III. cidal ser on this subject, I may mention that a hideous CHAP. serpent, which in Egypt was connected with Typhonic malice', was in Persia also the peculiar The homiagent of the Evil-minded. Hence, indeed, arose pent. the fancy that of salutary effects believed to flow in primitive times from the great homa-sacrifice the foremost was the generation of a warrior, who might slay 'the homicidal serpent, with three necks, with three heads, with six eyes, and with a thousand forces, that remorseless god, who destroys purity, that sinner who ravages the worlds, whom Ahriman created the chief foe of purity, in the existing world, for the annihilation of the purity of the worlds?,' antagonists Exactly as the projects of Ormazd were car- Devs, the ried out by six immediate ministers or colleagues, of amshasAhriman ere long was made the centre of a circle of malignant spirits, sons of darkness; six of whom, the devs (daévas), stand arrayed in deadly strife against the luminous amshaspands. The two orders had thus formed so many pairs of strong antitheses: they personated in the one case high and scarcely distinguishable from the Amshaspands. They are saluted as 'the most worthy of the masters of purity, the most praiseworthy, the most pervading, the delight of the master, the pure master of purity.' The highest member of this order would appear to have been Mithra. We have again considerable difficulty in determining the precise nature and functions of another class of spirits mentioned in the Yasna, viz. the Fervers or Fravashis, which, although reminding us of guardian angels and good genii, are more properly considered as ideal prototypes of actual intelligences (cf. Wilson, Pársi Reli- 1 Above, p. 69, n. I. 2 Translated by Burnouf, Etudes, 'Le Dieu Homa,' in Journal Asiat. (1844), IV. 493. III. CHAP. salutary properties, as life and goodness, truth and plenty, and the element of fire itself considered as a source of happiness; they personated in the other case destruction, malice, lying, penury, and elemental fire that shrivels and devours. Dualism, regarded as as tempo rary. The question now is, Are we justified in speakabsolute or ing of the Persian form of dualism as absolute and eternal? Were the powers in conflict so equipotent, the elements of good so hopelessly and so inextricably blended with the elements of evil, that mankind must ever groan between the terrible contrariety? Manichæ ism. Such is often said to be the character of genuine Zoroastrianism;' and little or nothing, I am bound to mention, is detected in the ancient books of Persia that necessitates an opposite conclusion. In those writings, the two kingdoms almost uniformly stand in harsh and absolute antagonism; on one side there is primal Good producing and reviving good, and on the other, primal Evil, which, possessed of a co-ordinate power, is working, and must ever work, disorder and decomposition. It appears, moreover, that belief in this most rigorous form of dualism had been perpetuated in a Persian sect entitled Magusæans, while the influence which it once exerted is perhaps still more distinctly to be traced in the projection of the Manichæan heresy. Mani, we should here remember, lived and taught at Babylon in the third century after Christ, and in the mythic names attributed to his pupils (Buddas', Thomas, Hermas) may be found not 1 The old reading Addas is now corrected into Buddas (Lassen's Ind. Alt. III. 406). III. only proof of his reputed influence, but allusion to CHAP. particular systems of belief which he attempted, not long after the Sassanian revival, to amalgamate with the Ormazd-religion. Manichæ Zoroastri It is foreign to our purpose to inquire in what Relation of degree the Buddhist, Christian, and Hellenic ele- ism to ments were intermixed1 by him with genuine 'Zo- anim roastrianism;' but as none of those foreign systems can be charged with teaching the dogma of two opposite and co-eternal principles, we may conclude that in the view of Mani, who insisted ever on such dogma, it was held to be a genuine heirloom of the ancient Persian worthies. On the other hand, as Mani himself is said to have been barbarously put to death upon the charge of falsifying the pure religion of Zoroaster, we are not at once entitled to draw positive inferences, as to the early character of that religion, from accounts which have descended to us of the Manichæan heresy. traces of It must, indeed, be granted that so far as our Fresh particular question is concerned, the language used the doctrine by Persians in the fifth century after Christ again of unity. implied a prevalent disposition to reduce all contrarieties of the physical and moral world into an abstract unity. For that Zervanism was then at least a primary article of their faith, the following extract from the proclamation of a Persian general (A.D. 450) will abundantly establish: 1 F. C. Bauer, Das Manichäische Religionssystem, followed, in the main, by Lassen, contends that in those particulars where Manichæism separated itself from the 'doctrine of Zoroaster,' it came nearer to Hindú systems and especially to Buddhism. On the strange way in 2 The author of it was Mihr Ner- CHAP. III. necting Zervan with Or Ahriman. "Before the heavens and the earth were, the great god Zruan (Zervan) prayed a thousand years, Mythe con- and said, 'If I, perhaps, should have a son named Vormist (Ormazd), who will make the heavens and mazd and the earth.' And he conceived two in his body, one by reason of his prayer, and the other because he said Perhaps. When he knew that there were two in his body, he said, 'Whichever shall come first, to him will I give over my sovereignty.' He who had been conceived in doubt passed through his body and went forth. To him spake Zruan : 'Who art thou?' He said, 'I am thy son Vormist.' To him said Zruan: 'My son is light and fragrant breathing; thou art dark and of evil disposition.' As this appeared to his son exceedingly harsh, he (Zruan) gave him the empire1 for a thousand years. When the other son was born to him, he called him Vormist. He then took the empire from Ahriman, gave it to Vormist, and said to him, "Till now I have prayed to thee, now thou must pray to me.' And Vormist made heaven and earth; Ahriman on the contrary brought forth evil." addressed to the Armenians, and has the same mythe in Theodore of Mopsuestia, who says, in speaking of Zervan (ἀρχηγὸν πάντων), that while making a libation (? of the homaplant), ἵνα τέκῃ τὸν Ορμίσδαν, ἔτεκεν ἐκείνον καὶ τὸν Σατανᾶν. 1 The priority of birth and empire here attributed to the Evil One has a most striking parallel in the dualistic system of the Bogomiles (of the 12th century after Christ): see Hardwick's Middle Age, pp. 302 sq. There also Satanael is the first-born, and is entrusted for a season with the chief administration of the world. CHAP. Moral im In accordance with the hopeful spirit that gave being, both to this and other kindred mythes, the reign of the good Principle, though subsequent port of such in point of time, was represented as far mightier mythes. and more lasting than the reign of evil. Ahriman, the child of doubt, shall be hereafter superseded'. On the expiration of some dark millenium, he shall cease to be the terror of all pure and upright beings, while his rival, raised to the administration of the kingdom, shall create a second order of superior spirits, or at least initiate some remedial process, by which all things now existing may revert to their original condition. In other words, the ancient Persian could descry beneath the manifold contradictions of the actual world an aboriginal unity, nay, could hear amid them all the promise of some blessed restoration. ultimate Faint, indeed, and broken were the whispers of Hope of that promise. Often the mere echo of instinctive triumph. longings under which the heart of man had ached in every region of the ancient world, it was devoid of all historic basis, and was pointing onward to no definite fulfilment; yet in spite of its intrinsic weakness, and in spite of all the clouds in which it was involved by desperate speculations on the origin of evil, a belief in some such promise,—a belief 1 These peculiarities of the later Persian creed are fully established in passages brought to light by J. Müller, in 1843, and subsequently considered by Spiegel, in the Zeitschrift der Deutsch. morgenländ. Gesellschaft (1851), v. 225. One of such passages affirms in reference to Ahriman: Aber es wird eine Zeit sein, wo sein Schlagen aufhört.' C. A. E. IV. And in a second, after describing 12 |