Barlaam and Josaphat: A Christian Tale of the Buddha

by Gui de Cambrai

  News of the hermit’s capture spread quickly throughout the country. When the king’s son heard it, he cried tenderly. He spent the whole day praying to God that he would spare his master from martyrdom. Josaphat was overcome with sorrow. But God sent his angel to protect him from the deception and change his sorrow to happiness. The angel revealed the king’s betrayal to Josaphat and told him about his father’s efforts to deceive him. Then the angel left the prince.

  The king sought to trick his son by any means, to make him renounce God. He was grateful for Aracin’s advice and thanked him generously, for he did not care about the means as long as he could accomplish his end. But his elaborate plans would be undermined by divine commandment.

  King Avenir attempts to win back his son

  Two days after Nachor’s capture, the king considered how he might make his plan work better. He went to speak with Josaphat, and the young man came out to meet him. King Avenir was so angry that he did not deign to approach his son, though he had always kissed and embraced him when they met. He sat on a royal couch and spoke angrily to Josaphat. “Son, what is this? Explain what I have heard about you. I loved you more than anything, and now the Christians have misled you. Never did a father love a son so much—you were treated more royally than I myself am. You were my sweet son, my joy and my solace. You were my legacy and you were the staff that would sustain my body weakened by old age. Son, what have you done? Consider it carefully! I was you and you were me, and my love was doubled in you. All my thoughts were for your honor and your good. You were my wealth and my love, my power and my succor. You were the best thing in my kingdom.

  “Now you have blinded me, and this is how: my light has been extinguished and I am in darkness. My measure is unmeasured. My sweet water has turned bitter—it was clear but now has become cloudy. My honor has turned to shame, and my nobility has been lost. My wealth has become poverty, my gain turned to loss. My ancestral tree is dead at the roots, and my love has turned to hatred. You claim to be wise, but you know nothing. I am your friend, but you despise me. You disinherit me of my own land, for you go to war against me in my own country. You cause me to lose honor, and you make me suffer when before I was happy. Good sweet son, dear sweet friend, you have become my enemy! I have lost all my happiness! That which I most feared has come about. You have never doubted my love, yet you have given your body, your heart, and your thoughts to a stranger. Sweet son, this is most certainly a foolish bargain. The gods are very angry about it, for it has greatly pained them that you have given yourself to another.

  “Josaphat, my son, how can you forsake our gods for some unknown man who was hung on a cross? Surely you can understand that if he were God, he would not have allowed himself to be hung. This is just a story that people tell. Good son, amend this shame. Listen to my advice and I will try to appease the gods. Come now and sacrifice to them. They will have mercy on you, and I will be happy. Come willingly to them so they will forgive you.”

  “Father,” Josaphat replied, “listen to me. I am right to believe in God. I have come out of the shadows and into the light. I have left unbelief to make an alliance with God. I have yoked myself to my Creator and given him all my love. He formed and made me. I am his servant, for he taught me to serve him, and I will do so as long as I live. He made Adam, our first father, by whose fault we live so wretchedly in this world. Adam did not obey his law, for the devil tricked him, and he was judged harshly. But God looked on man and took pity on him and was born on earth to save him from sin. He became a man to free us from our prison and was born—do not fail to believe it—of a virgin, Saint Mary. He was betrayed by his disciple in exchange for money, and then he was hung on the cross, where he willingly suffered death for our salvation.

  “Our nature was ennobled when he took our form. We should be grateful to our Father who became our Brother. He promises us an everlasting glory, which we should remember and contemplate in our hearts when we come to God. I worship and believe in him, I serve him, and I am baptized in his name. I know no other god besides the Lord of righteousness and justice, and at Judgment Day he will render to each the reward he has earned. Whoever dwells with him will be richly rewarded. Father, consider whether you might attain this reward. Leave your belief, for it is despised on high, before our Lord. Believe in the Savior, for he made every creature. If your thoughts were clean and pure, you could attain heavenly glory.

  “Father, your gods are powerless. They do not know good or evil, and they have no strength. Look at them. Do you not see that there is no value in them except in their adornment? And if they have no knowledge, what are they worth to me? If they cannot hear me, what do I gain if I pray to them for forgiveness? They are worthless gods since they have no knowledge or power. They are the devil’s creations, and no one should believe in any god who is not Jesus Christ. The holy hermit taught me this, and I learned it well. I believe in God and in his power, for he is a true God and a true Lord. No tongue can speak the strength of his divinity. He became human for our sake and came down into this lost world to free us from peril.

  “Father, I feel great sorrow because you do not believe in the Creator. I have often prayed that he would take pity on you. I suffer for you because I know that you will be shamed if you do not wish to love God. I see that obedience has no place in your heart—you are hard set against conversion, and God will not accept such stubbornness. You resist the good faith and make yourself into a murderer, for you kill yourself with your sins. Your body enjoys its pleasures, but your soul is in danger as long as you refuse to believe. You do not believe in God who created you.

  “King, you do not know what will happen to you, and your lack of belief will earn you the harsh pains of hell. I have sworn my allegiance to God, and I do not fear irons or nails, for imprisonment would free me, and the tortures of martyrdom would earn me a royal crown. It used to be true that I was your son, but the natural law that made me your carnal son has been superseded by spiritual laws. The Holy Spirit will not descend to a man of bad faith who does not love God and his law. Now hear me, I tell you the truth. I have left you because you have separated yourself from me. You yourself split us apart. Do you know how? Because you remain in foolish devotion to your gods while I follow the good faith. You separate yourself from God, the all-powerful Lord. You owe your rank to him, but you turn it to shame and destruction instead of thanking him for it. Father, you have gone to war against yourself—you are your own enemy. King, become a king and a friend, a friend of God, who is King of your soul! God is courtly in all things and will be pleased to help you rule this kingdom. Then I will be your son twice over. But if you do not believe, you will no longer be a father because you will lose your son.”

  You need not ask how the king responded. He was furious and spoke angrily to his son. “What have I done wrong? What have I ever denied you? No father ever did as much for his son as I have done for you. And the only result is that I suffer greater misery. Good son, the astronomers prophesied well when they said that no good would come to me from you, and they were right to predict that you would destroy me and my kingdom. Never did any father love a son as much as I loved you, but now love must turn to hatred, for you are proud and presumptuous and accuse me of many wrongs. I tell you truly that I will hate you more than anything in the world, for your belief confounds me.

  “I ask you, without anger, to take mercy on me because I am your father. And if you will not, then you betray me. Good son, think carefully about what you should do. You are my son. I am your father. Consider what that means. I seek no other joy but that you leave the error of your belief.”

  Josaphat said, “Father, you admonish me in vain. If I did your will, I would suffer harsh consequences that you do not understand because you refuse to believe. You suffer because of my well-being. I am the servant of the Lord who created me. This is not wrong—it is right. You were my father, but truly, by God, how can I belong to a father who does not belong
to God? I have gained true understanding, and you are not my father—my father has become my enemy. I have lost my father! And yet, no, I have a Father who is a more exalted king and emperor than you are, for this Father is Lord over all the world because he created it. This Father formed you, Father. But you have betrayed him.

  “Father, why do you hate the Father who made you my father? He wasted his effort when he made you so handsome and noble, a rich ruler with power over a great land. You offer him hatred and strife in return! It is wrong to go to war against him when he suffered death for you. You offer him hatred because you hate him. Father and not Father, you do not know what his war and hatred are, for your war is the renunciation of the joy of paradise, and your hatred is the refusal to believe. He will take cruel vengeance on you. Do not torment me further, for it would be foolish to try to make me think that I should seek some other kind of happiness. Do not try to make me abandon God’s commandments, for no reasonable man should serve any other god.

  “Father, for God’s sake, beware of this world that flees so quickly. Whoever gives his heart over to it offers his love foolishly and destroys himself. See how the flowers perish—at the beginning of the summer they are born and come out of the earth. The flowers are beautiful then, but they soon fade and disappear. So too with the pleasures of the world and all its creatures. For a short time they are beautiful, but they last only a brief moment. Father, for God and for his mother, let us now become son and father. First become the son of God, and then you will be my rightful father, and I will be your son and companion when I see that you believe in the Creator. Dear friend, how painful it is that we are separated from each other because you will not believe in the One who created us both! We are separated because you refuse reason. We cannot be companions because you are foolish and set yourself against me, against right, and against faith. Father, you will repent in the end, when you see God’s vengeance (this will be at Judgment Day). Then you will remember the sweet days of pleasure and the many privileges you enjoyed in this world, but they will be worth nothing to you then. It is true—it will happen! You will be judged harshly, and repentance will come too late, for in hell there is no comfort. You make such great preparations only to put yourself in great danger of being lost! Father, your lack of judgment makes you your own murderer.

  “Do not lament for me, for I am on the right path. I lament for you because you stray from it. Your own heart is against you. You think it is loyal, but it has betrayed you. Your guest has treated you badly—your guest is your foolish heart. You have hosted him and he has betrayed you. Saint Paul says in his letter that a man’s fickle heart puts his body and soul in peril.1 Do not be afraid because of your sins—you can reconcile yourself with God if you ask for forgiveness. He died for all sinners, and, Father, you would be wrong not to pray to God for forgiveness since he suffered death for you. Father, you believe that you have gods, but they have no power, they know neither good nor evil, and belief in them will bring you nothing.”

  The king despaired. He thought his son’s disdain for his beliefs and his gods was a poor return for all he had given him. He would willingly have cursed him for it, if nature had allowed it, but he could not curse his own son. Nonetheless, he spoke harshly to Josaphat. “Son, I am sorry that you were born, since you cause me such pain. You have invented very foolish ideas. You stubbornly set yourself against your gods and your father, and you refuse my instruction and my love. I want you to understand that if you will not follow my commands, you will be put to torture, for you speak too foolishly. You are not my son or my friend. You have become my enemy, and I will treat you as one. You act against nature and ignore her laws. I am your father, and yet you do me such wrong! By all the gods, you act so strangely toward me that I could easily believe someone had used a trick to substitute you for my true son. It brings me great sorrow to see you.” King Avenir could bear to stay no longer.

  The angry king left his son, and Josaphat knelt in prayer to ask God for forgiveness and for the strength and intelligence not to disobey him. “God, Lord and Father, help me, for I worship you and pray to you. Consider me with mercy and forgive my sins. All my hope, strength, and power are in you. Good Lord, have mercy on me. I am your servant, you are my salvation, and I put myself entirely in your care.”

  King Avenir calls for a public disputation

  While the king’s son prayed, his father sought some trick or plan he could use to change Josaphat’s mind. He sent for Aracin and asked him how he could draw his son away from his belief and his love for God. Aracin came to him in friendship and counseled him: “He is sensitive and harsh words offend him. You should coax him with soft words for he cannot bear anger. Speak sweetly to him and you will bring him back to your love—otherwise you will accomplish nothing.”

  The king took Aracin’s advice and went to talk to his son again. He kissed and embraced him and drew him close. “Beloved son,” he said, “I felt great anger and pain when I saw that you were lost to me through your belief. Dear son, leave your foolishness and come sacrifice to the gods. Listen to reason and do not argue with me, for I am your aged father. You should be a king! You should rule my lands for me and end my wars, but instead, sweet son, you abandon me. You give me more pain than the entire rest of the world, and it hurts me that you resist me and will not do anything for me. Son, what I ask will bring you honor. Submit to me here and show respect to me, for you owe me your obedience. You should try to make me happy rather than angering me.

  “Dear son, do you not know that I have heard many Christians speak about their lives? But I saw little good in their foolish belief: it was nothing but a lie. I have known some wise and learned men in my time. If they had thought this faith was a good religion, they would not have remained with our own. Son, I think you are mistaken when you anger the gods who raised you up so high that all Indians and Persians recognize you as their lord. You have made your father into a sorrowful man, for it makes me sad to see you deceived by a bad religion. Listen to my advice and follow it as you should. Good son, come back to me. Accept my counsel and I will give you great honors.”

  The young man was wise and brave, and he saw that this was not good advice. He knew in his heart that his soul would be in danger if he obeyed his father. He responded sensibly to the king: “All that I should do, I would willingly do if I could. If I had a good father who believed in God and worshipped and served him, and devoted all his thoughts to him, then I would be eager to do his will and follow all his commandments. But, Father, your actions and your refusal to believe prevent me from obeying you, for I must not damn my soul just to do your will. And if your demands were reasonable, then I would be wrong not to grant them with my whole heart. Good father, if I did not love you, I would be disloyal. But we are separated because you would imperil my soul and set me against God and his law by asking me to do your will. I must not obey you, and it is not wise to ask me to do so. Father, I have never had such happiness as I have found as the servant of our Lord. It is right that I turn away from my family if you forbid me to serve he who is Lord over us all.

  “Father, I do not care about your empire. If I wore a crown, I would soon lose it. My reign would be short and my crown ill gained. The gods worshipped in your court are deaf and mute, and there is no power in them. Your belief in them is wrong, and you are wrong to blame me for the good belief I have found. This world will not endure. You know that we all die—think about what will happen to you after your death! Father, all our ancestors are dead, but they will be raised up when they hear the holy angels’ horn on Judgment Day. What will happen to you at that hour? Do not believe that your gods will help you then. You will be condemned to dwell forever in pain, without relief or succor. Good people will go to enjoy the happiness they deserve, but you will take another path, and the way you have chosen will cause your soul to be lost. If you delay too long, you will be too late. Father, for God’s sake, make haste! You wait too long to go to God. I will n
ot leave his light because of your orders or entreaties, or because of anything you say. This is what our Lord demands of me.”

  The king was sad and angry because he saw that his son’s resolve would be hard to weaken. He tried many approaches, but could not find a way to bring his son back to his faith. Neither prayers nor promises could change Josaphat’s mind. Then the king remembered the disputation Aracin had proposed. “Son,” he said, “you have reasoned with me about your belief. But let it be debated before the people so they can judge by reason and right which belief is better, mine or your master’s. I have captured this Barlaam who taught you the misguided belief that causes me such pain. I have him in my prison. He will be brought to my palace and heard by all my people. I will send for the Christians who abandoned my country so they too will come. I will offer them safe passage and receive them with honor. I will also send for the grammarians, the rhetoricians, and all my astronomers. Then you will hear their disputation. If your man speaks reason and shows me true faith, I will believe in your God. But if my clerics show that the Christians are wrong, then I want you to agree to come back to our faith and leave the false belief that brings you such dishonor.”

  The wise young man was not deceived. By divine commandment, he agreed. “I will do as you wish,” he said. “May God give us victory and help us by his mercy. I give myself to him and trust in him.”

  King Avenir’s summons went out through the country. He called for both the wise and the foolish in his letters, epistles, and messages. He invited Christians, Chaldeans, and Indians. He assured the Christians safe passage, promising not to cause them harm. The king summoned many people, and a vast multitude came. Never had there been such an assembly in his country, but the story tells us that the only Christians present were Josaphat and Barachie, a wise and respected man.1 Only these two took the side of our Lord to defend him (Nachor was not a believer; he was a false Barlaam). The other Christians stayed in the wilderness hermitage. They did not dare to come argue the points of their religion, because they feared the king. They knew that a man who will not listen to reason will try to dominate reasonable men when he sees he cannot prove his belief to them.