268 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 



revelation crossed over into Christian theology and became the 

 foundation of the dogma of the Church concerning the person of 

 Christ. Of still greater importance than even all this was the opening 

 of the Indian and especially the Buddhistic religious writings. In 

 these we have, five hundred years before Christianity, the revelation 

 of redemptive religion, resting upon the ethical foundation of the 

 abnegation of self and the withdrawal from the world. In the centre 

 of this religion is Gautama Buddha, the ideal teacher of redeeming 

 truth, whose human life was adorned by the faith of his followers 

 with a crown of wonderful legends; from an abode in heaven, out of 

 mercy to the world, he descended into the world, conceived and 

 born of a virgin mother, greeted and entertained by heavenly spirits, 

 recognized beforehand by a pious seer as the future redeemer of the 

 world; as a youth he manifested a wisdom beyond that of his teachers. 

 Then after the reception of an illuminating revelation, he victoriously 

 overcomes the temptation of the devil, who would cause him to be- 

 come faithless to his call to redemption. Then he begins to preach 

 of the coming of the Kingdom of Justice, and sends forth his dis- 

 ciples, two by two, as messengers of his gospel to all people. Although 

 he declares that it is not his calling to perform miracles, neverthe- 

 less the legends indeed tell how many sick were healed, how with the 

 contents of a small basket hundreds were fed, how possessed of all 

 knowledge he reveals hidden things; how overcoming the limitations 

 of space and time, swaying in the air, being transfigured in a heavenly 

 light, he reveals himself to his disciples just before his death. And 

 at last, in the faith of his followers, having passed from the position 

 of a human teacher to that of an eternal heavenly spirit and lord 

 of the world, he is exalted as the object of prayer and reverence, to 

 many millions of the human race in Southern and Eastern Asia. 



It is hardly possible that the knowledge of this parallel from India 

 to the New Testament, and of the Babylonian and Persian parallel 

 to the Old Testament, can be without influence upon the religious 

 thought of Christian people. Although we may be ever so much 

 convinced concerning the essential superiority of our religion over 

 all other religions, nevertheless the dogmatic contrast between abso- 

 lute truth on the one side and complete falsity on the other can no 

 more be maintained. In place of this view there must enter the view 

 of a relative grade of differences between the higher and lower stages 

 of development. No longer can we see in other religions only mis- 

 takes and fiction, but under the husk of their legends many precious 

 kernels of truth must be seen, expressions of inner religious feelings 

 and of noble ethical sentiments. One should therefore accept the 

 position not to object to the same discrimination between husk and 

 kernel in the matter of one's own religion, and to recognize in its 

 inherited traditions and dogmas legendary elements, the explanation 



