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Professor Lawrence Mills
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This
lecture was delivered by Dr. Lawrence Mills, professor of Avesta
philology at Oxford University, United Kingdom, 1910.
Lecture
Many interested but necessarily hasty readers of the Zend Avesta overlook
the fact that in the ancient documents comprised under that name we have
works of many different ages; and even scholars eminently endowed with the
critical faculty as applied to other specialties sometimes fall into a
similar error, and ignore a characteristic which the Avesta possesses in
common with nearly all other writings of its description; -for they
sometimes turn over its pages without perceiving, or seeming to perceive,
that from leaf to leaf matter comes before them made up of fragments nearly
or quite dissimilar, and sometimes separated as to the dates of their
authorship by many hundreds of years. They are accordingly apt to make
themselves merry over absurdities which prevail in the later but still
genuine. Avesta, as if they were peculiar to the original Zoroastrian
writings.[2]
But the author, or authors, of the earlier
Avesta had no immediate or certain connection with the superstitions of
later centuries; and as to these quaint myths and trivial ceremonials which
are preserved in the less original Avesta, are we not apt to exaggerate the
disadvantages which they bring with them? How can their presence affect the
value of the nobler elements in these relics of ancient faith?
We are pained to read them, but analogous
superfluities survive in many modern systems. And indeed some of the cruder
passages in the Zend Avesta which describe the battle with the Demon of
Putrefaction, and which might seem to some of us most grotesque, were hardly
superfluities, for they showed a sanitation which it would be better for us
to follow rather than condemn.[3]
In tracing the following analogies, which I take from the genuine, yet still
newer, Avesta[4]
as well as from the Gathas, I shall leave out these inferior details
generally, abandoning them as rare morsels to the collectors of ancient
bits. What is here intended is to call attention to the little-known, though
long since reported, fact, that it pleased the Divine Power to reveal some
of the fundamental articles of our Catholic creed first to Zoroastrians,
though these ideas later arose spontaneously and independently among the
Jews; secondly, I wish to emphasis the peculiar circumstances of this
separate origin among the Jewish tribes of the Exile; -and thirdly, I wish
to show that the Persian system must have exercised a very powerful, though
supervening and secondary influence upon the growth of these doctrines among
the Exilic and post-Exilic pharisaic Jews, as well as upon the Christians of
the New Testament, and so eventually upon ourselves.
After this brief preface let me proceed at once
to cite the documental facts as to the whole system, only remarking that
they are practically uncontested by any persons whose views are worth
considering, for it is by no means necessary just here to go into the closer
technical linguistic distinctions[5]
in such a delineation as this. Let us now first trace the Iranian ideas
where their analogy with the Jewish seems most important.
To begin with our excerpts from the-Sacred Book
of the Iranians, we may consider the connection where it is also most
obvious, that is to say, as to the Nature of the Deity.
I. First of all He is Supreme, and therefore
One. The usual throngs of sub-godlets which appear with Him no more impair
His Supreme Unity than our own Archangels impair the Supreme Unity of
Jehovah of Hosts or of our own misunderstood Tri-Unity. There can be but one[6]
Greatest of the Gods who made the others, with this earth and one Heaven,
who made man and amenity for him.’[7]
But He is a moral God; His Supremacy is limited by His own character, which
is not irrationally dishonest; for He is not logically responsible either
through origination or through permission, for the existence of sinners and
their sufferings, the Universe being divided into two immense departments.
“There were two first Spirits, a better (they two), and an evil, as to
thought, as to word, and as to deed,-and when these two spirits came
together to make life and non-life (they arranged) what at the last the
world should be,-the best life of the faithful, but for the faithless the
worst mind, . . .[8],
a doctrine of mighty import indeed and consequence, and we must discuss it
fully and at once. For it would be a clumsy history of philosophy which
would allow the present noble monotheism of the Parsis to cheat us of the
speculatively precious element of dualism as it exists in their genuine
writings. (a) [(As regards the later doctrinal development among the
Zoroastrians whereby they entirely extinguished the vital elements of
Dualism, making the Supreme Good God at last completely victorious, all evil
being eliminated in the final restorations see just below ;-but this was
hardly a part of the original concept.)] To resume. The good and morally
Supreme Ahura is exalted as the one only real God in our modern sense of the
term; but He was One in adoration as well as in definition, supreme because
His ‘goodness’ makes Him great, ‘His Unity’ being that of His Truth,
Benevolence, Authority, and sacred Energy; see above and below,-though the
equally original evil God, as being independent, limits Him, completely
exculpating Him from all share in crime ;-in fact, entirely aside from any
personal Devil, He would be sufficiently limited by His own Attributes[9];
see above.
(b) Does analogy fail us here as between the
Iranian and Jewish concepts? -- and if so, to what extent?
The Jewish pre-Christian, but post-Exilic
thought was doubtless as replete with diabolic demonism as the Christian and
the post-Christian, though that of the Christian epoch was obviously under
the control of the exorcising Redeemer. Does this last particular, which
implies the inferiority of Satan, destroy all analogy here between Iran and
Christian Israel as to this essential matter? Not fully, in the sense in
which we should here view the matter. Though Angra Mainyu was obviously
inferior to Ahura in power, neither one of the two could be logically
regarded as the possible annihilator of the other; so that the one inferior
in power was to a certain point independent; -the Savior might temporarily
frustrate, or seem to frustrate his, Satan’s, malign purposes, but He
plainly could not annihilate him,-otherwise he would at once have done so.
(What is eternally original could not logically be regarded as coming to an
end through the power of any other being, though an eternally Original force
might yet of course be inferior within the scope of its legitimate
affectivity to another equally independent force,-for there can be but one
all-inclusive force which has no inferior; yet there can be relatively
independent and eternal forces which have no immediate connection with one
another, and here inferiority and superiority are greatly widespread; but
such a force could have never met any other in the past capable of
annihilating it, otherwise throughout a past eternity the meeting must have
taken place with the result under consideration): No theology should,
however, be pushed too closely to all its logical results; and we might
indeed even infer such an ' annihilation ' of the evil powers from those
'restorations ' of all men;-see above; and this from some expressions made
use of even in the later but still genuine Avesta as well as in the Gathas
themselves, together with those in the later Zoroastrianism ;-see above and
below;-though, as seen above, this would sacrifice all logic, for if the
Good God could save all men, He should have done this earlier in their
career. To allow human, or other spiritual beings to commit revolting crimes
for the purpose of letting them see through experience how evil sin is,
would be a policy of which a Good and Omnipotent God would hardly be
capable. [(-And who of us really believes that he was?--)]
But if, on the contrary, the Good Iranian God,
even He of the Gathas, is indeed to bring in universal salvation at the end
of any period, however restricted or protracted this period might be
supposed to be, then, in that case, the difference between such a phase of
Zarathushtrianism and some forms of Judaism and of liberal post-Christianity
in this respect fails, and they, these systems, are here, if only
illogically, one, -- and but for the ‘forever and forever’ of the Gathic
Iranian Hell, one might yet claim for the analogy between the systems a
persistent validity even as to this fundamental particular.
But no similarities, however protrusive, should
blind us to the real and apparently radical difference here between the
creeds as mainly expressed by their original authoritative exponents; and
the striking facts of opinion, as they existed among important sections of
both parties, remain in all their monumental force.
(c) Can we not, however, in regard to some large
sections of the early Jewish population, modify this apparent difference
from an opposite and unexpected quarter, abysmal though the difference
referred to may well seem to most of us to be? -- It is rather a colossal
question never before, so far as I am aware, mooted;-but we must grapple
with it none the less.
Is, then, Yahveh Elohim Himself (sic) always
actually so supreme as to be independent of all limitation on the part of
the evil Gods of the Gentiles? If not, were not the Jews themselves
sometimes in a certain essential sense of it 'dualists‘?
I very seriously raise the solemn question
whether the Jewish writers of the Old Testament earlier or late at all
really believed their Yahveh Elohim to be absolutely supreme in so far as to
have been the creator of either Satan, or of Baal , or of any of the
Demon-gods. We know indeed that they, the Jewish prophets, accredited the
existence of these Beings as a matter only too emphatically real, and by no
means uninterruptedly regarded them as being altogether creatures of the
imagination (see the frequent comparison of them with Yahveh Elohim). But
when, and in so far as, they thus believed them, these gentile gods, to be
really existing spiritual beings, in how far did they then suppose their own
Yahveh Elohim to have been their original creator, either bringing them into
existence as being holy in their nature before a fall like 'Lucifer’s.’ or
causing them to arise as being originally of evil character? -The question
is very serious. The foolish relief offered us by the doctrine that Yahveh
Elohim, as God the Father, was not responsible for the fall of beings who He
foresaw would become evil when He created them, is no longer available, and
could not have long continued to satisfy any sober-minded sage;-but if the
leading Jews in large numbers thus in due sequence unconsciously, or openly,
rejected the view that their good God Yahveh originally created the Evil
Gods of their enemies -- directly or indirectly, in any shape or chain of
causality or responsibility whatsoever, then such ancient Israelites were in
verity, though they may not have been consciously, dualists[10],
not far indeed from the type of Zarathushtra; - they held to the existence
of a Being, or Beings, who was, or who were, originally evil, and so they
held, to an original evil principle, which is dualism, and that dualism
remains one of the most interesting suggestions which have ever been
presented, and one indeed which, in its elements, if not in its detail, is
still unconsciously but largely followed.[11]
So much for this most fundamental of all
discriminations.
Others of the utmost interest offer themselves
here at once as being closely connected,-but, in the leading of a more
stringent logic, we should postpone them for later expansion, now facing
that other most practical of doctrines which often really gives the whole
discussion its immediate importance ;-and this is the great question of the
Human Immortality; -although many might indeed well say that the two
subjects could be profitably studied quite apart, -- and, in fact, that they
ought to be so studied separately.
II. I fear that we too little realize how very
uncertain the doctrine of a future life was in the minds of pious Jews, even
at the time of our Lord. The Sadducees, as we understand, believed in
‘neither angel, nor spirit, nor resurrection,’ and they quite held their own
with the Pharisees;-see even the street riot of Acts xxiii.; -several
princely high priests were of their clique, the entire party of the
Asmonaean or Hasmonaean princes inclined to this opinion. It seems to many
of us most curious that the sect among the ancient people of God, which
especially claimed the title of ‘purists'[12]
and sticklers for the ancient Pentateuch, should have been well-nigh
absolute disbelievers in what are now considered to be the essential
elements of religion;-see also the expression 'who only hath immortality,’
and also ' who brought life and immortality to light’ through the gospel, as
if the subject had been till lately obscured.
If such a state of things existed at the time of
our Lord, when both the doctrine of immortality and that of resurrection had
long been familiar as theories, what must have been the condition of opinion
upon these subjects while the influence of the Pentateuch, in which these
doctrines were
not distinctly revealed at all, was as yet not
affected by the large addition to canonical Scripture made later ?
Few scientific theologians will deny that the
full doctrine of a conscious and accountable immortality was scarcely
mentioned before the later Isaiah[13];
that is to say, not before the Captivity, whereas the Zoroastrian scriptures
are one mass of spiritualism, referring all final results to the heavenly or
infernal worlds.-We shall return to the details for their necessary
amplification further on.
(a) This is, however, also the proper place to
emphasise the main essential moral and intellectual elements of this future
immortality which we have indeed already inclusively adumbrated. In close
accordance with the moral character of God is the deep subjectivity of the
Religion.
Holiness is prayed for, and Heaven and Hell are
chiefly mental states: - 'O Asha (Angel of the Holy Law), shall I see thee,
and Vohumanah (the Good Mind), I finding Sraosha (God’s Heeding Ear and
man’s), the way to Ahura (or ' finding His throne '), Y.XXVIII. 5.
The last line in the passage cited above, Y.XXX.
4, seems to imply that the future life of the righteous was the ' Best Mind
'; from this the word ' Best’ occurs as used by the Persians for 'Heaven.’
Rewards and punishments are self-induced, Y.XXXI.20; ' and this which is
your life, O ye vile, with (your) own deeds your own souls have brought you.
'Cursed by their souls and selves (their being’s nature) in the Druj-Lie-Demon’s
Home at last their bodies lie (or, ' their citizenship (?) is),’ Y. XLVI. I
2?*
III. Having endeavored here at the outset to
engage-attention by putting the two most vital elements into point, we can
now return to the scarcely less imposing extended detail which presents
itself in regard to the chief concepts already touched upon.
Ahura Mazda, the Living Lord, the great Creator
(or possibly the ' Wise One '), has a most Bountiful, or most Holy Spirit,
who is sometimes identical with Him, and there is precisely the same
difficulty in distinguishing between Ahura and His Holy (?) Spirit, which
meets us in the Semitic when we endeavour to decide positively in the
analogous obscurity. (Often we cannot tell whether Yahveh’s attribute or His
creature is meant.)
Yasna XXVIII, I:
' With hands outstretched, I beseech for the
first (blessing) of Thy most Bounteous or (holy) Spirit.‘[14]
See also Yasna I.I:
'I invoke, and I will complete my sacrifice to
Ahura Mazda, the Creator, the radiant, the glorious, the greatest and the
best, the most firm, (who sends His) joy-creating grace afar, who made us
and has fashioned us, who has nourished and protected us, who is the most
bountiful (the most holy) Spirit.'[15]
(b) In the seven Bountiful (or ‘holy’) Immortals
(the Amshaspends of literature) we have a union which reminds us of the
Sabellian Trinity (Yasht XII I. 82):-‘ We sacrifice to the redoubted
guardian spirits of the Bountiful Immortals who are glorious, whose look
itself has power (their look produces what they wish), who are lofty and
coming on to help us, who are swiftly strong and divine, everlasting and
holy, who are Seven[16],
and all of one thought, of one word, and of one deed, whose thought is the
same, whose word is the same, and whose deeds are the same, who have one
Father and Commander, Ahura Mazda;-each of whom sees the other’s soul
revolving good thoughts, thinking of good words, contemplating good actions,
whose abode is the Home of Sublimity (or ' Song‘), -and shining are their
paths as they come down to us to offering.‘[17]
While they are thus unified, Ahura Mazda being
illogically-included within their number, they are yet separate. Vohumanah
is the divine benevolence, the good mind of the Deity, likewise alive
within. His saints, and later personified as a separate Archangel, while
even in the Gathas it represents the holy or correct citizen. Asha, t h e
Vedic Rita, is the divine Order, the symmetry and perfection in the Law, the
ritual, and in the soul, while at the same time a poetically personified
Arch-angel. Khshathra is His sovereign power realised in a kingdom of
righteousness, and yet also poetically personified. Ar(a)maiti is our
energetic zeal and piety, the Active mind, inspiring energy of the Deity
first thought ,of as the 'ploughing of agriculture'; to aratrum, and from
this latter called the ‘earth’ in both Veda and Avesta, as against the
non-toiling and theft-murder schemes of the raiding Turks. She is also in
figurative conception God’s daughter, and this even in the Gathas, where
'God’ is otherwise only in general the ' Father of the good, ’the Fire
being' God’s Son,’ exclusively in the later Avesta, She is also implanted
within the minds of the faithful as a divine inspiration.
Haurvatat is God’s Perfection consummated
through His foregoing Truth, Love, Power and Vital Energy, while the name is
borrowed, or promoted from the haurvatat ' wholesomeness‘ --i.e.,. ‘the
health and success ' of man. [(It was God’s completeness like that of man’s
as reflected in the body’s health, then soon perfected in the weal of soul
and mind as well as of body, an idea evidently necessary to the roundness of
the scheme, and added in most modern theologies)]; -while Ameretatat is
their Immortality, God’s Eternity and man’s Death’s absence, a veritable
victory over death begun in its long postponement to old age here, which
last was indeed the original point-meaning of the word,-but continued in
eternal Deathlessness in a future state.“[18]
From the second to the seventh they are
therefore the personified thoughts sent forth from the mind of God to
ennoble and redeem His people. That the general description of such
notorious and striking conceptions as these, immensely widespread as they
were in the dominant power of Asia, and lying at the logical root of
Zoroastrianism, should have become known to the Jews of the Captivity and to
their descendants before the date of some, if not all, of the Exilic
Prophets, is scarcely less than certain, for they were also signally
identified by the distant Greeks with the general theology of Persia far and
wide, without distinction of provinces,-and the Greeks also heard of them,
in their deepest and purest sense, before the date of Daniel (see the '
invaluable’ passage in Plutarch evidently reproducing the ideas of
Theopompus, whom he quotes, also cited by me elsewhere). If the priests of
Cyrus conferred to the smallest degree with those of Ezra, then not only the
Gnostics felt its influence, but the pre-Christian and Christian theology.
And in the Book of Tobit, which also contains prominently the name of an
Avesta demon, we have an allusion to these Seven[19]
Spirits (chap. xii. 15) at Ragha, the Zarathushtrian centre (let it be
noticed), one of whom, those Spirits, is actually mentioned as Raphael, the
Jewish Archangel, so positively 'identifying' the two 'sets' of 'Seven
Spirits,’ though in a somewhat loose manner. So also in Zechariah (iv. IO)
we have the 'Seven which are the eyes of the Lord, and which run to and fro
upon the earth '; - and this is further expanded in Rev. v. 6: 'And I saw in
the midst of the throne a Lamb standing as though it had been slain, having
seven horns and seven eyes, which are the " Seven Spirits " of God sent
forth into all the earth.’ (How sublime it all becomes when we look upon it
in the light of parallel development in unassisted growth.) --
[((c) Negative arguments as regards the extent
of territory reached by these doctrines, drawn from the absence of the named
‘Seven’ from the Inscriptions, are the mistakes of non-experts, as well as
are the negative arguments with regard to their dates. These names are
equally absent from large portions of the Avesta, and no inference can be
made from their absence from the Inscriptions. (Certainly not, as we may
pause to state, upon the ground that they, the Inscriptions, are in
themselves a completed unit, while they yet omit some of these
personifications, which should, as an objector might suppose, be included
within all complete documents dealing with the Iranian Religion, and that,
on the other hand, the portions of the Avesta which omit these
personifications are but parts of a whole, and therefore might not be
expected to contain allusions even to leading concepts: -- this negative
point has little force, from the fact that the Achaemenian Inscriptions,
while perhaps the most important and extensive of sculptured writings upon
rocks are yet, nevertheless, necessarily very circumscribed when regarded as
literature. (And how long must it have taken to complete them, by workmen
who could neither read nor write in any language, while the composers also
should not have been expected to mention all particulars.))
The number ' seven,’ together with the very
names of the Ameshas, though not visible upon the Inscriptions, found, as we
have seen, its way to distant shores, and the report of Plutarch just cited,
concerned, as we have also emphasised, the general religion of all Persia,
so that it could not have been intended to exclude that form of the so
widely extended Faith which prevailed about Behistun and Nakhsh i Rustam.
And that these same ideas at least, which are expressed in the names of the
Amesha Spentas were prominent in Farsistan is illustrated by the fact that
two of them are combined in the name of an Emperor, Artakhshatra, which is
Asha (A[r]sha) plus Khshathra.
[(-To be complete it may be well to pause here
again for a moment, and on the other hand guard my readers against a false
identification.
In the case of Arachosia the eastern province
(better Harachosia, as the first s of the Indian Sarasvati requires a
corresponding organic h), the name stands only as Harauvati upon Behistun,
so in the Elamatic (Susian) there is no A, for the organic second ' s ' of
Sarasvati ; h appears only in she Babylonian ;-though in other cases 'h' is
a letter easily dropped ; see India-(Greek)-instead of Hindia, compare
Hindoo and Sinhu. I think we had better restore the 'h' and read Harauhvati.
Otherwise Harauvati might be simply the equivalent of Av. Ha(u)rvatat(i),
Indian Sarvatati, the fifth Amesha. Religious names were not unusual when
applied to countries; recall Arminiya (adj.), which seems clearly related to
Ar(a)maiti, the fourth Amesha; see also the name of the great Province of
Azarbaijan (Adarbaijan), named from the ' Fire-altars.’ But, as said, these
remarks are a mere interlude.-)]
Angra Mainyu does not indeed occur upon the
Inscription, but His Chief Creature, the Female (?) Devil of Deception, the
drauga = draogha -- that is, the Druj(k), see above-is present everywhere,
though her, or 'his' (?), essential characteristics are more frequently
expressed under the verbal than under the nominal form. 'He lied' thunders
everywhere from the monumental surfaces; those seprobations must have been
constantly repeated in greatly varied forms ; and these ideas in their
original, or later, shape may well have helped to mould Jewish and Christian
expressions.
Mithra and Anahita too seem to have stepped
bodily out of the Avesta. Many turns of speech are strikingly common to the
Avesta and the Inscriptions.)] – To resume.
IV. Then as to the attributes of God more
definitively considered in their relation to man; He is our Creator (so
already necessarily alluded to above upon the Attributes), and perhaps also,
in a theological sense, sovereign; cf. Yasna XXIX.4 in S.B.E. XXXI., and in
the Gathas:-
‘The Great Creator is most mindful of the
utterances or commands which have been fulfilled beforehand hitherto by
demon-worshippers,* and by faithful men, and of those which shall be
fulfilled by them hereafter; He, Ahura, is the discerning arbiter, so shall
it be to us as He shall will (see also Y.XXXI. 14). -- He is omniscient (see
Y. XXXI.13, 14). He is our lawgiver (Y.XXXI.II) and teacher (Y.XXXI. 5;
Y.XXXII. 13) -- He will establish a kingdom (Y.XXIII.4). It is for the poor
(Y.XXXIV. 3): “What is your kingdom, what are your riches, that I may become
your own in my actions with the righteous order, and thy good mind, to care
for your poor.?" (Y. LI I I. g): -- "O Mazda, Thine is the Kingdom, and by
it Thou bestowest the highest of blessings on the right-living poor." -- It
is endangered, and yet in the end victorious. It has propaganda (Y. XXXI.
3): “With tongue of thy mouth do thou speak, that I may make all the living
believers.” God is our friend, protector, strengthener, and unchangeable (Y.XXXI.
7). "These, O Spirit, mayst thou cause to prosper, Thou, who art for every
hour the same." -- He is our Judge (Y.XLIII. 4).[20]
-- There is a day or period of judgment (Y. XLIII. 5, 6): "Yea, I conceived
of Thee as Bounteous, O Ahura Mazda, when I beheld Thee as supreme in the
actions of life, when, as rewarding deeds and words, Thou didst establish
evil for the evil, and blessings for the good by Thy great virtue or 'great
wisdom ' in the creation’s final change. In which last changing Thou shalt
come, and with Thy bounteous Spirit, and thy sovereign power (see also
Y.XLIV.19).'
V. Then to return for expansion to the evil
element in the dualism, we have again, upon the other hand, the more
detailed description of Satan’s counter-activity toward man. While criticism
casts its doubt upon the presence of Satan in the serpent of Genesis, we
gather from the Genesis of the Avesta that the Scriptural reptile may well
be recognized as that ‘old Serpent, the Devil. ’A serpent tempts in Genesis,
and the consequence is sin and the expulsion from Eden. In the Vandidad, the
Evil Spirit[21]
opposes every good object of creation, and the implied consequence is an
expulsion; the point is closer here.
Vendidad I. Ahura Mazda said unto Zarathushtra
Spitama:
'I. O Zarathushtra Spitama, made the first best
place, which is Airyana Vaejah, -- thereupon Afigra Mainyu (the Evil Spirit)
created a counter-creation, a serpent in the river, and frost made by the
demons… The third place which I, Ahura Mazda, made the best was Mouru;
thereupon Afigra Mainyu (the Evil Spirit) created a counter creation, which
was backbiting and lust… The fifth place which I, Ahura Mazda, made the best
was Nisaya ; thereupon, in opposition to it, Angra Mainyu (the Evil Spirit),
full of death, created a counter creation, which was the curse of unbelief…
As the seventh best place I, who am Ahura Mazda, created Vaekereta…
there-upon, in opposition to it, Afigra Mainyu (the Evil Spirit), full of
death, created the evil fairy who clave to Keresaspa… As the ninth place, I,
who am Ahura Mazda, created Khnenta as the best… thereupon Afigra Mainyu .
(the Evil Spirit) created a counter creation, the inexpiable deed of Sodomy[22]…
etc.’
These memorable fragments must have struck the
attention of every learned Jewish scribe who studied the Lore of his great
Persian Protectors; and what Zarathushtrian who was at all religiously
instructed had not at least known of these items in their earlier form ? See
the allusions to them swarming everywhere.
(a) Then the Asmodeus (Asmodai) of the Book of
Tobit (see above) is positively the Aeshma-daeva of the Avesta and Aeshma
was the Wrath-demon of Invasion contending with the Seven Spirits in the
Gathas, as he did with other fell aims against the same Seven Spirits in
Tobit (see Y.XXVIII.7, etc.; see above and below).
(b) A ‘fall of man’ is included in the
successive expulsions just above related, but we have also in the original
Avesta, which was written still earlier than the Vendidad, a fall of man, as
of spiritual beings, distinctly stated (Y. XXX. 3): ‘Thus are the primaeval
Spirits (see above) which, as a pair, each independent in his actions, have
been famed of old (as regards) a better and a worse, as to thought, as to
word, and as to deed ; and between these Two, the demons (or ' their
worshippers') could make no righteous choice, since theirs (was) deception
;-as they were questioning (in their hesitation) the Worst Mind approached
them that he might be chosen.-Thereupon they rushed together unto Aeshma,
the Demon of Rapine, that they might pollute the lives of mortals.’
(c) So much for the more definitive, and, so to
speak, 'applied,’ attributes of the Evil Deity, the 'God of This World.’ The
fell characteristics here manifested are not indeed so categorically
arranged in a recognised order in the Gathas, nor in the later, but still
genuine, Avesta.
The ‘Good’ Immortal Seven are so constantly
presented together in those productions that a formal correspondence in
antithesis is more nearly approximated in the later Zoroastrianism, yet we
may easily trace out a marked and most important informal grouping of the
opposed intellectual forces even in the Gathas. As Angra Mainyu there is
opposed to Ahura Mazda, the One, the first, being the God of Heaven, and the
second the God of Hell, so the D ruj Lie- demon of the Infidels is opposed
to Asha (Arsha) the Truth - Law everywhere; the Akem, evil, (sometimes
called Achishta= ' the worst') Mind is opposed to Vohu Manah, the Good Mind,
at times Vahishta, ' the best.’ The Dush-Khshathra = evil Kings, are opposed
to Khshathra, Archangel of the Sovereign Authority ; Taromaiti, surpassing
insolence, is opposed to Ar(a)maiti, the zealous Piety ; while Av(a)etat = '
dejection,’ etc., opposes Hauravatat the Universal Weal of Health and of
Salvation, and Ameretatat, the deathless-long-life, here and hereafter, is
opposed everywhere by Merethyu, ' death,’ etc.
VI. As to Soteiology, a virgin conceives. It is
not however, to produce Zarathushtra, but the restoring Saviour of the
latter age ;-nor does she conceive without seed although she is still a
virgin. She conceives from the seed of Zarathushtra, which has been
miraculously preserved. The details, which show a gross deterioration from
Gathic times, are presented in their rounded form only in the Bundahish,
which is perhaps as much as a thousand years later than the date of the
original passages in the genuine but still later Avesta. 'Zarathushtra
approached his wife Hvov… the angel Neryosangh received the brilliance and
strength of that seed, and delivered it with care to the angel Anahid, and
in time it will blend with a mother. Ninetynine thousand nine hundred and
ninetynine myriads of the guardian spirits of the saints are intrusted with
its protection’ (see the Bundahish. S. B. E., vol. v., p.144). It is
preserved in the Lake Kasava till, at the end of the earthly cycle, a maid
Eretat-fedhri, bathing in the lake, will conceive from it, and bring forth
the last Saoshyant, or future benefactor, while two of his predecessors are
similarly engendered. These several items are likewise visible in a
scattered state in the ancient but still comparatively later Avesta. In
Yasht XIII.142, we read:
'We worship the guardian spirit of the holy maid
Eretat-fedhri, who is called the all-conquering, for she will bring him
forth who will destroy the malice of the demons and of men.‘[23]
While in Yasht XIX. 92, we read that
‘Astvat-ereta (the Saviour of the Restoration) will arise from the waters of
Kasava, a friend of Ahura Mazda, a son of Vispataurvairi, the
all-conquering, knowing the victorious knowledge which will make the world
progress unto perfection.'[24]
And in Yasht XIII.62, we learn that many myriads
of the spirits of the faithful watch over the seed of Zoroaster.[25]
[(That we have here the hope of a virgin-born Redeemer admits no doubt.
Whether such intimations, repeated under various forms, came from the hint
of the Israelitish prophets or vice versa is of course a question, but that
Zoroastrian or Mazda-worshipping Magi, if they came from the East to do
honor to the virgin-born babe of Bethlehem, were familiar with them is
certain. And as they expected a virgin-born Savior themselves, it is but
reasonable to suppose that this pious hope may well have lain at the
foundation of their divine call to discover him who was born 'King of the
Jews. ‘)]
VII. According to the record, evil Powers
aroused themselves at the birth of the Semitic Deliverer, and so at Vendidad
XIX., 43 we have: ' He shouted, and shouted forth again, he Angra Mainyu,
the evil Spirit who is full of death. He pondered, and he pondered deeply,
the demon of the demons, and he thus said, he who was the evil-minded Angra
Mainyu, “What! Will the demons be assembled in an assembly on the top of
Arezura[26],
they the wicked, evil-minded?’ …
They rushed and they shouted, b they, the
demons, wicked, evil-minded, and with the evil eye: -- 'Let us assemble in
an assembly on the top of Arezura, for born indeed is He who is the holy
Zarathushtra of the house of Pourushaspa. Where shall we find destruction
for Him? -He is the demon’s wounder, -- He is the demon’s foe. He is Druj of
the Druj (a destroyer of the destroyer). Face downward are the
demon-worshippers, prostrate is the death-demon.d and down is the Draogha of
the lie. ‘[27]
(a) Then as to the Temptation. -- If our Lord
approached that great event in the spirit of a wide humanity, one would
surmise that he felt some sympathy with sages who had gone before Him in
similar signal encounters, -and there exists a temptation of Zoroaster of
which He may have known through supernatural cognition, and to which for
colour that of Hercules, for instance, bears no comparison. The myth
containing it doubtless expresses in its fragments what was once a real
struggle, which, if it in any sense saved Zoroastrianism, was one of the
world’s crises. Zoroaster is besought by the Evil One to abjure the holy
Mazdayasnian religion, and to obtain a reward such as an evil ruler got
(Vend. XIX.I). A rally from a first defeat having been made, Angra Mainyu,
the evil Spirit coming from the 'north region of the North[28]‘?
Orders the Lie-demon to assault and slay the holy Zarathushtra, now no
longer just born, but in the vigor of his age. The demon, again discouraged,
returns to Angra Mainyu. She says:
'O baneful Evil Spirit, I see no death for him,
for glorious is the holy Zarathushtra.'[29]
Zarathushtra (seeing through their thoughts,
says within himself) :
‘The Demons plot my death, they, evil-doing as
they are.’
Then Afigra Mainyu again heads the throng.
'He (Z.) arose, he went forth uninjured f by
their plan and the hardness of their words. And Zarathushtra let the Evil
Spirit know:-‘
O evil-minded Afigra Mainyu, I will smite the
creation made by demons ; I will smite the Nash (putrid demon); I will smite
the evil fairy (that seduced the early sages), till the Saviour is born
victorious from the waters of Kasava, from the utmost region of the East.[30]--
And Aiigra Mainyu answered, shouting as he
spoke:-‘
Slay not my creatures,g holy Zarathushtra. Thou
art Pourushaspa’s son, for from thy birth have I invoked (thee).[31]
Renounce the good religion of those who worship
Mazda. Obtain the reward j which Vadhaghan, the murderous (ruler), gained.'
–
And Zarathushtra answered :
‘Never shall I abjure the good faith k of those
who worship Mazda: (no), let not my body, nor my life[32],
nor my senses fly apart.' –
And to him then shouted the Evil Spirit of the
evil world: With whose word wilt thou thus conquer? -With whose word will
thou abjure? With what weapon as the best formed wilt thou conquer these my
creatures?
And Zarathushtra answered:-‘
With the sacred Haoma plant, with the mortar,
and the cup, with the word which God pronounced.’ With these my weapons
(will I slay thee), they are best. With that word shall I be victor, with
that word shall I expel thee, with this weapon[33]
as the best made, O evil Afigra Mainyu. The most bounteous Spirit forged it;
in boundless time He made it; and the Bountiful Immortals gave it, they who
rule aright, who dispose (of all) aright.'
And Zarathushtra chanted:
--
‘As the higher priest is to (be revered and)
chosen, so let the lower chief (be one who serves) from the righteous order,
a creator of mental goodness, and of life’s actions done for Mazda, and the
kingdom of is to Ahura, which to the poor may give their nurture.’
[34] --
Here we may well introduce the closing verse of
the chapter (XIX. 147):
[35]-‘
The demons shouted, the demons rushed, the
evil-doing and the wicked; they rushed and they fled to the bottom of the
place of darkness ; that is, of frightful Hell.'
Few Medo-Persian subjects in the streets of
Jerusalem being presumably Mazda-worshippers, like their Emperors, here
lingering in the Persian subject city soon after, or long after the Return,
could have failed to know this striking myth probably in a much fuller form;
and none who knew it could have failed to tell it, if creeds were at all
discussed.
VIII. We can now trace the records of the soul's
individual experiences in its salvation, and here the astonishing
subjectivity of the system comes once more fully out. In Vend. XIX.30, the
soul is met on its arrival after death at the: Chinvat, or Judge’s, Bridge
by a female form accompanied with dogs,[36]
and in Yasht XXII. We learn who this female was. It was none other than the
believer’s conscience.
The figure presents the
typical features of female attractiveness; she is beautiful, she is noble,
and in the flower of her youth. ‘What maiden art thou,’ he asks her,' who
art the most beautiful of maidens that ever I have seen? And she, who is his
conscience[37],’
answers: 'I am verily, O youth, thy conscience, thy good thoughts, and
words, and deeds, thy very own.’ But he asks her: -- 'who hath desired thee
hither with his love, coming with thy majesty, thy goodness, and thy beauty,
triumphant and an enemy of grief?’ And she answers: -- ' Thou hast loved me[38]
and desired met hither, O youth, even thy good thoughts, and words, and
deeds. For when thou sawest idol-worship… thou didst desist, chanting the
Gathas, and sacrificing to the good waters and to Ahura-Mazda’s fire,
contenting[39]
the righteous saint who came to thee from near and from afar. It is thus
that thou hast made me, who am lovely, still more lovely, and me who am
beautiful hast thou made still more beautiful, and thou hast made me who am
beatified still more beatified… through thy good thoughts, and words, and
deeds.’ (Here we may observe, in passing, the same element of pleased
surprise which we have in the sublimer Matthew XXV. 37; the soul is
incredulous: ' When saw we Thee a hungered and fed Thee? ‘,-and the answer
is, 'Thou hast fed and lodged me;' so here there is surprise: ‘who hath
desired thee hither with his love?' And the answer is: ‘Thou hast;-for thou
didst content the righteous man coming from near and from afar. ‘) As the
soul proceeds further, it passes the Judge’s Bridge and comes before the
golden throne, where the Good Mind is seated[40]
(Vend. XIX.31). He rises to meet it, and welcomes it: ‘When didst thou come
hither from that perishable world to this imperishable world? ‘-and the
saints who have passed away before him ask him the same : -- 'How long was
thy salvation?' Then said Ahura Mazda: ‘Ask him not what thou asketh of that
cruel way which is the dividing of the soul and body’ (Yasht XXII.). And the
first step, as he advances, places him in the entrance of the three-fold
Heaven, which is again the Good Thought, and the second step places him in
the Good Word, and the third in the Good Deed.-Then the soul passes on
contented to the souls of the saints, to the golden throne of Ahura Mazda,
and to the golden thrones of the Bountiful Immortals, and to the abode of
Sublimity (or ' Song '), even to the home of Ahura Mazda and His blest[41]
(Vend. XIX.33). A corresponding evil spirit awaits the wicked; a hideous
female is his conscience,-the wicked and Angra Mainyu mock him, and he
rushes at last into the Hell of evil thoughts, and words, and deeds.[42]
IX. Corporeal resurrection seems to be placed
after the reception of souls into Heaven as if they returned later to a
purified earth.[43]
As to this doctrine,-which is, properly
speaking, not identical with that of ' immortality,’ but which may be said
to be closely associated with it,-aside from the constant implication of it
throughout, we have in Fragment IV., ' Let Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit, be
hid beneath the earth,-let the Daevas disappear, let the dead arise, and let
bodily life be sustained in these now lifeless bodies.’ And, in Yasht
XIX.83, we have resurrection together with millennial perfections: - 'We
sacrifice unto the Kingly Glory which shall cleave unto the victorious
Saoshyant and His companions, when He shall make the world progress unto
perfection, and when it shall be never dying, not decaying, never rotting,
ever living, ever useful, having power to fulfill all wishes, when the dead
shall arise, and immortal life shall come, when the settlements shall all be
deathless.’ Contrast this with the earlier Scriptural passages, void as they
are of any genuine statement of this important dogma; compare these, then,
with statements which appear after the return from the Captivity, a
captivity during which the tribes had come into intimate contact with a
great religion[44]
in which the passages cited express predominant convictions; what do we find
in them? First, we have the jubilant hope expressed by the later Isaiah:
'Let thy dead live, let my dead body arise; -- Awake and sing, ye that dwell
in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast
forth the shades.’ And then the full statement in Daniel: 'And many of them
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt.‘ And yet God’s people, as we
have seen above, had by no means universally accepted the meaning of this
language even at the time of Christ. We draw the inference-the religion of
the Jews was originally Sadducaic.[45]
X. Such then are the historical literary facts,
-- uncontested for the most part, the great mass of them (see above), and
also incontestable; and this, whatsoever may be their possible or
impossible, exterior historical connection or disconnection with the Hebrew
theology, or with our own. The points deduced from them clearly show that
they contain the very most essential elements of 'our own religion' in its
advanced, if still formative, condition, from the date of the Captivity, or
before the time of Christ, and after the Restoration from the Exile. [(--Let
us now for convenience compactly collect the points made in the above
copious citations. First of all there was God’s unity as the greatest of the
deities and with a name far more appropriate than our own for Him.-He has
the Attributes of Justice, Benevolence, Authority, Inspiring Energy (compare
the Holy Spirit), Universal Weal and Eternity. There were these latter at
times personified as Archangels: sO, rhetorically or otherwise; there was
His ‘creationism' of ' this world and yon Heaven,’ as of man, with
optimistic aims and results, no evil appearing as His product, and of the
other Gods and Archangels, these last having been at first His Attributes;
there was a human Immortality also certified as to the eternity of its
duration by the application of the word 'Amesha' in the next oldest portion
of the Avesta to the 'Immortal' Archangels, 'amesha’ being an adjective to
Ameretatat. There was a dominant subjective susceptibility in all the three
personified better elements, God, the archangels, and sanctified man,
extending to thought, word, and deed. –
There was a Demonology with the most pronounced
Satan of all literature, a very ' God of this world' as against the ' God of
Heaven.’ He has his evil Attributes in antithesis to the beneficial ones of
Ahura Mazda. One of them is positively personified in the Gathas, and
perhaps two of them ;-there is a fall of man as of other spiritual beings
from successive Edens through his, Angra Mainyu’s, malign influence. –
There was to be a judgment personal and
universal, discriminating thoughts, words, and deeds, with an approval
experienced in the saved man’s soul, and continued as a recompense, and also
a future Heaven itself partly consisting in the person’s own good thoughts,
and words, and deeds, but with various additional particulars of
beatification. Millennial periods of intermitting righteous felicity here
intervene, with a final restoration upon a renewed and supernaturally
beatified earth. This latter seems to take place as a sequel to the first
beatific reception of the soul in Heaven, a resurrection being an essential
element in this restoration, while the entire redemption is brought about by
a Virgin-born Beatifier. (There may be some possibility of a ‘sevenfold '
gradation of felicity, in connection with the Seven Karshvars of the Earth,
or with the Seven Spirits); For the evil, a corresponding Hell exists in
equal grade.-These are, as I need hardly repeat, the vital essentials of
'our own religion’ as it existed in its earlier stages in the Exilic period
during and after the Captivity and before Christ, being conspicuously
manifested in the orthodox Pharisaism, while these elements existed in the
Persian documents for unknown previous ages; see also the Veda at places.[46])]
(a) It can now be fully seen why I used the expressions in the title to
these lectures. Contrary, however, to many acute and sincere searchers, I
hold that the two forms of this same religion were originally each of
separate origin -- see again above and below,-each being a regularly
spontaneous and parallel development from unchanging universal laws, proving
the original man-unity, and strongly supporting the view that it was
impossible to prevent the origin and development of similar ideas, entirely
aside from all borrowing of them from one nation to another. (b) But while I
hold that these views arose from ' parallel development ' having been caused
by the disastrous afflictions of the Captivity, I lay no illogical straw in
the way of those who hold to the view that the doctrines were, under God,
taught directly to the Jews by their protectors. In fact, I would
strenuously repeat, and with emphasis, what I wrote in 1894-viz., the
principle, that any, or all of the historical, doctrinal, or hortative
statements recorded in the Old or the New Testament might, while fervently
believed to be inspired by the Divine Power, be yet freely traced, if the
facts would allow of it, to other religious systems for their mere mental
initiative, that the historical origin of particular doctrines or ideas
which are expressed in the Old or the New Testament does not touch the
question of their inspiration, plenary or otherwise- (c) [(That, for
instance and to illustrate, as St. Paul freely discloses his mental
peculiarities, and (as to citations) quotes a poet of his youth, so our Lord
Himself also reveals a mental constitution, and to a certain degree
expressed, as all others express them, the convictions and enthusiasms which
he has absorbed from earlier associations. And still more than this, unless
we are prepared to accede to a docetic heresy doubting the very reality of
our Saviour’s human nature, every sentiment of veneration ought to induce us
to trace, if it be possible to trace them, not only the fountain-heads of
His human convictions, but the supplying rills of His expression. (If we
carefully study the genealogy of His body, with how much greater earnestness
should we examine that of His mind.-) For it was His thoughts, humanly
speaking, and sometimes His earlier ones, which not only constituted a part
of His momentous history, but actually determined His career. In the source
of His thoughts, therefore, the great motives of His subsequent history are
to be sought. (d) Recall, for instance, what I also have just alluded to
above in the citations as to the recorded temptation of the Persian Saint:
as He was gathering up his re-solves for such a mental scene as that
described in the fourth chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel; see above[47],
in which He purposed to meet in one decisive encounter a spiritual power
which, as He believed, was threatening His creation, as there had been
something memorable of a similar kind in the experiences of prophets of
kindred religions, and if these were known to Him, as I have suggested,
through His omniscience[48],
it does not seem to me to be at all deniable that such preceding
'temptations' (as He revolved them, with all that they signified) influenced
Him, if He possessed that larger intellect which could see over the trivial
paraphernalia of superstition, and look at the soul struggling in its
sincerity for spiritual life, and for the spiritual lives of many who
revered it, then the humblest of His forerunners must have led him on. It
would seem, therefore, to be a very pious act to search, diligently for
everything which Christ hallowed by His reverence, and it would seem a very
mistaken religious sentiment which would arrest one in such a course.)]
Reflections
The most obvious place to search for
the doctrines and opinions amid which our Lord grew up, has been, as of
course, the Jewish literature of His period, and of that which preceded His
appearance; this has been examined to a considerable extent, and much of the
greatest interest has been brought to light; the theologies of Babylon and
Egypt should be also searched as well as those of Greece and Rome. From
India we have what seem a throng of rich analogies from the Buddhist
Scriptures, but our highest authorities upon the subject are, or were,
inclined to doubt the possibility of the historical connection ; there
remains then this ancient Persian theology, where, as we have seen, an
effective historical connection amounts, at one stage of it at least, to
historical identity,-and it is as such, I believe, universally recognized
Cyrus took Babylon, say, about the year 539 B.C. and with it the Jewish
slave colony, whose tribes continued to be Persian subjects till the
Achaemenian power broke. Jeremiah, foreseeing this future invasion of the
dominant and restless Aryan, voiced his anathemas against his Semitic
Babylonian oppressors in view of it; the 'Kings of the Medes' were to avenge
him, and in due course they did so, and, later sent the Jewish people back
from their Captivity, rebuilding the Holy City when it had become an '
heap,’ decreeing also the restoration of the Temple. The later Isaiah speaks
in most astonishing terms of this Restorer; the Book of Nehemiah discloses
further scenes with Persian monarchs; section after section of the Bible
dates from their reigns, while Magian[49]
priests, who were of the religion of Cyrus, came later to do honour to the
Son of Mary, and one of the last words uttered by Christ upon the Cross was
in the Persian tongue[50]”
[(-The fact that Cyrus may have coquetted politically with the Babylonian
priesthood, if it be a fact, is one which redounds somewhat to his credit
and corroborates our argument. How much better that he should show some
respect to the religion of his fallen enemies, who now became fully
acquiescent in their submission, than to crush them all wholesale with the
usual slaughter. Were it even true that he was accurately depicted upon a
stele as present at the worship of one of their chief deities, this would be
but one proof the more of his considerate courtesy. He did not conquer to
annihilate.
Whether the precise form of Mazda-worship now
upon the Inscriptions was that of Zoroaster exactly or not is just at this
point of our inquiries again a question which we need only glance at, as it
is of little moment.[51]
It seems likely, indeed, that it was an especially original form of
Mazda-worship remaining undeveloped in an original simplicity, while
elsewhere throughout Media and South Persia the particulars of the general
creed advanced till they became identified with those of the Zoroaster of
Plutarch. But whether this was the fact or not, it must have possessed the
main features which have been more or less exactly preserved to us in the
Zend Avesta.)] Further.
The word Mazda (perhaps -dah), meaning ‘the
Great Creator,’ or ‘the Wise One,’ is, as said above, with Ahura, the
Life-spirit-lord, an especially well-adapted name for God, much more so than
a name derived from a
Heathen Deity, it being the name used for Him by that great
Mazda-worshipper, who, under the providence of God, determined the entire
later history of the Jewish people. For had Cyrus, the Mazda-worshipper, not
brought the people back, the later prophets might not have spoken at
Jerusalem, nor might Jesus have been born at Bethlehem, nor taught in the
region. Indeed, the influence of the Great Restorer and his successors over
the city was so positive that in the opinion of some writers Jerusalem was
for a considerable period after the Return in many respects
almost ‘a Persian city.‘[52]
Supplementary Lecture
Many indeed have been the erroneous
statements made by well-meaning tyros in Christian pulpits, as by myself
too, once among them, with regard to the 'impossibility' of all later
connections between our great doctrines and analogous truths once held by
nations foreign to the Jews who may yet have been brought into connection
with them ; and the fervent novice may well be pardoned if, in his first
sincere efforts, he is too decided in a negative sense ; but in men of
maturer years let us hope for better things. For surely to be sentimental,
if only for a moment, -- the first object of religion next after the
suppression of unlawful violence or appropriation should be the suppression
of inaccurate statement, and to deny without any effort to become an expert
what every expert knows to be the truth is, so it seems to me, to commit a
crime in the name of Christianity for which Christianity will be one day
called upon to account. It is therefore to help the Church against
well-furnished gainsayers, and to reestablish her character for
conscientious investigation, that Christian specialists in orientalism have
given the best years of their lives, to save the endeared religion which
once inculcated every honourable principle from continuing herself to be a
victim if not the agent of that most sinister of equivocations known as
‘pious fraud.'
[53]
My procedure is thus, I hope, now clear to all.
The connection between Persia and Israel has been found to approach
identity, as was only to be expected from the fact that the two
nationalities,-if indeed the Jewish could really be called a ' nationality,
‘were parts of the same Empire for close on, or more than two hundred years.
As this is a point unquestioned a posteriori, so the doctrinal analogies
were as probable a priori as presuppositions, as they have been proved to be
historically actual through our Oriental research. And with this, note the
unparalleled expressions of theological sympathy. If we have found a
pictorial sculpture representing Cyrus as worshipping in a Babylonian
temple, a sort of political manifesto,[54]
-- and, if we regard this as showing clearly a strong leaning toward the
Babylonian Baal-worship, what shall we say as to the astonishing language of
this same Cyrus, with that of Darius, and Artaxerxes recorded in our Bibles,
rereading also what the Jewish prophets and historians have left written in
response to it.
I hardly think that anything of their kind
approaches these extended statements in the history of literature as an
expression of religious identity of feeling between two peoples similarly
situated, or even more closely connected, certainly not at their date ;-that
is, not, when all the other circumstances are held in view. Recollect that
the Bible is beyond all other documents regarded as hyper-sacrosanct, and by
nearly, or quite one-third the human race; -- even septices as to its detail
acknowledge harmoniously its unspeakable influence-then let us re-read
attentively what the Bible records of its own great Jewish-Persian Emperors.
The psychology of the development was, more distinctly, this: During the
shock and sorrows of the Captivity Gods people turned their thoughts from
earth to Heaven, just as we so often do, for the eventualities had proved
that the emporal rewards so persistently promised to the ‘righteous,’ had in
some way, and for the time being, proved illusory. Then came their Deliverer
with His thronging forces, and with a change in their immediate
circumstances which might well have re-assured them that the Psalmist had
indeed ‘never seen the righteous forsaken'; see above. And also that very
same enormous event, which might well have convinced them that this world
should at last show them better times as a reward for their fidelity,
actually itself brought with it the same settled and worked out doctrine of
another life which the Jews had just acquired, but which had been believed
in from their birth by those same large masses recruited from all parts of
the Iranian Empire, while priests of this Immortality accompanied every
battalion, or made many groups for each corps, with an illustrious King of
Kings at the head of all of them, who never dictated a word for an
Inscription without attributing every victory to the ' Life-Spirit-Lord, the
Great Creator, Auramazda'; see Behistun and else-where. What wonder then, as
1 have so often implied, that the Jews listened to the unconscious
expressions of their new-found friends, whose fire-altars at times glowed at
evening widely, and that, listening, they began the more to vie with these
Persian fellow-believers in the hopes and fears of what was now the common
Faith, and so the doctrine grew. While the historically more conservative
party amidst the Jews, that of the Zadokians, (the Sadducees) clung with
aristocratic tenacity to the old simplicity, and opposed this growing
Zoroastrianism of the masses. Yet the new views, adapted as they were to
appeal to the feelings of an afflicted humanity, prevailed, having first
concentrated themselves in a sect which termed itself, or which was termed
by its indignant predecessors Pharisees, Farsees, Persians,[55]
hardly ‘separatists,’ 'dividers.’[56]
So that, at the time of Christ, it could be said, and upon His own
authority, that ‘the Scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses’ seat,’ and it was
from him ' who lived a Pharisee 'that our own future hopes were chiefly
handed down to us.[57]
For additional literary focus to our results, I
would say, as if speaking from the orthodox point of view, that while the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are unrivalled in their majesty and
fervour, constituting perhaps the most impressive objects of their kind
known to the human mind, and fully entitled to be described as ' inspired,’
yet the greatly more widely-extended, and as to certain particulars, long
prior religion of the Mazda-worshippers was supremely useful in giving point
and body to many loose conceptions among the Jewish religious teachers, and
doubtless also in introducing many good ideas which were entirely new, while
as to the doctrines of immortality and resurrection within a restricted
sphere the most important of all, it certainly assisted and confirmed,
though it did not positively originate belief.
But the greatest and by far the noblest service
which it rendered was the quasi-origination and propagation of the doctrine
that ‘virtue is chiefly its own reward,’ even in the great religious
reckoning, and ‘vice its own punishment.’ The time is now past, let us hope
for ever, when the
Christian apologist recoiled from recognizing
the very important services which have been rendered to the holy faith by
peoples foreign to the Jews. And surely no one will look askance at the
happy fact that not only a small nation to the west of the Jordan held to
those great truths on which rest our hopes beyond the grave, but that the
teeming millions of Persia also held to them in successive generations Gong
earlier than the prophets. These considerations entitle their ancient lore
to our veneration and investigation. It now lies open not merely to the
laborious specialist but to the intelligent student,-and it is to be hoped
that from the mass of human energy devoted to so much that is trivial, some
fraction may yet be pared for the study of this rich and influential
monument of the past which holds such a conspicuous place among the records
of our own religious history.
References:
[1] The third
edition appeared in the Asiatic Quarterly Review for October, 1911, and in a
later number under the title ‘The pre-Christian Religion in Ancient Persia.’
[2] It is even not
uncommon to speak, or write, of the Avesta as if it were identical with the
later Zoroastrianism, the revived system of Sassanian times, which is,
however, as different from both the earlier and the later Avesta as the '
Lives of the Saints,’ for instance, are from the New Testament record.
[3] Consciously or
unconsciously they anticipated much modern theory upon this subject, and led
the way in the most practical of all sciences-sanitation, and their
suggestions as to this particular seem to some disinterested critics to have
been indirectly reproduced in the Book of Leviticus.
[4] The earlier
Avesta consists of the Gathas, the remnants of the original hymns of
Zarathushtra and his immediate associates or followers. They are most
dissimilar to the rest of the Avesta and still more so to the apocryphal
Zoroastrianism. They were carefully translated by me in the Sacred Books of
the East, Vol. XXXI., so long ago as October 1887, and their Zend, Pahlavi,
Sanskrit, and Persian texts were edited, and the first three translated, by
me with a Commentary in my Study of the Gathas, some 650 pages, 1902-04.
They may be provisionally placed at about 700 to 900 B.C., though they
astonishingly ignore the cults of Mithra, Haoma (Soma), and of the sun,
moon, etc., etc., which might argue a still earlier date for them. The
remaining parts of the Avesta are of different ages, say in their origins at
least from 600 to 300 B.C., while, as in the case of every other ancient
book, interesting additions of an indefinitely later origin occur here and
there. Some writers, while holding the Gathas to date from about 700 B.C.,
put even vigorous parts of the later but still genuine Avesta at a thousand
years later. What happened then in that long gap;-did Iranian literature
produce nothing?
[5] While even the
original passages could be learned by any apt scholar with a competent
teacher in the course of a very short time.
[6] See also the
very name of the so-called and really one God ; it was Elohim, meaning '
Gods,‘-and it once referred to a recognized plurality in Deities; while
Ahura created the highest of the sub-gods, even Mithra, at times otherwise
His close companion.
[7] See Behistun.
Dualism in the Inscription? -Auramazda is signally the creator of what is
‘good.‘ -- ’He did not make evil’ as Yahveh Elohim is said to have done in
Isaiah xliv. , xlv.
[8] See Y. XXX, 4.
[9] As a God of
Honor.
[10] Recall also the
very expression ‘God’ applied to Satan as the ‘God of this world.’ If Satan
was a ‘God of this world,’ and Yahveh was the ‘God of Heaven, we have here
at once something extremely like the ‘Pair’ at Y.XXX.
[11] What is the
present advancing pessimism (so called) but the recognition of the original
necessity of evil co-existing with good? T h e Avesta here anticipates
momentous distinctions; -recall the later schemes of the Gnostics; as to
which see also Jakob Boehume, Fichte and Hegel. Some writers have here
indeed compared the supposed Babylonian dualism especially in regard to
Isaiah xliv. xlv., etc., but such 'pairings' of the throngs of Gods should
hardly be here mentioned.
[12] Though the
name, being derived from the proper name of some prominent teacher, Zadok,
did not necessarily imply any especial claims to 'Righteousness’, - yet the
force of the word, as analogously elsewhere in similar cases, was doubtless
sometimes felt.
[13] The future
existence of souls after death was as dim in the pre-exilic Bible, as it was
in the older Greek classics;-in fact this latter, the Greek immortality,
seems to show rather the more of animation.
[14] About 700 to
900 B.C., or earlier.
[15] Somewhat later.
[16] Literary
confusion; -they were seven only with Ahura.
[17] Say 300 to 100
B.C., in its origins at least, or greatly earlier?
[18] The ' hundred
autumns ' of the Rik were the hope of all, and this idea of a
preternaturally extended life upon earth-that is to say, of a ' temporal
immortality ‘-merged into that of another' deathlessness' beyond the grave,
becoming an universal aspiration with the Irano-indians, as it is, indeed,
elsewhere; -for what nation ever existed without some form of it?
[19] One edition (!)
omits the word 'Seven' amply supplied elsewhere.
[20] These Gathic
passages may be placed at about 700 to 900 B.C.
[21] Though hardly
Azhi Dahaka, who was nevertheless a serpent
[22] About 500 to
300 B.C.; in its main prior elements greatly earlier; but, except where
guarded by the metre, extraneous matter universally finds its way in places
into ancient texts; many portions of the later Avesta must have been
repeatedly, seldom fatally, written over.
[23] In its origin,
say 300-500 B.C. (?), or greatly earlier.
[24] In its origins,
at about 300-500 B.C.; the much later repetition of this myth argues its
long previous growth through centuries.
[25] Compare this
drivel with the grandeur and simplicity of the Gatha, S.B.E. XXXI., pp.
I-194.
[26] Recall the
‘exceeding high mountain.’
[27] In its origin,
say about 300 or greatly earlier (?). The footnote signs expressed in
letters refer in each case to the corresponding analogy; see the note below,
p.23; (recall, 'cried with a loud voice').
[28] An accursed
quarter.
[29] Recall: ' I
know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.’
[30] A blessed
quarter.
[31] First aorist
mid. 'all these things will I give thee.’
[32] Other
translators introduce an ‘if' to gain a better meaning ' Not if my body, nor
my life, nor my senses fly apart.’
[33] Recall 'the
sword of the Spirit.’
[34] The texts cited
are all of them metrical, from this the rhythm of the renderings.
[35] For detailed
analogies in the above citations, which are not very close, recall perhaps
(a) 'the exceeding high mountain'; (b) 'cried with a loud voice, My name is
Legion, for we are many'; (c) 'Art thou come hither to destroy us before the
time?' (d) 'Death and Hell shall be cast into the lake that burneth'; (e) '
The Holy One'; (f) 'was led up into the wilderness to be tempted of the
devil'; (g) 'And the devils besought Him,’ etc.; (h) 'I know Thee who Thou
art'; (i) 'All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and
worship me'; (j) 'I will give Thee this authority’; (k)' Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God'; (l) 'It is written'; (m)' Get thee hence’; (n) 'The sword
of the Spirit, which is the word of God'; (o) 'him only shalt thou serve';
(p) 'Then the devil leaveth Him‘; ‘into the abyss.’
[36] Related to
Cerberus (?).
[37] Some writers
render, the believer’s 'soul'; others, the believer’s self, ’so varying the
identical idea.
[38] 'Invited me.’
[39] The later
Zoroastrianism explains ' lodged and entertained.’
[40] Recall the 'Son
of Man'; V.M. also equaled ' the good man.’
[41] About 300 B.C.
in its origins at least,
probably greatly earlier.
[42] A perhaps
misunderstood echo of this would be Rev. XXII. II: ' He that is unrighteous,
let him be unrighteous still: and he that is filthy, let him be filthy
still.’
[43] Recall the same
uncertainty among Christians as to the detail of their future beatification.
[44] Within a vast
Empire in which they had become citizens.
[45] Sadducees
before ‘Zadok.
[46] Further
citations on the contents of the Vedas are given later in the lecture by the
author upon 'The Avesta and the Veda.’
[47] Page 21.
[48] See the Talmud
article by Dr. Deutsch (Remains,
1874).
[49] The word 'Magian'
is with little doubt Avestic; the Maga was ‘the Holy Cause,’ occurring
repeatedly in the Gathas; the changed suffix u in Magu is of no importance,
and the o of the Avestic moghu results from epenthesis; cf. vohu for vahu,
Sk. vasu ; gh also = Gathic g. Maga, as being pre-Gathic by centuries, may
have been carried down to Akkad by Turanians; cf. Y.46,12. Some writers
have, I believe, assumed that the expression rab mag in Jeremiah could not
have originated from across the border; that it was purely Semitic;-but no
one doubts that the Magi of the Gospels were Aryan and Persian. And they
naturally came into once-Persian Judaa. Here is the same word as mag beyond
all doubt non-Semitic: the mag of rab mag may well be one of the hundred odd
Persian words in our Semitic Bible.
[50] Luke XXIII.43
Paradise -Av. pairi-d(a)eza.
[51] See my remark
in Vol. XXXI., S.B.E., Introduction, p. 30.
[52] THE AGE OF THE
GATHAS. - I have omitted to place the present note under the text, not
wishing to accumulate too much of such matter at the foot of the pages.
My argument for the age of the Gathas has been
very carefully thought out. First, any verbal statement within the Hymns
them-selves directly mentioning their age would be regarded by me as a mere
curiosity aside from internal evidence ;-it is what the documents reveal of
themselves, as it were, in passing and without intention, which alone
possesses validity in my eyes.
Secondly,-as to this internal evidence.-Are the
Gathas the productions of a person or persons living amid the actual scenes
to which they unconsciously allude? If they did so allude to interests which
were real, immediate, and vital, the Hymns must have been composed in a
language generally spoken as vernacular at the time. Reasons :-first (a),
they are twice formally addressed to assemblies ' coming from near and from
far ' (see Y. XXX., I, and Y. XLV., I) ; secondly(b), they allude pointedly
in the first, second, and third personals to persons immediately and vitally
involved in the religious-political situation of which the Hymns are the
expression (see Y. XXVIII., 8, ‘to Vishtaspa and to me,’ ' to Frashaoshtra
and to me‘;-see even a vocative in Y. XLVI., 15, 16); while their whole
tone, so personal and at times impassioned, clearly precludes the hypothesis
of a ' dead language ' in a scene so rudimental and in a climate so severe
as Iran, where energies would be directed rather to the necessities of life
than to a hyper-artificial literature of such a character as would use a
dead language for a careful imitation. Even in swarming India a fabricated
structure exactly of such a type as the Gathas would be if artificially
composed, is really unheard of. There was nothing there like such a supposed
worked-up romance. Sanskrit when a dead language was, indeed, widely used;
but never in close fraudulent imitation of a personal crisis. It would have
demanded inimitable art to imagine and fabricate such a forgery. If, then,
the Author or Authors of the Gathas used a language familiarly spoken at the
time, we know at once when they used it. For, thirdly, no one doubts the
date of the Achaemenian Inscriptions, nor that the language in which they
were sculptured was that spoken by Darius and the Persians of his day and
neighbourhood;-and this language is well preserved on the mountain rocks;
but upon comparing it with the Gathic we see that it appears in a form much
degenerated from it. Two hundred years, say, more or less, are needed as
time to account for the change; for that change was almost as great as that
from Anglo-Saxon to Elizabethan English. If, then, the Gathic language was
in vernacular use at the time at which the Gathic were written, and that
vernacular could not have prevailed at Behistun later than 200 years (about)
before Darius had his Inscriptions chiselled, we have at once the latest
date at which the Gathas could have been produced, say 700 B.C.
To suppose them written in a vernacular near the
time of Christ is therefore wholly absurd, for the Gathic language had been
dead for centuries, Pahlavi having taken its place;-and to regard them as
having been written in a dead language preserved among the priests is
likewise excluded by the nature of the compositions; see above. The language
must, indeed, have lingered amid the priestly schools as Sanskrit and Latin
did, and much later Avesta must have been written or rewritten in it. For
such matter as we have throughout the later Avesta would be naturally
reproduced from time to time amid the priestly schools written over in the
then ‘dead language'; cp. again the Sanskrit literature. Yet the intense '
personality,’ so to express it, of the Gathas could hardly have been so
radically reconstructed, much less fraudulently originated, with the metres,
had he even so much desired it, by anyone living at the time of Christ;
[(such an hypocrisy would imply an advanced cynicism incredible in the
circumstances)].
Pious fraud of the type indicated would have
also no visible motive; and without such an artificial misrepresentation
intentionally practised, the authorship of the Gathas at about the time of
Christ is unthinkable. Even if the allusions to the Gathas which occur in
the other books may have been, some of them, later inserted and incorporated
with them, yet it cannot be denied that they pointedly suggest a very early
date for them;-while the full view that the Gathas were genuinely composed
at the time of Christ by a then living Zarathushtra of a then living
Frashaoshtra and Jamaspa, etc., needs hardly to be considered; see above
;-no living poem composed in a contemporaneous national crisis could have
been popularly spoken in an unknown tongue. And as to the personality of
Zarathushtra, not only is it irresistibly implied in every allusion to the
Persian religion from Herodotus down, but we have Zarathushtra mentioned by
Plutarch as if his name were positively familiar to Theopompus, circa 350
B.C.
To sum up: the Gathas could not have been
written in a vernacular tongue later than 700 B.C., and they may have been
written much earlier; and they could not have been written in the 'dead
language' at all.
[53] To emphasise
such a point should be hardly our secondary object throughout such
discussions as the present.
[54] See above.
[55] The modern name
of the original province of Persia is Farsistan.
[56] It is bad
etymology to trace words to an abstract.
[57] Of course our
Lord Himself as an eschatologist adhered to the tenets of the Pharisees;
this while He denounced the practices of some of their chiefs who were
contemporaneous with Him. |
