Section 7 (Page v)
MESOPOTAMIA.
MOAB.
CHALDifiA.
V wholly overwhelmed the earlier and purer faith of the Early , Forms of East ; and, so far as Mesopotamia was concerned, the knowBelief. ledge of One God, the Creator and Governor of the Deut. xxm. *. world, was not yet extinct upon the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Balaam enounced the true traditions that he had received, the •yvwais that constituted him prophet, Numb. xxiv.
16 ; xxii.
IB ; and taught the unity of the Deity, his faithfulness power Mic'v'V*' and goodness ; also that justice mercy and humility are the reasonable sacrifice that God requires of his creatures.
Again, descending lower in the Sacred History, those families of Moab, of whom Ruth the ancestress of the Saviour was born, can scarcely have been wholly lost in
the darkness of idolatry.
Some knowledge at least of the Great and Good God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, must have subsisted amongst them ; the traditional light of early ages still radiated around; and the daughter of Moab spoke from her own religious sense, no less than from affection for her Jewish mother-in-law, when she declared to Naomi, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from »uth i. w, following after thee : for whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thou hdgest,I will lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God : where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried : the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
These three instances of an almost synchronous knowledge of God, in such dis tinct tribes of the Aramaic stock, shew that the light of religion may have pervaded the whole of the descendants of Shem far more generally than we usually imagine.
With regard to other families of the same stock, Aristotle declared that Chaldsea had a philosophic faith, cr. Diod. sc. ii. when as yet Egypt had none; therefore, long before the DUaL age of* Moses, who was learned, eiratSevOri, in all the wisActs vw.s2. dom of the Egyptians.
This brings us back towards the time when Abraham emigrated from the banks of the Euphrates.
The Magian priests, indeed, when Babylon
CHALDiEA.
Early was taken by Alexander, affected to produce tiles inscribed FB™ef°f with astronomical observations, that reached back over cic.deDiv.i. 470,000 years, and this claim, when reduced to its proper sSpLap' dimensions, would still leave them at the head of human Pliny. H. N. rwfti. civilisation. Diodorus Siculus, no doubt, assigns a priority of minicai political and philosophical existence to Egypt, and says that ie5.un!r'
Babylon was colonised from the banks of the Nile ; but, inp. £4A.
See wuudjoo'i dependently of ethnological considerations, his authority is inferior to that of Aristotle.
The geographical position also of the Chaldaeans favours the notion, that they would seeGrou, n. be among the first to emerge from the infant simplicity m. 358, 400. Qf £jje eariier families of our race.
They were the very
centre of the commerce of the old world, dispensing on the one hand the merchandise of Persia and India to their more western neighbours, and on the other, receiving and transmitting back the rich produce of Arabia, Egypt, and of the more southern countries, Nubia, and ^Ethiopia, and Abyssinia.
The restless energy also that made them the great military power of the day, would lead the sage on to intellectual conquest, and to accept from the nations with which his countrymen were thrown in contact, that which commended itself in each to his reason.
It was by their agency that countries west of the Indus received the first general notions of arithmetical, geometrical, and as tronomical science.
It is the rational belief, however, rather than the philosophic attainment of Chaldaja, with which we have to do; and, so far as we can judge, it was no unknown light that broke in upon the mind of Nebu chadnezzar when he confessed his belief in the power and Dan. Hi. 28. wisdom of the God of the Hebrews, though still tinged it. a greatly with a polytheism, that he renounced on his reml ^ storation to reason.
Darius the Mede made a "similar Diod.sic. confession, but he had studied in Egypt.
From this period the religious faith of Chaldaea may 'v\ have been purified to some extent, through contact with
CHALD-aSA.
the captives of Israel.
The songs of Zion sung by the Early waters of Babylon with mourning hearts, awakened kinR.Tiof° dred thoughts in a sister race.
The oracles of life could ' hardly have been explained in the vernacular language of Babylon, without becoming known to thousands along the whole course of the Euphrates.
So, again, portions of Chaldaic lore contained in the Talmud and the Cabbala, shew that the sources of those traditions, superstitious and puerile as they may appear as compared with the Word of Life, were not wholly idolatrous.
The two systems were to some extent amalgamated; the Jewish 1theology borrowed from the Chaldee 1theosophy and became Cabbalistic, while
the Chaldee sages obtained from the law and the prophets higher notions of the Supreme Being. Hence the daughter of Zion was scarcely distinguished by careless observers from the daughter of Babylon; the two were treated as of *j p»rone faith; so the oracular verses assert, MoDi'oi XaA^aTot ao(pltii> \d^ov $5* dp'
'Eftpcitot, 2A vToyevrjTov avaKTa aefta<£6/mevoi Qeov dyvws.
Even the well informed ascribed a common origin to the mot. l.
Jews and to the Magi. I rom the period of this close con tact with a race of purer faith, in the captivity, the belief and sacred philosophy of ChaldaGa, though mixed up with astrology, became fixed ; and Diodorus Sieulus testifies to Lib. h. so. the steadiness wherewith its sages adhered to the intellec tual system received from their fathers, while the schools of Greece were drifting from one novel phase to another.
The reader will observe, however, that the Chaldee ante h. or III. 386and sages of primitive times are not to be confounded with a90nott!the XaXSaloi, of whom Hippolytus speaks among other precursors of Gnosticism.
The term, as used by the 1 The convenient term t/ieosophy, as m, —-, _ a.
\ A
, contrasted with theology, implies theisti- , , , .
, , ., Was the reading avratuva dvaKral since cal teaching, irrespective of truth ; while the latter term involves the idea M^-M in EPHB.
STB. is the equivaof absolute, subjective truth. lent of aiwr.
Horn, in B<er.
52.
s airroyirtrrov is rendered in Euseb.
Syriacc.
TERSIA.
Early venerable Bishop of Portus, means simply an astrologer, Belief, one who was generally an adept also in magical delusions, the Chaldaeans of Cicero and Juvenal, [SlaZ. vi. 552] :
Chaldceis sed major erit fiducia: quicquid Dixerit astrologus, credent a fonte relatum
Ammonis; quoniam Delphis oracula cessavit, Et genus humanum damnat caligo futuri.
NoctdAtt.
Aulus Gellius identifies the term with Mathematicus, I. 9. while Hesychius, speaking of them with greater respect than they deserved, defines the XaXSaioi as, yevos fxdywv pirn, iravra ywoxTKovToov.
The Peratse or Gnostic fatalists Hi^>. reffap" originated from these Chaldaeans, and with the name pre-
ph"He<>4L tended to have derived their doctrines also from the p. 294,a 3. highest antiquity.
Of the early Persian theosophy we have as little cer tain knowledge as of the Chaldsean; but we now find ourselves within range of regular history.
At the close of isai.xiiv.sa the Jewish captivity, Cyrus the Persian, the Lord's
Shep herd, makes a clear profession of faith in one Supreme Ezra 1.2, 3.
God, in his edict for rebuilding the Temple; and it was in a similar spirit that, before he engaged the forces of Croesus, he invoked, not the gods as a body, but 1One AllXen^Cvrop. powerful Deity, tyofxeQd <rot, ai Zed neyivre.
He had pro fited possibly by collision with men of a purer worship, and eliminated from his belief in the Deity many elements that were inconsistent with right reason.
So again his lan guage respecting the 2soul's immortality, half believing half doubting, argues indeed no very accurate conception of things eternal, but, such as it is, expressed in a manner it is that shews a fixed belief in the existence of Divine bene volence as a principle of unity.
Thus his hope for the is rm. vuTx?! future, fxtjSev uv en kcikov iradelv, fx^re rju fierd tou Oelou It was in harmony with this that The resurrection
* is clearly proin sacrificing the Magi invoked riv 6c6v. mised in the Zend Avata, and in its Her. i.
131, still Jupiter was Ormuzd. most ancient portion.
Vendid.
S. heIamdl. Myit. j£g. Tin, 2. tchne und Vispercd.
67 Ma.
PERSIA. ix yevw/xai, fx-^re txr^ev en <p.
Even if /xerd twv Qewv had Early been the words used, it would have been by no means Belief, certain that the term was intended to convey a polytheistic notion. If the Hebrew plural term be inexplicable, are we bound to affirm that the term Qeol must of necessity involve the notion of a plurality in the Divine Substance?
Plato scarcely used the term as the poet or the mythologian; adeone me delirare censes, ut ista credam? might have been the language of Cicero, if asked whether his apos trophe to the Dii immortales included the entire conclave of the Olympian deities.
Again, the firm stand that the Persians made against
the idolatrous usages of the Greeks, is good proof that polytheism was never their creed.
The entire vault of heaven was to them as the Deity, tov kvkXov irdvra tov Herod. 1. 13.'. ovpavov Aid KaXeovres.
The Greeks, also as belonging to the same Arian stock, exhibit something of the same primitive Faith, and the Hesiodic Muses celebrate Earth • and Heaven as the source of all, Theog.
44, Qewv yevos aiSoiov irpwrov KXelovaiv doiSrj ^PX^> 0Vi TaTa Kal ovpavos evpus eriKTov. e'£ Eusebius says of the oldest form of religious belief, ovk ana Pr*p.Evang.
1. ix. 13.
Tis J71/ Qeoyovlas
(&ap[SapiKr}s tois TraXatTaToi?
( '
EXXtjvuctjs fj twv avQpwirwv Xoyos, 01/Se ^odvwv d^/v^wv iSpucris, ovv vvv r\ iroXv(pXvapia ti}s twv Qewv dppevwv Te koi QrjXeiwv KaTovoiiaala<s.
The ancient Greek symbolised with the Persians, who, as Herodotus records, dyaXpaTa Kal vtjovs Kal fiw/u.ou$ 1.
131. oi* ev vd/xw TTotevnevovi iSpveaQai, aXXd Kal Tolai Trotevai uwp'tqv eiri(f>epovai, cos /uev e/uol SoKeeiv, oti ouk dvOpwrrotpveai ''EXXijves eivai.
So again evdpnaav tovs Qeovs Kardirep o'i Diogenes Laertius, Tous $e dirocpalveaQai irepl re Prooem. ndyows .
. ova'ta% Qewv Kal yeveaews, oi)? Kal irvp eivai Kal yfjv Kal vSwp' twv %odvwv KaTayivwo~Keiv Kal ndXtcrTa twv Xeydvrwv appevas eivai Qeous Kal QrjXeias.
X PERSIA.
Early The ancient religion of Persia appears to have been FBeHef\>f more closely allied with the Pantheism of the Brahmin, than with the Polytheism of the Greek; and it was from this source possibly that Thales and his successors in the Ionic school of physical philosophy borrowed their first principles.
They believed that a Divine life existed in the elementary forms of matter.
So the Persian paid Dii i3i. vine honours to the primary a-roi^eia, as Herodotus says, Qvovai o« q\ltp T6 Kal oeXr/vri /tat yrj Kal irvpl Kal vSaTi Kal dvi/xoiat.
The natural creation, an object of deep and super stitious veneration in primitive times, may have given rise to idolatry when Hbrodotus wrote, but the proof is not
made out, that the Persians knew anything of the Zabian practices of the 'inferior Shemitic tribes, before their yoke was imposed upon those tribes.
As compared with the later religious belief of heathenism, the old Persian religion was venerable for its greater purity, though it was only a comparative purity.
Whatever degree of truth it retained was derived traditionally from the very cradle of the human race; it was no mere product of human intellect, as BeauHi«t.du sobre seems to have imagined, " Cette ancienne religion . . .
Manich.
'• de la maniere qu'on nous la decrit, est la plus pure que la raison humaine ait jamais imaginee"
But it was debased 1.1.13. at length by the reaction of Greek impurities as, Herodotos has candidly confessed.
The ancient Persian religion was modified in the reign Symbolik, ° i.679. cf Cyrus by Zoroaster, who 2restored and fixed old forms 1 So Herodotus, iri/ienaS^Kaat Si character of Zoroaster : Esprit sublime, Kal rjj Oiptwl-Q Svety, wapd re 'kaovplviv grand, dans les idies qu'il s'itoit formic* de la Diviniti, el des rapports qui unit- /laWn-ei Kal 'kpafilwv.
131. a S"il falloit prendrt parti, je croiroit sent tons les litres ; pur dans sa morale, plutit que Zoroastre ne Jit que reformer la religion dee Mages, qui avoit tU aXUet ne respirant d'abord que le bien de VhumaniU ; un z&c outri hti fait em ployer V imposture ; le saccis Vaveiigle; la faveur des princes et des peuples lui r4e, ou la purifier des fautsee opinion* dont elJe (toil cmrompue.
Bkausobre, Hist, du Manich. n. i. 4. p.
163.
Aurend la contradiction insupportable et en QUKTii. du Perron thus sums up the fait un persecuteur.
Vie de Zoroastre.
ZOEOASTEB.
XI of belief, and matters of religious OprjcrKela, rather than inPersian theory" vented new ; the idolatrous practices and juggling priestcraft, with which the Iranian had been brought in contact zerdu>M ° Nanieh.
upon the banks of the Euphrates and of the Tigris, ren dered this necessary.
The broad 1principles of this rezerdmht J C r Nameh.
23. formed religion may be comprised, as Beausobre observes, Df:u!St. under the three heads of a pure faith, sincere truth, and h«Sl i. r '
136,138. justice.
The unity of the Deity was still the fundamental tenet.
2The sun, as a glorious body of light, occupying a position 3 mid-way, as it were, between the Heaven of Hea vens and Earth, conveyed to the Persian a sensible emblem of Ormuzd, the Good Principle.
Its orb was the abode of
Mithras, the Mediator, as occupying a middle position be tween Ormuzd and Ahriman, Light and Darkness,
ko.1 pim. de u.
> \ , • iv • etOs.
46.
Ml9pt]v Wepaai tov nea'iTriv ovofia^ovcrw, an idea somewhat similar to that of Philo, who speaks of God placing a wall between light and darkness, as the sun separates day from night4.
The sun, honoured at first as a symbol of the Deity, was afterwards worshipped as the Divine substance.
Much in the same way, fire first symbolised the Deity, then be came an object of idolatrous worship.
But at first this was not so.
For it may be observed, that the veneration of z. av.
J '
Vendid.
5water is fully as apparent in the Zend or more ancient Farg'
1 Plato speaks of the Magianism of Zoroaster as a simple system of reli iKb<rp.ri<rev. de h. et Os. 47.
4 It is a remarkable coincidence that the solar year of
days ia summed gious worship ; tJc 6 iter p.wydav re 5iby the letters severally contained in odcKei tt\v ZcjpcjoUrrpov tov 'ilpo/idfov, &m 5i tovto deuv depatrela.
Alcib. I.
MeWpas, the Basilidian 'A/3/xifas, and s The Parsees of India, though they turn themselves to the sun in prayer, NeiXos identified by PlutaBCH with Osi ris or Helios.
So HebodotUs speaks of ol Ipin tov NelXou. n. 90. e Compare the words of Herodotus:
& TOTa/ibv Si offre Ivovpiovet, oihe ipLdeny that it is with any idea of worship.
Hyde, de v. Eel. Peri, i .
The ancient practice was the same ; only contact with Zabian worship, by an easy transition, tti5ok(Xi,oi5 xe?Pa* ivairovlfovrai, oiSi iXKoy caused a custom, that was at first only oiSera irepiopiw<ri, £XXa oipovrai worafioin ittHKioTBm 1.
138.
And the Zend symbolical, to degenerate into idolatry. s So Plutarch says that Ormuzd Avesta : L'homme qui tenant tin mort avec tot le parte dans Teau ou dam le feu, AirioTTjo'e tov ij\lov tocovtov Hffov b tj\ios et souffle par la ces tUmens, peut-U Tip yijs &<j>{<TT7iKe,xal rbv oipavbv Harpoit
xii
ZOBOASTER.
portions of the Avesta, as that of fire; and the defilement of the one element is as strictly forbidden as of the other.
Fire, however, was the only sensible emblem of the Deity Persian dualistic theory.
Anq. du Pert.
Z. Av.
III. permitted in the Persian temples after the date of Zoro aster, the extinction of which, on the birth of Mahomet, was urged by the Arabian impostor in proof of the entire supercession of Mithratic worship.
1 Abulfeda, in recording the omen, confirms the generally received statement, that the commencement of this phase of Persian Theosophy did not date higher than the reign of Cyrus.
It was to 2Zoroaster also that is most usually traced the first assertion of the Oriental dualistic theory of two eter
nal principles, the one good the other evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman.
But, according to his theory, these two powers were of a secondary character; there was an 'antecedent (ire pur, o saint Ormuzd t Vendidad cient proof, however, and the notion is inconsistent with the assertion of Hero Farg. VII. dotus, that no fire was kindled for their sacrifices: oCre fiwiiods jroieOirai, oSre wup avaKaiouai /iAXoitcs OOew. I.
132.
Neither would their worship, as he re cords, sub Dio, admit of the perpetual tijJSt jLc <Uu> V»8--j preservation of the sacred flame. it« Star splendour.
of Son dessein est de montrer que la
<_j!U t*j3i JaS In the nature entiire, qu'Ormusd chef des bons |»U Ahriman chef des mauvais, de et Genies, night in which the Apostle pendent du premier Eire qui les produits.
God was of horn, the palace of the Persian i-tn^(Kesra, Terns sans homes, Ce premier Etre est le ou VEierncl. ...Pour prCvenir Us difflas Csesar among the Romans, and Pha raoh in Egyptian history, being the royal culies que peut faire natlre la vue d'un name and title), was shaken by a sudden seul premier Agent, Zoroastre rappclle shod; and its fourteen towers fell.
At souvent les Perses aux deux Principes the same time the sacred fire the Per s'Ctend sur leur nature, secondaires il of ; et sur leurs actions reciproques, qui dotsians was extinguished, which for a thousand years before had never gone out.
Abulfeda, Hist. Moh. c. i.
Bbuckek vent sc terminer au triomplic du bien.
Anq. dd Perr. Vie de Zor.
68.
In point of action, however, Evil was still considers that pyrolatry prevailed among the Persians before the day of Zoroaster, "Cerium est ex adductis, sacrum ignis subordinate to the Good Principle; so made to say in the Z. Avesta, "I first acted, and afterwards the source Ormuzd is cultum ante Zoroastrem inter Persas viguisse."
H. iii.
10.
He gives no suffi evil." Vend. Nosk.
20. Farg.
1. of
ZOROASTER.
Supreme 1Principle causative of both ; and the more inPersian telligent Persian, no doubt, still referred the binary ematheory. nation to the unity from whence it proceeded, as that which 2 alone harmonised with a reasonable conception of the Divine Being.
Zeruane Akerene, Indefinite Time, was this antecedent principle of boundless 3 Good ; the proto typal fcpD-pX of the Cabbalistic theology, the änetpla of Plato, and the aiwv of the Gnostic heresiarchs.
It is also remarkable that the töVos of antecedent matter of Plato, had its position in the Persikn system ; that is if Eudemus, as quoted by Damascius, does not give a Platonic colouring to the Magian principle that he is describing ; Mdyoi oe
Kai irav to ''Apeiov yevos, ws /cat tovto ypd<pei
Et/c^zoy, oi ypovov xaKovaiv to votjTov aTrav Kal to r)i/o>fiev tottov, tie o'i fxevov' i]r ov ^laKpiOrjvai Qeov dyaOov Kai Sa'ißova kokov, rj rj <pwi xat okotos, irpo tovtwv*.
From the throne of Goodness Word, substantial and personified, went forth, before ^Avthe "'•
the Heavens or any creature had been called into exist ence.
Ormuzd was this Word, and of him and by him the Ex primo first principle of the Magian system was
The Sad-der declares
: sciasprimum,Dominumtuiimesselfnum, perfect goodness, rb irpGrrov ycvvrjcrai'
Sanctum, cui non est compar; est etiam apurTov.
Abist. Met. xcv.
Dominus Polentice Wolf.
Anted. Gr. m.
259.
Cf.
This compilation, though comparatively Dioo. Laebt. i.
Gloria.
D. x. et * Cbeuz. i. 698. modern, contains much that 8.
Das Ewige nämlich ist, seinem highly is s allowed to be Wesen, nach, Wort; vom Throne des Zoroastrian by Mahometan, and thereGuten ist gegeben das Wort, Honover, ancient, but the doctrine is Izeschne, Ha. xix. in Kleukjsb's Z. fore hostile testimony.
So Abulfeda (s. says, that whereas the predecessors of Av. I. 107.) das vortreßiche reine heilige Zoroaster held that the origin of all was schnellwirkende, das da war, ehe der the dualistic principle, still he himself Himmel war und irgend ein Geschaffenes. taught that one Supreme Being existed Aus diesem und durch dieses Wort ist antecedently, who was One and had no das Urlicht, das Urwasser und Urfeuer compeer.
Poe. Spec. H. Ar.
153.
(d. h. ein uniörperliches, intellectuelles, Nach einer inneren Forderung der gleichsam eine Art von Präformation der
menschlichen Natur, bei den nur einigerElemente), und durch dieses dann das massen Nachdenkenden, die Frage nach Licht, das Wasser und das Feuer, das der Verbindungsgrunde jener zwei Wesen wir sehen; folglich Alles geworden. Dienicht lange ausbleiben tonnte.
Cbeuzeb, ses gute Wort ist Ormuzd.
Cb.
1. 695. In Symb.
I. 697. the Brahminical theory truth is eternally Aristotle also testifies that the phonetic.
A. Bdtleb,
245.
xiv
ZOROASTER.
Persian first ideal principles of Light, Water, and Fire were engentheory. dered, as in the Divine Mind, and from these also the material elements were subsequently formed.
Here again we may observe a close similarity between this 'mystical word, Honover, uttered by the Deity, and the Aoyos of v < Plata; for Ormuzd was the personified idea of all things create, eternally subsisting in the Divine Unity.
The enunVoLi. m. ciation also of this Word of Might was continuous, and was the prototype of the Marcosian Word, the divine fugue, that continuing through every possible combina tion of letters involved in the Incommunicable Name, was appointed to run out at length, and subside in a perfect
and eternal harmony.
But evil was also evolved co-ordinately with Ormuzd.
The moral and physical world, taken in its reality, presented antagonising principles on its surface and in its depth, that could not escape notice; and philosophy must give its account of everything.
God indeed has revealed to man that evil is his discipline, to be overruled under certain conditions for eventual good ; but, without the aid of reve lation, men have endeavoured in various ways to account for the evil that is mixed up with man's destiny, and so affects the happiness of life.
An implacable Nemesis, tracking down ancestral sin through successive generations ; a blind fate, the exact converse of reasoning Will ; the necessary sequence of events, as unvarying as the revolution of Ixion's wheel, are theories that have been successively developed, as the only possible way of accounting for the evil to which man is born.
The Persian started from the same point, but preserving more perhaps of the primitive tradi tions of man's infant state, brought into the account the relative as well as the positive character of evil.
Hence in Zoroaster's teaching the Supreme Being developed 1 See Ceetjzeb'b collection, from the Zend Avesta, of terras applied to this primary emanation.
Symbolik, I. 696.
ZOROASTER.
xv Light, which, as a subordinate principle, in tanto, fell Persian • first short of perfection; and the 'imperfection of Light is principle.
Shade ; arguing therefore from the physical to the me taphysical, it appears to have been concluded by him, that so soon as the Deity developed any principle or created essence beside himself, the necessary relative im perfection of this principle, 'involved in itself substantive evil.
Evil in fact, although of a positive character with relation to the perfection of good, is relative with respect to the imperfect good, to which it leads up by insensible degrees; "when I would do good evil is present with me," is descriptive of all created good, however exalted ; but it is in a positive and absolute sense, that He, who
is the Perfection of All Good, " chargeth His angels with folly."
Originally, the eastern theory of a First Principle was Hydeap. not dualistic ; God was single and sole, sine socio et sine Beam, i. km. pari.
The primaeval light, that symbolises the Deity to the Persian, with its shade, was at first put forth; then the world of pure and glorious spirits resulted from the Divine 3Life ; and subsequently the Will of God, the divine creu«er, Symb. i. 695.
Word, was eternally articulate, the Creator of the heavenly bodies, and of the souls of men.
As matter is causative of shade, so 4 evil entered into the system when the bodies 3 Mil dem Satz ist gegeben nothwcndig 1 This imperfection of light was der Gcgensaiz.
Creuzeb, Symb.
I. 701.
3 Zoroastre n'a reconnue qu'un seul Dieu, Createur immediat du Monde des expressed theosophically as a mingling <L*J]al^ of light and darkness, this of course was co-ordinate with the first evolution of light as an Esprits, mais Createur mediat taut du monde des e'toiles et des planetes, que imperfect substance; the subsequent du Monde inferieur, qui est notre globe active influence of darkness or evil was defined as iJlaSl ^ jy]\ ,jA>terrestre, qu'il a forme' par l'intervention d'une puissance, que Zoroastre appelle sa VOLONT& Beausobre, H. du Maa liberation of light from darkness, the nich.
1. p. 175. two were separated and shewed their 4 Beausobre gays, Ce tystime du positive qualities.
Upon this distinc tion Magian controversy ran high.
See Prophete des Penes a un grand conPocock, Spec. Hist. Ar.
153. ed.
Oxon. formUf avec celui, que Lactance a
xvi
ZOROASTER.
Hebrew of men were created, as well as the lower world of matter. analogies, wor(js Gf Beausobre refer these oriental theories to the highest antiquity, and their supporters connected them Manich. i. with the patriarchal faith of Abraham.
Un Paradis, un jEnfer, qu'ils appellent la Gehenne, rimmortalite des dmes, la Resurrection des corps, itoient les dogmes constants de leur foi. lis pretendoient la tenir cf'Abraham, qui I'avoit enseignee, et di/endue contre les Idolatres qui s'eleooient et se multiplioient dans VAssyrie.
The question arises how these theories, presenting in some respects certain analogies with a truer theology, became known in Persia.
If, indeed, Zoroaster were ac
quainted with the Hebrew scriptures, as Arabic writers Brucker, h. affirm, who also say that he was born in Palestine, we Ph. i. 14/. might understand that portions of his system would very fairly be referrible to the great forefather of the Jews.
But the close contact into which the Hebrew portion of the Shemitic race had been brought with the Iranian stock, owing to the Babylonian captivity, would account for any degree of resemblance observable between the Zoroastrian system, and the august theology of the Jews.
Possibly the liturgical portion of the Zend Avesta may be the production of Zoroaster; the Zend, or sacred language of the Median Magi, carries on the face of it a considerable antiquity, while the latter, and more sci entific portions being composed, not in Zend, but Pehlevi, the language of the Sassanian dynasty, and of the Parthians, betray as clearly a later origin.
Hence whatever knowledge this portion of the Zend Avesta exhibits of the Hebrew Scriptures, may be more properly referred to the co-presence of the Jewish religious system with the tra ditional faith of Persia, subsequently to the Christian era. exprimS en cea termes: Fabricaturus Deus fontes rcrum sibi adversantium, illos hunc mundum, qui constaret in rebus videlicet duos Bpiritua, quorum alter contrariis atque discordibus, constituit est Deo tamquam dextera, alter tarnante diversa, fecitque ante omnia duos quam sinistra, Jtc.
Inst. rr. 9.
ZOROASTER.
xvii Neither JSschylus nor Herodotus say anything of Persian the fundamental tenet of the Zoroastrian system, faith theory, in two antagonising principles, emanating from one eternal principle of unity; and naturally enough, for if the dualistic scheme were first incorporated by Zoroaster, it could hardly have become known to them, as a superaddition upon the ancient faith of Persia.
On the other hand, if before the day of Zoroaster the Persians had been idolaters, it would be difficult to account for the ease with which this people accepted at the hands of Zoroaster, so many religious ideas, that must have been as foreign to them as they were new.
May it not have been owing to the
purer religious traditions of the Persians, that the Jews, as of an apparently cognate religion, were permitted by Cyrus to return to Palestine, and were aided and protected in their pious work, of building up again the ruins left by their
Chaldsean conquerors ?
On the whole, the ancient Persians appear to have been neither polytheists nor idolaters ; and with regard to all other points of their ancient intellectual speculation, it is safest to subscribe to the words of the industrious Brucker ; Subductis itaque omnibus rationibus, Hut pwi.
O. iii. is. nobis tutissimum videtur, de veterum Magorum, Zoroastre vetustiorum, systemate, modestam fateri ignorantiam.
It would seem, then, that from the time that Abraham 4*. went forth from the land of the Chaldees, down to the com mencement of authentic pagan history, the theoretical knowledge of one Supreme Being existed, as a higher re ligious belief, in the regions watered by the Euphrates, as well as among the Persians ; but, in this latter case, the people at large retained a sounder faith than the inferior Aramaic tribes, where a truer yvwais, in whatever degree it existed, was reserved among the arcana of priestcraft.
The only country west of the Indus, that can pretend to vie with Babylon in point of antiquity, is Egypt.
There was in certain respects a similarity between the Chaldsean vol. i. b
xviii EGYPT.
Primitive and Egyptian religious systems.
They both involved astroEgypt. logy> and in most other points they were very much alike, if the testimony of 'Bardesanks, in his work on Fate, is to be referred to a higher antiquity than the age in which he lived and wrote.
Unlike the more restless spirits that inhabited the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the in habitants of Egypt, after the earliest Asiatic immigration, were subject to no violent irruption of hostile tribes.
That which Plato has said, in the Timccus, of their immunity from the devastation caused by floods and conflagrations, may be interpreted politically, as a figurative representa tion of the early peaceful enjoyment of their acquired
possessions on the banks of the Nile.
The primitive 2faith of Egypt was chiselled indelibly, as it were, in granite, in the Saitic inscription of the temple of Isis ; to ev 2a« Plut. de Is. ct Os.
'.). tjjs 'AOr/vas, rjv Kat TI<7ii> vofxi(pvo~iv, eSos eiriypa(priv el^e ILyw ei/u wav to yeyovos Kat ov Kat ecrofievov, Kat top '
ToiavTtjv, Proclus adds e/iov TrenXov ovSeis ttoo Ovijtos a7re/ca\u\|/€P.
at the close of this inscription, Kal ov eTeKov Kapirov, ^Xios eyevero.
It has already been seen, that, whatever may —A j-k)] Vol konnte aber hier die zweifeliide Frage
entstehen, ob jeno geistige Ansicht niclit etwa bios Griechische Zuthat, Ausdeutung Griechischer Philosopliie sey. Dies ^J^ ■V»~>«"ij muss schlecbterdings verneint werden, ^-V.] i\ ^ und die vielstimmige und vielfiiltige |Q Sage, welche auch vor der Zweifelsucht m?
v.'
'i J ^^-« I _ neuerer Zeiten die herrschende Meinung
.0<TL»>Z.>
, • ..
% <^\Q-i OjOCTI liol
v ,.
„ n ..
, , , . der Gelehrten begrundete, die Sage, dass \ .
, , , '
.n V ^Zo>Z^ Pythagoras und andere Griechen erst I .
...
Vn^ . ibre Weisheit aus iEgypten geholt lia- •_»C7I LLO<n> Z.OS, Avida saith, ij
~, .
, .
-c , , ben, muss fur ein histonsches • .
. actum
i Chaldcism, but gelten.
Hundert Stellen des Herodotus, hare read the boolcs of I do not hnow which belong to the BaHellanicus, und was wir sonst von / byfonians, and which to the Egyptian*.
Fragroeuten alterer Geschichtschreiber Bardcsan saith, The doctrine both und Philosophen haben, setzen gleichcountrics of the same.
Avida saith in falls eine alte geistige Cultur der Phahnown that is it so.
Cdreton, Sp.
15. raonen .lEgyptier voraus."
Symb. is it I.
386.
In Timce. cf. the Persian theory, p. xi. and more spiritual wisdom of the Greek Mosheim conjectures that this inscription philosophy to Egyptian sources.
"Es never existed.
CnDW. Jnt. Sytt. n.
123.
Cbebzer clearly refers the higher s