who lived in communities, were not identical with the much older “Nazarite" hermits, but the most devout of them adopted the Nazarite régime of separateness, vegetable diet, temperance, unshorn hair, etc., as laid down in the "Mosaic " law. The Essenic observance of vegetarianism, which they substituted for Jewish sacrifice, is a feature apparently derived from Booddhism, as also is their monastic life. Their communism differs not in principle from the voluntary poverty inculcated by Gautama, and it probably originated the early Christian communism.

in fact, to have had considerable "spiritual pride." This is what Christ refers to when he speaks of Capernaum as "exalted unto heaven." To this part of Galilee the Jews gave the name of "Galilee of the Gentiles."

Yohannan or "John," "the Baptist," was unquestionably a Nazarite or Nazorete hermit' originally; his habits and mode of life were those of the Essenic Nazarites ; such as the simple diet, of fruit, honey, etc., the wearing of a single garment, and the letting the hair and beard grow, untouched by the razor. That Christ was originally a disciple of "John's," when, - leaving the neighborhood, "the hill country," where the Baptist was born and where his parents, "Zacharias and Elisabeth," resided, — the latter went to teach and baptize on the shores of Jordan, - we learn from the Gospels. Christ's brother "James" was also a Nazarite, and a disciple of the "Baptist; and, as we learn from the fourth Gospel,- "Andrew" and "Simon," "Philip" and the "other" disciple, (supposed to be "John" the apostle,) were all, originally, also the "Baptist's" disciples when Christ first called them to follow him at Bethabara, "beyond Jordan," — (for this account possesses much more vraisemblance than the contradictory one, in the other Gospels, of their being picked up while mending nets on the seashore). Of Yahakobh's or "James the Less's" habits in later years we have the account in Hegesippus ;- that "a razor never went upon his head" and that he wore "no woollen garments, but only linen; -the practices of the Essenic Nazarites.3

These Nazorites were also the prototypes of the Christian anachoretes or anchorites. The name is from nazar, “to separate," yet the later form nazirite, like Nazareth, (notwithstanding the difference in the letters Y, i, ts, z,) may perhaps be connected with nazir, "the lily," the emblem of purity. Compare Lam. iv. 7, also the lily as emblem of "Mary."

2 Among the Booddhists, while the ordinary mendicants were enjoined to shave with care, the specially holy men, apostles or missionaries, allowed the hair and beard to grow as did the Nazarites.

3 Hegesippus states also that "he was holy from the womb," and that “he did not use a bath." The latter must have been a peculiarity of "James,” — exceptional to the practice of the other disciples. See anecdote already quoted from Irenæus,

Christ, himself, as we learn from the Gospels, wore a single garment, "woven without seam," - and he probably went barefoot or used the Syrian rope sandals, as he forbids his apostles to wear shoes according to the usual custom of the Jews. These habits were those of the Essenic Nazarites and equally so of the Booddhists. The single garment was doubtless an ample robe or cloak, in a single piece, with a hole in the middle for the head, and falling in broad and graceful folds about the person, like the bournous of the Bedouins of the present day, and the robe of the Booddhist Bhikshus. That the Essenes made a specialty of healing disease by the use of simples, like the kindred sect of the Therapeutæ or Healers in Egypt, has been shown by Bellermann;- and that Yaishooa and his brother Yahakobh also made healing a specialty is evident from the Gospels and from the passage already cited from the Midrash Koheleth where "James" heals the Rabbi Eleazar ben Damah of a snake-bite.

The Christians or followers of Christ, in their origin, must be regarded as a sect which split off from the "Sabians," (from the Hebrew ya, tseba, to baptize,) Bañtiσtài, (Baptistæ,) Nazareans, or followers of "John the Baptist," - an Essenic sub-sect. The original sect survives to this day at Bassorah in Persia, where they number several thousands. They speak a "corrupt dialect" of Aramæanor Syriac-Hebrew, analogous to the vernacular Syriac of the present day; - (Neander's "Kirchengeschichte," i 646, Gesenius, Introd. Heb. Gram., p. 2, etc.,) - and declare they were driven from Syria, (to take refuge in Persia,) by Mohammedan persecution. The disciples of the "Baptist' and the Christians were, both alike, originally called "Nazareans," or "Nazoreans," (= "Nazarites,") - Nalopaio, (not properly "Nazarenes," - Načapývo, or inhabitants of

of "John" and disciples in the common bath at Ephesus. Those "saints" who, from their especial sanctity, neglected cleanliness, must have become as offensive as the "santons" of to-day. Yet they were believed to exhale a peculiar and celestial perfume, the famed "odor of sanctity"! The Christians in general, doubtless followed the Essenic custom of frequent bathing.

Nazareth). This name the Bassorah sect, (incorrectly called the "Christians of Saint John,") preserve to this day, as they call themselves "Nassoræans" or "Sabians" indifferently.

They are not "Christians" in any sense, as they "assert Jesus to be an impostor, and install John the Baptist in his place," as being the true Deliverer or Messiah. They claim to have existed from the period of "John the Baptist" and to have originated "on the banks of the Jordan," during those labors of baptism and conversion which our Gospels describe "John" as carrying on by Jordan's side. After the Mohammedans drove them away from Palestine, they joined for a time the Nestorian Christians to escape persecution, and allowed themselves to be called "Christians of Saint John." When the fury of persecution had abated, they separated from the Nestorians, and, apparently, resumed again the profession of their original tenets, which, strange to say, are neither Christian nor Jewish. Neander thinks their belief was "formed out of the elements of an older eastern theosophy." "They consider the Jehovah of the Old Testament a spurious God, and the Christ of the New a false teacher." The supreme God of their theocracy is named Ferla. There are two kingdoms, that of light, and that of darkness. The revelation of "John the Baptist" they hold to have been the only one from the kingdom of light. The means of introducing men to that kingdom is baptism," the great and only means of forgiveness and salvation."

This doctrine about baptism is precisely that of the "Baptist," as recorded in the Gospels. Baptism unto repentance for the remission of sins" was the burden of his preaching. "Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," ("John" iii. 5,) is a phrase, not put into the mouth of the "Baptist," but evidently derived from him. The baptism

1 Neander, Kirchengesch., Cycl. Am., art. "Nassoræans," etc. Yet they hold the Christian ayarn or love-feasts.