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From the PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1902) Orientalists are aware that a series of translations entitled Gospel Parallels from Pali Texts appeared in The Open Court of Chicago in 1900 and 1901, following upon the translation of the Canonical Buddhist Nativity legend, which appeared in 1898. These Parallels have aroused the interest of New Testament scholars, like Rendel Harris and Caspar Gregory, and it is proposed to reprint them, with additions and historical introduction, in book form. An excellent bibliography of former attempts to compare Christianity and Buddhism will be found in The Dhamma of Gotama the Buddha and the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, by Charles Francis Aiken, (Boston, 1900, p. 339). From this it appears that one of the first to institute such comparison was the well-known German New Testament scholar, Hilgenfeld, in 1867. The first systematic treatise by an English scholar was Christianity and Buddhism Compared, by Robert Spence Hardy (Colombo, 1874); while the standard works upon the whole subject are two in German by Rudolph Seydel, in 1882 and 1884. It is believed, however, that our present work is the first comparison made from the Pali texts themselves. Even Spence Hardy did not know Pali, but Singhalese, and relied upon medieval Ceylon treatises, in which text and commentary are confused. He made some use, however, of a portion of the Pali Canon which was translated to him by an ex-monk in Ceylon. But Seydel had to rely upon the small fraction of the Canon which had been translated in his time. His son, P. M. Seydel, edited a posthumous work of his father's in 1897; but it still represented the learning of the Eighties. Moreover the Seydels include translations from the Chinese and other post-Christian Buddhist versions alongside of the pre-Christian Pali. Our present work is the first attempt to compare Buddhist Pali with Christian Greek. Many of our translations in The Open Court appeared there for the first time in English, especially from the Enunciations, the Logia Book, and the Middling and Numerical Collections. Our book will cover some three hundred pages, and as publication may be delayed, the student is presented with the following outline.

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