(
Greek characters) (Ajunt enim dixisse Servatorem: "veni ad dissolvendum opera feminæ;" feminæ quidem, cupiditatis; opera autem, generationem et interitum); but quite specially at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth chapter. The Church certainly was obliged to consider how to set a religion upon its legs that could also walk and stand in the world as it is, and among men; therefore it declared these persons to be heretics. At the conclusion of the seventh chapter our Church Father opposes Indian asceticism, as bad, to Christian Judaism; whereby the fundamental difference of the spirit of the two religions is clearly brought out. In Judaism and Christianity everything runs back to obedience or disobedience to the command of God: (Greek characters); as befits us creatures, (Greek characters) (nobis, qui Omnipotentis voluntate efficti sumus), chap. 14. Then comes, as a second duty, (Greek characters), to serve God, extol His works, and overflow with thankfulness. Certainly the matter has a very different aspect in Brahmanism and Buddhism, for in the latter all improvement and conversion, and the only deliverance we can hope for from this world of suffering, this Sansara, proceeds from the knowledge of the four fundamental truths: (1) dolor; (2) doloris ortus; (3) doloris interitus; (4) octopartita via ad doloris sedationem (Dammapadam, ed. Fausböll, p. 35 et 347). The explanation of these four truths will be found in Bournouf, "Introduct. à l'hist. du Buddhisme," p. 629, and in all expositions of Buddhism.
In truth, Judaism, with its (Greek characters), is not related to Christianity as regards its spirit and ethical tendency, but Brahmanism and Buddhism are. But the spirit and ethical tendency are what is essential in a religion, not the myths in which these are clothed. I therefore cannot give up the belief that the doctrines of Christianity can in some way be derived from these primitive religions. I have pointed out some traces of this in
