ZOROASTRIANISM; THE ANCIENT RELIGION OF

PERSIA.

OF Zoroaster, the founder of the religion of the Pârsîs (or people of Pârs, that is, ancient Persia,) we have no trustworthy.account. There are many Greek, Roman and Persian legends of the miracles which he worked and of the temptations which he overcame, but they throw little or no light upon his true history.

He was probably born in Bactria, and his name implies that he became one of the priests who attended upon the sacred fire. We are sure that he lived more than three thousand years ago, because his religion was founded before the conquest of Bactria by the Assyrians, which took place about twelve hundred years before Christ. It has been argued, chiefly from the strong likeness between Jewish and Persian legends, that he was a neighbour

of Abraham, but of this the proof is far too slender.

He was a man of mighty mind; one not content to worship powers that ruled the darkness and the light, but that seemed to have no sway over the heaving sea of human passion and sorrow. To him was given the message of One Who was Lord of all, and Who was not to Zoroaster a being like unto man. He was Ahura, Spiritual Mighty-One;' Mazda, Creator of All.' Ahura-Mazda (afterwards corrupted into Ormuzd) is thus spoken of in the Zend-Avesta, an account of the contents of which book is given in Note H.

'Blessed is he, blessed are all men to whom the living wise God of his own command should grant those two everlasting powers (immortality and purity). I believe thee, O God, to be the best thing of all, the source of light for the world. Everyone shall choose thee as the source of light, thee, thee, holiest Mazdâ!

'I ask thee, tell me it right, thou living God! Who was from the beginning the Father of the pure world? Who has made a path for the sun and for the stars? Who (but thou) makes the moon to increase and to decrease? This I wish to know, except what I already know.

'Who holds the earth and the skies above it? Who made the waters and the trees of the field? Who is in the winds and storms that they so quickly run? Who is the Creator of

the good-minded beings, thou Wise? Who has made the kindly light and the darkness, the kindly sleep, and the awaking!

'Who has made the mornings, the noons and the nights, they who remind the wise of his duty?'

In a later part of the Zend-Avesta, Zoroaster asked Ormuzd what was the most powerful spell to guard against evil. He was answered by the Supreme Spirit that to utter the twenty different names of Ahura-Mazdâ protects best from evil, and thereupon Zoroaster asks what these are. He is told that the first is, 'I am;' the sixth, 'I am wisdom,' and so on until the twentieth, which is 'I am who I am, Mazdao.' Highest of all, AhuraMazdâ, was said to have below him angels who did his bidding, Immortal Holy Ones,' whose names seem to be echoes of the Vedic gods, and by whose aid good deeds are wrought, and gifts bestowed upon men.

I should say that the feeling between those who clung to the older faith and the followers of Zoroaster grew so bitter that the gods of the Vedic hymns became demons in the Zend-Avesta. that book Indra is an evil being; in the Vedic belief Ahura is a demon. The Devas of the

In

Veda are the Daevas or evil spirits of the ZendAvesta, and the converts to the new religion had to declare that they ceased to worship the Devas. It is well nigh certain that Zoroaster believed in one God, and explained the mystery of evil as the work of demons ruled by an archfiend 'AngraMainyus,' the 'Sinful-minded,' afterwards known as Ahriman.

In the course of time, as men saw that the powers of good and evil seemed equal, neither being able to conquer, Ahriman was held to be as supreme over evil as Ormuzd was over good. The Supreme mind that had fashioned all was forgotten, and the universe was regarded as a battle-field whereon these two waged unceasing war, not as between Indra and Vritra, for a herd of heavenly cows, but for dominion over all things, Ahriman having, like Ormuzd, ranks of angels who served him.

The thought of evil around him and within him caused Zoroaster to feel heavy at heart, but it did not make him fold his hands in despair. In the Gâthâs or oldest part of the Zend-Avesta, which contains the leading doctrines of Zoroaster, he asks Ormuzd for truth and guidance and desires to

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know what he shall do. He is told to be pure in thought, word and deed; to be temperate, chaste and truthful; to offer prayer to Ormuzd and the powers that fight with him; to destroy all hurtful things (the ancient Persians looked upon ants, snakes and all vermin, as agents of the evil powers); and to do all that will increase the well-being of mankind. Men were not to cringe before the powers of darkness as slaves crouch before a tyrant, they were to meet them upstanding, and confound them by unending opposition and the power of a holy life.

To such high thoughts, to be sweetened and kept in vigour by pure deeds, did this noble man give utterance, and we may believe that much of truth underlies the sketch which the good Baron Bunsen has drawn of the assembling together of the people at the command of Zoroaster that they might choose between the nature-gods of their fathers and the Lord whom he would have them

serve.

Bunsen pictures the assembly as gathered on 'one of the holy hills dedicated to the worship of fire in the neighbourhood of the primeval city of