There was something superior. Rome was the depository of the legends and lore of the world. A haunt of the Muses, the sensual city was a hermitage of philosophy as well. These things collectively represented a great literary feast, of which not all the courses have descended to us, though, as is not impossible, a lost dish or two, transmuted, by the alchemy of faith, from dross into gold, the Gospels may perhaps contain.
In that case there is cause for great thankfulness. Moreover, assuming the transmutation, no impiety can be implied. It was as usual and as indicated as were papyrus and the stylus. It is common to-day for a poet, before spreading his own wings, to contemplate those of another. Inspiration is infectious.
A page of verse, whether Hindu, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, or Latin, was as useful then. Dante fed on the troubadours. They are lost and forgot. He divinely stands greater than the tallest of them all. In a measure the same may be true of those from whom the Gospels came. Yet with a very notable difference. The _Divina Commedia_ was written for all time. So too were the Gospels. But not intentionally. They were written to prepare man for the immediate termination of the world. With the most perfect propriety, therefore, anything serviceable could have been utilized and probably was. The devout had but to lift their eyes. In the words of Isaiah, there, before them, were the treasures of nations; there were the camels and dromedaries bearing from every side incense and gold; there were the sons of strangers to build up their walls.
The sons were many, the treasures as great. Even otherwise there was the Law, there too were the Prophets. Moses fasted for forty days. Elisha performed a miracle of the loaves, if he did not that of the fishes. Job saw the Lord walking upon the sea. Jeremiah said: "Seek and ye shall find." Isaiah bid those that sorrowed come and be consoled. In the poem of that poet the servant of the Lord had vinegar when he thirsted, he was spat upon and for his garments lots were cast.
In an effort to fill in a picture of which the central figure had passed from the real to the ideal, these things may have been suggestive. So also, perhaps, was the _Talmud_. The redaction of that chaos began in the second century. But the Vedas, the Homeric poems, the Tripitaka as well, existed in memory long before they were committed to writing. The same is true of the _Talmud_. Orally it existed prior to the Christ. Considered as literature, if it may be so considered, it is the reverse of endearing. But of the many maxims that it contains there are some of singular charm. Among others is the Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.[65] The origin of that, as already indicated, is traceable to the _Tripitaka_, which, parenthetically, were so well known in Babylon that Gotama was there regarded as a Chaldean seer. That abridgement of the Law which is called the Golden Rule is also in the _Talmud_,[66] as also, before the _Talmud_ was, it was in the _Tripitaka_. The injunction to love one's enemies is equally in both. So is the very excellent suggestion that one should consider one's own faults before admonishing a brother concerning his defects. But the perhaps subtle intimation that the desire to commit adultery is as reprehensible as the act, and the rather extravagant statement that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, these, originally, were perhaps uniquely Talmudic. Currently cited with multiple others they were all so many common sayings, which, strung together in the Gospels, became a rosary of most perfect pearls.