will sink into their native darkness; and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.*

But the

The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners, and even by the far greater number of his disciples; but the most careless observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of the Persian worship. "That people," says Herodotus,+ "rejects the use of temples, of altars, and of statues; and smiles at the folly of those nations, who imagine that the gods are sprung from, or bear any affinity with, the human nature. The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers are the principal worship; the supreme God, who fills the wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are addressed." Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist, he accuses them of adoring earth, water, fire, the winds, and the sun and moon. Persians of every age have denied the charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear to give a colour to it. The elements, and more particularly fire, light, and the whom they call Mithra,‡ were the objects of their no. 36, and the Izeschne in the Zendavesta. According to the Sadder Ben-Dehesch, which is a more modern work, Ahriman is to be annihilated. But this is contrary to the words of the Zendavesta, and to the idea which its author had of the kingdom of Eternity, as it will be, after the struggle of twelve thousand years between the good and evil principles.-GUIZOT. * The modern Parsees (and in some degree the Sadder) exalt Ormusd into the first and omnipotent cause, while they degrade Ahriman into an inferior but rebellious spirit. Their desire of pleasing the Mahometans may have contributed to refine their theological system. Herodotus, 1. 1, c. 131. But Dr. Prideaux thinks, with reason, that the use of temples was afterwards permitted in the magian religion. Among the Persians,

sun,

Mithra was not the sun. Anquetil has successfully exposed the error of those who confound them; and it is equally shown by the Zendavesta, Mithra was the first of the genii, or jzeds, created by Ormusd, to watch over all nature; this gave rise to the opinion among the Greeks, that he was the "s summus deus of the Persians. He was represented with a thousand eyes and as many ears. Among the Chaldeans he held a higher rank than among the Persians. By him the light of the sun was given to the earth. The sun, named Khor (splendour), was therefore an inferior agent, who, with others of the same order, assisted the operations of Mithra. These assistant genii were called the kankars of him whom they serve; but they were never confounded in the Zendavesta. On the days consecrated to one of the genii, the Persian had to repeat, not only the prayers appointed to be addressed to him, but also those that were appropriated to his

religious reverence, because they considered them as the purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most powerful agents of the Divine Power and Nature.*

Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining practices of devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was abundantly provided with the former, and possessed a sufficient portion of the latter. At the age of puberty, the faithful Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the badge of the divine protection; and from that moment, all the actions of his life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or genuflexions; the omission of which, under any circumstances, was a grievous sin, not inferior in guilt to the violation of the moral duties.† The moral duties, however, of justice, mercy, liberality, &c., were in their turn required of the disciple of Zoroaster, who wished to escape the persecution of Ahriman, and to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity, where the degree of felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree of virtue and piety.‡

But there are some remarkable instances, in which Zoro

kankars. Thus the hymn, or iescht, of Mithra was recited on the sacred day of the Sun (Khor), and vice versa. These rites probably occasioned the error which was pointed out by Anquetil himself, and has since been marked by Kleuker, and all who have studied the Zendavesta. See Anquetil's eighth Dissertation, and Kleuker's Anhang, part 3, p. 132.-GUIZOT. * Hyde, de Relig. Pers. c. 8. Notwithstanding all their distinctions and protestations, which seem sincere enough, their tyrants, the Mahometans, have constantly stigmatized them as idolatrous worshippers of the fire. Zoroaster exacted much less attention to ceremonies than was afterwards required by the priests of his religion; their worship, at first simple, was gradually encumbered by minute formalities. That Zoroaster did not make these so important as Gibbon seems to think that he did, may be inferred from the subsequently-quoted precept of the Zendavesta: "He who sows the ground with care and diligence, acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers." It is not in the Zendavesta, but in the much later pages of the Sadder, that Gibbon found the proofs of his statement.-GUIZOT. See the Sadder, the smallest part of which consists of moral precepts. The ceremonies enjoined are infinite and trifling. Fifteen genuflexions, prayers, &c., were required whenever the devout Persian cut his nails,

aster lays aside the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a liberal concern for private and public happiness, seldom to be found among the grovelling or visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the Divine favour, he condemns with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the magian religion, is obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to destroy noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labours of agriculture. We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and benevolent maxim, which compensates for many an absurdity. "He who sows the ground with care and diligence, acquires a greater stock of religious merit, than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers."* In the spring of every year a festival was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality, and the present connexion, of mankind. The stately kings of Persia, exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely mingled with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On that day the husbandmen were admitted without distinction, to the table of the king and his satraps. The monarch accepted their petitions, inquired into their grievances, and conversed with them on the most equal terms. "From your labours," was he accustomed to say (and to say with truth, if not with sincerity), "from your labours we receive our subsistence; you derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we are mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like brothers in concord and love." Such a festival must indeed have degenerated, in a wealthy and despotic empire, into a theatrical representation; but it was at least a comedy well worthy of a royal audience, and which might sometimes imprint a salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince.

Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of Numa and Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to all the applause, which it has pleased some of our divines, and even some of our philosoor made water, or as often as he put on the sacred girdle. Sadder, Art. 14, 50, 60. * Zendavesta, tom. i, p. 224, and Précis du Système de Zoroastre, tom. iii. + Hyde, de Religione Persarum, c. 19.

VOL. J.

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phers, to bestow on it. But in that motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous superstition. The magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of them were convened in a general council. Their forces were multiplied by discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused through all the provinces of Persia; and the Archimagus, who resided at Balch, was respected as the visible head of the church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster.* The property of the magi was very considerable. Besides the less invidious possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of Media,† they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of the Persians. "Though your good works," says the interested prophet, "exceed in number the leaves of the trees, the drops of rain, the stars in the heavens, or the sands on the sea-shore, they will all be unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by the destour, or priest. To obtain the acceptation of this guide

*Hyde, de Religione Persarum, c. 28. Both Hyde and Prideaux affected to apply to the magian the terms consecrated to the Christian hierarchy. Ammian. Marcellin. 23, 6. He informs us (as far as we may credit him) of two curious particulars: 1, that the magi derived some of their most secret doctrines from the Indian brachmans; and, 2, That they were a tribe or family, as well as an order. The divine institution of tithes exhibits a singular instance of conformity between the law of Zoroaster and that of Moses. Those who cannot otherwise account for it, may suppose, if they please, that the magi of the latter times inserted so useful an interpolation into the writings of their prophet. [The passage quoted by Gibbon is extracted, not from the writings of Zoroaster himself, but from the Sadder, a work, as I have already said, of much later date than the Zendavesta, and composed by one of the magi for the use of the people. Its contents must not be attributed to Zoroaster. It is strange that Gibbon should have so deceived himself, for Hyde did not ascribe the Sadder to Zoroaster. He remarked (c. 1, p. 27) that this book was written in verse, whereas all Zoroaster's were in prose. This assertion may be doubted; but the later origin of the Sadder is certain. Abbé Faucher does not think that it was even taken from Zoroaster's books. See his already-cited dissertation, Mém. de l'Acad., tom. xxvii.-GUIZOT.] [In these notes M. Guizot appears to have forgotten that it was not so much Gibbon's design to represent the religion of Zoroaster as it was first taught by him, as to exhibit the form in which it inflamed the minds of the Persians at the period of their struggles with Rome. The Sadder did not then exist. But there can be no doubt that it

to salvation, you must faithfully pay him tithes of all you possess, of your goods, of your lands, and of your money. If the destour be satisfied, your soul will escape helltortures; you will secure praise in this world, and happiness in the next. For the destours are the teachers of religion: they know all things, and they deliver all men.”*

These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit faith were doubtless imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth, since the magi were the masters of education in Persia, and to their hands the children even of the royal family were intrusted. The Persian priests, who were of a speculative genius, preserved and investigated the secrets of oriental philosophy, and acquired, either by superior knowledge or superior art, the reputation of being well versed in some occult sciences, which have derived their appellation from the magi. Those of more active dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities; and it is observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in a great measure directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order, whose dignity, either from policy or devotion, that prince restored to its ancient splendour.§

The first counsel of the magi was agreeable to the unsociable genius of their faith, to the practice of ancient kings,** and even to the example of their legislator, who had fallen a victim to a religious war excited by his own inonly gave a systematic order and recorded sanction to traditional and long-practised corruptions.-ED.] * Sadder, Art. 8.

Plato in Alcibiad. Pliny (Hist. Natur. 1. 30, c. 1) observes that magic held mankind by the triple chain of religion, of physic, and of astronomy. [Recent inquiries into the origin and history of magic have been encouraged by prizes, which the Royal Academy of Sciences in Göttingen offered. They have shown that the word magic did not come into use till a late period, and that it was made a science by the New-Platonists. See Prof. Tiedeman's Treatise, and Prof. Eberhard's Explanations, in the last part of his Miscellaneous Works.-SCHREITER.] § Agathias, 1. 4, p. 134. ¶ Mr. Hume, in the Natural History of Religion, sagaciously remarks, that the most refined and philosophic sects are constantly the most intolerant. [The intolerance of the magi may be better accounted for by their zeal for the defence or increase of their large properties and revenues, described in the preceding page. Hume and Gibbon belonged to the most "philosophic" of sects. Would they have admitted that they were also "the most intolerant?" -ED.] ** Cicero de Legibus, 2, 10. Xerxes, by the advice of the magi, destroyed the temples of Greece.