CHAPTER II.

PERSIAN, EGYPTIAN, AND GREEK RELIGIONS.

IN the light of the quiv. N the light of the Indian religions we may interpret all the religions of antiquity. They differ, and yet they are alike. We cannot determine if the one sprang from the other, or if each is a natural growth of the religiousness of man; but they have all a fundamental likeness. Worship of the powers of nature is the origin of them all, and as the mind expands worship of nature in its infinitude, including consciously or unconsciously, the whole conceivable assemblage of being as shadowing forth a Being infinite and inconceivable, whom we can neither know nor name; hence on the one hand a Polytheism, and on the other, alongside of it, a Monotheism. The Chaldeans and the Syrians worshipped the sun and moon. They had their gods and idols, their images, and amulets; yet the higher minds worshipped the one God. While the philosophers contemplated the Infinite, the multitude idolized the finite. After Brahmanism, the chief religions of the ancient world are those of Persia, Egypt, and Greece. 1. THE PERSIAN RELIGION. Of the antiquity of the religion of the Persians we cannot speak with certainty The sacred books called the Zend Avesta, are the chief sources of information; but these are only a fragment of the original scriptures-part of one of the twenty-one divisions into which

Nearly two thousand families of the fire worshippers are still found in Persia where they are called Guebres. In India, whither they were driven by the followers of Mahomet in the seventh century, they are still a numerous sect. In Bombay they have three magnificent temples in which the sacred flame burns day and night. "The Parsees," says Niebuhr, "followers of Zerdusht or Zoroaster, adore one God only, eternal and almighty. They pay, however, a certain worship to the sun, the moon, the stars, and fire, as visible images of the invisible Divinity. Their veneration for the element of fire induces them to keep a sacred fire constantly burning, which they feed with odoriferous wood, both in the temples and in the houses of private persons."

they were divided. The Zend Avesta was written or collected by Zoroaster, the great prophet of Persia, who may have been contemporary with Budha five or six centuries before the Christian era. It is, however, generally admitted that portions of the Zend Avesta writings are of much more ancient date than the time of Zoroaster.

The Parsees both from their language and mythology are classed with the Indians as members of the great Aryan family, and as they inhabited the birth place of the human race it is probable that the religion of Persia is the oldest in the world. When we compare it with Brahmanism we find each possessing a sufficiently distinct individuality of its own. The ingenious mythologer will find many points of resemblance, but the general student will be more struck with their differ

ence.

To

Brahmanism is more metaphysical; Parseeism more ethical. The spirit of the one is contemplation; that of the other, activity. The Indian is passive and speculative; the Persian is not without a speculative tendency, but he is more concerned to oppose the forces of evil which are in the world, and to subdue which he feels to be the vocation of man. the degree that Parseeism is ethically strong, it is removed from what is called Pantheism, but the speculative side claims our attention, both for its own sake, and for its subsequent history and its connection with other systems of religion and philosophy.

Much has been written, not only in France and Germany, but in England, on the infinite and impersonal God of the old Persian religion. His name is Zeruane Akerne, time without bounds, or beginningless time. The idea of His existence is simultaneous in the mind with the ideas of infinite time and infinite space. He is the Being that must constitute eternity and infinity. That the Persian had this idea of an inexpressible Being who is above all the gods, as Brahm is above the Trimurti, may be considered as settled. But it appears that the name by which this Being is known to European Mythologers is a mere mistranslation of a sentence in the Zend Avesta. Zeruane Akerne is not a name as recent Persian scholars have shown: it simply means infinite time. The infinite Being of the Persians was nameless, but sometimes called by the names of all the gods. He becomes

The passage is, "Spento-Mainyus (Ormuzd) created, and He created in infinite time (zeruane akerne).

32

ORMUZD, OR THE PERSONAL DEITY.

*

personal. He is Ormuzd, god of light; Mithras, the reconciler between light and darkness; Honover, the Word of Him who is eternal wisdom, and whose speech is an eternal creation. Hesychius calls Mithras the first God among the Persians. In his conference with Themistocles, Artabanus describes Mithras as that god who covers all things. Porphyry, quoting from Eubulus, concerning the origin of the Persian religion, speaks of a cave which Zoroaster consecrated in honour of Mithras, the Maker and Father of all things. It was adorned by flowers, and watered with fountains, and was intended as an image, or symbol, of the world as created by Mithras. The same Porphyry records that Pythagoras exhorted men chiefly to the love of truth, for that alone could make them resemble God. He had learned, he said, from the Magi that God, whom they called Ormuzd, as to his body resembled light, and as to his soul, truth. Eusebius quotes from an old Persian book as the words of Zoroaster, that "God is the first Being incorruptible and eternal, unmade and indivisible, altogether unlike to all His works, the principle and author of all good. Gifts cannot move Him, He is the best of the good, and the wisest of the wise. From Him proceed law and justice." The Chaldean oracles, ascribed to Zoroaster, call God "the One from whom all beings spring." On this passage Psellus, the scholiast, says, "All things whether perceived by the mind or by the senses, derive their existence from God alone, and return to Him, so that this oracle cannot be condemned, for it is full of our doctrine."

This original impersonal unity created Ormuzd, who thus becomes the chief of gods. He is the living personal Deity, first begotten of all beings, the resplendent image of Infinitude the being in whose existence is imaged the fulness of eternal time and infinite space. As the manifestation of the impersonal, He is infinite-none can measure Him, none can set bounds to His will or His omnipotence. He is pre-eminently Will, altogether perfect, almighty, infinitely pure and holy. Of all things in heaven, He is supreme; of all things, He is

"The Persians invoked the whole circle of the sky,' as Zeus Patroüs (probably Ormuzd). It has been assumed that the general names which figure at the head of the old theogonies, such as Uranus, were refinements placed by speculation before the gods of popular belief; yet the arrangement is justified by the consideration that nothing but a general idea could have answered the emotions of the first men: nature was deified before man. 'These,' says Philo, are the real objects of Greek worship: they call the earth Ceres; the sea, Poseidon; the air, Here; the fire, Hephaistos; the sun, Apollo.""-MACKAY'S "PROGRESS OF THE INTELLECT."

the ground and centre. The sun is His symbol, yet the sun is but a spark of the unspeakable splendor in which He dwells. Whatever the original One is, that is Ormuzd-infinite in light, in purity, in wisdom. But as the first begotten of the Eternal, his duration is limited to 12,000 years. As a personal deity, he is finite-he is a king, and has a kingdom which is not universal, for it is opposed by the kingdom of Ahriman.

It has been commonly believed that the Persians worshipped two gods. This is the account given by Mahometan and Christian writers, but the Persians themselves have always denied it. They are not Dualists, but Monotheists on the one side and Polytheists on the other. Ormuzd alone is worshipped as the supreme God. His kingdom is co-extensive with light and goodness. It embraces all pure existences in earth and heaven.

Ormuzd's domain has three orders. The first is the Amshaspands, or seven immortal spirits, of which Ormuzd is himself one. He created the other six, and rules over them. The second order is the twenty-eight Izeds, and the third an innumerable number of inferior spirits called the_Fereurs. The Izeds are the spiritual guardians of the earth. By them it is blessed and made fruitful. They are also judges of the world and protectors of the pious. Every month and every day of the month is under the guardianship of one of the Amshaspands or Izeds. Even every hour of the day has an Ized for its protector; they are the watchers of the elements. The winds and the waters are subject to them. The Fereurs are without number, because Being is without bounds.

They are co-extensive with existence; sparks as it were of the universal Being, who, through them, makes Himself present always and everywhere. The Fereurs are the idealsprototypes or patterns of things visible. They come from Ormuzd, and take form in the material universe. By them the one and all of nature lives. They perform sacred offices in the great temple of the universe. As high priests they present the prayers and offerings of Ormuzd. They watch over the pious in life, receive their departing spirits at death, and conduct them over the bridge that passes from earth to heaven. The Fereurs constitute the ideal world, so that everything has its Fereur, from Ormuzd down to the meanest existence. The Eternal or Self-existent expresses Himself in the almighty Word, and this expression of universal being is the Fereur of Ormuzd. The law has its Fereur, which is its

D

34

KINGDOM OF AHRIMAN.

spirit. It is that which is thought by the Word as God. In the judgment of Ormuzd, Zoroaster's Fereur is one of the most beautiful ideals, because Zoroaster prepared the law.

But there is another kingdom besides that of Ormuzd, king of light. There is the kingdom of Ahriman, Lord of darkness. He is not worshipped as a god, but he is in great power in the world. The effort of the Persian to solve the problem of evil is seen in his idea of the kingdom of darkness. It emerges face to face with the kingdom of light. There is not the hopelessness of human existence which we find in Budhism; but there is the declaration that evil is inseparable from finite being. The old question had been asked "What is evil?" How did He who created light also create darkness? If He were good and rejoiced to make the kingdom of goodness, how has he also made the kingdom of evil? The answer is:-It did not come from the will of the eternal. The creation of the kingdom of evil and darkness was the inevitable result of the creation of the kingdom of light and goodness. As a shadow accompanies a body, so did the kingdom of Ahriman accompany that of Ormuzd. The two kingdoms, though opposed to each other, have yet a similar organization. The one is the counterpart of the other. At the head is Ahriman. Then seven Erz-Dews, and then an innumerable multitude of Dews. These were all created by Ahriman, whose great and only object was opposition to the kingdom of Ormuzd. When light was created, then Ahriman came from the south and mingled with the planets. He penetrated through the fixed stars and created the first Erz-dew, the demon of envy. This Erz-dew declared war against Ormuzd, and then the long strife began. As on earth beast fights with beast, so spirit warred with spirit. Each of the seven Erz-dews has his special antagonist among the Amshaspands. They come from the north and are chained to the planets; but as powers and dignities in the kingdom of Ahriman they receive the homage of the inferior Dews, and are served by them as the Izeds are served by the Fereurs. The existence of the kingdom of darkness is an accident in creation; a circumstance arising from the Infinite positing Himself in the finite. He permits evil to continue; not because it is too strong for Him, but that out of it He may educe a greater good. The limitation will be finally removed. The discord between light and darkness will cease. The reconciler will appear, and then shall begin an eternal kingdom of light without shadow, and purity without spot. The spirits of Ahriman shall be