Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.Inman, Thomas
Religion
Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.
Inman, Thomas
Religions
221. "Let a man leave anger, let him forsake pride, let him overcome all
bondage! No sufferings befall the man who is not attached to either body
or soul, and who calls nothing his own."
Once more we see a close resemblance between Buddhism and the Bible in
223. "Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good,
let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth." "If thine
enemy be hungry give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty give him
water to drink," (Prov. xxv. 21). But the motive for this recommendation
to the Jews is a vindictive one, for he is told that by so doing he will
heap coals of fire upon his enemy's head, whilst the Lord will take care
to reward the deed to the doer. In the epistle to the Romans this saying
of the Proverbs is endorsed, and to it is added "Be not overcome with
evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. xii. 20, 21).
224. "Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked,
from the little thou hast--by those steps thou wilt go near the gods."
"Let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them about thy neck; write
them upon the table of thine heart; so shalt thou find favour and good
understanding in the sight of God and man" (Prov. iii. 3-4); "Wherefore,
putting away lying, let every man speak the truth with his neighbour"
(Eph. iv. 25). We scarcely can find, in the Old Testament, a strict
parallel with the Buddhist precept, "do not yield to anger," for the
Jewish scriptures, without exception, depict their God as giving way
habitually to wrath, anger, and revenge--e.g., in Ps. vii. 11, we find
it stated that Elohim is angry with the wicked every day. Again, in
Isaiah v. 25, we read, "for all this, God's anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still;" Job iv. 9, By God's anger they are
consumed; "To pour out upon them my fierce anger," (Zeph. iii. 8). There
are, however, a few passages which inculcate upon men the propriety of
a command over their temper. In Ps. xxxvii. 8, for example, we read,
"Cease from anger, and forsake wrath," and in Proverbs xxvii. 4, "Wrath
is cruel, and anger is outrageous," whilst "the Preacher" says, Eccles.
vii. 9, "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools," and in xi. 10, "remove
anger or sorrow from thy heart." In the Gospel we have a somewhat
divided teaching. For example, we find, from Mark iii. 5, that Jesus
himself indulged in anger, when he was vexed at what he thought the
hardness of his hearers' hearts; and from his saying, in Matt. v. 22,
"Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger
of the judgment," it is clear that the son of Mary approved of anger
which had a cause. Again, we find, in Eph. iv. 26, "Be ye angry and sin
not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath," as if anger were not a
culpable weakness, or passion, if only indulged in during the daylight.
Yet, in the thirty-first verse of the same chapter we read, "Let all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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