by Buddhism, the _most
ancient_ of the Buddhistic records known to us contain
statements about the life and the doctrines of Gautama Buddha
which correspond in a remarkable manner, _and impossibly by
mere chance_, with the traditions recorded in the Gospels
about the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ. It is still more
strange that these Buddhistic legends about Gautama _as the
Angel-Messiah_ refer to a doctrine which we find only in the
Epistles of Paul and in the fourth Gospel. This can be
explained by the assumption of a common source of revelation;
but then the serious question must be considered, why the
doctrine of the Angel-Messiah, supposing it to have been
revealed, and which we find in the East and in the West, is
not contained in any of the Scriptures of the Old Testament
which can possibly have been written before the Babylonian
Captivity, nor in the first three Gospels. _Can the systematic
keeping-back of essential truth be attributed to God or to
man?_"[303:1]

Beside the work referred to above as being translated by Prof. Beal,
there is another copy originally composed in verse. This was translated
by the learned Fonceau, who gives it an antiquity of _two thousand
years_, "although the original treatise must be attributed to an earlier
date."[303:2]

In regard to the teachings of Buddha, which correspond so strikingly
with those of Jesus, Prof. Rhys Davids, says:

"With regard to Gautama's teaching we have more reliable
authority than we have with regard to his life. It is true
that none of the books of the Three Pitakas can at present be
satisfactorily traced back before the Council of Asoka, held
at Patna, about 250 B. C., that is to say, at least one
hundred and thirty years after the death of the teacher; but
they undoubtedly contain a great deal of much older
matter."[303:3]

Prof. Max Mueller says:

"Between the language of Buddha and his disciples, and the
language of Christ and his apostles, there are strange
coincidences. Even some of the Buddhist legends and parables
sound as if taken from the New Testament; _though we know that
many of them existed before the beginning of the Christian
Era_."[303:4]

Just as many of the myths related of the Hindoo Saviour Crishna were
_previously current_ regarding some of the Vedic gods, so likewi