wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, and

Chap. IV. Oromafdes, Mithras, ^WArimanius. 291fame with the devil: all which was under the immediate prefidency or governmentof that God, called by them ArimaniuSy Hades or Vluto, thethird hypoftafis in the Triplafian Deity of the Perfians. Which fufpicioamay be yet farther confirmed from hence, becaufe the Perfian Theologers,as appears by the infcriptions, exprefly acknowledged the divine omnipotence,which they could not pofTibly have done, had they admitted of a Manicheanfubftantial evil principle, coeternal with God, and independent onhim. Befides which it is obfervable, that whereas the Gnofticks in Plothius'stime afTerted this world to have been made, not fo much from aprinciple eflentially evil and eternal, as from a lapfed foul, to weigh downthe authority of Plato, that was againfl: them, did put Zoroajler in the otherfcale, producing a book entitled, ix.-to^xX-j-\,ii; Zv^oaVfy, or the Revelations ofZoroafter, Porphyrins tells us ', that himfelf wrote purpofely to difprovethofe Zoroaftrian Revelations, as new and counterfeit, and forged by thofeGnofticks themfelves -, therein implying alfo the dodrineof the ancient Zoroajlerno way to have countenanced or fivoured that Gnoftick herefy.Moreover, the tenents of thefe ancient Magi, concerning that duplicity ofprinciples, are by writers reprefented with great variety and uncertainty.That account, which Theodorus in Photius * (treating of the Perfian magick)gives thereof, as .ilfo that other oi Eudemus \n Damafcius', are both ofthem fo nonfenfical, that we fhall not here trouble the reader with them ;however, neither of them fuppofe the Perfian Jrimanius, or Sataiias, to bean unmade felf-exifting dasmon. But the Arabians, writing of this y^ltajiaiviah,or Perfian duplicity of good and evil principles, afiirm, that accordingto the mod: approved Magi, light was Kadintan, the moft ancientand firfl: God, and that darknefs was but a created God ; they exprefiydenying the principle of evil and darknefs to be coeve with God, or theprinciple of good and light. And Abulfeda reprefents the Zoroaftriandodrine (as the do6trine of the A-/^^"-/ reformed) after this manner; ^h(tt Pocock SpecGod was older than darknefs and light, and the creator of them, fo that he luas Hift. Ar. />."a folitary being, without companion or corrival; and that good and evil, vir- 146. 147.ttie and vice, did arife from a certain commixture of light and darknefs toge- '*^'ther, without which this lower world could never have been produced ; whichmixture was fl ill to continue in it, till at length light fhould overcome darknefs :and then light and darknefs floall each of them have their feparatc and dijliti£}worlds, apart from one another.If it were now needful, we might ftill make it further evident, that Zoroaller,notwithftanding the multiplicity of gods worfiiipped by him, was anaflferter of one fupreme, from his own dcfcription of God, extant in Eufebius.Qii; s'ov -n-^unl^ £p3-xf^©^ Prap. E-v. I.TTXiTOi xaAx, cc.iucoltiiC7]]o;, ayx^wj ayx^uTxro;, (peo'jiij.'jti (poo-jiuarXTo;, £{-( it >^ I.Trairii E-'vofxia;>t, oixxtocivti;, aoroo'ij'i'.x.o,', riXaoc^ Xy lEos ^putrixa uovo; rjSjTr,'' God iS L*-'*P«'^' P-^^'-'the firji incorruptible, eternal, unr.iade, indiviftble, moji unlike to every thingsthe head or leader of all good, unbribable, the befl of the good, the wifefi ofthe wife ; he is afo the father of lavj and jufiice ; felf-taught, perfe£f^ and' In Vita Plotini Cap. XVI. p. 119. Edit. ' fHiA tSiv ':Tfi'iTiiiv ic/y^av, a work never yetFabricii.» Biblioth. Cod. LXXXI. p. 199.printed.the