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A passage for editorial review. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES PARALLELS IN THE LIVES OF BUDDHA AND JESUS A CRITICAL EXAMINATION of the SO-CALLED MIRACLES SURROUNDING THE BIRTH, LIFE AND DEATH OF BUDDHA AND jESUS AND THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF OTHER MIRACLE-WORKERS BIBLE MIRACLES HANDLED WITHOUT GLOVES. CONTAINS, IN CONCRETE FORM, THE ESSENCE OF THE LIFE OF BUDDHA IN INDIA A3 SHOWN IN THOSE FAMOUS WORKS ON ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHY AND EASTERN RELIGION 'The Sacred Books of the East'' BY LOREN HARPER WHITNEY OF THE CHICAGO BAR, AUTHOR OF ZOROASTER, THE GREAT PERSIAN SECOND EDITION Arranged for publicaiion in its present form, wilh new tide page, by DR. L. W . de LAURENCE, who is now sole owner of this wonderful work, the same to now serve as "TEXT BOOK" NUMBER FOUR fcr "THE CONGRESS OF ANCIENT, DIVINE, MENTAL and CHRISTIAN MASTERS." PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY BY de LAURENCE, SCOTT &. CO. CHICAGO. ILL., U. S. A. 1910 TlIF NTV YORK ABTBH, LfM'X AM TMLUEN FOlMiATiONS U) \i Copyridit, 1910, liR. L. W. ni-: [^AtuKNCE. CONTENTS. Chapter I. Chapter II. Chapter III. Chapter IV. Chapter V. Chapter VI. Chapter VII. Chapter VIII. Chapter IX. Chapter X. Chapter XI. Chapter XII. Chapter XIII. Chapter XIV. Chapter XV. Chapter XVI. Chapter XVII. Chapter XVIII. Chapter XIX. IsX 4 6 The Wonderful Happenings in the Life of Buddha. Some Hebrew and Hindu Miracles. The Miraculous Parentage of Jesus. The Birth and Boyhood of Jesus. Were there Miracles at Jesus' Birth? A Few More Parallels. Buddha Seeks Religion in the Forest. Buddha Rejects a Kingdom. The Fastings and Temptations of Buddha and Jesus. Buddhism Known in Palestine Before Jesus Was Born. Buddhism Known in Syria, Greece, Rome, Before the Birth of Jesus. The Miracles of Apollonius. Buddha Against Brahmanism. The Doctrine of Immortality in Pal- estine and India. Man a Protoplasm: The Corrected Genesis. Hindu and Hebrew Sacrifices. Mode of Worship of the Jews : What Jesus Saw in Jerusalem. The Heaven and Hell of Buddha and Jesus. The Doctrines of Jesus and Buddha. CONTENTS Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII, XXIX. XXX. Chapter XXXI. Chapter Chapter XXXII. XXXIII Chapter XXXIV. The Miracles at the Crucifixion of Jesus. Contradictory Testimony Concerning the Crucifixion. Miracles in the Lives of Buddha and Jesus. Was It Resurrection or Was It Re- suscitation ? The Miracles of Jesus' Appearance to the Disciples. Death — or Syncope? Matthew and Luke Take the Stand. John and His Curious Gospel. Examination of Luke Resumed. Apocryphal Miracles as Recounted in the Apocryphal Gospels. The Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus Compared with the Canonicals. More Apocryphal Miracles. The Apocryphal Gospel of Marcion Compared with Luke's Canonical. In Conclusion. INTRODUCTION. Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus were no doubt the greatest reHgious teachers that ever lived. As I have treated of Zoroaster in a separate volume, I will here only add, that while most marvellous things are told of Buddha and Jesus in these pages, yet in some matters Zoroaster surpasced them both. For the Persian Bible earnestly tells us that Zoroaster was once so honored by Ormazd (God) that He actually sent an Archangel to him, who told him to lay aside his mortal vestments and visit heaven. As Zoroaster approached the Iranian heaven, its bril- liancy was so dazzling that there was no shadow there. Ormazd (God) was on his throne, and he tells Zoroaster that the first perfection of a Saint is "Good thoughts ; the next is good words, and the third is good deeds." As all religions deal in the marvellous, is it any more wonderful that Ormazd counseled Zoroaster than that God talked to Moses and Abraham ? We shall be told in this book that an angel actually held down the branches of a tree and thereby saved Buddha from being drowned in the Ganges. We shall be told that angels came and ministered 7 12 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES tion, an acquisition. His food must have been gath- ered from the roots and briers and brambles of the forest. His couch was probably at the foot of a tree, or by some friendly log. Such, in brief, was man at his coming. But he possessed a brain that ultimately gave him mastery over the beasts of the fields and the fowls of the air. The sun gave him light and heat, and the moon gave him light, and he was thankful to them. They were his friends; he bowed down to them, and at last worshiped them. Here was the beginning of religion; man began to worship some- thing that could do him some good. And that idea, born perhaps twenty thousand, and probably forty or fifty thousand years ago, has followed the race on down to the present day. Man worships God, with the expectation and hope that he will give him a beautiful place on the eternal shores. But this also must be said of man — his wdiole pathway is red with wars, slaughter, brutality and misery. Even his religions have reddened many a field. But the two religions, Buddhism and Christianity, which today almost control the destinies of the world, were not in existence twenty-five hundred years ago. There have been many old religions, which for a time flour- ished, then faded, and finally passed away. Nor is it probable that Mohammedanism can stand against the softening influences of time. Christianity and Bud- dhism now hold the stage, and it is doubtful if any new-born faith can ever supersede them. Religions teach of hells; but as time elapses, there is no doubt A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 13 that the pains of the Hells, as originally taught, will be somewhat assuaged. Buddhism preceded Christianity by about five hun- dred years. Its founder was Gotama, a Hindu Prince, born in India about two thousand four hundred years ago (i), not far from the foot of the Himalaya Mountains. The birthplace of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, five hundred years later, was Nazareth, a little hamlet in Galilee, sixty-five or seventy miles north of Jerusa- lem. There are some who insist that Jesus was born at Bethlehem, a few miles south of Jerusalem. (2) A man's birthplace, however, has little to do with his subsequent career. History is full of well known names, in proof of this ; and we readily recall Alexander, Caesar and Na- poleon ; but those men were simply destroyers of their race. They rolled in blood ; and not one of them has left a single line or motto to improve humanity by pon- dering it. Statesmen there have been whose names (1) There are those who maintain that Buddha was born 54S years B. C. But the proof is not entirely certain. Besides, for my purpose, a score or more of years beyond 500 B. C. is not absolutely important. (2) Many people stoutly maintain that Jesus was born ia Bethlehem; because Isaiah, 750 years B. C, said at virgin should bear a son. If the reader -will examine ch. 7, Isaiah, he will sea that as Ahaz would not ask a "sign," the Lord said he would give him a sign, etc. Now if the sign was a virgin and a son, the supposed happening in Bethlehem did not come about until 750 years later, and Ahaz died more than 730 years before the Beth- lehem "sign" came. However, as that matter is to be examined In the body of this work, I will not extend thig note further. 14 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES are written in many books, but most of them were simply schemers, who planned and plotted to rob other countries of their lands or liberties, or both. Section 2. Buddha and Jesus were cast in vastly different moulds from such men. Neither Buddha nor Jesus sought self aggrandize- ment. Nor did they use force to disseminate their doctrines. Buddha's teachings, as we shall presently see, tended to ameliorate many hard conditions of the human family. In short, he found the Sudras a degraded, enslaved class: and his teachings brought them freedom. He treated them with kindness. He gave them sympathy and love. Yet it took nearly 2,400 years from Buddha's day, before any statesman was found with heart, brain and courage sufficient to write into a great state Declaration, that "all men are created equal." And that statesman was Thomas Jefferson, an American, born in a country of which neither Buddha nor Jesus ever heard.