The Son of Man envied the security of the crannies of the "fox." He called his opponents "wolves." His flock after his death met with closed doors for fear of the Jews. The "pure gospel," says the Clementine Homilies (ch. ii. 17), was "sent abroad secretly" after the removal to Pella. The new sect, not as Christians but as Essenes, were tortured, killed, hunted down. To such, "two coats," "wives," daily wine celebrations were scarcely fitted. Twice has Buddhism invaded the West, once at the birth of Christianity, and once when the Templars brought home from Palestine Cabbalism, Sufism, Freemasonry. And our zealous missionaries in Ceylon and elsewhere, by actively translating Buddhist books to refute them, have produced a result which is a little startling. Once more Buddhism is advancing with giant strides. Germany, America, England are overrun with it. M. Léon de Rosny, a professor of the Sorbonne, announces that in Paris there are 30,000 Buddhists at least. A French frigate came back from China the other day with one-third of the crew converted Buddhists. Schopenhauer admits that he got the philosophy which now floods Germany from a perusal of English translations of Buddhist books. Even the nonsense of Madame Blavatsky has a little genuine Buddhism at the bottom, which gives it a brief life. The religions of earth mean strife and partisan watch-cries, partisan symbols, partisan gestures, partisan clothes. But as the daring climber mounts the cool steep, the anathemas of priests fall faintly on the ear, and the largest cathedrals grow dim, in a pure region where Wesley and Fenelon, Mirza the Sufi and Swedenborg, Spinoza and Amiel, can shake hands. If this new study of Buddhism has shown that the two great Teachers of the world taught much the same doctrine, we have distinctly a gain and not a loss. That religion was the religion of the individual, as discriminated from religion by body corporate. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE INTRODUCTORY 1 I. MOSES 4 II. BUDDHA 23 III. THE FOUR PRESAGING TOKENS 35 IV. AFTER BUDDHA'S DEATH 77 V. THE APOSTLES OF THE BLOODLESS ALTAR 98 VI. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS 111 VII. THE ESSENE JESUS 135 VIII. THE ANTI-ESSENE JESUS 144 IX. THE CHURCH OF JERUSALEM 160 X. JOHANNINE BUDDHISM 169 XI. RITES 174 INDEX 181 INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCTORY. In the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15th, 1888, M. Émile Burnouf has an article entitled "Le Bouddhisme en Occident."