Did Christ Teach a New Religion?

By Swami Abhedananda
Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, Calcutta

The religion of Jesus the Christ was not like the orthodox Christianity of today; neither did it resemble the faith of the Jewish nation. His religion was a great departure from Judaism in principles and ideals as well as in the means of attaining them. It was much simpler in form and more sublime in nature. The religion that Christ taught had neither dogma, creed, system, nor theology. It was a religion without priests, without ceremonials, without rituals, or even strict observances of the Jewish laws.
As in India, Buddha rebelled against the ceremonials, rituals, and priest-craft of the Brahmins and introduced a simpler form of worship and a religion of the heart, so among the Jews, nearly five hundred years after Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth rebelled against the priest-craft of Judaism. Jesus saw the insufficiency of the Jewish ethics and ideals and the corruption and the hypocrisy of the priests. He wished to reform the religion of his country and establish a simpler and purer form of worship of the Supreme Being, which should rest entirely upon the feelings of the heart, not upon the letter of the law.
The God of Jesus was not the cruel and revengeful tribal deity of the house of Israel; He was the Universal Spirit. He was not like the tyrannical master of modern orthodoxy, who kills, damns, or saves mankind according to his whim; He was a loving Father. Jesus’ worship consisted not in ceremonials, but in direct communion between his soul and the Father, without any priestly intermediary. The idea of God as the ‘Father in Heaven’ did not, however, originate with Jesus the Christ, as modern Christians generally believe; it existed in the religious atmosphere of northern Palestine as a result of the Hellenic influence of the worship of Jupiter – Greek, Zeus-pitar; Sanskrit Dayus-pitar, which means Father in Heaven, and hence Father of the Universe. The worship of Jupiter was introduced into Babylon and northern Palestine by Antiochus Epiphanes between 175 and 163 B.C. Although the orthodox Jews revolted against this innovation, yet there were many liberal minded Jews among the Pharisees who liked the idea, accepted it, and preached it.
One of the most prominent of the Jewish priests, who was considered by many as the true master and predecessor of Jesus and who was held in great esteem by the Pharisaic sect of the Jews, inculcated this belief in the merciful and fatherly character of God. His name was Rabbi Hillel. The Talmud speaks of this Babylonian teacher in glowing terms, declaring that he was next to the Prophet Ezra. It was Hillel who first preached this Golden Rule among the Jews. He used to spend much time in meditation and study, and recommended such practices to his disciples. Hillel died when Jesus was about ten years old.
Thus we see the idea of Fatherhood of God existed in northern Palestine at the time of Jesus, and was preached in public by Rabbi Hillel. Moreover, at the same time Philo and other Neo-Platonist Jews in Alexandria were teaching the fatherly character of God and the only-Begotten Sonship of the Logos or Word. Both the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of the Word were known to the Greeks and other Aryan nations, especially the Hindus of ancient India. Jesus of Nazareth took up this grand Aryan idea and emphasized it more strongly than any of his predecessors in Palestine.
At the time when Jesus appeared in Galilee, the religious atmosphere of the place was permeated with Persian doctrines, Hellenic ideas, Pythagorean thoughts, and the precepts of the Essenes. Therapeutae, Gymonosophists, and the Buddhists of India. Galilee was then aglow with the fire of religious enthusiasm, kindled by the ardour of social and political dissensions. The Jews were already divided into three principal sects, the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes. Each of these was trying to gain supremacy and power over the others. The Sadducees were the conservative and aristocratic class, while the Pharisees and the Essenes were essentially liberal. It was a time of great disturbance and intrigues, insurrections, rebellions, and wars. Such a period naturally kindles the fire of patriotism in the heart of a nation and forces its members to become active in every possible way.
The misfortunes and calamities that befell the descendants of Israel made them remember the promises of Jahveh which were handed down to them through the writings of the prophets, and forced them to seek supernatural aid in the fulfilment of those promises. The unconquerable pride of the sons of Israel- that they were the ‘chosen people’ of Jahveh; the only true God, who was their governor and director – stimulated their minds with the hope that, through the supernatural power of Jahveh, the kingdom of their great ancestors would be restored: that a member of David’s house would appear as the Messiah (the anointed), sit on the throne, and unite the twelve tribes of Israel under his sceptre, and govern them in peace and prosperity. This was the first conception of a Messiah that ever arose in the minds of the Jews. It was the principal theme of the poets and Prophets who lived during the Babylonian Exile.
The glory of the house of Israel and the earthly prosperity of the sons of Jahveh, were the highest ideals of the Jews. They did not mean by ‘Messiah’ a spiritual saviour of the world. The Christian idea of this term owes its origin to the Zoroastrian conception of the coming Messiah Soshiyanta, who, according to the promise of Ahura-Mazda, would appear on the day of judgement, destroy the evil influence of Ahriman, and renovate the world. This idea was accepted by the Pharisees while the orthodox Jews repudiated it.
Although the mind of Jesus, according to the Synoptic Gospels, was not free from the superstitious beliefs of the Jews and the national traditions of his time; although he accepted the Zoroastrian conception of a ‘coming Messiah’ and that the end of the world was imminent, as well as the Persian ideas (which did not exist in Judaism before the Babylonian Captivity) of the renovation of the world, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, the day of judgment, the punishment of the wicked, and the salvation of the righteous; although Jesus believed with the Pharisees in the Persian conception of heaven and hell and the devil, and saw many angels ascending and descending over his head – yet he realized that the Kingdom of God was a spiritual kingdom: that it was within himself.; he felt the presence of the Father within him, and asked his disciples to feel likewise. The Jews understood by the Kingdom of Jahveh the Kingdom of this world and the prosperity of the house of Israel.
But Jesus spiritualized that ideal and taught a reign of righteousness and justice; not a reign of strife between nations, but a kingdom of peace and love. Jesus preached this idea among his people in the same way as Buddha declared that he came to establish a kingdom of peace and love and righteousness upon earth. Buddha did not use the expression ‘Kingdom of God’, but preferred ‘kingdom of justice, peace and love’. Jesus had to use the former expression, because it was dominant in the minds of the people about him.
These ideas regarding a kingdom of peace and love were scattered in northern Palestine for at least two centuries before the Christian era by the Buddhist missionaries. It is indeed a well-known historic fact that the gospel of peace, goodwill and love was preached in Syria and Palestine by Buddhist monks nearly two hundred years before Christ. Their influence was felt most deeply by the Jewish sect called the Essene, or the Therapeutae, to which sect, as many scholars believe, Jesus himself belonged. It is interesting to note the similarities between the Essene and the followers of Buddha. The Buddhists were also called Theraputta, a Pali form of the Sanskrit Sthiraputra, meaning the son of Sthira, or Thera: one who is serene, enlightened, and undisturbed by the world. Thera was one of Buddha’s names. These people had the power to heal disease.
Readers of the history of India are aware that in 249 B.C. Ashoka the Great, the Buddhist emperor, made Buddhism the state religion of India and sent missionaries to all parts of the world, then known to him, to preach the gospel of Buddha. He sent missionaries from Siberia to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and from China to Egypt. These missionaries preached the doctrines of Buddhism, not by bloodshed and sword, but by scattering blessings, goodwill and peace where they went. The edicts and stone inscriptions of Ashoka were written during his lifetime. One of these edicts mentions five Greek kings who were Ashoka’s contemporaries, - Antiochus of Syria, Ptolemaos of Egypt, Antigonus of Macedon, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander of Epiros. The edict says that Ashoka made treatise with these kings and Buddhist missionaries to their kingdoms to preach the gospel of Buddha. "Both here and in foreign countries" says Ashoka, "everywhere the people follow the doctrine of the Beloved of the gods, wheresoever it reacheth." Mahaffy, the Christian historian says: "The Buddhist missionaries preached in Syria two centuries before the teaching of Christ, (which has so much in common with the teaching of Buddha), and this was heard in northern Palestine".
The labours of these Buddhist monks were not fruitless in these places. They continued to preach through parables the highest ideals of religion from generation to generation. Their communities, bound to a life of celibacy, which was not a Jewish custom, increased from age to age as outsiders joined their ranks. Even the Alexandrian Neo-Platonist Philo, who was a contemporary of Christ, mentions in his writings once or twice the Indian Gymnosophists or the Buddhists, and says that the Essenes numbered about four thousand at that time. The doctrines of the Essenes, their manner of living, and the vows of their communities show the results of the Buddhist missionary work during the two centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ. Pliny says: "The Essenes live on the western shore of the Dead Sea. They are a hermit clan – one marvellous beyond all others in the world, without any women, without the joys of domestic life, without money, and the associates of the palm-trees". If we read Josephus we find how highly the Essenes of those days were respected.
One of the peculiar practices of the Essenes was the ‘Bath of Purification’, which was also peculiarity of the Buddhist monks. The life led by John the Baptist was typical of that of a Buddhist monk. Exactly like a Buddhist, the Essene rose before sunrise and made his morning prayers with his face turned towards the east. When the day broke, he went to work. Agriculture, cattle-breeding, bee-keeping and other peaceful trades were among his ordinary occupations. He remained at work until eleven o’clock; then he took a bath, put on white linen, and ate plain vegetable food. The Essenes abstained from meat and wine. They also wore leather aprons, as did some of the Buddhist monks. The Essene novice took solemn oath to honour God, to be just toward his fellow-men, to injure no one either of his own accord or by order of others, not to associate with the unrighteous, to assist the righteous, to be ever faithful to all, always to love truth, to keep his hands from theft and his soul from unholy gain. There were some who joined the order after having lived a married life.
Earnest Renan says: "The Essenes resembled the Gurus (spiritual masters) of Brahmanism". "In fact", he asks, "might there not in this be a remote influence of the Munis (holy saints of India)"? According to Renan: "Babylon had become for sometime a true focus of Buddhism. Boudasp (Bodhisattva, another name of Buddha) was reputed as a wise Chaldean and the founder of Sabaism, which means, as its etymology indicates, Baptism". He also says: We may believe at all events that many of the eternal practices of John, of the Essenes, and of the Jewish spiritual teachers of the time were derived from influences then existing, but recently received from the far East" – meaning India. Thus we can understand that there was an indirect influence of the Buddhist monks upon the mind of Jesus through the Essenes, and especially through John the Baptist.
Although Jesus never pretended to have created the world, nor to govern it, yet his followers worshipped and loved him as the Messiah; and later on the writer of the Fourth Gospel identified him with the ‘Word’, or Logos of Philo, about the latter part of the third century of the Christian era. According to the Synoptic Gospels, the idea of the advent of the end of the world and of the reign of justice and the kingdom of God grew so strong in the mind of Jesus that apparently it forced him to think that he – the Son and the bosom friend of his Father – must be the executor of God’s decrees and that through him such a Kingdom of Justice and Goodness should be established. This thought gradually led him to believe that, as he was the Son of God, he should be the Universal Reformer, and was born to establish the Kingdom of God.
The fundamental principles of the religion of Jesus, however, were purity, self-denial, control of passions, renunciation, non-attachment to wealth and to earthly things, intense faith, forgiveness and love for enemies, and the realization of the unity of the soul with the ‘Father in Heaven’. During the one year of his public life as a spiritual teacher, Jesus taught his disciples these principles and showed them the way to practise them by his living example. But all these grand ethical and spiritual doctrines, upon which the religion of Jesus was founded, were practised for nearly three centuries before Christ by the Buddhist preachers in Babylon and Syria, and they were taught in India for ages before that. The same ideas were inculcated by the Vedic sages, by the Vedanta philosophers, and afterwards by the Avataras, or incarnations of God, like Rama, Krishna, Buddha (547 B.C.) Sankara, Chaitanya, Nanaka, and also by Ramakrishna of the nineteenth century. If we study the lives of these men, we find that, like Jesus, each one of them lived a pure, spotless and unselfish life of renunciation, always loving humanity and doing good to all.
Those who have read the doctrines of Buddha know that the ethical teachings of Jesus seem like repetitions of what Buddha taught. Those who have read the Bhagavad Gita (the Song Celestial), will remember that the fundamental principles of Krishna’s teachings were purity of heart, self-denial, control of passions, renunciation, love towards enemies, forgiveness, and the realization of the unity of the soul with the Father. In short, the religion of Christ was taught before him by Buddha and Krishna in India. Like Jesus the Christ, Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita: "I am the path. Follow Me and worship one God. I existed before the world was created. I am the Lord of all". And again: "Giving up the formalities of religion, come unto Me; follow Me; take refuge in Me. I shall free thee from sins and give eternal peace unto thee. Grieve not".
But although Jesus the Christ did not teach a new religion, still he came to fulfil and not to destroy. He gave a new life to the old truths, and by his wonderful personality impressed them upon the minds of his own people.