nces of extreme simplicity, such
as the Patimokkha and the Lord's Prayer. In both cases subsequent
generations felt that the provision made by the Founders was inadequate
and the Buddhist and Christian Churches have multiplied ceremonies
which, though not altogether unedifying, would certainly have astonished
Gotama and Christ.

For Christ the greatest commandments were that a man should love God and
his neighbours. This summary is not in the manner of Gotama and though
love (metta) has an important place in his teaching, it is rather an
inseparable adjunct of a holy life than the force which creates and
animates it. In other words the Buddha teaches that a saint must love
his fellow men rather than that he who loves his fellow men is a saint.
But the passages extolling _metta_ are numerous and striking, and
European writers have, I think, shown too great a disposition to
maintain that _metta_ is something less than Christian love and little
more than benevolent equanimity. The love of the New Testament is not
eros but agape, a new word first used by Jewish and Christian writers
and nearly the exact equivalent of _metta_. For both words love is
rather too strong a rendering and charity too weak. Nor is it just to
say that the Buddha as compared with Christ preaches inaction. The
Christian nations of Europe are more inclined to action than the
Buddhist nations of Asia, yet the Beatitudes do not indicate that the
strenuous life is the road to happiness. Those declared blessed are the
poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungry, the pure and the persecuted.
Such men have just the virtues of the patient Bhikkhu and like Christ
the Buddha praised the merciful and the peacemakers. And similarly
Christ's phrase about rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's
seems to dissociate his true followers (like the Bhikkhus) from
political life. Money and taxes are the affair of those who put their
heads on coins; God and the things which concern him have quite another
sphere.

CHAPTER X

THE TEACHING OF THE BUDDHA

1

When the Buddha preached his first sermon[402] to the five monks at
Benares the topics he selected were the following. First comes an
introduction about avoiding extremes of either self-indulgence or
self-mortification. This was specially appropriate to his hearers who
were ascetics and disposed to over-rate the value of austerities. Next
he defines the middle way or eightfold path. Then he enunciate