being that which presents so striking an analogy with Mithraism, has relation to the passive virtues. The condition of spiritual purity which the votaries of both religions alike are taught to attain to, is inconsistent with those actions which interfere with the rights of others, and the performance of which is, in theological phraseology, sinful. In relation to the active virtues, however, Christianity was more akin to Buddhism than to the Persian religion,1 as known to us through the Avesta. The wonderful influence exercised by Gautama was due in great measure to the universality of his benevolent sympathies, and, although in its later developments Buddhistic belief is consistent with utter selfishness, yet its earliest adherents felt the full weight of his example and followed in his footsteps. So, also, was it with Christianity. The direction to go and preach the Gospel to all nations was in the true spirit of Jesus' teaching, and it was founded on the idea that all men are brethren and capable of becoming co-heirs of the divine kingdom. The life of Jesus was a continual declaration of this truth; and although, according to St John's gospel, his "miracles" seem to have been performed to lead men to believe that He was the Son of God, yet it is much more probable that the benevolent actions of Jesus were simple acts of charity designed to draw men unto him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and 1 The relief of the faithful, which the Christians at first were especially careful about (Acts xi. 27, seq.), was probably not unknown to the initiated followers of Mithra. The establishment of "Community of goods" may have been the result of the first enthusiastic recognition by the Christians of the fact of universal brotherhood, but it was probably only an adoption by the new Church of a custom which Jesus and his early disciples must, if they were Essenes, have already practised, or at least been cognisant of. 2 See especially Chaps. v., ix. 35, x. 38, xi. 6, xiv. 10, seq. lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 1 This was the burden of the preaching of Jesus, and this was the spirit in which he performed the acts of love and charity which will ever be associated with his name. There was no respect of persons with him, and in the parable of the man fallen among thieves," he shows that the only test of duty in the performance of benevolent actions is the necessity of others, be they our neighbours or strangers, our friends or enemies. 3 The paramount duty of relieving distress for its own sake, is still more clearly enunciated in the striking scene where Christ identifies the poor and suffering with himself, awarding reward and punishment according to the conduct of men in this life towards the hungry and thirsty, to the stranger and the naked, to the sick and the imprisoned. This is a remarkable passage in the life of Jesus, as enforcing ideas which have almost been forgotten, through the influence of the theological teaching of the Church, founded more especially on certain passages of the Gospel of St John. The great aim of these was undoubtedly to insist on the essential divinity of Jesus, but the tendency thenceforth was to substitute dogmatic belief in the place of holiness of life as the criterion of "brotherhood." The reference made by It was Jesus to the places of future reward and punishment as sanctions to his teaching, shows that he was not wholly freed from the old ideas, according to which a life of charity and purity was valued as a means of securing personal salvation, instead of for its own sake. reserved for his followers, however, to make the escape from hell the chief consideration, and thus to reduce Christianity to the selfish level of earlier religions. That this was not the intention of its founder is evident 1 Matt. xi. 28, 29. 2 Luke x. 29, seq. from the fact that the motive to benevolent action which he chiefly insisted on was of a totally different nature : "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. . . . For if you love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them."1 This contains the great principle of his doctrine, elsewhere embodied in the simple command "love one another, as I have loved you." When the Pharisees tempted Jesus, asking him which was the great commandment in the law, he answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." In the teaching of Jesus the motive, not only to the religious life, but also to benevolent action, is thus founded on the principle of love. It is this fact which distinguishes Christianity from all earlier religions. Addressing itself to the emotional part of man's nature, it must meet with a response in most minds, and it was thus better fitted to become an universal religion than either Buddhism or Mithraism. The author of "Ecce Homo" has finely termed the passion which was touched in the human soul, and thus made use of by Jesus as the great agent in the establishment of the new faith, “the enthusiasm of Humanity." No phrase could more fitly express the mental condition which was sought to be produced, and which actually operated as the vitalising principle of Christianity. No doubt St John, or the author of the Gospel ascribed to him, had more than this object in view when he dwelt upon the love of Jesus 2 St John's Gospel, xv. 12. 1 Luke vi. 27, seq. to man. The love of man for man was subsidiary to, although it would necessarily flow from, the love of man for Jesus, and this was sought to be aroused by elevating his nature, thus making his sacrifice for man so much the greater. The author of "Ecce Homo' truly says, "As love provokes love, many have found it possible to conceive for Christ an attachment the closeness of which no words can describe, a veneration so possessing and absorbing the man within him, that they have said, ‘I live no more, but Christ lives within me.' Now such a feeling carries with it of necessity the feeling of love for all human beings. It matters no longer what quality men may exhibit, amiable or unamiable; as the brothers of Christ, as belonging to his sacred and consecrated kind, as the objects of his love in life and death, they must be dear to all to whom he is dear." 1 Christianity at its earliest inception was, then, essentially a religion of humanity, founded on the law of universal love. It was addressed almost wholly to the emotional part of man's nature, thus differing widely from Mithraism, which may be said to have been rather intellectual than emotional. Zarathustra proclaimed the absolute purity of Ormuzd, and that no man could hope to attain to the regions of bliss where Ormuzd dwelt unless he was equally pure. The performance of acts of holiness is here placed first, as that which will lead to communion with the Deity. On the other hand, although Christianity taught the necessity of purity of life, yet it put love first, declaring that all the rest would follow. "Love God and love thy neighbour as thyself," was the brief summary of the whole law as expounded by Jesus. It is evident that the passion here appealed to is one and the same, although differing in its objects, 1 P. 157 (Ed. 1867). which, however, on the assumption of the divinity of Jesus, become identified in him as God-Man. Even granting the truth of the assumption, the position that Christianity is essentially a religion of humanity is not weakened. Whether the feeling of love which man entertains towards God, i.e., towards Jesus, viewed as God, would have been possible, if God were not thought to have been incarnated in human flesh, is open to question. There is no evidence that, until the establishment of Christianity, the founder of any religion was ever supposed by any of his immediate followers to have been actually divine. It is true that most of the civilized peoples of antiquity either had legends of the existence of a race of Gods on earth, or traced the ancestry of their rulers to a divine source. Some of them, indeed, as the Hindus, in the case of Vishnu moré especially, speak of divine incarnations, but this only long after the death of the person supposed to be the avatar of the God, if the existence of such a person was not, indeed, purely mythical. Gautama himself was thus declared to be an avatar of Vishnu, and he is undoubtedly looked upon by some Buddhist sects as a divinity. But the idea of the divinity of Gautama was formed long after his death, and there is not the slightest evidence that he ever claimed such a character for himself. It may be that the Egyptians believed that Osiris was actually born among them in the flesh, but they did not suppose that this god appeared to them in human form. Even the worshippers of Ormuzd and Mithra never went so far as this. They certainly represented the latter as a noble youth, offering the sacrificial bull, which we may suppose was intended to represent himself, even as Jesus was said to have offered himself for the sins of the world. The human form appears, however, to have been given to Mithra merely as the highest under which he could be repre |