Early Christian Interactions with Indian Religions

Photo by Lahiru Supunchandra from Unsplash

Early Christian interaction with Eastern religious traditions, including Buddhism and Brahmanism, is a fascinating topic that illustrates the diverse religious landscape of the ancient world. While the historical evidence of direct encounters between early Christians and adherents of these Eastern traditions is sparse, there are a few intriguing references in the writings of early Christian theologians to such interactions.

We have to remember that the East/West divide was not an iron curtain, more like a porous fabric that allowed fluid ideas to seep in both directions. Some Greek philosophers like Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of the soul, i.e., reincarnation, and one has to wonder if it was due to Eastern influences. In the aftermath of Alexander’s conquest of northwestern India, there was a Greco-Indian kingdom that included at least one Greek Buddhist king in Menander I (see this video). Soon after, Ashoka the Mauryan emperor of India sponsored Buddhist missionary endeavors into Greek Seleucia, China, Central Asia, and Sri Lanka in the third century BC. Also, an Indian delegation apparently arrived in Rome from King Pandion/Porus ca. 13 BC.

By the late second and third centuries, Christians would be well acquainted with Brahmanism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Manicheanism.

Clement of Alexandria, a prominent Christian theologian in the late 2nd century, was intrigued by the similarities and differences between these Eastern traditions, Greek philosophy, and Christianity. He wrote about Buddhists: “Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts of Boutta [Buddha], whom they honour as a god on account of his extraordinary sanctity.” (Strom. 1.14).

Hippolytus, another early Christian writer from the 2nd/3rd century, also made references to Indian philosophical ideas in Refutation of All Heresies (21). Hippolytus wrote, “There is . . . among the Indians a heresy of those who philosophize among the Brahmins, who live a self-sufficient life, abstaining from (eating) living creatures and all cooked food … They say that God is light, not like the light one sees, nor like the sun nor fire, but to them God is discourse, not that which finds expression in articulate sounds, but that of knowledge through which the secret mysteries of nature are perceived by the wise.” For Hippolytus, these eastern religions were merely extensions of idolatry and ignorance.

Cyril of Jerusalem attempted to connect Gnosticism with Manicheanism. In his genealogy of heresy, a certain Scythianus went to India ca. 50 AD and returned with the idea of “two-powers in heaven.” Scythianus transmitted his teachings to a disciple named Terebinthus, who declared himself to be the "Buddha.” Terebinthus, after being rejected in Judaea, journeyed to Babylon where he passed on his teachings to the prophet Mani, leading to the creation of Manichaeism (Cyril, Cat. Lect. 6).

While the historical record of early Christian interaction with Buddhism and Brahmanism is limited, the glimpses we have through the writings of figures like Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, and Cyril of Jerusalem offer valuable insights into the intellectual curiosity and religious diversity of the ancient world. Romans, Greeks, and Christians were normally suspicious of foreign superstitions even as they appropriated some of their ideas and riffed off them at times.