CHAPTER VII

ALEXANDRIA AND ANTIOCH AT THE TIME OF CHRIST

THERE are two words which connect the Japanese Mahayana, in one of its many aspects, with the Gnosticism of Alexandria and Antioch, and through it with the Christianity of the Apostolic age. These words are Abraxas and Caulaucau.

I have already, in a previous chapter, spoken of Alexandria and Antioch, of their mixed populations, of the extent of their commercial relations with Central Asia and India, and of the fact of As'oka's emissaries having been sent to both these cities during the course of the third century B.C. It is not necessary for me to repeat what I said then. What is of present importance is that these two cities, the two organs, so to speak, through which the commerce between Asia and Europe was effectuated in the early days of the Roman Empire, were the native homes of that syncretic miscellany of religious ideas, known as Gnosticism. Alexandrian Gnosticism is connected with the name of Basilides, that of Antioch (or, rather, Syria) with Valentinus.

Gnosticism is derived from the Greek gnosis, which is identical in meaning with the word Bodhi, from which we get Buddha, "the Enlightened One," and it is akin, both etymologically and in signification, with the word Prajna (Jap. Hannya), "Knowledge." The first of these Sanskrit

words, personified and used in the singular, has supplied Mahayanism with its nearest approach to the idea of God, such as we know Him, "above all, in all, through all"; the second, likewise personified, in that vague manner which the Mahayana delights to use, has been identified with Nature, with the Hindu goddess Prithivi, with the spirit which animates the Kosmos, the "universal Pan."

The Gnostics, like the Mahayanists, claimed to have the key of wisdom or knowledge, and, like them, tried to interpret the various religions of the world, with the help of the key which was in their hands. There seems to be no doubt that the fact of Christ was the impulse which spurred them to activity; it is equally certain that the outward form of Gnosticism varied according to the country in which it made its appearance. It is this that makes Gnosticism such an extremely puzzling subject to the student of philosophy and religion.

Gnosticism, like Proteus, claimed to be "thrice excellent;" it "knew not only things to come, but even things past as well as present;" it had great "skill in divination;" "it was (or claimed to be) the messenger and interpreter of all antiquities and hidden mysteries." But it was at liberty, nevertheless, "to turn itself into all manner of forms and wonders of nature." The underlying matter was always the same; the form differed from a country to country and from age to age. The Mahayana exhibits a precisely similar Protean power of assuming the most varied shapes.