Tempo:
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
76 1708-16.
although not fully
apparent to strangers, if so to Indians.
CHAP, ni
been usual to regard the Sikhs as essentially Hindu, and they doubtless are so in language and everyday customs, for Gobind did not fetter his disciples with political systems or codes of municipal laws; yet, in religious faith and worldly aspirations, they are wholly different from other Indians, and they are bound together by a community of inward sentiment and of outward object unknown elsewhere. But the misapprehension need not surprise the public nor condemn our scholars,^
when it is remembered that the learned of
Greece and
Rome misunderstood the spirit of those
a new life by baptism. Tacitus and Suetonius regarded the early Christians as a mere Jewish sect, they failed to perceive the fundamental difference, and to appreciate the latent energy and real excellence, of that doctrine, which has
humble men who obtained
added dignity and purity to modern civilization.^ and inquirers has not been directed to the subject, or that the savages in question have embraced a new faith with little of living ardour and absorbing enthusiasm. 1 The author alludes chiefly to Professor H. H. Wilson, whose learning and industry are doing so much for Indian (See Asiatic Researches, xvii. 237, 238; and continuahistory. Malcolm holds similar tion of Mill's History, vii. 101, 102.) views in one place (Sketch, pp. 144, 148, 150), but somewhat With these contradicts himself in another {Sketch, p. 43). opinions, however, may be compared the more correct views of Elphinstone (History of India, ii. 562, 564) and Sir Alexander Burnes (Travels, i. 284, 285), and also Major Browne's observation (India Tracts, ii. 4) that the Sikh doctrine bore the same relation to the Hindus as the Protestant does to the Romish. - See the Annals of Tacitus, Murphy's translation (book XV, sect. 44, note 15). Tacitus calls Christianity a dangerous superstition, and regards its professors as moved by 'a sullen hatred of the whole .human race' ^the Judaic characteristic of the period. Suetonius talks of the Jews raising disturbances
—
in the reign of Claudius, at the instigation of 'one Chrestus', thus evidently mistaking the whole of the facts, and further
making a Latin name, genuine indeed, but misapplied, of the Greek term for anointed. Again, the obscure historian, Vopiscus, preserves a letter, written by the Emperor Hadrian, in which the Christians are confounded with the adorers of Serapis, and in which the bishops are said to be especially devoted to the worship of that strange god, who was introduced into Egypt by the Ptolemies (Waddington, History of the Church, p. 37); and even Eusebius himself did not properly distinguish between Christians and the Essenic Therapeutae (Strauss, Life of Jesus, i. 294), although the latter formed essentially a mere sect, or order, affecting asceticism and mystery. It is proper to add that Mr. Newman quotes the descriptions of Tacitus and others as referring really to Christians and not to Jews (On the Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 205, &c.). He may be right, but the grounds of his dissent from the views of preceding scholars are not given.
76 1708-16.
although not fully
apparent to strangers, if so to Indians.
CHAP, ni
been usual to regard the Sikhs as essentially Hindu, and they doubtless are so in language and everyday customs, for Gobind did not fetter his disciples with political systems or codes of municipal laws; yet, in religious faith and worldly aspirations, they are wholly different from other Indians, and they are bound together by a community of inward sentiment and of outward object unknown elsewhere. But the misapprehension need not surprise the public nor condemn our scholars,^
when it is remembered that the learned of
Greece and
Rome misunderstood the spirit of those
a new life by baptism. Tacitus and Suetonius regarded the early Christians as a mere Jewish sect, they failed to perceive the fundamental difference, and to appreciate the latent energy and real excellence, of that doctrine, which has
humble men who obtained
added dignity and purity to modern civilization.^ and inquirers has not been directed to the subject, or that the savages in question have embraced a new faith with little of living ardour and absorbing enthusiasm. 1 The author alludes chiefly to Professor H. H. Wilson, whose learning and industry are doing so much for Indian (See Asiatic Researches, xvii. 237, 238; and continuahistory. Malcolm holds similar tion of Mill's History, vii. 101, 102.) views in one place (Sketch, pp. 144, 148, 150), but somewhat With these contradicts himself in another {Sketch, p. 43). opinions, however, may be compared the more correct views of Elphinstone (History of India, ii. 562, 564) and Sir Alexander Burnes (Travels, i. 284, 285), and also Major Browne's observation (India Tracts, ii. 4) that the Sikh doctrine bore the same relation to the Hindus as the Protestant does to the Romish. - See the Annals of Tacitus, Murphy's translation (book XV, sect. 44, note 15). Tacitus calls Christianity a dangerous superstition, and regards its professors as moved by 'a sullen hatred of the whole .human race' ^the Judaic characteristic of the period. Suetonius talks of the Jews raising disturbances
—
in the reign of Claudius, at the instigation of 'one Chrestus', thus evidently mistaking the whole of the facts, and further
making a Latin name, genuine indeed, but misapplied, of the Greek term for anointed. Again, the obscure historian, Vopiscus, preserves a letter, written by the Emperor Hadrian, in which the Christians are confounded with the adorers of Serapis, and in which the bishops are said to be especially devoted to the worship of that strange god, who was introduced into Egypt by the Ptolemies (Waddington, History of the Church, p. 37); and even Eusebius himself did not properly distinguish between Christians and the Essenic Therapeutae (Strauss, Life of Jesus, i. 294), although the latter formed essentially a mere sect, or order, affecting asceticism and mystery. It is proper to add that Mr. Newman quotes the descriptions of Tacitus and others as referring really to Christians and not to Jews (On the Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 205, &c.). He may be right, but the grounds of his dissent from the views of preceding scholars are not given.
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