III. CHAP. in the superior majesty of truth and her eventual triumph,—had been always lingering in the Persian mind. We may hereafter have occasion to observe that under the Sassanian monarchs, some at least of the more popular traditions on this subject bore no slight resemblance to the Messianic prophecies transmitted in the Hebrew Church. Armour of the holy man of Persia. As special virtue had been constantly ascribed to words of Ormazd, it was by these, as parts of his offensive armour, that the good man was commissioned to do battle with the swarming hosts of darkness. For example, when the Evil One demanded' of Zarathustra 'By whose word wilt thou smite, by whose word wilt thou destroy?' the 'holy man' is said to have replied: 'A mortar and a bowl, the homa and the words which Ormazd has spoken, these are my best weapons.' Nor did victory over Ahriman consist in mere escape from present physical suffering, and in larger and more sparkling cups of temporal prosperity. Here the Persian, of historic times at least, was far superior to his kinsman whose importunate prayer for cows and horses and the like was heard pervading all the oldest invocations of the Véda. In the measure of her moral sensibility, Persia may be fairly ranked among the brightest spots of ancient heathendom. The 'holy man,' indeed, of the Avesta, is often a distin- a mere synonym for 'worshipper of Ormazd,' yet guishing excellence, it should not be forgotten, is confined the Ormazd no longer to descendants of a priestly class dissevered by impassable gulphs from all below them: Largeness of spirit, feature of religion. 1 Vendidad, xix. 28-32, where I follow Spiegel's version: cf. x. 25, sq. In § 28 we are told 'Dies sind die Worte, welche alle Daevas schlagen.' 2 Cf. Part II. p. 17. III. not to the possessor of recondite knowledge, and CHAP. the lordly founder of some philosophic school; not even to the ardent devotee recoiling from the din and business of the world, and seeking in the silence of the jungle a sure refuge from its perils and seductions. Purity is there made possible for all: in all it is connected with incessant warfare, and in all dependent on exact conformity to the Ormazdreligion, 'in thought, in word, in deed.' Deflection from its precepts is the only cause of permanent disaster. Servants of Ormazd, unfortified by prayer and sacrifice, may yield to the temptations of the Evil One, and as the fruit of their misdeeds may undergo a lengthened term of penance. The body also must in every case eventually succumb beneath the iron yoke of death, the ruthless minister of Ahriman, and then communicate a portion of its own 'impurity' to all who come in contact with it. Still so long as any man was held to have continued in the number of the 'pure,' it was believed that saving efficacy issued to his spirit from the law of Ormazd; that law 'taking away all the evil thoughts, words and actions of a pure man, as the strong fleet wind purifies the heaven1.' ideas of A cursory glance at precepts and prescriptions Persian of the Vendidád will serve, however, to convince purity. us that in Persia, as in Egypt, the idea of 'purity' had always been extremely superficial and unspiritual. It involved but little more than a punctilious compliance with established rites and ceremonies. Starting from the thought that every thing in nature was intrinsically either 'clean' or 'unclean,' 1 Vendidad, III. 149. III. Practical character of the Old Persian. CHAP. a production either of Ormazd the good divinity, or else of the impure arch-demon,-the Old Persian was at least as anxious to escape from bodily defilement', or from contact with material things possessed by Ahriman, as to exemplify the higher moral qualities of which that Evil One had introduced the hideous negations. On the other hand, it is apparent that the consciousness of an unceasing conflict in the spirit-world had kept alive the habit of discriminating between moral light and moral darkness, and produced in many hearts a deep abhorrence of the evil, and a resolute yearning after good. The Persian had been commonly one of the least compromising, if not also the most active and most truthful, nations of antiquity. Accustomed to regard the universe in general as one mighty battlefield, the genuine worshipper of Ormazd had also tenanted his own immediate sphere with foes innumerable: his mission was to aid in counteracting the unwearied malice of the devs, to vindicate the cause of right and truth against the advocates of wrong and falsehood; and the stern intolerant spirit breathed by despots like Cambyses indicates the natural product of that system of religion, when directed by unflinching hands. 1 On this subject, see, for instance, Vendid. VII.193–196. Rhode (Die heilige Sage des Zendvolks, pp. 453 sq. Frankfurt, 1820) in discussing such passages attempts to establish an absolute identity of view in the Avesta and the Old Testament: but whatever may be urged with regard to some particulars, there is certainly not a word in the Books of Moses to justify the supposition that any creature is essentially unclean, or that certain animals are produced by the creative energy of an Evil Principle. 2 Burnouf, Études, in the Journ. Asiat. (1840), p. 324, regards the importance assigned to the 'sentiment of human personality and morality' as the best feature of 'Zoroastrianism.' III. High posi kings. ship. Indeed the Persian monarchs may be fitly taken CHAP. as at once the visible centres and the highest practical illustrations of the Medo-Persian theology. tion of the Unchecked alike by the intrigues and admoni- Persian tions of a dominant priesthood, such as that which flourished at the ancient court of Oude, or Thebes, or Memphis, they stood forward the supreme reflections, if not actual incarnations, of the glory of Ormazd1. The warm and flexible polytheism of King-wor their subjects had been earnestly directed towards them. They seemed to be entrusted with the sole administration of the light-kingdom, as the Pharaohs of an earlier period were the children of the Sun3. Their court was an inferior copy of the court of Ormazd: on grand or critical occasions they convoked a solemn council, the idea of which, in form and number, had been borrowed from the brilliant circle of divine amshaspands; and as 'words of Ormazd' himself were deemed most sacred and oracular, the law of ancient Persia had been taken from the lips of her great despot, who by placing his own signet on the harshest of decrees could render them irrevocable. 1 Thus, when Themistocles (Plutarch. Them. c. xxvii.) wished to be presented to the king, he was told by the Persian Artabanus that he must first submit to offer worship 'to the image of god the preserver of all things,' (i. e. of Ormazd). Curtius (VIII. 5) in like manner, says expressly, 'Persas reges suos inter deos colere:' see Hengstenberg, Genuineness of Daniel, pp. 103 8q. 2 Arrian, Alex. IV. II, mentions CHAPTER IV. Alleged Affinities of the Medo-Persian Creed to Οὕτω λέγει Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς τῷ χριστῷ μου Κύρῳ, οὗ ἐκράτησα τῆς δεξιᾶς... Ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι πλὴν ἐμοῦ θεός. ἐνίσχυσά σε, καὶ οὐκ ᾔδεις με. ἵνα γνῶσιν οἱ ἀπ' ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου καὶ οἱ ἀπὸ δυσμῶν, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι θεὸς πλὴν ἐμοῦ. ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι. ἐγὼ ὁ κατασκευάσας φῶς, καὶ ποιήσας σκότος, ὁ ποιῶν εἰρήνην, καὶ κτίζων κακά. ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς, ὁ ποιῶν πάντα ταῦτα. Is. xlv. 17. (LXΧ.) CHAP. THE Second period in her life-time when the IV. Hebrew Church was forced into more lasting and The Great direct communication with the heathen of surCaptivity. rounding countries must be dated from the middle of the eighth century before the Christian era. As the prelude to a general deportation of the Ten Tribes, the settlers in the Trans-Jordanic province had been carried captive to Assyria under Tiglath-Pileser (2 Kings xv. 29); and at length, about the year 600, a large portion of the feeble remnant, stricken by a like calamity, had run the risk of being quite extinguished under the tremendous despotism, which formed in every age a vivid type of the ungodlike and unchristlike,-Babylon the Great. Causes of it. The exile was itself, however, the effect', and not the cause, of cravings after all the abominations of the heathen.' From the period of the Exodus the leaders of the Hebrew nation had been ever struggling with this downward, retro 1 See above, pp. 142-145. |