art. It is a possible belief that we have in the "Sutra of the Forty-Two Sections" a collection of logia, containing short pithy sayings of the Master, and prepared for the use of missionaries such as were Kas'yapa Matanga and Dharmaraksha, working in a new land without proper books in the vernacular; but a conjecture has before this been made that these two men were not Buddhist missionaries, but Christians, disciples of St. Thomas, who is still, I believe, to this day commemorated in Nestorian liturgies as the Apostle of India and China. Qui per alium facit per se facit.

The reasons available are as follows:--

1. It is known that there were such logia among early Christians. I believe I am right in saying that there are no similar logia in the whole range of Buddhist Sutra literature, except those which were compiled about this period for like purposes.

2. The fact that we have in the "Pistis Sophia" the introduction of a Buddhist Sutra, taken by some Gnostic cordon bleu and served with suitable garnishings as the introduction to a book concerning Christ, seems to suggest the feasibility of the reverse process, and that a Christian book might similarly be taken by some Chinese literary cook and served up to the devout in China as a Buddhist book, with a suitable introduction to give local colour and tone.

3. The main contents of the book will be found, on the whole, to be not in disagreement with Christian doctrines, and far more suitable for Christian purposes than the Epistle of St. James (which has been claimed as a Buddhist writing) would be for the use of disciples of S'akyamuni.

4. We shall see, from a study of Buddhist art, that whereas the early Buddhist sculptures invariably treat

the Master as absent, thus carrying out the spirit of the Sanskrit title for Buddha, i.e. the Tathagata, "the one that went thus (as he said)," in the post-Christian art of Gandhara, he is always represented as a Being that is present amongst his disciples, and, being present, very often depicted in Greek or Graeco-Roman costume. The "one that had gone" had been changed to "the one that had come," whose Presence (paroysia) was recognized by his followers. This first mission to China, the first official introduction, be it remembered, of a new faith to China (for whatever Buddhism there had been before this time must have been quite unofficial), must be held responsible for the invention of suitable "characters" through which to introduce to the Chinese literati the idea of the Tathagata. And the characters they chose (), the Chinese Julai, the Japanese Nyorai, convey the idea of the parousia. "He that comes thus (as was expected)," the Great One Descending Man of the Kaifongfu Jews. It is a very significant change.