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Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

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10 HISTORY OF PERSIA.<br />

ledged about him and <strong>the</strong> religious system named<br />

after him. Those who care for fuller details can<br />

consult <strong>the</strong> Zend-avesta 1 as first published by Anquetil<br />

Du Perron, and <strong>the</strong> various commentaries or modifica-<br />

tions of it, suggested by <strong>the</strong> studies of MM. Wester-<br />

gaard, Spiegel, Haug, Burnouf, Oppert, and o<strong>the</strong>rs.<br />

I do not myself doubt that Zoroaster, whe<strong>the</strong>r or<br />

not a king (as some have held), was truly a teacher<br />

and reformer, and, fur<strong>the</strong>r, that his religious views<br />

represent <strong>the</strong> reaction of <strong>the</strong> mind against<br />

<strong>the</strong> mere<br />

worship of nature, tending as this does, directly, <strong>to</strong><br />

poly<strong>the</strong>ism and <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> doctrine of " Emanations." It<br />

is, I think, equally evident that such views embody<br />

<strong>the</strong> highest struggle of <strong>the</strong> human intellect (unaided<br />

by Revelation) <strong>to</strong>wards spiritualism, and that <strong>the</strong>y<br />

are, so far, an attempt <strong>to</strong> create a religious system by<br />

<strong>the</strong> simple energies of human reason. Hence <strong>the</strong>ir<br />

general direction is <strong>to</strong>wards a pure mono<strong>the</strong>ism ; and,<br />

had no evil existed in <strong>the</strong> world, <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>ory embody-<br />

ing <strong>the</strong>m would have remained unassailed and logi-<br />

cally successful. On this rock, however, all <strong>the</strong> spiritual<br />

<strong>the</strong>ories of early times necessarily split. Zoroaster or<br />

his disciples halted where all must halt who have not<br />

<strong>the</strong> light <strong>from</strong> on high, <strong>the</strong> one sure support of Jew<br />

and Christian alike. They could not believe that<br />

God, <strong>the</strong> good, <strong>the</strong> just, <strong>the</strong> pure, and <strong>the</strong> perfect,<br />

would have placed evil in a world he must have<br />

1<br />

Zend-Avesta, more correctly Avesta-u-Zend, i. e. text and com-<br />

mentary. The fragments we now have are not cider, if so old, as<br />

A.D. 226, when Ardashir I. founded <strong>the</strong> Sassanian Empire in <strong>Persia</strong>.<br />

Of <strong>the</strong> twenty-one books said <strong>to</strong> have been <strong>the</strong>n collected, one only,<br />

<strong>the</strong> Vendidad (Vida^-vadata), "<strong>the</strong> law against demons," has been<br />

preserved nearly entire. (Dr. H.iug, Essays, &c.. Bombay,

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