There the whole matter virtually rested for about three hundred
years--various scholars calling attention to the legend as a
curiosity, but none really showing its true bearings--until, in
1859, Laboulaye in France, Liebrecht in Germany, and others
following them, demonstrated that this Christian work was drawn
almost literally from an early biography of Buddha, being conformed
to it in the most minute details, not only of events but of
phraseology; the only important changes being that, at the end of
the various experiences showing the wretchedness of the world,
identical with those ascribed in the original to the young Prince
Buddha, the hero, instead of becoming a hermit, becomes a
Christian, and that for the appellation of Buddha-- "Bodisat"--is
substituted the more scriptural name Josaphat.
Thus it was that, by virtue of the infallibility vouchsafed to the
papacy in matters of faith and morals, Buddha became a Christian saint.
Yet these were by no means the most pregnant revelations.
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