may ascertain whether any given tenet is found in the most ancient monuments, or in what particular book it first makes its appearance, and thus determine approximately whether it is a part of original Zoroastrianism or a later addition. This itself will often be of value; and with respect to the more important doctrines, we shall endeavor, in the course of our inquiry, to distinguish the original from the secondary growth. At the same time it is to be remembered that even this cannot always be done with certainty; for, to say nothing of the great obscurity of the more ancient monuments, a doctrine may have been long received before it was recorded in any book that we now possess. Nevertheless we shall find that the system was much simpler, and we might say grander, in its earlier stages, than in its later developments. In the Gâthâs, only the leading features are marked out with a bold hand; nearly all the filling up and details are found only in the later books. Every generation appears to have added until human life was burdened with ceremonial observances, for all of which the presence of a Magus was indispensable; and the Magian heaven, like a corrupt court, became overcrowded with sinecure officials, who professed to take that providential care of the universe which Ormazd had originally condescended to do himself. This tendency was a natural result of the establishment of the great Persian empire, and the consequent expansion and corruption of the Persian court. For the same was true with them as with other peoples, that the things on the earth were the patterns of things in the heavens. When Abraham sat, like an Arab Sheikh, in the door of his tent, Jehovah came along on foot, as an ordinary traveller of respectability, with only two attendants, sat under the tree, ate, drank, rested, and affably conversed; but Isaiah, prophesying in the midst of old and opulent monarchies, "saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." So the Persian court and the Persian heaven were mutually reflections of each other. The monarch was the principal representative of Ormazd on earth, and the seven great princes of the empire corresponded to the seven Amshaspands. The people were the Mazdayasnas, the people of Ormazd; and as the heavenly host were largely occupied in combatting the powers of darkness, the

1 Esher 1-14.

same great duty devolves on the adherents of the true faith. Ahriman, whose demon hosts have their haunts in the unsubdued North, had a representative on earth-Afrasiab, the mythic Turanian king, whose wild hordes of Scythian horsemen were to the more cultivated Persian the fittest emblems of the infernal legions.

In sketching the creed of the Mazayasnas, it would be easy, by selecting the best parts, to present a system of unsurpassed grandeur, or, by drawing only the opposite features, to give a picture of puerile absurdities; but it is our more difficult task, by a judicious choice of materials, to give a just idea of the way in which the sublime and the rediculous, the lofty and the childish, are so naturally and humanly blended together. We shall find but little to shock our sense of right, but a good deal that jars with our ideas of propriety. There are no atrocities of creed, and no immoralities of ritual. The most objectionable parts are puerile

rather than barbarous.

Zervana-akarana. This is the name of what is sometimes represented as the Supreme God of the Magian religion. The name signifies Time without bounds, and is therefore nearly equivalent to the Greek Chronos. It occurs but rarely in the Avesta, and never in the oldest part-the Gâthâs. It recurs three times in the 19th Fargard of the Vendidad, but once as a mere repetition, and in neither case in such a way as necessarily to imply a personal being. This deity, if such it may be called, plays a very unimportant part in the Zend religion. In liturgies which name all conceivable objects of reverence, he is passed in silence. There are no hymns or prayers for his worship, and no observances in his honor. He was unknown, too, to the earlier Greek writers, and is entirely ignored by the modern Parsees.3 He is almost without character or attributes a mere metaphysical conception- a god whose temple was the chamber of the theosophic recluse, and not the places of popular worship. The later books, as the Boundehesh, the Minokhired, and the Ulema-i-Islam, represent him as the original first cause, himself without a beginning, the immediate creator of both the good and the evil principle, and through

2 Heeren's Researches, 1-379. Vendidad, xix.-1.

3 The Parsees, page 250, and note to Anquetil's translation of the Patet of Aderbat Mahresfand.

them indirectly of all things. He is then the spectator and ultimate arbiter of the world-long conflict between good and evil. He is thus the originator and final disposer of the Universe a Destiny above the gods, or perhaps still more correctly that Time which "at last makes all things even."

The doctrine of Zervana is intimately connected with those of Astrology and astral influences, both of which are foreign to primitive Zoroastrianism. It is now sufficiently ascertained that they are Semitish elements borrowed from the Assyrians and Babylonians. Zervana-akarana is the same with the Bel-Merodach or Jupiter Belus of the latter people, the Belithan of the Phoenicians — i. e., Bel ethan — Bel the Ancient-the god of fate, of judgment, and of gates, in which seats of judgment were anciently placed. It appears from a fragment of Berosus, given by Ritter, that Zerovanus was a character well known to the early Babylonian mythology, and identical with Jupiter; and Col. Rawlinson has found among the Chaldaean inscriptions the name Zur-banu as that of Bel-Merodach. It is a part of the same circle of thought that the twelve signs of the zodiac, whose influence is benificent, and the five planets, whose effect is malign, together with the principal fixed stars, exercise an important control over the works of Nature and the affairs of men, and in the later Parsism usurp the places and duties which had originally belonged to the seven Amshaspands.*

Ormazd and Ahriman. The religion of Zoroaster evidently had its beginning in an attempt to solve the great enigma of the origin of evil. The ancient thinker, looking around him, and meditating much, questioned with himself: "What is the cause of all the crime and suffering I am called to witness? Who created the devouring tooth of beast and serpent, the winter's blast, and the fiery breath of the desert? Whence come sickness and pain, wars and strife among men, the vice of lying, the fertile root of all vices? Surely these do not come from the same source as the joyous spring-time and the plenteous harvest. Clearly, the same fountain cannot send forth both sweet water and bitter.' A God of goodness who had sufficient power and

4 Rawlinson's Herodotus, 1-511. Spiegel's Avesta, 1-271, II.-217. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, v. Kleuker's Anhang zum Zend-avesta, 1-2-282.

5

intelligence to create, would assuredly make all things good; and yet all things are not good." Hence naturally arose the idea of opposite divinities, good and evil, just as some have fancied that there were sidereal bodies that shed down darkness in the night. The idea of evil spirits, or genii, probably had many origins. It is found among the early Hindoos; the Egyptian Typhon was a bad god; so was the Scandinavian Loke; and the Azazel of the Hebrews and Arabians was a demon. But the Zoroastrians carried out the idea more thoroughly than any other people, and made it the most complete we do not say to us satisfactorysolution of the problem ever offered, and the central doctrine of their faith. The elemental gods of the Veda were rejected, with few exceptions; and thus a sweeping religious reform instituted. One, the god of light-for the Veda has such a god-was retained as the tutelary deity of the northern branch of the Arians, and became for them what Jehovah was to the Hebrews. There is reason to believe that it was this religious schism which caused the separation of the Arians of Iran from the Brahmanic Airyas of India; and there are still discoverable very distinct traces of the sectarian bitterness engendered by the Zoroastrian reform.8 The reformers rejected from the attributes of their deity everything that was of the earth, earthy, exalted him to a purely spiritual being, and embodied their conceptions in hymns and poems, such as the Gâthâs of the Yasna. As Zarathustra is there spoken of as the great prophet of the renovated faith, it is but reasonable to suppose that he was its chief expounder, unless we conclude, with Haug, that the appellation is not the name of an individual, but a title, equivalent to that of prophet, vates, or bard.9

These men called their god AHURA, the Living, and MAZDAO, or MAZDA, Giver of wisdom. The two appellations were employed interchangeably; and when, as was frequently the case, both words were used, either was placed first, as chance or taste might dictate. By the time the Vendidad was composed, the two words had completely coalesced, and become AHURAMAZDA, the distinctive name

5 Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, ix.-686. 6 Gesenius Hebrew Lexicon and Calmet's Dictionary sub voce Azazel.

7 Zeitschrift D. M G., iv.-686. 8Ibid. 9 Ibid.

of the Deity. In the inscriptions it is shortened into Auramazda, from which we make in English Ormazd, not Ormuzd as was formerly done.

Successive generations labored to invest this being with all possible perfections; and his character has been drawn in the most engaging colors, equally and widely remote from the weakness and moral laxity of the Greek Zeus and the vindictive and irritable temper of the Hebrew Jehovah. In the old hymns of the Yasna he is the most holy spirit, the true, the creator, the omniscient whom none can deceive, the almighty, under whose control is the whole world. He commandeth the storm, and made the paths for the sun, moon and stars. He created the frost and the heat, the morning, the mid-day, and the night. The earth is called his daughter, because he prepared, furnished, and adorned it for the abode of man. He gave being to the water and the trees, and all living that pertain to the good creation. He giveth not only earthly power and health, but also immortality. He doth what is right, and knoweth alike what is revealed and what is hidden; and out of the fulness of his own spirit he is instructor and director. To his all-seeing eye every sin is open, even to the slightest misdoing. He giveth to every one according to his works; yet is he very gracious, and all creatures that were, and are, and are to be, enjoy of his goodness. Although he bestows his chief favors upon the pure, his servants, yet even the wicked live upon his bounty.10

To a character so exalted, later teachers could of course add but little; yet we might fill pages with quotations of a similar kind from the Yasna, the Vendidad, and the Yeshts. Nor can we recall a single instance of an immorality, or an obvious impropriety attributed to this god of light. If he has a failing, it lies in a disposition rather too easy and indulgent, considering the malignant activity of his opponents; hence he is called the most long-suffering of all beings.11 He is said to be eternal in duration.12 To say that there are more gods than one is a crime.13 This deity is said to manifest himself by the attributes of goodness, power, and foreknowledge; and, what is most consoling for frail and sinful man, it is added that he delighteth to forgive.14 And finally 10 Zeitschrift, D. M. G., iv.-686. 11

12 Neaesh of Mithra. 13 Patet of Aderbat Mahresfand. 14 Afrin of Rapitan.