Jainism Christianity and Science

SR No.: 011064
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: The Indian Press Allahabad
Publication Year: 1930
Total Pages: 219
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 8 MB

Page 26

16
Here are a few of the allegorical conceptions of the Greeks:
JAINISM, CHRISTIANITY & SCIENCE
44
Juno is chastity,.. Venus lust, "Ibid. pp. 448 & 451.
Paris the understanding
And Hercules, who slew the serpent which led and guarded riches, is the true philosophical reason which, free from all wickedness, wanders all over the world, visiting the souls of men, and chastising all it meets, namely, men like fierce lions or timid stags, or savage boars, or multiform hydras. "-(Reference to Appion's speech in the Clementine Homilies) A.N.C.L. vol. xvii. p. 124.
...
64
Cupid is desire,
....
With reference to the Jewish Scriptures also it was well known that their language was allegorical. shall only give one quotation from Tertullian who says about the disciples of philosophy who pervert the scriptural text to their own ends:
... and ambitious of glory and eloquence alone, if they fell upon anything in the collection of scriptures which displeased them, in their own peculiar style of research, they perverted it to their own purposes for they had no adequate faith in their divinity to keep them from changing them, nor had they any sufficient understanding of them either, as being still at the time under veil-even obscure to the Jews themselves, whose peculiar possession they seemed to be."(Tertullian) A.N.C.L. vol. xl. p. 131.
In the Jewish books themselves it is repeatedly pointed out that the scriptures are not to be understood in their plain sense, and Philo Judæus is one of those who tried to lift the veil of allegory from some portions of the sacred writings. He was followed by Moses Maimonides, who, however, declined to reveal certain secrets, e.g., the mystery of creation, fully, but did so only by semi-obscure hints and suggestions.
Here are a few of the allegorical symbols with their explanations: (with reference to the raising of Lazarus) "This takes place in the heart of the penitent: when