authenticated by the unattested theory of oral traditions transmitted from Moses through successive generations; and disclosed their conservative tendencies in rigid observance of the minutest forms of Mosaic ritualism.

The Essenes were, however, the Hebrew sect which exercised a preponderating influence on the evolution of Christianity, and the vast importance of their relationship with the School of Galilee justifies a brief digression in explanation of their presence in Palestine.

In the sixth century B.C. India witnessed the marvellous career of Sakya-Muni, or Gautama Buddha, the greatest and most original moralist of all time, who, although born in the purple, abandoned the social and political advantages of royalty to go forth in early manhood as a philosophical mendicant, and devote six years of ascetic solitude to the evolution of a system which has commanded, in varying form, a greater number of disciples than any other philosophy or religion known to history.

Having reached the needful depth of conviction, Buddha at length appealed to his contemporaries as the apostle of the Kingdom of Righteousness, and taught the highest forms of ethical philosophy, inclusive of the humanity which forgives injuries and returns good for evil, not within the narrow limits of sect or caste, but throughout the wide circle which embraces all mankind. Buddha was, in fact, the original teacher of universal charity; and, if he had preached the Sermon on the Mount, its precepts would have but varied in more specific details of the duties of humanity, inclusive of consideration for our humbler companions of the animal kingdom.

The Kingdom of Righteousness, which involves escape by the Noble Path from the Fetters of human ignorance and passion, is conceived in absolute independence of faith in God and Immortality, and proclaims the highest Good in the attainment of complete enlightenment on earth, through the unruffled serenity of moral purity and intellectual supremacy defined by Buddha as Nirvāna, the Semitic Apostle of which was Paul, who, in his persistent efforts to stamp out human nature through a transcendental spiritualism, was the unconscious exponent of an evangelised Nirvana.

Buddha commanded his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of righteousness to all mankind; and Buddhism, therefore, became a great missionary religion, gradually and variously corrupted, however, through the pre-existent superstitions of its multitudinous converts. In the third century after the death of SakyaMuni, in the reign of Asoka, the third Buddhist Council sent forth missionaries to foreign countries, described by extant rock-inscriptions in India as ascetics, commanded to reside in all places and teach men moderation and purity. By the year A.D. 65 missionary zeal had proved so successful in the propagation of the faith that Buddhism was recognised by the Emperor Ming-ti as one of the State religions of China. Is it, therefore, an unreasonable assumption that the zealous missionaries of Buddha had reached the land of Palestine and secured some converts to the faith within two centuries antecedent to the Christian era?

The Essenes, as described in the pages of Josephus, were an important sect, pre-eminent in piety and virtue, filled with love towards God and man, and ever aspiring

to an ideal purity and beneficence. They were distinguished by truth, honesty, justice, and humanity. They inculcated industry, temperance, chastity, and rational control of all human passion. They disapproved of oaths, war, slavery, and commerce, preferring industrial pursuits, especially the cultivation of the soil. They were mutually affectionate, self-denying, and generous to the extent of holding all property in common. They lived peacefully with all men, forbidding injury to any, especially those in authority. They despised riches, rejected pleasure, were unmoved by pain, and disclosed unruffled fortitude in the presence of calamity, torture, and even death. In other words, Nirvana was the goal of Essene ambition on earth; and if, as we conjecture, the Essene contemporaries of Josephus were the lineal descendants of Buddhist converts, they had combined Aryan morality and philosophy with the Pharisaic form of Hebrew theology which deems men immortal; and had so improved on Mosaic conceptions of Divinity as to have changed the fear into the love of God. It is true that Buddha was at least agnostic as to a life beyond the grave; but later generations interpreted his Nirvana as Paradise, and, thus modified, his teaching was susceptible of adaptation to religions which profess to solve the problems of eternity.

We do not yet hold any historic proof that Buddhist missionaries visited Palestine; and a learned treatise could, no doubt, be written in refutation of our unattested assumption. But, meanwhile, the facts remain indisputable, that antecedent to the Christian era an ascetic sect existed in Judea deeply imbued with

opinions identical with the teaching of Buddha, and that these opinions filled an important place in the evolution of Christianity.

The ascetic retirement in which the Essenes lived naturally developed individual forms of superstitious fanaticism. Philo Judæus, speaking of the kindred sect of Therapeutæ in Egypt, depicts them withdrawing from the distractions of ordinary life, studying Hebrew Scripture in search of hidden and spiritual mysteries, passing whole days, from sunrise to sunset, in mental discipline, and neglecting their physical wants in absorbing contemplation of divine virtue and wisdom-an obvious instance of Semitic adaptation of the Aryan Nirvana. It has been recently affirmed that Philo's supposed account of the Egyptian Therapeutæ is a Christian forgery of the third century; but, whilst regretting the bad character thus given to primitive Christianity by modern theologians, we need not pause to question the theory, as the evidence of Josephus is sufficiently conclusive as to the Palestinian Essenism of the first century.

Josephus, in his autobiography, informs us that, in personally testing the comparative merits of the several Hebrew sects, he had resided for three years in the desert practising an extreme asceticism as the youthful disciple of Banus, who used no other clothing than grew upon trees, and had no other food but what grew of its own accord.' Banus was evidently a fanatical Essene, who sought the seclusion of the desert for undisturbed indulgence in drifting thought and dreamy mysticism; but, however excellent his motives, our present knowledge of physiology detects in this blighting

asceticism the growth of insanity, rather than the development of wisdom. Josephus, having thus tested the vanity of famine-born illusions, abandoned the ascetic career, and finally adopted the opinions and practice of the Pharisees, whose system he found somewhat analogous to the philosophy of the Stoics.

John the Baptist was obviously trained in the desert by some professor of asceticism, who rivalled Banus in the mortification of the flesh. The practical Josephus escaped the trying ordeal without losing his head, but enthusiastic John was drawn within the vortex of prophetic fatality, whilst questioning Scripture as to the impending kingdom and the coming man.

6

About seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, an eminent Hebrew bard, speaking with the privileged vagueness of poets, introduced the following words into his sacred poem: The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'1 To an imaginative interpretation of this poetic language may be traced the origin of Christianity, as we see a Nazarite hermit, controlled by the hallucinations of asceticism, identify Isaiah's imaginary prediction with himself, and hasten, in the eccentric garb of Elijah, to fulfil prophecy by proclaiming the Kingdom and nominating the Messiah. Is it possible to find a more conclusive instance of alleged prophecy producing its own fulfilment, or a clearer illustration of the illusory superstition which identified men with dubious oracles, and evoked their action in co-operation with the schemes of Providence?

Although convinced of the honesty of the Baptist,

1 Isa. xl. 3.