It is no answer to say that no one is a prophet in his own country. All
the Jewish prophets, from Moses to Isaiah, _were_ prophets in their own
country. Christ alone was not. Mahommed was a prophet to the Arabs,
Zoroaster to the Persians, Confucius and Laotze to the Chinese. All
teachers of Hinduism have been native born Hindus. In Buddhist countries
it is the same. Luther was a prophet to the Germans, Loyola to the
Spaniards. The rule is otherwise. A prophet is never a prophet to any
_but_ his own people, except the two greatest Prophets in the world,
Christ and Buddha. They alone were rejected by their own and accepted
elsewhere. They almost divide the world between them. Hinduism, from
which Buddhism arose, still exists untouched by either; Judaism, from
which Christianity arose, and its near kin Mahommedanism, exist
untouched by either; but most of the rest of the world is either
Christian or Buddhist. These are very astonishing facts, and must have
some very strong reasons to cause them. The question is, What are the
reasons, and are they the same in each case? Was it a similar cause that
occasioned such similar effects? What quality was it in the Jews and
Hindus that led them to reject their prophets, and what are the
qualities in the converted nations that led them to accept these
prophets?
It might seem at first as if the clue was contained in the first
sentence of each paragraph, that the reason was because both Jews and
Hindus, especially the higher caste Hindus, were warrior nations. The
rule of life preached by each teacher was absolutely against all that
they had revered so far, hence that each rejected it. The fact, of
course, is true. Each nation had up to the coming of the Teacher learned
a rule of life hopelessly in contrast to the new teaching. The ideals
of Christ and Buddha were absolutely opposed to those a fierce, warlike,
exclusive people could maintain. They could not accept them without
throwing to the winds all their past. This is true, but is it an
explanation? It is certainly not a full one. The Jews were warriors,
bitter, terrible, ruthless fighters, and they rejected Christ. But they
are no longer a nation of warriors, and they still reject Him.
The world has never seen keener soldiers than those of western Europe,
but these nations accept Him.
The Hindu warrior caste are warriors to the bitter end. They rejected
Buddha, but so did many peoples of India; the Bengalees, for instance,
who are not fighters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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