OF CHRISTIANITY UPON OTHER RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 



17 



wrong to assert that they are necessarily of Christian origin and 

 borrowed from the New Testament. On the contrary, the 

 doctrine of Prasada " goes back as far as literature takes us " in 

 the Bhagavata religion. Bhakti, too, is found inculcated in the 

 oldest part of the Bhagavad-Gita, which may date from the 

 second century B.C. But its resemblance to Christian " Faith " 

 is not nearly so great as some have imagined. 



Another instance of what we may call a fortuitous coincidence 

 may be mentioned in order to emphasize the necessity of caution 

 in this matter. In the Rig-A^eda the dead is said to " go home," 

 and the words Astam ehi are used in dismissing the spirit from 

 the body when laid on the funeral pyre. Strangely enough, 

 among the native inhabitants of Southern Bantuland, the same 

 expression " to go home " is* used to denote the spirit's departure 

 from the body. Yet it is hardly probable that the Bantu tribes 

 ever studied the Rig-Yeda, or were in close contact with the 

 ancient Aryans in Yedic times. 



Somewhat similarly, from certain casual resemblances between 

 some of Seneca's sentiments and those in Saint Paul's Epistles, 

 it has been supposed that the Roman Stoics had come under the 

 Christian Apostle's influence ; and to prove this a series of 

 letters between them has been forged. But careful study has 

 disproved the assumption. Again, an attempt has been made 

 to show that Epictetus, if not actually at heart a Christian, at 

 least had been powerfully impressed by what he is presumed to 

 have learnt of Christian ethics, possibly directly or indirectly 

 from St. Paul. The theory rests upon the fact that, in the 

 Encheiridion and in Arrian's report of the philosopher's teaching, 

 a very great resemblance in diction has been observed between 

 Epictetus and the language of the New Testament. But our 

 recently acquired knowledge of the common dialect of the Greek 

 language used in ordinary correspondence and the literature of 

 that time completely accounts for this resemblance, while there 

 are in his writings and discourses many points in which his 

 teaching is quite opposed to that of the New Testament. For 

 example, he uses TaireLvo^; and its compounds with the old 

 heathen sense of " mean-spirited," instead of with the Christian 

 significance of " humble." Moreover, his polytheism and 

 pantheism are thoroughly Stoic, and completely contrary to the 

 fundamental doctrines of Christianity, His one reference to the 

 persecuted Christians of his time shows neither compassion, 

 sympathy, nor admiration ; for, he says, in reference to fearless- 



Macdonald in J.A.I., vol. xx, pp. 120, 121. 



C 



