| II. Sources of the Revelations of Comparative Religion | Title page | IV. Exposition of the Chart—A Synthesis of Religions |
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Given these discovered Bibles of Mohammedanism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the material was at hand for a comparative study of them and the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. What has that study disclosed? What are the revelations of comparative religion as made manifest in the sacred books of the seven extant great religions? Incidentally it may be noted that the religion of ancient Egypt disappeared with the civilization that cherished it. The Assyrian and Babylonian religions passed away in like manner, though not without contributing important elements to Judaism and through Judaism to Christianity. The religion of ancient Greece gave place to that of Rome and the religion of Rome was forthwith supplanted by Christianity, the latter judiciously [ p. 15 ] borrowing (in its proselytizing work) rites and ceremonies that have survived in modified forms in our Christmas and Easter festivals.
1. First among the revelations of comparative religion of which we must take notice is the universality of such moral sentiments and precepts as truthfulness, temperance, justice, kindliness, patience, love, etc. Far from being the exclusive characteristic of any one religion these moral ideas and ideals are inculcated in the Bibles of all religions. Take, for example, the moral sentiment of catholicity or broadmindedness, a generous hospitable attitude toward religions different from one’s own.
In the Hindu Bible we read: “Altar flowers are of many species, but all worship is one. Systems of faith differ, but God is One. The object of all religions is alike; all seek the object of their love, and all the world is love’s dwelling place.”
The corresponding passage from the Buddhist Bible reads: “The root of religion is to reverence one’s own faith and never to revile [ p. 16 ] the faith of others. My doctrine makes no distinction between high and low, rich and poor. It is like the sky; it has room for all, and like water it washes all alike.”
And these noble sentences have their equivalent in the Zoroastrian Bible: “Have the religions of mankind no common ground? Is there not everywhere the same enrapturing beauty? Broad indeed is the carpet which God has spread, and many are the colors which He has given it. Whatever road I take joins the highway that leads to the Divine.”
The selfsame sentiment appears in the Confucian scriptures: “Religions are many and different, but reason is one. Humanity is the heart of man, and justice is the path of man. The broad-minded see the truth in different religions; the narrow-minded see only the differences.”
In the Jewish scriptures we read: “Wisdom in all ages entering into holy souls maketh them friends of God and Prophets.” “Are we not all children of one Father? Hath not one God created us?”
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Finally, in the Christian scriptures it is written: “God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that revereth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.” “He hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.”
2. Second among the revelations of comparative religion is the universality of such spiritual sentiments as reverence, awe, wonder, aspiration, worship—these, too, far from being the peculiar possession of any one religion are common to all. Take, for illustration, the religious sentiment of trust in its relation to man’s survival of death—the trust that we humans are “not dust merely, that returns to dust,” that besides our empirical self there exists also a spiritual self which therefore persists when the psycho-physical self vanishes; the trust that eternality is the mark of our essential selfhood, the “numen” in every child of man.
Beginning again with the Hindu scriptures, we read: “Give to the plants and to the waters thy body which belongs to them; but there [ p. 18 ] is an immortal portion of thee, transport it to the world of the holy.”
In the Zoroastrian Avesta we find these sentences: “On the last day questions will be asked only as to what you have done, not from whom you are descended. I fear not death; I fear only not having lived well enough.”
From the Pitakas of the Buddhists we cull: “The soul is myself; the body is only my dwelling place.”
The Confucian Bible declares: “Man never dies. It is because men see only their bodies that they hate death.”
In the Mohammedan scripture we find this passage: “Mortals ask ‘What property has a man left behind him?’ but angels ask ‘What good deeds has he sent on before him?’ ”
In the Jewish Apocrypha we read: “The memorial of virtue is immortal. When it is present men take example of it, and when it is gone they desire it.”
Finally, the Christian scriptures contain the familiar words: “Though our outward man [ p. 19 ] perish, yet is our inward man day by day renewed.”
3. A third revelation of comparative religion relates to the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament. What do we find? In the first place we find that the ethical content of the Decalogue (which excludes only three of the commandments) is wanting in none of the other six Bibles. Secondly, we find that the familiar Decalogue might well be supplemented by four commandments contributed by unfamiliar Bibles. The Koran contains a commandment concerning cleanliness and another on humaneness, or kindness to animals. The Hindu Upanishads and the Confucian Analects unite in enjoining the practice of intellectual honesty—still one of the crying needs of the religious world where the temptation is so great to juggle with words, to reinterpret ancient phrases in unethical ways, to sell one’s intellectual birthright for the pottage of social position or business success. The fifth of the ten commandments in the Buddhist Pitakas reads: [ p. 20 ] “Thou shalt drink no intoxicating drink,” an injunction paralleled in the Mohammedan Koran but missing in the Christian code—a serious defect in the estimation of Buddhists and Mohammedans, no less than of the millions of Christian prohibitionists.
4. More impressive, however, than any of the revelations of which we have thus far taken account is the universality of the Golden Rule, supposed, by those whose Bible reading has been restricted to the Old and New Testaments, to have originated with Jesus, but, in truth, antedating him by centuries and already very ancient in the time of Confucius. Each of the seven Bibles of the extant great religions contains a version of the Golden Rule, which, strictly speaking, is not a rule at all, because it does not tell us what to do; it only sets forth the spirit that should be back of our conduct, leaving it to us to find the appropriate deed. Here are the seven differing forms in which the Golden Rule has been given expression in the world’s great faiths:
The Hindu: “The true rule of life is to [ p. 21 ] guard and do by the things of others as they do-by their own.”
The Buddhist: “One should seek for others the happiness one desires for oneself.”
The Zoroastrian: “Do as you would be done by.”
The Chinese: “What you do not wish done to yourself, do not unto others.”
The Mohammedan: “Let none of you treat your brother in a way he himself would dislike to be treated.”
The Jewish: “Whatever you do not wish your neighbor to do to you, do not unto him.”
The Christian: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”
5. Comparative religion has given us for a fifth revelation, the likeness of religion to a tree which began as a seed and gradually became differentiated into branches, twigs, leaves, yet all the while retaining its unity by reason of the sap that flows through every part of the total organism. So religion began as a seed of thought concerning man’s relation to [ p. 22 ] the universe or to the Power or Powers which he thought of as governing it. This seedthought promptly generated feeling and conduct—the other two constituent elements of religion. Gradually religion became differentiated into religions, sects, subsects, yet all the while retaining a unity because of the common spirit of reverence, aspiration, worship that flows through every part of the total religious organism. Hence it happens that differences of climate, of environment, of education, of racial origin have given differing forms of expression to one and the same spiritual sentiment. Whether, then, it be the Aztec bowing before his shapeless block, or the New Zealander squatting before his feathered god, or the Moslem prostrate in front of his mosque, or the Christian kneeling in prayer to his Heavenly Father, or the cosmic theist communing with “the Infinite and Eternal Energy whence all things proceed,” or the founder of the Ethical Movement meditating on “the Ethical Manifold,” conscious of himself as “an infinitesimal part of the Infinite God, the [ p. 23 ] Spiritual Commonwealth”—in each case it is the yearning for a higher and purer type of personal life that has been expressed. Hence, too, it happens that Christian institutions like the clergy and the church have their parallels in religions which originated centuries before Christianity. And, again, forms like baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the Mass, all have their prototypes in religious systems antedating the Christian, because of this universality of spiritual sentiments which the study of comparative religion reveals.
Listen to the Hindu chanting his prayer to Varuna, the god of conduct; how it calls to mind one of the Old Testament psalms, or perchance one of the Babylonian collection of “penitential psalms,” or, perhaps, the familiar refrain of the Episcopalian Litany, “Have mercy, O Lord, upon us and incline our hearts to keep Thy law.”
“O Varuna, thou bright and shining god, to thee I turn. I have strayed from the path of righteousness: have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. It was wine, it was dice, it was temptation: [ p. 24 ] have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. Save us, O Vanina, from the sins inherited from our fathers and save us also from the sins we ourselves commit: have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. O Vanina, thou great and powerful god, keep me from erring in the way of the wicked; remember the weakness of my will; I yield myself to thy pity and thy help: have mercy, Almighty, have mercy.”
Hear the Parsee’s prayer for purity and how slight a change in its vocabulary would be needed to make it suit the spiritual need of even the most radical of thinkers. Six centuries before our era, perhaps earlier still, this prayer was breathed from Zoroastrian lips:
“With venerating desire for the gift of purity I pray for the blessing of the bountiful spirit of Ahura-Mazda. Teach me to know thy laws that I may walk by the help of thy pure spirit, for he who knows purity knows Ahura-Mazda. To such an one thou art father, brother, friend. May my actions toward all men be performed in harmony with the divine Righteousness and may I possess [ p. 25 ] those attributes which are at one with Thy good mind. May the needed spiritual help be bestowed, not for a time only, but for eternity.”
Read the second of the Buddhist Pitakas, the Dhamma, or Path, and though you may not believe in reincarnation, nor in Nirvana;— the two cardinal doctrines of Gotama’s faith yet in the “noble eightfold path” you find the credentials of a religion that speaks to you in accents clear, strong, beautiful, persuasive, and at times sublime.
6. In the light of the five revelations of comparative religion thus far considered we readily recognize a sixth, namely, the utter impropriety of perpetuating the old-time classification of religions into “true and false,” “revealed and natural,” “divine and human,” “Christian and Pagan.” Even the most biased of orthodox believers who yet has patience to peruse the ethical and religious portions of the five Bibles—not so familiar as the remaining two—will admit that such a classification has been rendered obsolete and unwarranted by the [ p. 26 ] revelations of comparative religion. They have given rise to modes of classification that presuppose no such invidious distinctions as were born of ignorance and prejudice, but frankly recognizing the elements of truth, beauty, and inspiration present in all seven of the great religions, they have been grouped according to racial and linguistic relationships. So considered the seven are classified under three distinct heads. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism constitute the Aryan group. Buddhism arose as a protest against certain features of Hinduism as it was in the sixth century before our era, while Zoroastrianism was undifferentiated from Hinduism in the period prior to the great migrations. Indeed, the linguistic relationship of these two systems of faith gives proof of their original oneness. By a simple system of phonetic changes the names of Hindu deities can be transformed into their Zoroastrian equivalents. Belonging to the Semitic group are Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. Here, too, linguistic as well as theological and ethical [ p. 27 ] ties give ground for the grouping of these three under one head.
Confucianism, standing in no racial or linguistic relationship to either of the other groups, is separately classified under the head of Turanian, a generic title intended to embrace all religions that are neither Aryan nor Semitic. In passing, it may be remarked that all attempts at a chronological classification of the great religions have hitherto failed. For, while it is obvious that Christianity is younger than Judaism and Mohammedanism than Christianity, and that Buddhism was bom after Hinduism had been extant for a millennium or more, the question of antiquity remains unsolved for Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and the religion of China. There are those who claim that the last mentioned is the oldest. Others hold that the palm of ancientness must be awarded to India and still others who would bequeath it to Persia. Thus, a generally satisfying chronological classification of the religions of the world is rendered impossible.
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7. To every unbiased student of comparative religion it must be apparent that not Christianity alone but all religions face the same way, that is, toward an ideal of life. All hold before their adherents a mental picture of what it is supremely desirable to be, and this common possession and presentation of an ideal of personal life may be set down as a seventh revelation of comparative religion. In the old royal forest of Fontainebleau the paths are so laid out as to converge in a large open space called a star. People may be walking in many different directions, they may come from various parts of the forest, but from whatever quarter they come they all meet at last at the central star. In the forest of religion the passion for the perfect is such a star. Many and varied are the paths which the great religions have laid out but they all converge at that central spot of spiritual sunshine—the passion for the perfect. All religions then are one because of this common hunger for the realization of an ideal of life.
8. Turn we now to an eighth in the succession [ p. 29 ] of revelations engaging our attention. Christianity has been repeatedly defined as the religion that teaches the brotherhood of man. But comparative religion reveals the fact that all the great religions inculcate this doctrine. Permit me just here to express the hope that no reader will misunderstand my references to Christianity as compared with other religions. If any words of mine on this point be construed as manifesting a hostile or unkindly spirit, they will be misconstrued and it will be in regretted contradiction of my purpose if I let fall a single careless word that shall wound the reverence of even the most sensitive of my readers. Since all the religions of mankind teach the doctrine of human brotherhood it follows that no one of them can be defined in terms of that doctrine. All the way from the founder of Hinduism to Abdul Baha, the Bahai prophet, the brotherhood of man has been an integral part of religious teaching. But comparative religion calls us to note the further and more important fact, namely, that, while all religions teach this inspiring doctrine, [ p. 30 ] the basis upon which they set it forth differs in each case. For instance, Buddhism based the doctrine on the belief that all men are enmeshed in the same net of suffering and all are subject to the law of Karma and reincarnation.
Zoroastrianism taught that all men are brothers because all have been summoned to soldiery in a great cosmic warfare under a divine commander-general, Ahura-Mazda, to win an age-long battle against the enemy, Angro-Mainyus and his demons.
Confucianism based its doctrine of brotherhood on the consciousness of a common task devolving upon all mankind—to master and practice the precepts of the Sage. Christianity based its teaching of brotherhood on belief in the Fatherhood of God and the need of all men for salvation through Jesus Christ. The Ethical Movement, it may be said in passing, also teaches human brotherhood, but on the ground that every human being has worth, that is, value on his own account, regardless of the value he may have as a means to others’ [ p. 31 ] ends; in other words, on the ground that there is a moral nature in all men with latent potentialities in each for approximating perfection. Consequently, it will not do to define Christianity as “the religion that teaches the brotherhood of man” because that definition is loose, inaccurate; it does not define, but touches only on that which is common to all religions.
9. Once more, comparative religion shows us that while all the great religious systems deal with the same fundamental issues—God, immortality, duty, salvation—the mode of dealing with these is in no two instances the same. All alike raise the root-questions of religion— What is the chief end of man? What shall I do to be saved?—but the answers differ in every case. To borrow a simile of the German dramatist, Herder, the religions are like the strings of a harp, each of which has its own distinctive note. It is this ninth of the revelations of comparative religion that I have sought to visualize by means of the chart which forms the frontispiece of this book.
| II. Sources of the Revelations of Comparative Religion | Title page | IV. Exposition of the Chart—A Synthesis of Religions |