Vi. cap. 2.)
Dominie Valentyn, not being well read in the Golden Legend, remarks on the
subject of Buddha: "There be some who hold this Budhum for a fugitive
Syrian Jew, or for an Israelite, others who hold him for a Disciple of the
Apostle Thomas; but how in that case he could have been born 622 years
before Christ I leave them to explain. Diego de Couto stands by the belief
that he was certainly Joshua, which is still more absurd!" (V. deel, p.
374.)
[Since the days of Couto, who considered the Buddhist legend but an
imitation of the Christian legend, the identity of the stories was
recognised (as mentioned supra) by M. Edouard Laboulaye, in the Journal
des Debats of the 26th of July, 1859. About the same time, Professor F.
Liebrecht of Liege, in Ebert's Jahrbuch fuer Romanische und Englische
Literatur, II. p. 314 seqq., comparing the Book of Barlaam and Joasaph
with the work of Barthelemy St. Hilaire on Buddha, arrived at the same
conclusion.
In 1880, Professor T.W. Rhys Davids has devoted some pages (xxxvi.-xli.)
in his Buddhist Birth Stories; or, Jataka Tales, to The Barlaam and
Josaphat Literature, and we note from them that: "Pope Sixtus the Fifth
(1585-1590) authorised a particular Martyrologium, drawn up by Cardinal
Baronius, to be used throughout the Western Church.". In that work are
included not only the saints first canonised at Rome, but all those who,
having been already canonised elsewhere, were then acknowledged by the
Pope and the College of Rites to be saints of the Catholic Church of
Christ.
