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(24) Luke 1, v. 5; Matt., ch. 4:8. Matthew takes him into Jerusalem before going to the mountains, but Luke gets him to the mountain before going to Jerusalem. 112 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES a thousand years before His day, reposed sleepily, their inhabitants never dreaming that from the heights of Carmel the great enemy of mankind was trying to bar- gain them off with the rest of the world upon a false and fraudulent consideration. For the devil did not own a single thing of all that he proffered. Jesus, moreover, must have known that the devil could not deliver any of the kingdoms he was offering. To the east the Jordan rolled its swift and turbid waters ; and there was the sea of Galilee, and on its shores stood Capernaum and Chorazin, villages where Jesus afterwards dwelt. Southeast of Carmel all the hills and valleys of Samaria, green with verdure, spread out ; and beyond them, dimly outlined it may be, against that southern sky, rose the spires of that famous temple of Jerusalem ; famous then, but hence- forth to be canonized in all history for all the years to come. Moreover, the confined, stinted borders of Palestine were only as a leaf in the forest, compared to "all the kingdoms of the world," which the devil said, "had been delivered unto him" that he might give them unto whomsoever he pleased. (25) That devil, we must observe, did not tell the truth when he made that propo- sition to Jesus. But he seems to have known that Jewish blood was in Jesus' veins; and therefore thought that, like that race in those days, he could be bribed or bought for a consideration ; and so he (25) Luke, ch. 4, v. 5, says he showed all the kingdoms of the world in a moment. Matt., ch. 4, v. 9. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 113 promptly offered Jesus "the whole world" if He would just fall down and worship him, Jesus' answer, "Get thee behind me, Satan," is as immortal as the stars, and ought to be stamped upon men's minds and hearts until the evening of the last day. Thereupon the devil "for a season" left Jesus; and thus ended one of the most remarkable dialogues (if it is a dialogue) in all history. (26) Section 7. I cannot close this chapter without re- marking that both of these temptations have a weird and unreal aspect. Are those devils real living things ? Or are they simply creatures of the poet's brain ? Did old Satan really take Jesus and set him on that pin- nacle; and also take him up into that mountain? Yet however much we may speculate on this matter, it is plain that Jesus believed that there were devils (27) and He prayed God to keep evil (devil) from His disciples (28) ; and Jesus, it is said, afterwards cast out many devils. (29) The followers of the man of Galilee persistently set aside all other writings and pin their faith to the New Testament ; but only two men, Matthew and Luke, in all this world, tell us that these episodes of the pin- nacle and the mountain actually took place. In this I omit, of course, the Apocryphal gospels. But where did Matthew and Luke get their facts? Matthew was a tax collector at the time Jesus is said (26) For a season. Luke, ch. 4, v. 13. (27) Matt. 6:13. (28) John 17:15. (29) Matt. 8:16. 114 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES to have been in company w ilh the devil on the moun- tain ; and Luke never was a disciple, and never at any time saw Jesus. The best authorities now agree that the four gospels were composed from older ztrilings founded on old traditions. A story, we know^ gains and never loses anything in its travels. I shall not declare that these things did not happen on the mountain and pinnacle, but simply add that the evidence offered to prove them seems lamentably deficient. It may be, however, that all those explicit state- ments and colloquies were, and are, merely subjectives, in order to teach us that no matter what the tempta- tion one should always stand firmly for the right, for justice and for truth. If such was the object of Matthew and Luke, they struck the keynote for all men, for all time. CHAPTER X Buddhism Known in Palestine Before Jesus Was Born. Section i . In some former chapters I have said that Jesus probably copied certain things from Buddha and the Hindus. As that statement is Hkely to be con- troverted by narrow-minded people who think that nothing pertaining to rehgion ever happened beyond the stinted confines of Palestine, I will now proceed to show that he not only probably followed the great Hindu teacher in many things, but will make the proof so strong that to every fair and unprejudiced mind it will truly equal absolute certainty. In fact the proof will be nearly as absolute and cer- tain as that Jesus preached in Capernaum. First it must be borne in mind always that Buddha was born in India about five hundred to five hundred and forty- three years before Jesus appeared in Galilee. If now I show that India and Palestine were en- gaged with each other in friendly commerce centuries before Bitddha was born, I shall have established the possibility, yes, even a probability, that the religions of those two peoples were more or less known to each other. It is certain that Palestine, India and the islands of 115 ii6 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES the sea, as far back as the days of Solomon (one thou- sand years B. C), were engaged in friendly commerce with each other, along the coasts of Malabar, and as far south as Ceylon, and perhaps even beyond that. My proof is found in those old Hebrew records, which tell us that Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion- geber, on the shores of the Red Sea, and that navy, which was called "the Navy of Tarshish," made distant voyages, lasting three years, and brought back gold, silver, apes and peacocks, from India or Ceylon or both, (i) Those ships reached Ophir, and Josephus says Ophir was in India (2), and as they returned freighted with merchandise, including cassia and cinnamon, peacocks and apes, we are sure that they must have visited such hot sultry coasts as Malabar and Ceylon, for cassia and cinnamon were not then pro- duced west of there. Hiram, the famous king of Tyre, was at that time engaged in the same business. He likewise brought cinnamon and cassia from Malabar. His ships of Tarshish sailed every sea, (3) Moreover, the Egyptians, long before Solomon's day, must likewise have sent fleets to Malabar, as cin- namon and cassia, in the time of Moses, is mentioned as constituting a part of the holy anointing oil. (4) (1) Ist Kings, ch. 9, v. 26; also Ist Kings 10, v, 22. Of course it is well known that peacocks are natives of India and Cejloa, and they were brought from there to Palestine. (2) Jos. Antiq. Book 8, ch. 6. (3) 1 Kings 10, V. 22. (4) Exodus, ch. 30, v. 22 to 25; Kev. 18, v. 13. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 117 Babylon at a later day also traded in the cinnamon and odors and ointments of Ceylon and Malabar. When two nations or communities of people are found trading together in a friendly way, and the same people continue to occupy the same original territories and produce from the soil the same products for ex- change, the reasonable supposition is that their friendly exchanges continue. A temporary interruption, even war itself, we know, is never a perpetual bar to com- merce. Those people were not only trading along the coast in ships of three year voyages, but they also had a land and wafer route, from near the mouth of the Indus, up the Persian Gulf, and across Arabia, thence up the Red Sea, to the present town of Akabah. (5) From Akabah the line of travel passed northwest, not far from the Dead Sea, where John the Baptist preached in the wilderness. Moreover, the Phoeni- cians, 600 years B. C, circumnavigated Africa, a much more dangerous voyage and longer than to reach India. (6) Section 2. Now let us go back to India and see what happened there after Buddha came. Within two hundred and sixty years after his birth his doctrines had so far supplanted the old Brahmanic religion as to become. In the reign of King Asoka, the state religion of a people occupying a territory greater than all Europe, Russia alone excluded. India then had a pop- (5) Ezion-Geber, where Solomon built his ships, is near Akabah, but is now submerged in the Sea. What a remorse- less destroyer is old time! (6) Vol. 18, Br. Ency., p. 807.