Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Being...

The legendary history of Jesus of Nazareth, contained in the books of the New Testament, is full of prodigies and wonders. These alleged prodigies, and the faith which the people seem to have put in such a tissue of falsehoods, indicate the prevalent disposition of the people to believe in everything, and it was among such a class that Christianity was propagated. All leaders of religion had the reputation of having performed miracles; the biographers of Jesus, therefore, not wishing their Master to be outdone, have made him also a wonder-worker, and a performer of miracles; without them Christianity could not prosper. Miracles were needed in those days, on all special occasions. "There is not a single historian of antiquity, whether Greek or Latin, who has not recorded oracles, prodigies, prophecies, and miracles, on the occasion of some memorable events, or revolutions of states and kingdoms. Many of these are attested in the gravest manner by the gravest writers, and were firmly believed at the time by the people."[252:1]

Hindoo sacred books represent Crishna, their Saviour and Redeemer, as in constant strife against the evil spirit. He surmounts extraordinary dangers; strews his way with miracles; raising the dead, healing the sick, restoring the maimed, the deaf and the blind; everywhere supporting the weak against the strong, the oppressed against the powerful. The people crowded his way and adored him as a God, and these miracles were the evidences of his divinity for centuries before the time of Jesus.

The learned Thomas Maurice, speaking of Crishna, tells us that he passed his innocent hours at the home of his foster-father, in rural diversions, his divine origin not being suspected, until repeated miracles soon discovered his celestial origin;[252:2] and Sir William Jones speaks of his raising the dead, and saving multitudes by his miraculous powers.[253:1] To enumerate the miracles of Crishna would be useless and tedious; we shall therefore mention but a few, of which the Hindoo sacred books are teeming.

When Crishna was born, his life was sought by the reigning monarch, Kansa, who had the infant Saviour and his father and mother locked in a dungeon, guarded, and barred by seven iron doors. While in this dungeon the father heard a secret voice distinctly utter these words: "Son of Yadu, take up this child and carry it to Gokool, to the house of Nanda." Vasudeva, struck with astonishment, answered: "How shall I obey this injunction, thus vigilantly guarded and barred by seven iron doors that prohibit all egress?" The unknown voice replied: "The doors shall open of themselves to let thee pass, and behold, I have caused a deep slumber to fall upon thy guards, which shall continue till thy journey be accomplished." Vasudeva immediately felt his chains miraculously loosened, and, taking up the child in his arms, hurried with it through all the doors, the guards being buried in profound sleep. When he came to the river Yumna, which he was obliged to cross to get to Gokool, the waters immediately rose up to kiss the child's feet, and then respectfully retired on each side to make way for its transportation, so that Vasudeva passed dry-shod to the opposite shore.[253:2]

A passionate Brahman, having received a slight insult from a certain Rajah, on going out of his doors, uttered this curse: "That he should, from head to foot, be covered with boils and leprosy;" which being fulfilled in an instant upon the unfortunate king, he prayed to Crishna to deliver him from his evil. At first, Crishna did not heed his request, but finally he appeared to him, asking what his request was? He replied, "To be freed from my distemper." The Saviour then cured him of his distemper.[253:3]

Crishna was one day walking with his disciples, when "they met a poor cripple or lame woman, having a vessel filled with spices, sweet-scented oils, sandal-wood, saffron, civet and other perfumes. Crishna making a halt, she made a certain sign with her finger on his forehead, casting the rest upon his head. Crishna asking her what it was she would request of him, the woman replied, nothing but the use of my limbs. Crishna, then, setting his foot upon hers, and taking her by the hand, raised her from the ground, and not only restored her limbs, but renewed her age, so that, instead of a wrinkled, tawny skin, she received a fresh and fair one in an instant. At her request, Crishna and his company lodged in her house."[254:1]

On another occasion, Crishna having requested a learned Brahman to ask of him whatever boon he most desired, the Brahman said, "Above all things, I desire to have my two dead sons restored to life." Crishna assured him that this should be done, and immediately the two young men were restored to life and brought to their father.[254:2]

"In regard to the numerous miracles wrought by Crishna, it should be remembered that miracles are never wanting to the decoration of an Indian romance; they are, in fact, the life and soul of the vast machine; nor is it at all a subject of wonder that the dead should be raised to life in a history expressly intended, like all other sacred fables of Indian fabrication, for the propagation and support of the whimsical doctrine of the Metempsychosis."[254:3]

To speak thus of the miracles of Christ Jesus, would, of course, be heresy—although what applies to the miracles of Crishna apply to those of Jesus—we, therefore, find this gentleman branding as "infidel" a learned French orientalist who was guilty of doing this thing.

Buddha was at one time going from the city of Rohita-vastu to the city of Benares, when, coming to the banks of the river Ganges, and wishing to go across, he addressed himself to the owner of a ferry-boat, thus; "Hail! respectable sir! I pray you take me across the river in your boat!" To this the boatman replied, "If you can pay me the fare, I will willingly take you across the river." Buddha said, "Whence shall I procure money to pay you your fare, I, who have given up all worldly wealth and riches, &c." The boatman still refusing to take him across, Buddha, pointing to a flock of geese flying from the south to the north banks of the Ganges, said:

"See yonder geese in fellowship passing o'er the Ganges, They ask not as to fare of any boatman, But each by his inherent strength of body Flies through the air as pleases him. So, by my power of spiritual energy, Will I transport myself across the river, Even though the waters on this southern bank Stood up as high and firm as (Mount) Semeru."[255:1]

In the Lalita Vistara Buddha is called the "Great Physician" who is to "dull all human pain." At his appearance the "sick are healed, the deaf are cured, the blind see, the poor are relieved." He visits the sick man, Su-ta, and heals soul as well as body.

At Vaisali, a pest like modern cholera was depopulating the kingdom, due to an accumulation of festering corpses. Buddha, summoned, caused a strong rain which carried away the dead bodies and cured every one. At Gaudhârâ was an old mendicant afflicted with a disease so loathsome that none of his brother monks could go near him on account of his fetid humors and stinking condition. The "Great Physician" was, however, not to be deterred; he washed the poor old man and attended to his maladies. A disciple had his feet hacked off by an unjust king, and Buddha cured even him. To convert certain skeptical villagers near Srâvastî, Buddha showed them a man walking across the deep and rapid river without immersing his feet. Pûrna, one of Buddha's disciples, had a brother in imminent danger of shipwreck in a "black storm." The "spirits that are favorable to Pûrna and Arya" apprised him of this and he at once performed the miracle of transporting himself to the deck of the ship. "Immediately the black tempest ceased, as if Sumera arrested it."[255:2]

When Buddha was told that a woman was suffering in severe labor, unable to bring forth, he said, Go and say: "I have never knowingly put any creature to death since I was born; by the virtue of this obedience may you be free from pain!" When these words were repeated in the presence of the mother, the child was instantly born with ease.[256:1]

Innumerable are the miracles ascribed to Buddhist saints, and to others who followed their example. Their garments, and the staffs with which they walked, are supposed to imbibe some mysterious power, and blessed are they who are allowed to touch them.[256:2] A Buddhist saint who attains the power called "perfection," is able to rise and float along through the air.[256:3] Having this power, the saint exercises it by mere determination of his will, his body becoming imponderous, as when a man in the common human state determines to leap, and leaps. Buddhist annals relate the performance of the miraculous suspension by Gautama Buddha, himself, as well as by other saints.[256:4]

In the year 217 B. C., a Buddhist missionary priest, called by the Chinese historians Shih-le-fang, came from "the west" into Shan-se, accompanied by eighteen other priests, with their sacred books, in order to propagate the faith of Buddha. The emperor, disliking foreigners and exotic customs, imprisoned the missionaries; but an angel, genii, or spirit, came and opened the prison door, and liberated them.[256:5]

"Those who go to consult in dreams the goddess Isis recover perfect health. Many whose cure has been despaired of by physicians have by this means been saved, and others who have long been deprived of sight, or of some other part of the body, by taking refuge, so to speak, in the arms of the goddess, have been restored to the enjoyment of their faculties."[257:1]

"In his gentler aspects he is the giver of joy, the healer of sicknesses, the guardian against plagues. As such he is even a law-giver and a promoter of peace and concord. As kindling new or strange thoughts in the mind, he is a giver of wisdom and the revealer of hidden secrets of the future."[257:5]

The legends related of this god state that on one occasion Pantheus, King of Thebes, sent his attendants to seize Bacchus, the "vagabond leader of a faction"—as he called him. This they were unable to do, as the multitude who followed him were too numerous. They succeeded, however, in capturing one of his disciples, Acetes, who was led away and shut up fast in prison; but while they were getting ready the instruments of execution, the prison doors came open of their own accord, and the chains fell from his limbs, and when they looked for him he was nowhere to be found.[257:6] Here is still another edition of "Peter in prison."