dise, Gehenna, the Throne of Glory, the Sanctuary and the Name of the Messiah." 36

While the Mishnah seems to be comparatively free from demonology, the Talmud shows Babylonian and Persian influence in its views of angels and demons. This is due to the large Academies that were located in Babylonia and that drew teachers, as well as pupils, from those Jews that had lived in Babylon for centuries. Thus Abaye who lived in Pumpadita, where one of the large schools was located, said: "Formerly I believed that the custom to pour water upon the ground, which had been used for washing hands after the meal, was due to cleanliness, now I discovered that it is done in order that the evil spirit might not find rest on the place." In Talmud (Meilah 17b) R. Simeon b. Jochai (150 C. E.) is said to possess the power to cast out demons. While R. Simeon was journeying to Rome in the company of another Rabbi, to secure the repeal of an edict hostile to the exercise of Judaism, a demon, called Ben Temelion, met them. "May I go with you?" asked the demon. "Let the portent come whenever it be," answered R. Simeon. Thereupon the demon hurried on in front and entered into the daughter of the emperor who went mad. The daughter then called for R. Simeon who banished the demon. In Berachoth (58a) Satan is a slanderer, accuser, tempter and general mischiefmaker.”

36 Cf. Hirsch: Religionsphil., Lpzg., 1842, p. 852; Joel: Bl. i. d. Religionsgesch., vol. II, pp. 181 ff.

66

37 Comp. B. Bathra 16a; Nedarim 32b; Sabbath 119b; also Wiesner: Scholien z. Babyl. Talm., Prag, 1859, pp. 8 ff; Joel: 'Der Aberglaube," in Jahresbericht des jüd. Theol. Seminars, Breslau, 1881, pp. 69 ff; Joel: Bl. i. d. Religionsgesch., vol. I, p. 117.

38

In the same Treatise we are told that a sick person, a groom, a bride, and a woman in confinement, a mourner and a scholar, while unmolested during the day, had to protect themselves from demons at night. In Mishnah Aboth 5:6 God created in the twilight of the sixth day the demons (mazziqin or nocentes).

The division of the Biblical Sheol into Paradise and Gehenna, under the influence of Christianity, which again was infiuenced by heathendom, is complete. When R. Jochanan was dying, his disciples who had gathered around the teacher's couch asked: "Light of Israel, why dost thou weep?" The teacher replied: "Two paths are open before me, the one leading to Paradise, the other to Gehenna. I know not which of them will be my doom."

29 39

40

In another place we find: "God created Eden that the pious might rejoice, and Gehenna for the sinners." "All those who go into Gehenna ascend again into Paradise."

99 41

"The judgment of the sinners in Gehenna lasts twelve months." 42

38 Talm. Berachoth 54b; comp. Chagigah 16a.

39 Talm. Berachoth 28b.

40 Talm. Pesachim 54a.

41 Talm. B. Mezia 58a.

4 Mishnah Edyoth II; comp. Talm. Rosh-hashanah 17a; also Gaster: "Hebrew Visions of Hell and Paradise" in Transactions of Royal Asiatic Soc., 1893, p. 571; Zunz: D. gottesd. Vortr., 2d ed., p. 149, note 3.

CHAPTER IX

CHRISTIANITY, BUDDHISM AND ESSENISM

1

Bacon's saying, "that prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament and adversity of the New," though somewhat exaggerated, contains nevertheless much that is true. It is the general conception of the Old Testament that faithfulness to the Law of God will be rewarded by outward success, though to prove the character of that faithfulness trials and temptations are sent from on High. The New Testament regards calamity and suffering as necessary means for spiritual uplifting, and the life of the individual as well as that of mankind as opportunity for such development. It discerns divine love in the greatest sorrows that befall man, and regards the activities of the powers of evil on earth from the same point of view.

Though Jesus and Paul were not the founders of a new religion,'a for as Schleiermacher correctly states, no religion is wholly new, as the same basic ideas reappear in all," yet they impressed their powerful personalities upon the current ideas and moulded them. the better to meet the exigencies of their time. Wellhausen's statement, "that a new spirit pervades the Gospels," is not wholly true; Jesus and Paul merely reshaped old material that had existed. Thus, indi

1-Cf. Bacon's Essays, London, 1877, p. 17.

la Cf. Harnack: Dogmatengesch., 2d ed., vol. I, pp. 39, 61. 2 Cf. Stade: Akad. Reden, etc., Giessen, 1899, p. 57.

3 Cf. Wellhausen: Israelit. u. Jüdische Gesch., Berl., 1894, p. 313.

vidualism which makes itself felt in the Khokma-literature and in the later Psalms, and becomes more and more pronounced in the Apocryphal and Apocalyptic literature, reaches its highest development in the New Testament. The Gospels no longer appeal to state or nation, but wholly to the individual. The care of the Jew, during Old Testament times and long after it, was the nation; the care of the Christian was his own soul, his salvation. This explains that while the eschatology of the Old Testament is historico-national, in the New Testament it revolves solely around the individual, at the same time bearing the impress of the super-terrestrial. Here the individual is never lost sight of; be he sinner or publican, he is included in the care of Divine Providence. Inheritance in the Kingdom of God is assured to him who puts his faith in the Redeemer.

To speak, therefore, of New Testament Christianity as thoroughgoing Pessimism is misleading. True it is pessimistic as far as this life is concerned, but it is optimistic in regards to a future existence. It points the way to the subdual of life's desires and passions, and offers to the conqueror the true eternal life beyond the grave."

Are, then, the pessimistic tendencies that abound in the New Testament wholly original with Jesus and Paul, or have they been developed from Old Testament conceptions, or have they been taken from foreign

4 Cf. Wellhausen: Israelit. u. Jüd. Gesch., Berl., 1901, p. 394.

Cf. Schopenhauer: Frauenstädt ed., vol. III, p. 713; also Haupt: Oriental Studies, Boston, 1894, p. 265, note 15.

Cf. Goether: D. moderne Pess., Lpzg., 1878, p. 214.

7

Та

8

sources? Buddhistic influence is claimed by Schopenhauer and many others. There is, indeed, striking similarity between Christianity and Buddhism. Both protest against the moral and social conditions of their day, then both regard this life as a kind of burden, from which deliverance must be sought. In Buddhism moral reformation is wrought, not so much. through positive moral and physical discipline, as is the case in Christianity, but through Nirvâna, in which state the soul is saved the torments of transmigration and is brought into unconscious unity with the All. And yet Christianity does not appear wholly unhospitable to this basic pessimistic element in Buddhism. Here, too, life is under a heavy and oppressive cloud; it is life beyond that spells freedom. The difference between these two systems of religion is, that while Buddhism predicates a curse to all life, Christianity conceives life as once having been free from curse, and that in time it shall be free from its incubus once

more.

Furthermore, the extreme ascetic attitude of Buddhism toward the joys of life is softened down in New Testament Christianity. Nowhere does Jesus state that sin is innate in the human body, or that evil is

'Cf. Schopenhauer: Griesbach ed., vol. III, p. 145, vol. II, pp. 573, 734.

a Cf. Kuenen: Hibbert Lectures, 1882, pp. 359 ff; also Oldenberg: Theol. Lit., Zeitung, 1882, col. 415 f; Seydel: Evang. u. Buddhismus, 1882; Happel: D. rel. u. phil. Grundanschauungen d. Inder., Giessen, 1902; Dilger: D. Erlösung d. Menschen, etc., Basel, 1902.

James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, London, 1902, p. 165,